whatever emanated from it, and that all letters on official business must be sent open to me, for my signature and frank. I returned with this message a sealed package for which my frank was asked. At another time I returned to Dr. Parry by my chief clerk, a letter which he had written and which I did not think proper should be sent, and which the Doctor passionately tore up and threw into the waste basket. This he subsequently apologized for to the gentleman he had thus insulted. On the 25th of September, after these various conversations between my chief clerk and Dr. Parry, he wrote another letter addressed to "My Dear Doctor." It had no other designation. For whom it was intended, I did not learn, or if I did I have forgotten. It concluded, "yours, officially, ' C. C. Parry." I wrote on this letter, "This is not very intelligible in its last sentence; besides, the Botanist can sign no official letters. What his official' means I do not understand, but under the circumstances, I think it is intended for impertinence." It then occurred to me that I would dismiss Dr. Parry, but held the matter under advisement for two days, until the 27th of September, when I received a note from him, in which he requested me to furnish him with written instructions (underscoring the word), and which contained two queries respecting letters from the Department. I did not think that he was in want of the information he asked for, and my answer to his note was that the Department did not longer require his services. My conviction was then, and is now, that whatever may be the qualifications of Dr. Parry as a botanist, he was not competent creditably to discharge the duties which should devolve upon him in connection with this Department, and therefore, without passion or prejudice, I determined to dismiss him.

A word in reply to your suggestion about printing my letter and your memorial. I decline to be a party myself to any such proceedings. But if you will take the whole responsibility of it, I shall never complain that you have violated a confidence which I never intended to impose.

I am, very respectfully,

FREDERICK WATTS, Commissioner of Agriculture.

BOTANIC GARDEN, Cambridge, Mass., December 11th, 1871.

To the Hon. FREDERICK WATTS, U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR SIR,-I have to thank you for your letter "Nov" [Dec.] 8th, in response to mine of Nov. 30.

You will permit me to remark, that the dismissal, without an hour's notice, of Dr. Parry from a position the duties of which he was thought to have performed acceptably to your predecessor, must of itself, if unexplained, cast an injurious reflection upon his character or conduct. Then your letter in reply to the memorial which solicited his recall, stating that the reasons for such dismissal were of a nature which it would have been as disagreeable for you to utter as for him to hear, and that you do not now desire to say anything about Dr. Parry which might dis

parage him in the estimation of his friends,"-all this certainly conveyed to my mind the conviction that some serious delinquency had been charged. It is with satisfaction, therefore, that I have read your letter now before me, obligingly written "to put [me] in possession of the whole subject." I learn from it that the reasons for Dr. Parry's summary aud ignominious dismissal relate to some details of form in the mode of conducting official botanical correspondence, to a momentary loss of temper in the presence of one of your subordinates (evinced by the mode in which he destroyed a letter of his which had been returned to him to be cancelled), and for which he duly apologized, -to the subscribing of a letter addressed familiarly "My Dear Doctor" [evidently some botanical correspondent] by the phrase "yours officially,"-that in some letters you found "his mode of expression wanting in perspicuity "(a fault into which more practised writers may sometimes fall),-and finally, that you did not discover in Dr. Parry the kind or degree of botanical qualifications for the post which you were entitled to expect, and deemed the services of an herbarium botanist" practically unimportant.

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As your letter has relieved my own mind from a painful anxiety upon this subject, it may have the same effect upon others, upon whose minds also your action had left the alternative of supposing, either bad conduct on the part of one hitherto highly esteemed, or of very hard usage towards him (it was thought through some misrepresentation of him or some misapprehension of yours). I think it proper and just, therefore, to make use of the permission you graut, and to take the responsibility of making public, in scientific circles, first, the correspondence between Dr. Parry and yourself, and second, that between ourselves.

I am, very respectfully yours,

ASA GRAY

EXTRACTS FROM REPORTS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE of Pennsylvania, made by the Hon. FREDERICK WATTS, 1865, 1868-examples of "perspicuity," etc.

"If science and learning be useful at all, where can it tell with so potent an influence, as where it deals with the operations of a farm, which embrace a great number of mechanical and chemical forces, and involve the necessity for searching after philosophical truth?"

"The individual members of the Board of Trustees, have labored assiduously for several years to establish a school, where an education may be obtained which will qualify farmers' sons intelligently to pursue their fathers' business. They have been influenced by the belief that this object cannot be attained at any of the literary colleges of our State; that the knowledge and habits which they impart disqualify youth for such pursuits, and thereby defeat the object of the parent, and add nothing to the interests of agriculture."

“Our experience teaches us, that a farmer's son, graduated in such an institution, finds no place, ever after, in the domestic circle of his family:

he is actually driven, by his education, into the necessity of resorting to some neighboring town, in pursuit of a learned profession, where he soon forms habits of idleness and intemperance; and the result is, that the father not only loses the expenses of his education, but the son himself." "These farms will all differ essentially in the character of soil and situation; and will be conducted under the eye of a skilful Professor of Agriculture for the purpose of testing and developing the thousand mysteries which now cloud the knowledge of the farmer. These experiments carried on under the direction of a scientific observer, who will constantly keep note of the weather, the signs of the Zodiac, the application of manures, and all the various actual and supposed influences which affect the growth of plants; and this, too, at three different points of the State, and upon different soils, cannot fail to produce an amount of information exceedingly valuable, and which could never be collected by individual exertion. Until now our Institution has never had the power of prosecuting these inquiries; but we now start upon a new career girded about with the strength of sufficient means, and we hope with great certainty to soon make it tell upon the Agricultural interests of the State."

POTATOES GROWING ABOVE GROUND. I send you herewith, what appears to me to be a rather uncommon freak of nature. I remember an old ballad which ran something like this

They plant potatoes in the fall

Over there, over there,

And they dig them tops and all
Over there, over there,"

but I never knew of any authority for the potatoes growing on the stalk above ground until I saw it in the specimen I send. There were found in our potato field yesterday several stalks of potatoes having from six to twelve or more little potatoes on them, from the eyes of which are shooting the regular leaves. They seem in these specimens to grow from the axils, but in some other specimens they seem to be enlargements of the leaf-stem itself.-B. D. EASTMAN, M.D.

HELENIUM TENNIFOLIUM.-Specimens of this plant were presented by Dr. Foreman, having been found by him growing about three miles northwest of Baltimore, in the neighborhood of some cotton mills. As it is a native of the extreme southwestern States of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, it is believed that its seeds have been introduced in cotton bales from a southern port. The plants observed were few in number, as if recently established, but were in vigorous growth and have made abundance of seeds.— Proceedings Maryland Academy of Sciences, Nov. 6, 1871.

ZOOLOGY.

CARBONIFEROUS REPTILES OF OHIO.-Prof. Cope made some observations before the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia on the extinct Batrachian Fauna of the Carboniferous of Linton, Ohio, based on studies of materials obtained by Prof. S. J. Newberry, director of the Geological Survey of Ohio. Twenty-seven species had been discovered up to the present time, twenty-three of which were referred to the following genera. Pelion Wyman, 1; Sauropleura Cope, 3; Tuditanus Cope, 4; Brachydectes Cope, 1; Oestocephalus Cope, 6; Cocytinus Cope; Molgophis Cope, 1; Phlegethontia Cope, 2; Colosteus Cope, 3; Eurythorax Cope, 1.

Tuditanus, Cocytinus and Phlegethontia were described as new genera. The first represented Dendrerpeton Owen, but possessed thoracic shields. Plegethontia embraced slender snake-like forms without armature, ribs or limbs, and was allied to Molgophis. Cocytinus was defined as a branchiferous animal somewhat resembling Necturus, but without fore limbs and well ossified vertebræ. Oestocephalus was defined as having the three pectoral shields, weak posterior limbs only present, head lanceolate; ventral armature consisting of closely packed osseous rods arranged en chevron ; spines of the vertebræ fan-shaped. Three new species were described, one of which was the smallest of fossil Batrachia, being scarcely four inches long and represented by beautiful specimens. Two new species of Sauropleura, three of Tuditanus, one of Cocytinus, two of Phlegethontia and one of Colosteus (C. pauciradiatus) were added to the system. Eurythorax sublevis Cope was a large form of four feet in length with the pectoral shield very broad and nearly smooth.

Pelion and Tuditanus were pointed out as the broad-headed types. It was stated in conclusion that no reptiles proper had been yet discovered in the coal measures and that Sauropleura looked much like a Lacertilian with its long limbs, neck, etc., yet it had the armature of the belly and other structures of the Batrachia. This class has then forms resembling the serpents (Molgophis), lizards (Sauropleura) and crocodiles (Labyrinthodon) among true reptiles.

NOTE ON THE PRAIRIE DOG.-The graphic account of the habits of Cynomys ludovicianus given by Prof. Jillson in the NATURALIST for March, 1871, refers to the small amount of water used by it.

Our experience with a pair which were domesticated in my laboratory for a month, agrees with his, so far as regards the water; when offered it was either refused or merely tasted. Of milk, however, they were very fond, and drank from the same dish with a cat, lapping it up greedily and seldom stopping while any milk remained; in less than fifteen minutes, however, a looseness of the bowels always appeared, which continued for a day or two. In uttering their peculiar cry, they seemed to stiffen the whole trunk and "rear" into a very comical attitude. Curiously enough, they not only burrowed, but were vigorous climbers, would run up my legs and get upon my shoulders and even head; but they seemed to have little power of estimating height, for they continually tumbled from the chairs and tables, often striking upon the tip of the nose, whereupon they made comical passes in front of the nose with the front-paws; one of them finally was killed by falling from a window, to the seat of which he had climbed by means of a table-leg. The other has been described, and I may hereafter give some account of its structure. - BURT G. WILDER.

ORNITHOLOGICAL QUERY. I have seen a partially albino Robin, in which numerous pure white feathers are scattered through the otherwise normally colored plumage. This is of very common occurrence, but the circumstances under which the specimen was secured open an interesting question. It was one of a flock in which were several partial albinos like itself, and one wholly white bird. Is it probable that, as suggested by Mr. Glover, these speckled birds were the offspring of the white one and a normally colored mate?- ELLIOTT COUES.

BIRDS FOUND BREEDING IN THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. — During a visit to the Catskill mountains, in the second week of July, I found the following birds breeding there:- Regulus satrapa, Dendroca coronata, Sitta Canadensis, Troglodytes hyemalis, Junco hyemalis, Dendræca virens, D. Canadensis. The last four birds are common throughout summer in all the higher hills of Ulster and Sullivan counties, and the mountains of Pennsylvania. The golden-crested wren, I noticed only on the summits of Round Top, and one or two others of the highest peaks. On the eighth of July, I saw several young birds, apparently not many days from the nest. They were attended by their parents, and hid themselves from observation, amid the densest hemlock boughs. At