Acrostichum Aubertii, widely spread in continental America, but new to the West Indies. Other interesting plants collected by Mr. Sherring are Schizæa fluminensis, Miers, new to the West Indies, but believed to be only a shade variety of S. dichotoma, and Danca polymorpha, Leprieur, a critical form of which but little is known.

An account of vascular cryptogams collected at Grenada is in course of being prepared for the 'Annals of Botany.'

Mr. Sherring has prepared an interesting report on the flora of Grenada, and this, with a valuable series of photographs, to be shown at the Cardiff meeting of the British Association, will prove of great interest to students of West Indian botany.

A collection of plants was received from Dr. Nicholls at the same time as the specimens in zoology already noticed. These consisted of fiftysix species of vascular cryptogams-all of them were, however, well-known West Indian plants and a small number (175 numbers) of phanerogams. The latter have not yet been determined.

The Committee recommend their reappointment, with the following members: Dr. Sclater, Mr. Carruthers, Professor Newton, Mr. Godman, Dr. Günther, and Dr. Sharp. The Committee also recommend that the grant of 1007. placed at their disposal, but not expended during the current year, be renewed.

Draft of Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor FLOWER (Chairman), Mr. D. SHARP (Secretary), Dr. BLANFORD, Dr. HICKSON, Professor NEWTON, Professor RILEY, Mr. O. SALVIN, and Dr. SCLATER, appointed to report on the present state of our knowledge of the Zoology of the Sandwich Islands, and to take steps to investigate ascertained deficiencies in the Fauna. THE Committee beg leave to state that the zoology of the Sandwich Islands has been only partially investigated. A very incomplete collection of insects was made there some years since by the Rev. T. Blackburn, and described by himself and others, showing that important results as to the origin, or origins, of the fauna of the archipelago may be expected from the study of this group. The land shells of the islands are very numerous, and are supposed to be fairly well known through the efforts of the Rev. J. T. Gulick and Mr. Pease; but it is the opinion of many zoologists that additional information as to the distribution of the mollusca in these islands would be very valuable. The birds have been within the last few years the main object of a visit made to the islands by Mr. Scott Wilson, who passed about eighteen months upon the islands without being able to complete a thorough investigation of their ornithology. Some departments of the zoology have not been investigated in any way, and there is strong evidence that the fauna is rapidly disappearing.

Under these circumstances the Committee have been desirous of sending a competent zoological collector to the islands; but the grant made by the Association being insufficient for that purpose the Committee decided to communicate with the Hawaiian Government to learn whether it would in any way assist in the research. A very favourable answer to the application of the Committee was made by the Foreign Minister of

his Majesty the late King of the Hawaiian Islands, stating his belief that additional funds would be forthcoming if a circular were drawn up explaining the objects of the Committee, and he offered to make such a circular known to those inhabitants who would be likely to co-operate, provided that a portion of the collections obtained should be ultimately placed in the Museum at Honolulu. As the rules of the British Association prohibit, however, this committee from issuing such a circular without the sanction of the General Committee, all operations have had to be stayed, and the grant of 1007. made to the Committee has not been drawn.

Meanwhile a committee has been appointed by the Royal Society, and 2001. from the Government grant placed at its disposal, for the same purpose as this committee, power being given to the former to act in concert with the latter, as was done with much advantage in the case of the West Indian Exploration Committee.

The Committee respectfully beg leave to recommend their reappointment, with power to act in concert with the committee appointed by the Royal Society, and to avail themselves of the help proffered by the Hawaiian Government on the terms above mentioned; and as the estimated cost of employing a proper zoological collector in the islands for about two years will amount to not less than 600l., your committee solicit a grant of 2001.

Fifth Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor FOSTER, Professor BAYLEY BALFOUR, Mr. THISELTON-DYER, Dr. TRIMEN, Professor MARSHALL WARD, Mr. CARRUTHERS, Professor HARTOG, Mr. WALTER GARDINER, and Professor BoWER (Secretary), appointed for the purpose of taking steps for the establishment of a Botanical Laboratory at Peradeniya, Ceylon.

THE Committee desire first to acknowledge the continued co-operation of the Government of Ceylon, and of the Director of the Royal Gardens at Peradeniya, in giving facilities for study in the Royal Garden, and in assigning a room in the official Bungalow for use as a laboratory.

During the greater part of the year this room has been occupied by Mr. J. Bretland Farmer, of Magdalen College, Oxford, and at the date of writing the report he has not yet returned; it would therefore be premature as yet to ask him for a detailed account of his work. It may, however, be stated that his attention has been specially devoted to the study of the Bryophyta, and that a thorough investigation of these plants in a tropical country such as Ceylon may be expected to yield most valuable results.

The grant of 501. voted at the last meeting has been for the most part expended on apparatus, which will remain permanently in the laboratory, the most important items being a photographic camera, a balance specially constructed for a tropical climate, and a dissecting microscope by Zeiss.

The Committee hope before the next meeting to receive a detailed report from Mr. Farmer, and also a list of apparatus now in the laboratory from Dr. Trimen. In the meanwhile, having full confidence in the value of the results obtained, the Committee request that they be reappointed, but do not at present ask for any further grant of money.

Fourth Report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. A. W. WILLS (Chairman), Mr. E. W. BADGER, Mr. G. CLARIDGE DRUCE, and Professor HILLHOUSE, for the purpose of collecting information as to the Disappearance of Native Plants from their Local Habitats. Drawn up by Professor HILLHOUSE, Secretary.

FOR the present report the Committee solicited details as to Wales, the border counties from Shropshire southwards, and the south-western counties of England. As no returns have been received from Welsh correspondents, and of the border counties only Shropshire is represented, the report must be considered as applying to the last-named county and the south-western counties of England. Some details as to South Wales will be found in the report for 1890. In drawing up the list the Committee have followed the same rules as in previous years, the numbering and nomenclature throughout being that of the London Catalogue,' ed. 8, corrected reprint for 1890.

Lists have been received from ten personal correspondents whose initials are appended, in addition to which the Bath branch of the Selborne Society appointed a Committee to provide returns as to the Bath district. The Committee feel compelled to refer to the admirable work of this young but strong and active Society in promoting the object which the Committee have in view, work which, of its kind, is beyond praise.

As will be seen, the diminution of our native ferns again plays an important part in the list, and the collector' and 'dealer' figure largely. It is a matter of common and everyday knowledge that ferns have (with the exception of the bracken) disappeared from the local floras of our large towns; but the ravages of the dealer are carried on so systematically, and with the aid of all the resources that money places at his disposal, that the most out-of-the-way places can be stripped quite as completely as those near at hand. All the Devonshire correspondents bear common witness to the results of his depredations in that ideal home of the fern.

One of our correspondents, reporting upon the area of the Bristol Coal-fields, writes:

Before coming to the few instances of partial or complete extinction upon which I am reporting, I should like to say that my experience as a field-botanist, familiar with most of the species native in the South and West of England, has led me to receive with caution and distrust reported disappearances of rare plants from their habitats in this part of the country. On investigation it has almost invariably turned out that such reported extinctions were not well founded, and had frequently been made by persons imperfectly acquainted either with the plants themselves or with the localities where they grow. Not long since a letter was published in the London Standard' which condemned the wantonness of botanists,' in that they had compassed the destruction of the Euphorbia pilosa near Bath, and the Cheddar Pink. My knowledge of both convinced me that the writer had entirely missed the station for the former plant, and that he could not have visited Cheddar when D. cæsius was in bloom. Some other supposed extinctions have proved to rest on the apparent disappearance of species (particularly annuals) in an unfavourable season, or succession of seasons. But these plants have been found to reappear when the depressing climatal influence has been withdrawn. As examples may be mentioned Cicuta virosa and Rhyncospora fusca, ancient

inhabitants of the peat-moors on the southern limit of this district. Both these plants continue to be observed at intervals of a few years; but so uncertain are they in appearance that I have never yet known anyone to go specially in search of them and be successful in his quest. But it would be an error to consider either to be in danger of extinction. A circumstance occurred only last week that strongly confirms my contention. About twelve years ago I found a large patch of Crambe maritima on the Dorsetshire coast. A year or two later the plant had entirely disappeared, and no trace of it could be found on several subsequent visits, the last two years ago. But on Wednesday last I was greatly pleased to see at least twenty five specimens growing upon the exact spot whence it had been absent for nine or ten years. Here, with some show of reason and yet in error, might have been reported a case of extinction of a rare species.

One of the best known of western botanists places his finger upon what the Committee cannot help feeling to be a source of danger to plants in the following extracts from his letter: In early life-that is, before 1841-I botanised over the neighbourhood of and unfortunately, with the late of , drew up a list of the plants in that district, since which many ferns have disappeared from the localities that we gave, and I fear that -'s habit of giving them will lead to the extirpation of many other plants;' and another correspondent (Devonshire), dealing with the same point, instances Leighton's 'Flora of Shropshire' as one by the aid of which a child might walk straight up to any plant in the county.' It is a matter, no doubt, of very grave difficulty to determine to what extent it is desirable in a local flora to be precise in the description of localities, and the Committee do not feel that they are either competent or called upon to suggest laws upon the subject. They do not see, however, that exactitude in defining locations serves any really good purpose, and it certainly takes away somewhat from the zest of a search, and removes an incentive to patient perseverance. Two correspondents illustrate the opposite method to that complained of, inasmuch as one will not state a locality from which Osmunda regalis is disappearing, lest thereby he should spread the knowledge of its continued existence therein; and another writes :—' A few days ago a very interesting discovery was made by a member of my family, viz. a large patch of Maianthemum convallaria (L. C., 1394) in a wild, out-of-the-world district; but such a dread I have of marauders that even in my communication with Kew I have not gone beyond naming the county in which the "find" occurred.'

More than one correspondent draws attention to the mischief very often done by field clubs, not merely in the reckless and often extensive removal of rare plants during their periodical forays, but that in the Transactions,' in the local press, and privately, the exact 'finds' and localities are indicated, so that further destruction becomes inevitable. So long as field clubs themselves are such hardened sinners in this respect, as many of them appear to be, it seems useless to invoke their assistance in their respective localities for the purpose of urging upon the public generally, and landowners particularly, the desirability of affording some protection to the rarer of their local plants in their struggle for existence, and of endeavouring rigidly to repress the loafers who gather the fernroots and hawk them for sale.

The attention of the Committee is again drawn to the unsatisfactory condition of the law of trespass, and the consequent difficulty under which magistrates lie when called upon to act in the interests of wild plants.

While the Committee feel that the time is not yet ripe for even

taking into consideration the desirability of making any general appeal for Government protection, they are strongly of opinion that, in one case, at least, of special interest alike to South Wales and South-West England, such an appeal is urgently needed, and would probably be successful, in favour, namely, of Paeonia corallina, Retz (L. C., 47), threatened with extinction from its sole British habitat, the Steep Holmes. In this case the Committee think that there is a special reason for an appeal to Government, since they understand that the recent acquisition of the island as Government property, and the consequent removal of the regulations enforced by the previous proprietor, are the direct cause of the approaching extermination.

40, 41. Helleborus viridis, L., and H. fœtidus, L. Nearly extinct in their stations near Bath, through the raids of dealers (S. S. B.).

43. Aquilegia vulgaris, L. Formerly plentiful in a field near Melksham, Wilts; disappeared through change of culture (B. S.).

47. Paonia corallina, Retz. Steep Holmes; threatened with extinction from this, its only British habitat.

200. Silene nutans, L. Disappeared from its station at Hawkstone, Shropshire; probably being destroyed by rabbits (W. E. B.).

209. Lychnis Githago, Lam. Diminishing near Plymouth, from improved tillage (D. D. D.).

351. Trifolium Bocconi, Savi. The only British habitat of this plant is in Cornwall, at the Lizard, where it has become extremely scarce through the ravages of a local guide and dealer, who collects and sells the Lizard plants to all who apply for them. A wealthy lady member of the exchange clubs pays this man freely, and is responsible for much mischief' (J. W. W.).

495. Potentilla Comarum, Nestl. Banks of Tamar, near Plymouth; probably uprooted by steamboat trippers (D. D. D.).

612. Eryngium campestre, L. Nearly extinct in its station near Plymouth, where found by Ray in 1662, owing to the greater public use of its site (D. D. D.).

1003. Lithospermum purpureo-caeruleum, L. Nearly extinct on the sea-coast near Torquay (T. H. A.-H.).

1018. Atropa Belladonna, L. Near Box, Wilts; destroyed by a clergyman (R. C. A. P.). Near Plymouth; destroyed by excavations for a fort (D. D. D.).

1020. Hyoscyamus niger, L. Near Plymouth; disappearing from unknown causes; attempts to grow it for commerce have failed (D. D. D.). Wroxeter, Shropshire; when the excavations on the site of Uriconium began in 1858 or 1859, a very abundant crop of this plant appeared for several years, but it has dwindled away, and is rare there now.' It has also become rare about Much Wenlock, where it was formerly common (W. E. B.). [Compare the reports from Avoch, on the Moray Firth, recorded in Second Report of the Committee.]

1223. Rumex maritimus, L. Has disappeared from its Ellesmere

station, Shropshire, probably being taken by a collector (W. P.).

1239. Daphne Mezereum, L. Nearly extinct in the Bath district; used

for medicinal and other purposes (S. S. B.).

1240. D. Laureola, L. Is now dug up in the woods round Bath by dealers, and sold in Bath (S. S. B.).