SCIENTIFIC NEWS.

We have received a specimen of the first number of the Zoologischer Anzeiger, edited by Prof. J. V. Carus. From twentyfive to twenty-six sheets, of sixteen pages each, will appear each year, a sheet about once a fortnight, we suppose. The literature

in all departments except descriptive zoology is fully given by title; digests or abstracts of important works are given, C. O. Whitman's embryology of Clepsine being thus noticed. The Anzeiger will also contain short notices, zoölogical, zoötomical, faunistic, phænological and biological, with laboratory notes as to improved methods of working, information regarding museums, private collections and personal notices. The plan of this zoölogical index is excellent, and will undoubtedly prove a most convenient medium for advanced zoologists.

- Arrivals at the Philadelphia Zoological Garden: I gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis); 3 beavers (Castor fiber), born in the garden; I diamond rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus); I ground rattlesnake (Candisona miliaria); 1 whip snake (Bascanion flagelliforme); I black snake (Bascanion constrictor); I spreading adder (Heterodon platyrhinos); 2 brown-throated parrakeets (Conurus æruginosus); I snake (Coluber obsoletus, confinis); 3 bald eagles (Haliatus leucocephalus); I king snake (Ophibolus getulus); I woodchuck (Arctomys monax); I robin (Turdus migratorius); I snake (Coluber vulpinus); I rufous rat kangaroo (Hypsiprymnus rufuscens), born in the garden; 11 lizards (Sceloporus undulatus); I red fox (Vulpes fulvus).—Arthur E. Brown, Supt. of Garden, Sept. 1, 1878.

The Commissioner of Agriculture has appointed Mr. A. R. Grote, of Buffalo, N. Y., Win. J. Jones, of Virginia Point, near Galveston, Texas, E. H. Anderson, of Kirkwood, Miss., and Prof. Comstock, of Cornell University, observers, under the control of the entomologist of the Department, to make investigations and study the action of the cotton worm during the present season.

-Prof. Carl Stål, Director of the Department of Entomology of the Royal Museum at Stockholm, died June 13, 1878, aged forty-five years. He was a voluminous author, publishing monographs of different groups of Coleoptera, Hemiptera and Orthoptera.

Dr. John H. Packard reports in the Medical and Surgical Reporter (Phil., Aug. 3, p. 100) that a child six years of age blew from its nostrils a specimen of Geophilus, a long, slender, small, centipede-like myriopod.

- Herr A. Reipert, of Bensheim, Burgstrasse, Grossl. Hessen, is desirous of corresponding with American entomologists with a view to exchanging European for American insects.

PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE met at St. Louis, August 21st, the session lasting a week. The president was Prof. O. C. Marsh, Prof. Simon Newcomb being the retiring president. Reports of the eclipse observers seemed to have overshadowed the papers read in the section of geology and biology. The attendance and number of papers read was smaller than the preceding year. An excursion to

Colorado took place at the close of the meeting.

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION met at Dublin, August 14th, under the presidency of Dr. Spottiswoode, the number of members present being 2,577. The addresses of Mr. Evans on Geology, of Prof. Flower on Vertebrate Zoölogy, and of Mr. Romanes on Animal Intelligence were of especial interest, as well as the address of Sir Wyville Thompson on Recent Progress in Ocean Geography.

THE MEETING OF GERMAN NATURALISTS AND PHYSICIANS was held at Cassel, September 11-18, the president being Dr. B. Stilling.

THE FRENCH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE was presided over by M. E. Fremy. Prof. Marey delivered a lecture on Graphic Researches relative to Animal Motors, and papers were read by M. Alix on the Myology of Mammals, by Prof. A. Gaudry on the Evolution of Primitive Mammals, and M. A. F. Nogues on Method in Geology and on the Climatology of Geological Times.

-:0:

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS.1

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE.--September. On the animal of Millepora alcicornis, by W. N. Rice. Forest geography and archæology, by A. Gray (continued from p. 94). Notice of some recent additions to the marine fauna of the eastern coast of North America, by A. E. Verrill. The Waverly Group in Central Ohio, by L. E. Hicks. On some primordial fossils from South-eastern Newfoundland, by J. F. Whiteaves. New pterodactyle from the Jurassic of the Rocky mountains, by O. C. Marsh.

SIEBOLD AND KÖLLIKER'S ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE

ZOOLOGIE.-July 30, 1878. On the Siphonophores of deep water, by Th. Studer. Morphology of the Oxytrichinæ, by V. Sterki. Trichaster elegans, by H. Ludwig. Contributions to a knowledge of the Tomopterida, by F. Vejdoosky. Contributions to a knowledge of the natural history of the Caprellæ, by A. Gamroth.

QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY.-August. List of shells of Iowa, by F. M. Witter.

The articles mentioned under this head are usually selected.

THE

AMERICAN

NATURALIST.

VOL. XII. NOVEMBER, 1878. — No. 11.

ASPIDIUM SPINULOSUM (SWARTZ) AND ITS VARIE

TIES.

BY GEO. E. DAVENPORT.

DURING several seasons past I have been making some special examinations of the different forms of Aspidium spinulosum as found growing in Middlesex county, Mass., and offer the result not as being decisive in character, but for the purpose of calling attention to the points involved, and inviting further investigations in the same direction.

An opinion prevails with many botanists that the large series. of forms in this protean species so run into each other, and are oftentimes so confusing and difficult to place, that it would be better to ignore all of the so-called varieties and only recognize all forms under the one specific name. How far this opinion may or may not be correct, and founded on scientific principles, possibly this note may help to determine.

I certainly am not in favor of recognizing as a variety any form not possessing some well marked and permanent character to distinguish it from the recognized typical form of any species. I have so often expressed myself on this point that I do not feel under any apprehension of appearing inconsistent in endeavoring to show that the so-called var. intermedium is a good variety at least, if indeed it be not a good species.

The precise disuncaons between bidi m spinulosum Swz., and its var. intermedium have not as yet been clearly enough pointed out, so that the greatest confusion has prevailed in the effort to verify the presence here of true spinulosum, and to discover the differences between it and the variety; the usual assumption having been that nearly if not all of our American plants belonged to the latter form.

My own observations tend to convince me that Swartz's plant is by no means uncommon. Be that as it may, plants are found here abundantly enough that exactly conform to Swartz's description as given by him in his "Synopsis Filicum."

What then is Aspidium spinulosum Swz.? Swartz says of it, “Frondibus bipinnatis, pinnis pinnatifidis pinnatisque, laciniis oblongis acutis serrato-spinulosis, fronde ovato-triangularis; rachis glabra, stipite paleaceo." "Addenda et emendata,” p. 419 to Synopsis Filicum, 1806. This describes in part nearly all of our American forms. Let us analyze the description and see:

1. Fronds twice-pinnate. This is true in many cases of spinulosum, and the varieties dilatatum and intermedium. In large and highly developed specimens of the two last forms the fronds are often thrice-pinnate, and usually appear to be more divided on account of the pinnules being more deeply cut; but the uncertain application of this character to any one particular form renders it unreliable as a specific character, or only of secondary importance.

2. Pinnules pinnatifid, segments oblong, acute spinulose-toothed. Common to all of the forms, and therefore as unreliable as the first character.

3. Frond triangular-ovate. This more clearly belongs to the var. dilatatum than to any other form, although I have had specimens of intermedium that were broadly triangular in outline, and other things corresponding that form might be regarded as Swartz's plant for all there is in the description to the contrary, specimens being found commonly enough that are triangularovate in outline, bipinnate in structure, with smooth rachis and pale-brown scales.

4. Rachis smooth. This is the case with spinulosum and our dilatatum, but in intermedium the rachis is usually finely glandular. It will be necessary, however, to collect specimens early in order to observe this, as the rachis finally becomes smooth. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to decide to which form Swartz's description was applied without knowing when, and in what state his plants were collected.

5. Stipes clothed with pale brown scales. This is the case, more or less, with all of our forms. The darker scales with blackish centers peculiar to the most highly developed forms are not reliable as a distinctive character.

From this it appears that in point of fact we have no true spinulosum as distinguished from other forms unless we choose to make it, and there would be no impropriety in calling it all spinulosum, as many are disposed to do, if we did not actually find in nature forms possessing characters sufficiently distinctive to justify recognition.

This being so we can only recognize as typical that form from which, in all probability, the others are most likely to have been derived, and to which, in connection with its special characters, Swartz's description may be best adapted.

Taking, now, the species as a whole, I find that it may be divided into two forms, one being glabrous beneath with perfectly smooth indusia, and the other being more or less finely glandular on the under surface with glandular indusia.

As there are many characters by which we can trace the glandular form to the smooth one, and show clearly enough that if it be not a good species it is at least a variation from that, we may by enlarging the significance of Swartz's "rachis glabra

as to embrace the smooth indusia, safely assume that the smooth form is Swartz's plant.

But as this distinction is not clearly apparent after the contraction of the indusium in fruit, I have made examinations for the purpose of trying to find some other character by which we could determine specimens with equal certainty at all times; and this I have apparently found in the position of the sori on the

veins.

Thus I find that in what I here recognize as true spinulosum the sori are placed on the end of the veinlet, which terminates within the radius of the fruit dot, while in the var. intermedium the sori are placed on the veinlet below its apex, so that it passes through and beyond the radius of the fruit dot.

This is a point of distinction between these two forms that has not been noticed heretofore by any one that I am aware of, and although I am not prepared to say that it is invariably the case, it has been so in all of the specimens that I have examined, the only apparent exception having been in the case of two or three imperfectly developed sori.

Let us briefly review and consider the importance of the principal characters of spinulosum and the var. intermedium as we actually find them in nature.