brief mention. Born in Cazenovia, N. Y.; May 22, 1836; educated in the Oneida County Seminary, and the Michigan Agricultural College (B. Sc., 1861 and M. Sc., 1864). After short periods of service in the engineering corps of the United States Army, and the public schools of Michigan he became professor of botany in the Michigan Agricultural College (1863 to 1868). After six years of service he was called to the chair of botany in Cornell University (1868), where he remained for twenty-eight years when on account of failing health he was made professor emeritus (1896). In these years of work Professor Prentiss was emphatically a teacher. The building and equipment of his department, and the training of men who went out to be professors in many colleges, left little time for investigations and the preparation of papers. He chose to impress his thoughts upon men rather than upon paper, and he will be remembered not as a writer, but as a teacher. His life shows how much more effective our work is when we teach men directly by our spoken words rather than through our printed papers.-C. E. B.

The Nomenclature of Mycetozoa,-Professor Mac Bride has been studying the question of nomenclature among these organisms (plants he calls them, and, therefore his results are noticed here) and finds great difficulty in applying the "priority rule" to the solution of the problem. He calls attention to the well-known fact that the earlier botanists did not understand the nature of Mycetozoa and that their descriptions and even their figures in many cases are unintelligible. Rostafinski a little more than twenty years ago gave us the first rational account of the group, and for the first time gave us descriptions by means of which we may know certainly what he had in hand when he applied a particular name. His nomenclature is, therefore, to a large extent the earliest which is authentic. Practically all earlier descriptions are unrecognizable, and therefore, Rostafinski had to take up the work de novo. Professor Mac Bride says: "The fact is that when Rostafinski gives credit to his predecessors it is for the most part purely a work of courtesy and grace; there is nothing in the work itself to command such consideration." He therefore concludes that "the man who in his search for priority ascends beyond Rostafinski, does it at the risk of endless confusion and uncertainty in the great majority of cases" and that for these the initial date must be that of his great work, "Sluzowce Monografia" in 1875.-CHARLES E. BESSEY.

The Flora of Wyoming.-Professor Aven Nelson of the University of Wyoming recently issued a valuable "First Report on the Flora of Wyoming," based upon field work in 1892 (by Professor Buf

fum), 1894 and 1895 by Professor Nelson. The catalogue of plants includes 1118 species of Spermatophytes, 14 Pteriodophytes, 26 Bryophytes, 3 Algæ, 8 Fungi and 7 Lichens, making a total of 1176. The trees of Wyoming are listed as follows: Rocky Mountain Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa scopulorum), Rocky Mountain White Pine (P. flexilis), Lodge-pole Pine (P. murrayana), Engelmann's Spruce (Picea engelmanni), Blue Spruce (P. pungens), Douglas Spruce (Pseudotsuga douglasii), Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana), Black Cottonwood (Populus angustifolia), Rydberg's Cottonwood (P. acuminata), Quaking Aspen (P. tremuloides), Sand-bar Willow (Salix longifolia), Almond Willow (S. amygdaloides), two other species (S. flavescens, S. lasiandra), Green Ash (Fraxinus viridis), Box Elder (Negundo aceroides), Scrub Oak (Quercus undulata), Wild Plum (Prunus americana), Wild Cherry (P. demissa), Choke Cherry (P. virginiana), Hawthorn, two species (Crataegus rivularis and C. douglasii), Service Berry (Amelanchier alnifalia), Silver Berry (Elaeagnus argentea), Buffalo Berry (Shepherdia argentea), Black Birch (Betula occidentalis), Black Alder (Alnus incana viresceus), Sage Brush (Artemisia tridentata).

The last species is sometimes so large that "a man on horseback may ride erect underneath the branches."

We notice a curious slip by which Actinella glabra Nutt. is listed among the new species, although it was published as a new species fiftyfive years ago in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, and a year or so later appeared under Nuttall's name in Torrey and Gray s Flora of North America, II, p. 382.-CHARLES E. BESSEY.

The Lichens of Chicago.-Bulletin No. 1, of the Geological and Natural History Survey of the Chicago Academy of Sciences is devoted to an enumeration of the lichens of Chicago and vicinity, by Mr. W. W. Catkins. One hundred and twenty-five species are enumerated and very briefly characterized. The paper is supplemented by a useful but incomplete Bibliography of North American Lichenology.-CHARLES E. BESSEY.

Eastwood's Plants of Southeastern Utah.-In the Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences (2d series, vol. VI) Miss Alice Eastwood enumerates 162 species collected in 1895 in the valley and on the plateaus of the San Juan River in southeastern Utah, a desert region with curious oases about springs and along cañons. Several new species are enumerated, three of which are figured in the plates which accompany the report.-CHARLES E. BESSEY.

Correction.-On page 748, by a slip of the pen the " popple" of the Colorado Mountains is given as Populus balsamifera candicans; it should be P. tremuloides.-CHARLES E. BESSEY.

Botanical News.-A suggestive pamphlet on "The Pathology of Plants" by B. T. Galloway comes from the Office of Experiment Stations of the United States Department of Agriculture. Its object is to point out certain lines of work in plant pathology that might be undertaken by botanists in the state experiment stations.-From the Division of Agrostology, (U. S. Dept. Agriculture) we have "Fodder and Forage Plants, exclusive of the Grasses" a pamphlet of fifty-eight pages, by Jared G. Smith. It is a descriptive, illustrated list of these plants, written in semi-popular language. It will be of value not only to stock growers, but to scientific botanists as well-Professor W. J. Beal has recently published a Report of the Botanical Department of the Michigan Agricultural College from which we learn that there are in the herbarium 54,243 specimens, and that the botanic garden, begun in 1877 now contains 1335 species.-The Contributions from the U. S. National Herbarium (Vol. III, No. 9) issued August 5, 1896 contains the following papers: The Flora of South western Kansas, a report on a collection of plants made by C. H. Thompson in 1893, by A. S. Hitchcock; Crepis accidentalis and its allies, by F. V. Coville; Plants from the Big-Horn Mountains of Wyoming, by J. N. Rose; Leibergia, a new genus of Umbelliferæ from the Columbia River Region, by J. M. Coulter and J. N. Rose; Roseanthus, a new genus of Cucurbitaceœ from Acapulco, Mexico, by Alfred Cogniaux.

ZOOLOGY.

Notes on Turbellaria.-1. ON THE OCCURENCE OF BIPALIUM KEWENSE (MOSELEY) IN THE UNITED STATES.

Since the appearance of Moseley's' paper in 1878 the species has been recorded from other parts of Great Britain and Ireland, and from Berlin and Frankfurt, A. M. on the continent. It has also been found at the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, in the colonies of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia, at Auckland in New Zea

Moseley, H. N. Description of a New Species of Land-Planarian from the Hothouses at Kew Garden. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 5. Vol. I, pp. 237-239

land, Upolu in Samoa and Joinville in Brazil. The wide distribution of this, the largest of land planarians, has doubtless been brought about through the agency of man, the well-marked genus being indigenous only in Japan, China, India, Ceylon, the Malay Archipelago and the East Indies, but this species, Bipalium kewense, has never been found in these countries; its home is unknown.

The purpose of this communication is to record the existence of the species in the United States. It is quite abundant in Cambridge, Mass., and has been found there in two different greenhouses. A methodical search would no doubt reveal it in others of the many greenhouses in the vicinity. The largest of the Cambridge specimens measured 300 mm. in length, with a diameter of 4 mm., shorter individuals measuring from 15 mm. upward with the same diameter of 4 mm. The smallest of the specimens always lack the semilunar head end, they being without doubt, the products of reproduction by transverse division in which the head end had not yet regenerated.

In 1892 Sharp' published the description of a Bipalium from a greenhouse in Landsdown, Pennsylvania, which he called B. manubriatum. It was suggested by Colin3 that Sharp's specimen was nothing else than B. kewense, for with the exception of the statement that the median stripe is the broadest of the longitudinal markings, the descriptions of B. manubriatum agrees in every way with that of B. kewense. Variations in the width of the median band in different regions of the same individual of B. kewense have been described and figured by Richter' and Bergendal, and Dendy has shown the great variability of land planarians within a single species both as regards color and markings. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the single specimen studied by Sharp was the Bipalium kewense of Moseley.

The writer would be grateful for any information as to the occurrence of the species in other parts of the United States, and would be glad to have material from other localities.

2

Sharp, B. On a probable New Species of Bipalium. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., 1891, pp. 120-123, 1892.

Colin, A. Mittheilungen über Würmer. Sitzungsb. Gesell. naturf. Freunde Berlin, Jahrg. 1892, No. 9, pp. 164–166.

Richter, F. Bipalium kewense Moseley eine Landplanarie des Palmenhauses zu Frankfurt, A. M. Zool. Garten, Jahrg, XVIII, pp. 231–234, 1887.

5 Bergendal, D. Studien über Turbellarien. I. Ueber die Vermehrung durch Quertheilung des Bipalium Kewense Moseley. Kongl. Svenska. Vetensk-Akad. Handl., Bd. XXV, No. 4, 42, pp. 1 Pl., 1892.

6 Dendy, A. Notes on Some New and Little-known Land planarians from Tasmania and South Australia. Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, Vol. VI, pp. 178-188, Pl. X, 1893.

2. ON THE IDENTITY OF PROCOTYLA FLUVIATILIS LEIDY AND DENDROCOELUM LACTEUM OERSTED.

Procotyla fluviatilis was first described by Leidy' in 1852 under the name of Dendrocælum superbum Girard. In Stimpson's Prodromus (1858) we find for the first time the form under Procotyla fluviatilis Leidy M S. with the synonym Dendrocælum superbum Leidy (non Girard). Stimpson's nomenclature evidently being taken from manuscript notes of Leidy, but Leidy himself did not use the name Procotyla fluviatilis until 1885. In 1893 Girard in an exhaustive paper on North American Turbellaria makes a new species out of Leidy's first description, which was not his (Girard's) D. superbum, calling it Procotyla Leidy (with the synonym Dendrocælum superbum Leidy (non Girard), and also retains P. fluviatilis as a second species of Procotyla. In other words, Girard in the same work under two different names gives two different descriptions of the same species. He thus adds greatly to the confusion existing in our knowledge of North American Turbellaria. When our Turbellaria become better known there is reason to believe that the existing large list of species will be much reduced.

A careful study of the structure of Procotyla fluviatilis has convinced the writer that this, one of the commonest of our freshwater planarians, is identical with the widely distributed Dendrocælum lacteum Oersted of Europe, and that the genus Procotyla should be abandoned. It was predicted by Hallez" that Procotyla would be eliminated when its internal structure should become known. The anatomy and histology of Dendrocælum lacteum has been most carefully worked out by Iijima." His account and figures agree in every way with the American form, as does also the older account of Oscar Schmidt.13 The variation in 7 Leidy, J. Corrections and Additions to former Papers on Helminthology. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., Vol. V, pp. 288-289, 1852. name of Dendrocælum superbum Girard.

In Stimpson's Prodromus

8 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., Vol. IX, pp. 23, 1857. 'Leidy, J. Planarians. The Museum, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 5. Philadelphia,

1885.

10 Girard, Ch. Recherches sur les Planariés et les Némertiens du l'Amérique du Nord. Ann. Sci. Nat., Zool. Tom., XV, pp. 164–166, 1893.

"Hallez, P. Catalogue des Turbellariés (Rhabdocœlides, Triclades et Polyclades) du Nord de le France, etc. Revue Biol. du Nora de la France, T. IV No. 11, p. 454, 1892.

12 Iijima, I. Untersuchungen über den Bau und die Entwickelungeschichte der Süsswasser-Dendrocoelen (Trich leden). Zeitschr. wiss. Zool., Bd. XL, pp.

359-464, Taf. XX-XXIII, 1884.

13 Schmidt, O. Unterschungen über Turbellarien von Corfu und Cephalonis, Zeitschr. wiss. Zool. Bd. XI, pp. 1-30, Taf. I--IV, 1862.