446 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 92. 



of the Adirondacks south of Raquette Lake." 

 The spike-horn was described as differing great- 

 ly from the common antler of the species, it 

 consisting of a single spike, more slender, and 

 about half as long as the antler, projecting for- 

 ward from the brow, and giving " a consider- 

 able advantage to its possessor over the common 

 buck." In consequence of this advantage, the 

 ' spike-horns ' were said to be ' gaining upon 

 the common bucks,' with the prospect that in 

 time they might ' entirely supersede them in 

 the Adirondacks.' The descendants of the 

 original spike-horn — ' merely an accidental 

 freak of nature' — are supposed by this writer 

 to have propagated the peculiarity " in a con- 

 stantly increasing ratio, till the}^ are slowly 

 crowding the antlered deer from the region they 

 inhabit." 



Although this view of the case was criticised 

 by subsequent writers in the Naturalist, the 

 original account attracted the attention of Mr. 

 Darwin, who cites it, and generalizes from it 

 in his 'Descent of man.' It has since been 

 affirmed by high authorities that the ' spike- 

 bucks ' of the Adirondacks are all nothing 

 more than yearling bucks with their first ant- 

 lers. 



Dr. Merriam scouts the idea (and we think 

 with good reason) that the 'spike-bucks' 

 (which have obtained no little celebrity, and 

 been the basis of much speculation with some- 

 what vision ary writers on evolution) are a dis- 

 tinct race of deer, and is able to cite but a single 

 exception to the rule that ' spike-horn bucks 

 are alwa} T s 3-earlings,' — that of a maimed, 

 very aged, ill-conditioned animal. This ex- 

 ception he views as an illustration of the ten- 

 denc} 7 in extreme age for certain parts to revert 

 to a condition resembling that of earl}' life, and 

 of the fact that ill-nourished bucks bear stunted 

 and more or less imperfect antlers. All year- 

 lings, however, do not have true spike-horns ; 

 and, if the term be made to include all un- 

 branched antlers, Dr. Merriam inclines to the 

 belief that two-year old bucks may sometimes 

 grow them. The m}*th of the spike-horn, like 

 many other myths in science, will doubtless 

 still live on, with the characteristic persistency 

 of fanciful errors. 



Dr. Merriam' s observations respecting the 

 bats, the moles, and the shrews, throw much 

 light upon their obscure ways of life, in con- 

 finement as well as in a state of nature. His 

 biographies of the rodents are also full of fresh 

 material. Attention ma} T be especially directed 

 to the accounts of the gray and red squirrels, 

 not less for their grace of diction than for their 

 fulness of detail, and vividness of portrayal. 



THE MOSSES OF NORTH AMERICA, 



Manual of the mosses of North America. By Leo 

 Lesquereux and Thomas P. James. With 

 six plates illustrating the genera. Boston, S. E. 

 Cassino Sf Co., 1884. 447 p. 8°. 



Thanks to our sole surviving bryologist, 

 the venerable Lesquereux, we have at length 

 a comprehensive manual of North-American 

 mosses. In connection, first with Sullivant 

 until his death, and more recently with James, 

 who devoted himself unweariedly to the neces- 

 sary microscopical investigation up to the 

 very day almost of his passing awa}-, Mr. 

 Lesquereux has for years been more or less 

 actively engaged in this work, and now hap- 

 pily sees its completion. Those who have 

 been attracted to this most interesting family 

 of plants, but have been deterred from their 

 study b}' the dearth of accessible books upon 

 the subject, will here find their chief wants sup- 

 plied . It throws open to our younger botanists 

 a broad field, where much can be done, and 

 needs to be done, and where enviable reputa- 

 tions may be won by patient, skilled, and judi- 

 cious workers. 



The history of our mosses begins with Dil- 

 lenius, who had received about a score of 

 species from John Bartram, colonus curiosus 

 of Philadelphia, and from Mitchell and Cla}'ton 

 of Virginia, describing and figuring them in 

 his ' Historia muscorum,' in 1741. Some 

 others of Claj^ton's collection were described 

 later by Gronovius, but only seven of these 

 species were recognized as from America by 

 Linne, in his works. 1 The first edition of 

 Sullivant's ' Mosses of the United States ' 

 (original^ published in the first edition of 

 Gray's Manual, in 1848) included 205 species, 

 of which 51 were exclusively American. In 

 the second edition (1856) the number was 

 increased to 402, the American species being 

 143. In the present work, with a wider range, 

 there are described 883 species, 363 confined 

 to North America, and 21 others found only 

 in tropical America. Of these American 

 species, one-half (180) were detected and 

 described b} 7 our own Sullivant, Lesquereux, 

 James, and Austin ; the remainder by Eu- 

 ropeans ; there having been scarcely a bryolo- 

 gist, from Heclwig and Schwaegrichen to the 

 present generation, that has not been concerned 

 with them. A considerable number of these 

 species have been made on scanty material 



1 One of these Linnean species is not referred to in the 

 manual; viz., Phascum caulescens, based upon the 'Sphagnum 

 foliis teneribus, graminis,pellucidis,'of Dillenius, which is Tetra- 

 plodon australis, Sulliv. and Lesq. ; to which must now be added 

 the needless synonyme, Tetraplodon caulescens, Lindberg. 



