to get at the oats beyond.

All this is conceded; but whether the offspring of such smart animals inherit the advanced position reached by their sires and dams, and thus in time an elevation above the old level is attained by a whole family, is a moot point. The Darwinians would call such clever individuals the "fittest" among their contemporaries; but whether they have any special advantages in the struggle of existence, and thus are "selected" by nature, can scarcely be regarded as established by proof. But Dr. Mills may claim to have established by proof that inherited capacities and acquired knowledge must be regarded as co-ordinate factors in the development of general animal intelligence.

An interesting side issue has been raised in this volume. It grows out of the demonstration of the superior energy and earlier catering power of mongrels, as compared with pure bred animals. Does this also hold of the human race? Are we in this way to account for the characteristic qualities of the Englishman of to-day ? Has he, too, acquired by the mingling of the blood of many nations in his veins, activity and catering force at the expense of modesty and gentleness?

R. C.

PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES OF SYSTEMATIC BOTANY.Address of Benjamin Lincoln Robinson, Ph.D., Retiring President of the Botanical Society of America, delivered before the Society, August 28th, 1901. Reprinted from 'Science," Vol. xiv., No. 352.

In this comprehensive address, Dr. Robinson touches on some of the most important practical matters requiring to-day the attention of botanists. His experience as Professor of Botany and Curator of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University, must have impressed upon him the lack of uniformity and the absence of the precision in the manner of dealing with specimens, on the part of his correspondents; and he invites botanical workers everywhere to co-operate in securing the best systematic results. He attacks the prevailing desire to erect new species, and criticises, perhaps not too severely, the looseness of description too often furnished by those claiming to have discovered such species. As a partial remedy for the wordy analyses with which he finds fault, he would not be averse to seeing the adoption in America of the use of Latin for the purpose of plant description, as that language

lends itself more readily than English does to terseness and clearness of expression, as seen in European treatises on Botany, in which it is used. Diligent field-work, he holds to be the great desideratum for accuracy in systematic determinations; the accumulation and careful comparison of specimens alone can secure true scientific results.

R. C.

NOTES ON A COLLECTION OF CRATEGUS MADE IN THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC NEAR MONTREAL.-By Charles S. Sargent, Reprinted from "Rhodora," Vol. 3, No. 28, April, 1901.

NEW OR LITTLE KNOWN NORTH AMERICAN TREES. III.-By Charles S. Sargent. Reprinted from the Botanical Gazette," Vol. xxxi., April, 1901.

The former of these pamphlets is of special interest to those occupied with the Natural History of the District of Montreal. Anything bearing on trees or shrubs proceeding from the pen of Professor Sargent, is sure to be of value; and when he writes of the native thorns of the continent, a subject which he has made his own, his conclusions will be received with the deference accorded to an expert. The first thing we note, in connection with this paper, is the fact that the collection of Crataegus on which the notes are based, was made by Mr. J. G. Jack, a name honourably associated with the plant life of this province. We are glad that Mr. Jack does not forget his old home, although winning his bread under another flag; and that he patriotically desires to have the flora of his native Chateauguay and its neighbourhood made generally known. The next thing we have to remark is the advance made in the views of the author of this monograph. He now admits to the dignity of a species series of plants which as late as 1889, when the 6th edition of "Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States" was issued, he is represented as classing as mere varieties; for the list of the crataegus species contained in that work, pp. 165-67, is given as characterized by Prof. C. S. Sargent. This advance movement is in obedience to the prevailing tendency among men of science to multiply species; although there are some of conservative temper to oppose it. A series of plants, separated from other members of its genus by a quality or qualities easily discernible, constant, and perhaps functional, it is now usual to erect into a species. Prof. Sargent has found such

differences in the collection of Crataegus from the neighbourhood of Montreal, furnished by Mr. Jack, as satisfy him that the number of species, hitherto recognised, in this part of the continent, is much too limited. Several of these were probably entirely new to him, while as to others, the result of longer experience and the use of wider opportunities of observation have given greater clearness of vision and more confidence in his own convictions, enabling him to announce his new determinations without hesitation. Nothing else can take the place of comparison of a large number of specimens, in the differentiation of species. Whether all the conclusions of Prof. Sargent, put forth in this brochure, be accepted or not, he has earned the gratitude of the botanists of this district. Any one who has made a collection of the hawthorns of the Island of Montreal and its neighbourhood, as the writer has done, has felt how inadequate was the list of Crataegus given in Macoun's Catalogue, and the description of species in Gray's Manual, or in the more recent publication of Britton and Brown, to embrace all the well marked differences of the specimens he obtained. All collectors will welcome this enlarged list. The first person to call attention to the large variety of Crataegus growing on the adjacent banks of the St. Lawrence, was Dr. T. J. W. Burgess, Medical Superintendent to the Hospital for the Insane at Verdun. Many years ago, he declared that there were not fewer than twelve well defined species to be found within a mile or two of Verdun; and the one regret his friends now feel is that he did not proceed at once to describe them, as they urged him to do. He pleaded lack of time then, and now he is antiIcipated in this work by Prof. Sargent. But although we should have naturally enough been glad if a local naturalist had been the first to communicate to the world substantially what is now published by the Director of the Arnold Arboretum, science fortunately knows no national boundaries, and is not bound up with the claims to distinction of those who labour in its domain.

Accepting Prof. Sargent's catalogue of the Crataegus family of this province, we find him crediting it with twenty distinct species of native hawthorns, where Macoun allowed only five species and three varieties. They are collected into eight groups-CRUS-GALLI, PUNCTATE, MOLLES, FLABELLET.E, TENUIFOLLE, DILITATE, TOMENTOS.E, and COCCINE.E. Six of the species are minutely described in this pamphlet,— Crataegus suborbiculata, C. Canadensis, C. anomala, C. densiflora,

C. Laurentiana and C. integriloba. The rest had been described in previous issues of the "Rhodora," or in other publications.

The conjoint labours of Mr. Jack and Prof. Sargent in this connection cannot fail to give a fresh impetus to the local study of this interesting genus, especially as it is intimated in this paper that there are probably other species in the district remaining yet to be found and named.

Prof. Sargent's second pamphlet is of less interest to the botanists of Canada, perhaps, but is of equal importance as a contribution to the Natural History of this continent. In it he describes thirteen species of Crataegus to which he calls attention as new or little known American trees." The majority of these were found in the States of Arkansas, Missouri and Texas, although one of them, C. pedicellata, is credited to Rochester, N.Y. The special point of interest to science in both brochures is the apparent sensitiveness to environment of the Crataegus family. This group of plants is now known to be represented by a much greater variety than was formerly assumed. Whether they are all to be counted distinct species or whether some of them are to be regarded rather as crosses between species hitherto acknowledged, it must be left to further observation in the future to determine.

Professor Sargent also describes in this paper, BETULA ALASKANA, a new species of Rocky Mountain birch, nearly allied to the Betula papyrifera of the east, and also BETULA OCCIDENTALIS HOOKER of the same region as well as a new species of Cypress, CYPRESSUS PYGMEA, the habitat of which Mendocino County, California.

R.C.

A REVISION OF THE GENERA AND SPECIES OF CANADIAN PALEOZOIC CORALS: The Madreporaria Aporosa and the Madreporaria Rugosa.-By Lawrence M. Lambe, P.G.S., Assistant Palaeontologist.

This is part of Vol. IV. of the Contributions to Canadian Palaeontology, furnished by the Geological Survey of Canada and published by the Government. It is an ideal work of its kind which cannot fail to win for Mr. Lambe a still higher reputation as a careful and skilful palaeontologist. In this volume he has described ninety-five species and two varieties, ninety-seven in all, embraced in twenty-four genera. The localities in which these fossil corals were found, the dates

and the names of the collectors are given, and we are glad to see some of the names of members of the Geological Survey staff honoured by being chosen to designate species,-Richardson, Bell, Dawson, Whiteaves and Macoun,-as well as those of foreign geologists. The work is illustrated by eighteen admirable plates, in which sixty-nine of the species are described in side views and sections.

ADDRESSES.-By D. C. MacCallum, M.D., M.R.C.S. Eng., Emeritus Professor of Midwifery and Diseases of Women and Children, McGill University. Montreal, Desbarats & Co., Printers, 1901.

This tastefully got up volume of 170 pages contains seven addresses delivered at different times by Dr. MacCallum during the course of his long and honoured career as a Professor in McGill College, and a practising physician in this city. It is dedicated to the memory of two of his former colleagues, Dr. George W. Campbell and Dr. R. P. Howard. All old time citizens and friends of McGill will be glad to possess a copy of this book. One feature of interest in it is that it carries the memory back to the days when the Medical Faculty had its quarters in the modest building which it occupied in Coté Street, but when it laid the foundations of that high reputation as a school of medicine which it still maintains in a more commodious and impressive environment. All who knew Doctors Campbell and Howard will appreciate the desire of Dr. MacCallum to do them honour; for they were professional gentlemen of the highest mark, whose name is held in loving remembrance both by their former patients and by those who were students under them. And Dr. MacCallum was worthy to be associated with men of their eminence, as these addresses amply prove. They bear evidence of the widest culture. While Dr. MacCallum has clearly done a great deal of thinking of his own, this volume shows that he has been at great pains to familiarize himself with what other great thinkers have said and written, and he has given his students the benefit of the whole. Dr. MacCallum's outlook for medical men is a very wide one. The loftiest ideals were held up before the young men both entering upon their studies and commencing their professional career. Truth, honour, humanity, self-sacrifice, devoutness, loyalty, these were the sentiments appealed to as those which befitted men practising the noble healing art.