THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXVIII. 



The argument is weakened by including the birth ranks of Joseph, 

 Moses, David and Solomon ! We have little reliable information con- 

 cerning the ages of the ancestors of these men. Also, our confidence 

 in Mr. Redfield's critical ability is terribly shaken by his comparison 

 of maternal impressions to mimicry, and by his attempting to account 

 for the intellectual inferiority of the lower animals solely on the 

 ground of their shorter generations. 



Despite, however, all the crudities of the book we cannot deny that 

 it contains suggestions and that many of the conclusions cannot, in 

 our present state of knowledge, be refuted. The work should incite 

 to further and more careful investigation to confirm or refute Mr. 

 Redfield's theory, or, rather, to see if statistical evidence supports 

 the hypothesis of the inheritance of acquired dynamical qualities. 



C. B. D. 



BOTANY. 



Notes.— Lieforung 29-30 of Ascherson and Grabner's Synopsis der 

 mitteleuropdischen Flora deals with Cyperaceaj, Aracea; and Palma;, 

 — among the latter characterizing American and other foreign 

 species that are hardy in cultivation. 



No. 26 of the new series of "Contributions from the Gray Herba- 

 rium of Harvard University," forming Vol. 39, No. 11, of the Pro- 



of the genus Flaveria, by J. R. Johnston. 



Under the title Arkiv for Botanik, a new serial has been launched 

 by the K. Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademie. Several of the papers 

 of the opening number are of interest to American botanists. 



After a long interval, parts 3 and 4 of MiMenbergia has appeared, 

 and contain descriptions of a number of western phanerogams by 

 Heller and Congdon. 



The supplement to the Index Kewensis, in fascicle 3, reaches 

 Physaria. 



The embryology, etc., of Sequoia sempervirens are discussed by 

 Lawson in Annals of Botany for January, which also contains a 

 historical account of the structure and morphology of ovules, by 

 Worsdell. 



