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been taken to emphasize what has been developing as an idea with a few of us 

 this last year or more. 



It is believed that the department of Miscellaneous Notes might be used to 

 great mutual advantage by our readers as a general place for short notes as to 

 the occurrence, distribution, or habitat of species; methods of collection, study, 

 or preservation of specimens; short notes on current literature; personal notes; 

 discussions; in fact anything which will make the Bryologist of more general 

 use to our readers. The Associate Editors will be asked to contribute short 

 notes on the particular groups of plants with which they are more particularly 

 dealing, and to report on the literature relating to these groups, and, in this con- 

 nection the Editor wishes particularly to thank Dr. Holzinger and Mr. Chamber- 

 lain for their continuous contributions of notes and reviews during the last year. 

 The Bryologist is now the only magazine in the world devoted to the mosses, 

 hepatics, and lichens, the valued Revue Bryologique having (at least temporarily) 

 suspended publication, so let us make our journal worthy of the honor of its 

 position. 



The Editor proposes during the coming year to ask more of the Associate 

 Editors in the way of looking over the manuscripts before publication. During 

 the last year this has been in many cases hardly possible owing to the scarcity 

 of suitable manuscripts and the consequent rush in many cases in getting them 

 to the printer, but it is becoming more and mere apparent that an examination 

 of certain papers by an associate editor more familiar with the particular subject 

 treated would result in valuable suggestions, or even corrections. We would ask 

 of our readers to ponder carefully the article in this issue by Mrs. Annie Morrill 

 Smith and then decide with us to help the good work along and make the Bryol- 

 ogist better and bigger and mere generally useful than ever before. 



Safety-razor Blades for Hand-sectioning. — Several times during the last 

 two or three years we have noted references to the use of the safety-razor blade for 

 cutting hand-sections. Having had occasion recently to make a series of cross- 

 sections of leaves, the safety-razor blade has been tried and can be highly recom- 

 mended for this purpose. We used the Gem Damaskeene Blades, held by means 

 of the handle which is used to hold the blades when stropping them. This 

 stropping-handle consists of a metal clip into which the blade is slipped and then 

 the base of the clip is pushed into the end of a hollow metal handle. There is 

 thus furnished a very sharp and very thin cutting blade of uniform thickness, 

 held quite securely in a convenient handle and costing but little. The handle 

 costs fifteen cents and the blades cost five cents apiece in packages of seven. 



In using the blade we obtained the best results by slicing elder pith crosswise 

 into disks about as thick as a five-cent piece. Then, holding the leaf between 

 two disks, or two pieces of such disks, between the thumb and first finger of the 

 left hand, the finger being on the outer side and a little lower than the thumb, 

 the flat blade of the razor was rested on the top of the finger and then drawn 

 towards the thumb, cutting through the pith and enclosed leaf. By pressing 

 down on the razor or by very slightly lowering the finger the successive slices 



