combine to impress these facts. The frequency of practical examinations discourages excessive reading and obliges the student to trust more to observation.

To this course six hours each week are given throughout the year; though in the second term six hours additional may be elected.

The course in vertebrate morphology is open to students of the second year who have completed the work in general biology, invertebrate morphology, and mammalian anatomy. It embraces the careful study of five or six types, beginning in each case with external characteristics and their importance as a means of classification. This is followed by exercises in classification with the use of keys and text, much as analytical botany is studied. When the student has a fair idea of the type's place in nature, the anatomical work proper begins. Particular attention is of course paid to the comparative side of the subject and to the influence of modes of life upon structure. In this way the fish, frog, terrapin, and bird are studied. Ample material is furnished and good diagrams and models are at hand. The course requires six hours each week throughout the second term.

The course in comparative osteology is one of the most satisfactory, because of the abundance of illustrative materials in the museum. The collection is rich in complete articulated skeletons, in parts mounted to show special characters, and in series of skulls mounted with the constituent bone separated, but in relative position. There is in addition a great accumulation of disarticulated skeletons and separate bones. As the student is supposed to be familiar with anatomy and zoölogy, the actual instruction is given by informal talks during the progress of the work.

Graduate students may have advanced work in vertebrate morphology. This is adapted to the special needs of the individual and depends upon his own preparation and partly also on the line of study in which the professor may himself be engaged at the time.

ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANTS.-PROF. WILLIAM POWELL WILSON,

The botany is wholly from plants and by experimental methods. Books are only used for reference. The student handles and studies the thing itself. By the use of simple and compound microscopes provided for each pupil, the lower as well as the higher forms of plant life are subjected to careful examination and study.

The different parts of the plant are considered at one and the same time in the first year from three points of view: that of form (morphology), structure (anatomy), and use (function).

In the second year the student takes a practical course in plant anatomy. This opens with a most careful study of the living plant cell under varying conditions. The different substances and tissues are considered in detail. The systems of tissues in the root, stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit (together with some attention to their funç, tions) constitute the first half of this year's work.

If the student wishes to continue in botany during the third year he may pursue a course of laboratory work in plant physiology. The method followed is by dividing the subject before the class into parts and portioning these out to the different members. In this way the subject of germination, which is now before the class, has been separated into

(a) The biology of the seed, which invites a careful study of all the parts considered in relation to each other and also to all the different external conditions which may arise in its development.

(b) The changes in form of the parts of the seed during germination, with reasons for the same.

(c) The chemical changes in the seed during germination, with the transfer and appropriation of the food materials when and where growth is taking place.

(d) The absorption of water by the seed.

(e) The absorption and excretion of gases by the seed, and measurement of the same.

(1) The temperature of the seed during germination considered in relation to normal and intramolecular respiration, etc.

Each student considers one of these topics, making such experiments with living seeds as to demonstrate the points under consideration. After having worked the whole subject over he presents his conclusions, illustrated with his experiments, to the class. The professor in charge comments on both the results and the method of presenting them, adding any new material which may have been neglected by the student. In this way much ground can be gone over with satisfaction to all concerned. The other subjects are studied in the same manner.

SYSTEMATIC AND ECONOMIC BOTANY.—PROF. J. T, ROTHROCK.

This begins in the latter half of the first year, and, as the work is confined to the flowering and the higher (so-called) flowerless plants, Gray's Manual of Botany is used in connection with the abundant material furnished for analytical work.

The student is made aware that naming a plant botanically is only a means to an end, the real object being, first, to enable him to avail himself of the literature connected with the plant and to designate it by such a name as will leave no doubt as to what plant he is speaking or writing of, and, in the second place, to lead him to a recognition of the plant's place in the vegetable kingdom, as a deduction from an ascertained structure. It is worthy of note here that there is a faulty tendency in many places to consider botany almost wholly from the development of the individual, leaving the evolution of species and their relation to each other in the background. This is to be deprecated, if for no other reason than because in our country the most important botanical work to be done is, first of all, to describe and name what plants we have, and to do this a generation at least of trained syste 1180-22

matists will yet be required. To neglect systematic botany at this juncture for the study of individual plants wholly would be like an attempt to study philology before the formation of a lexicon.

The first work of the student in this department is to study the species, as an aggregate of individuals; second, to consider the genus as an aggregate of related species; third, to study genera as constituting orders, etc. In this way an idea of the natural grouping of plants is obtained, together with some conception of the relative value of the different points of structure. Exact written descriptions of plants are also required, not only as a test of what the student actually has seen, but as an incentive to still closer observation. Six hours each week are given to the work in this department.

In the latter half of the second year the student may decide between the (so-called) flowerless plants and economic botany.

The methods of study of the flowerless plants are much the same as in the work of the first year, making allowance of course for differences inherent in the subjects and, further, for the lack of suitable textbooks in a large portion of the field covered.

Economic botany admits of division according to the special object the student may have in view. If he contemplates medical study, it is of course obvious that the greater portion of his limited time should be devoted to our native remedial plants; if, on the other hand, he inclines to a mechanical career, the structure of our different species of wood must more nearly concern him; or if he has a mercantile life in view, the fiber and the starch-producing plants would naturally interest him most.

It is of course clear that no such course of botanical study as could be concluded in two years would be other than elementary in its character. A third or even a fourth year could be taken with advantage in the biological school. Whilst the institution is amply equipped for advanced botanical teaching in most directions, it still lacks important facilities for the study of the life history of the lower plants. This demand of course will soon be met, for it is inconceivable that a field of such vast practical importance to the agriculturist, the fruit-grower, and the horticulturist should remain unnoticed.

HISTOLOGY.—PROF, JOHN RYDER.

It is sought in this branch to familiarize the undergraduate student with the great principles of the science of histology. The subject is treated, it is believed, in a manner different from that pursued in most schools. Beginning with the formal changes and the apparent cycle of causes at work in producing many of them in the simplest living forms, the student is in a measure prepared to understand the formal changes in the various types of animal cells.

The work is thus rendered, it is thought, more interesting to the thoughtful student, since he is brought into contact with a much wider