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good authority, and such action may be mutually profitable. Specimens should be sent at flowering time, and should include the whole shoot with full sized and young leaves, blossom, and tendril; and after the fruit is ripe a bunch of the berries and seeds from the same stock should follow.

The proper classification of our different varieties is of more importance in this connection than would at first appear. Since the publication of some of the facts set forth in this article, a few enterprising French grape-growers, in the districts desolated by the louse, have conceived the idea of importing from this country such varieties as are most exempt from the attacks of the Phylloxera, and M. LeFranc, the Minister of Agriculture, has likewise expressed his intention of so doing. Already a number of varieties, and especially the Cunningham, Herbemont, Norton's Virginia, Concord, Hartford Prolific, Clinton and Martha have been shipped to M. J. Leenhardt, of Montpellier, France, and others to Switzerland, by Messrs. Isidor Bush and Co. If America has given this plague to England, why should she not in return furnish her with vines which are capable of resisting it? At least nothing but good can come of the trial, for though our grapes are generally sneered at on the other, side of the water, we have made such rapid improvements in viticulture during the last ten years that they scarcely know anything of our better kinds; and many of those which do well in Missouri will doubtless succeed in France. Such of our vines as have already been cultivated there are often differently classified by their writers to what they are by American authors, and confusion consequently ensues. Thus, one of my correspondents, M. Laliman, of Bordeaux, who has cultivated a number of them for several years, classes the Clinton and

This southern species known under the name of Southern Fox Grape Bullace or Bullit-grape is found along water-courses, not farther north than North Carolina and Arkansas, and may possibly straggle into southeastern Missouri. Some of its cultivated varieties, especially the white Scuppernong, are highly esteemed in the South but do not perfect fruit in the latitude of St. Louis.

I recognize only three other species of the true grape-vines in the territories of the United States. The most remarkable of these is the Mustang grape of Texas, Vitis candicans Engelm. (V. Mustangensis Buckley), with rather large, rounded, almost toothless, rarely deeply-lobed leaves; white woolly on the under side, bearing berries, which in its native country are now beginning to be made into wine; Vitis Californica Bentham, the only wild grape of California, has rounded downy leaves, and small berries, and is not made use of as far as is known; Vitis Arizonica Engelm., similar to the last, but glabrous, with middle-sized berries, reported to be of a luscious taste. Neither of these shows a prominent raphe on the seed, so that this character is peculiar only to the first 3 species here enumerated.

Taylor as æstivalis, and the Norton's Virginia and Delaware as Labrusca.*

I will now indicate the susceptibility of different varieties to the disease.

Vitis vinefera (European).- All European varieties with roots. badly affected. In many instances decomposed and gone, with

the vines about dead. No leaf-galls.

V. riparia (River Bank). Clinton-Leaf-galls extremely abundant. Root-lice only moderately so. Taylor-Where leafgalls are few, root-lice abundant; where galls are abundant fewer root-lice. Delaware - A few leaf-galls; lice abundant on roots. Othello (hybrid with vinefera) - Both leaf-galls and root-lice, the latter tolerably numerous. Louisiana (some say a seedling of vinefera, others again believe it æstivalis) — Leaf-galls and root-lice, but neither bad. Alvey Few leaf-galls; plenty of root-lice. Cornucopia (hybrid with vinifera)- No leaf-galls; roots badly affected with lice. Wild vine - Numerous leaf-galls and a few root-lice; much in same condition as Clinton.

V. æstivalis (Summer). Cunningham - No leaf-galls, but a few root-lice. Cynthiana-Occasionally a few galls; lice abundant on roots. The vine has a vigorous growth and the roots are large and strong. Herbemont A few leaf-galls, and scarcely any root-lice. Norton's Virginia - No leaf-galls, but some root

lice.

V. Labrusca (Northern Fox). Isabella, or seedlings of Isabella-No leaf-galls; a few root-lice: roots strong and vines flourishing. Martha-No leaf-galls; very few root-lice. HartfordNo leaf-galls; very few root-lice. Ives-No leaf-galls; lice toler,ably abundant on roots. North Carolina-No leaf-galls; very few root-lice. Maxatawney-No leaf-galls; root-lice quite abundant. Creveling-A few leaf-galls; root-lice abundant. Catawba -No leaf-galls; root-lice very numerous, abounding even on the larger roots as on the European vines. Goethe (hybrid with vinifera)-No leaf-galls but lice on roots very numerous. In the vineyards of Messrs. Isidor Bush & Sons, of Bushburg, Mo., this vine was very vigorous and thrifty in 1869 and 1870, but has done poorly the present year. Dracut Amber-No leaf-galls; few root-lice. Wilder (hybrid with vinifera-No leaf-gails; not many root-lice. Challenge (hybrid with vinifera)-No leaf-galls,

* Etude sur les divers Phylloxera, et leur médications.

roots affected but moderately. Diana-No leaf-galls, but plenty of root-lice.

V. vulpina (Southern Fox or Muscadine)-As it is not grown in this locality, being considered absolutely worthless here, I know little about it.

From this experience it would appear that no vines of those named, are entirely free from the attacks of the root-louse; but that the European varieties are most susceptible to it; the Northern Fox, next in order, the River Bank grape next, and the Summer grape being the least affected. It would likewise appear that galls are occasionally found on all of the species except the European, and as they have, in a few instances, been found on this species in Europe, it cannot be considered entirely exempt.* Nevertheless, in general terms, the River Bank grape must be considered the species which the gall-louse prefers. Experience on this point will, no doubt, vary in different parts of the country, and more extended experience may modify some of these deductions.

We thus see that no vine, whether native or foreign, is exempt from the attacks of the root-louse. Yet, on the principle that a small dose of poison may prove harmless or even beneficial where an over-dose will kill, we find that a small number of root-lice produce no serious' effects upon a vine; and that it is only where they are very numerous, and cause not only the fibrous roots but even the larger ones to waste away, that their evil effects are perceptible. With most of our native vines when the conditions are normal, the disease seems to remain in the former mild state, and it is only with the foreign kinds, and with a few of the natives under certain conditions, that it takes on the more acute form.

In France, according to M. Laliman, the American varieties which have resisted the root-louse best are the Clinton, Taylor, Herbemont (known there as Warren), and some others which are considered valueless here, such as the Pauline, Elsimboro, Lenoir Mustang of Texas, and a kind of York-Madeira; while those which succumb are the Isabella, Scuppernong, Concord, Norton's Virginia, Maxatawney, Hartford Prolific, Cynthia, etc. This experience differs a little from ours, but shows that the Labruscas suffer most there also. To be continued.

*Since this was written I have been informed by Mr. Glover of the Department of Agriculture, that the leaves of certain European vines, in green-house, such as Muscat Hamburg and Madam Pince, were crowded with the galls, even as late as December; and they had begun to spread on to the Sonora and the Duc de Malacoff.

REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES.

CATALOGUE OF THE PENGUINS IN THE MUSEUM OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY.*- We have in this brochure of 17 pages, the first of a series of papers on the magnificent collection of birds contained in the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History-the second in size, in respect to number of species, in America. The collection is particularly important as containing the types of most of the species described by La Fresnaye, whose large collection of birds, gathered at a great expense, was purchased by the late Dr. Henry Bryant, and by him generously presented to the Society. It is the aim of the Society to eventually publish a complete catalogue of the birds in its Museum, in a series of papers, treating of the different groups in a more or less revisionary or monographic manner; and with this auspicious beginning it is to be hoped the work will be pushed rapidly forward. Prof. Hyatt briefly discusses the general affinities of the genera and spe cies, and arrives at the conclusion that the larger part" come to a focus in Spheniscus minor, which appears to hold a strictly intermediate position, but presents a nearer approach to the lower members of the genera Pygocelis, Eudyptes and Aptenodytes than to any other existing form." He finds three modifications of the family "which presumably take place upon the basis of the organization of Spheniscus," diverging in radiating lines from S. minor, which is regarded as closely related to the "ancestral form." After some general remarks on the structure of the feathers and other features of the external anatomy, a somewhat detailed analysis of the genera is given, and also of the literature of the Spheniscido. The genera recognized are Aptenodytes, Spheniscus, Pygocelis and Eudyptes. The Society has specimens of nine species-apparently all but one or two of the known tenable species of the group. The synonymy is given only so far as to establish the names of the species, and give reference to one or two of the best published figures. Generally, remarks are added respecting the distinctive features of each, their peculiar changes and variations of plumage.

* Catalogue of the Ornithological Collection in the Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History. I. Spheniscidæ, by Alpheus Hyatt. With Notes on the Osteology of the Family, by Elliott Coues, M.D., U.S.A. Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. xiv, pp. 17. May, 1872. (Read May 17, 1871.)

AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. VI.

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Dr. Elliott Coues adds some highly important observations on the osteology of the family, and compares their more prominent skeletal modifications with those of the other groups of the Pygopodes. Any one of a large number of individual bones, he asserts, is of itself characteristic of the family. "A remarkable breadth and flatness of different bones," he observes, "is the dominant characteristic; it marks several bones that are cylindrical in all other birds and hollow in most ;" and adds that "foremost among the diagnostic skeletal characters of the family comes the partly confluent condition of the metatarsals, which in all other existing birds are completely fused." The compound metatarsus "shows its composition in the two lengthened fenestræ that indicate the three original metatarsals;" and Dr. Coues suggests that "this may afford a useful hint in any search for the ancestral stock or primitive type of the Spheniscidae;" yet one of these fenestræ is apparently common to many of the lower water birds; while the primitive distinctness of these bones is indicated by the medullary canals that are readily seen in a transverse section of the distal extremity of, the metatarsals.

This carefully prepared paper, by Prof. Hyatt and Dr. Coues, is a welcome and valuable addition to our knowledge of this most interesting and by no means well-known group of birds.

NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FORT MACON, N. C., AND VICINITY.*— Under the above caption, we have a series of papers on the fauna and flora of the vicinity of Fort Macon, North Carolina, by Dr. Elliott Coues, based on two years' observation at that locality. The groups thus far fully reported upon are the Mammals, Birds and Reptiles among Vertebrates, the Crustacea, Radiata, and Mollusca, and also the Brachiopoda of the Annulata. The lists refer almost exclusively to the small island on which Fort Macon is situated, and to the waters immediately surrounding it, thus rendering the paper, by its restriction to a small area, of great value as the record of a local fauna.

The mammals observed number eighteen species, and incorporated with the list are various remarks relating to habits and external features, including about four pages respecting the opossum (Didelphys Virginiana). A wide range of individual variation in color, size and proportions of parts is pointed out, in connection

*Notes on the Natural History of Fort Macon, N. C., and Vicinity. By Elliott Coues. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1871, pp. 12-49, 120-148, May and July, 1871.

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