THE AMERICA X NA TURALIST. [Vol. XXXVI I . 



positions on the sides of the. segments, as determined by the position 

 of homodynamous muscles, and that the hind wings are derived 

 without much doubt from the degenerate spiracle disc of the meta- 

 thorax ": and adds, "All the evidence here presented concerning the 

 wings of Coleoptera and Hetermometabola is most positively opposed 

 to the theory of the origin of the wings of insects as dorsal backward 

 prolongations of the tergum." 



There is little new ground broken in this paper, but there is much 

 more careful tillage of a hitherto indifferently cultivated field. 



J. G. N. 



BOTANY. 



A New Flora of the Southeastern United States. 1 — A new 



handbook of the flora of this region has long been a desideratum, 

 the data concerning the southern states being confined to antiquated 

 books, the latest of which, Chapman's Flora, is a decade old, and to 

 scattered descriptions, collector's notes, and isolated specimens, 

 chiefly in the larger herbaria, — apart from one of which they could 

 hardly have been brought together satisfactorily. Dr. Small, who 

 is curator of the museums and herbarium of the New York Botani- 

 cal Garden, and who has personally made extensive trips over a con- 

 siderable part of the territory covered by the new Flora, consulting 

 Elliott's herbarium at Charleston and the original Chapman herba- 

 rium at the New York Garden, is in an unequaled position to under- 

 take the preparation of such a handbook, and though his own 

 experience in the several years during which it has been going 

 through the press shows the rapidity with which such works call for 

 change when once launched, he has succeeded in placing before the 

 public a manual which, if of awkward form and size for field use, is 

 indispensable to every herbarium and botanical library in which the 

 North American flora receives attention. 



