96 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
first glance this rule might seem aimed at the weak points in 
the armor of American botanists for a large number of the 
most prominent are notoriously lacking in a knowledge of the 
dead languages. True some of them have described new spec- 
ies in Latin, but the less said of a great deal of such work the 
better the authors will feel, and the less Latin scholars will 
have to laugh over. It is possible in future that the latter 
will stop reading the intentionally humorous publications and 
subscribe for the botanical magazines. We cannot help 
wondering, however, if we had described a species in good 
English whether anybody would have the nerve to give it a 
new name on the strength of having placed our description in 
Latin. And yet, on the other hand, we must not forget that 
botany is not of one nation but of all nations. Japanese, 
East Indians and Russians as well as Germans, French, Italians 
and Scandinavians are working in botany and they may well 
insist that if we may describe species in our mother tongue 
they may in theirs. The selection of a dead language, there- 
fore in which all species are to be described is, on the whole, 
good. The only objection being that it will tend to place the 
further advances of the science in the hands of the few and 
foster a state of affairs that will scarcely be advantageous. 
This is not the first time that botanists have schemed to have 
their own small set dominate and command the whole realm 
of plant studies and we doubt if in the end it will be any more 
successful. 
A new Canadian publication in the line of the Natural 
sciences is the Bulletin of the Picton Academy Scientific As- 
sociation under the editorship of H. F. Monro. The first 
number contains a list of 33 species of the myxomycetes of 
Picton County, N. S., with notes by C. L. Moore. 
