Our aquarium had been arranged for the convenience of our old etheostomoid friends, and the bottom was thickly covered with stones, among which a small fish might easily hide. Several days passed after the introduction of the first Pleurolepis that survived the change of water, when it was noticed that it had disappeared. Careful search among the stones and around the geode only made it the more certain that it had gone, and increased our wonder as to the way, for surely it had not been eaten, nor had it jumped out, unless like Ariel it could assume a "shape invisible." Finally, after retracing every inch of the ground, there was discovered under the nose of Boleosoma, which was standing as usual on its hands and tail, the upper edge of a caudal fin, and on each side of Boly's tail appeared a little black eye set in a yellow frame. Pleurolepis was buried! Was he dead? Slowly one eye was closed in a darter's inimitable way, for they can outwink all animals in creation except owls, and the touch of a finger on its tail showed that it had lost none of its activity. It was quite improbable that it had been accidentally buried so completely, a small spot, therefore, was cleared of stones, leaving the hard white sand exposed, and we awaited developments.

There for days we watched it closely, only to learn that it could bury itself with great celerity, for it was never caught in the act. Our patience was at last rewarded, however, for as we came out to breakfast one morning it put its nose, that we now

Generic Characters. Body nearly cylindrical, very slender, the depth being contained six to eight times in the length of the body, to base of the caudal; the breadth of the body about the same as the depth; head long, pointed, the upper jaw longest ; lateral line very distinct, complete; scales thin, small, punctate, especially above, with fine black dots, far apart and deeply imbedded, obscure on the back, but generally present; wanting on the belly, readily evident only along the lateral line and on the opercles; fins rather low (as compared with other darters), the dorsal fins well separated; anal spines two; intermaxillaries projectile, the skin of the upper lip not continuous with that of the forehead; teeth minute, on jaws and vomer; mouth comparatively wide, much as in Etheostoma; branchiostegals six, their membrane broadly connected across isthmus.

Specific Characters. Head four to four and half in length of body, without caudal; eye large, rather high up, its diameter a trifle less than length of snout, forming about one fourth of the length of the head; iris gilt. Body pinkish-white, or faintly olivaceous, perfectly pellucid in life; a series of small squarish olive blotches, lustrous steel blue in life, along the back and another on each side, these connected by a gilt line. Fin rays: D. x. 9; A. ii. 8; first dorsal longer and lower than second, which is smaller than the anal fin. Length two to three inches.

Habitat. Ohio Valley, Youghiogheny R. (Cope), Eastern Ohio (Dr. Kirtland's Coll.), White R., Ind. (Jordan and Copeland), frequenting sandy bottoms of clear

streams.

Pocilichthys vitreus, Cope (Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 1870, p. 263), probably belongs to this genus.

know has a tip nearly as hard as horn, against the bottom, stood nearly straight on its head, and with a swift beating of its tail to the right and left was in less than five seconds completely buried. The sand had been violently stirred, of course, and just as it had nearly settled, probably in less than half a minute, its nose was pushed quietly out and, settling back, left the twinkling eyes and narrow forehead alone visible.

Since then we have kept scores of them in an aquarium arranged especially for their convenience, and have often seen them burrow into the sand. They will remain buried as long as the water is pure and cool, and indeed we now rely nearly altogether upon them to warn us when the water needs changing. They then come out and lie on the bottom, panting violently. We have been unable to discover any immediate incentive for the act. It seems to be entirely unpremeditated. A number of them in confinement lie helplessly on the bottom, motionless and slowly breathing, when one suddenly starts and buries its head and neck in the now whirling sand by a motion as quick as thought, a headless tail beats frantically about, and when the clean sand lies smoothly on the bottom again the little eyes are looking at you like two glistening beads, as if to witness your applause at so clever a trick.1

We never have seen a Pleurolepis taste of food, nor do we expect to, for although its mouth bristles with teeth its small size forbids an attack on any game which we can offer. Its quiescent habits, and the character of the bottoms to which it confines itself, seem to indicate that its prey is minute if not microscopic. But speculation about what we don't know as to its food might lead us to speculation as to the mode of evolution of its characteristic features; how, for instance, the hard snout and the burrowing habits are consequent upon the loss of scales, or how the loss of unnecessary scales are consequent on its burrowing habits, matters not within the defined scope of this article.

Specimens of this species may be readily obtained in regions where it occurs. We have taken at one drawing of a fine-meshed minnow net, no less than twenty-four individuals over a sandbar in White River, above Indianapolis, where the usual depth of the water is about two feet.

1 Since this article was written, a small Boleosoma (B. brevipinne Cope), in Professor Copeland's aquarium has been noticed to bury himself in the sand as persistently as the Pleurolepis does, and in similar fashion. In no other individual of this species, and in no other species excepting the "Sand Darter," have we noticed this habit, although during the last two years we have had hundreds of individuals under examination. — D. S. J.

OBSERVATIONS UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND VERMONT.1

BY WILLIAM F. FLINT.

'VERY one who has botanized must have observed that many

EV

of the species common in one part of the country are elsewhere replaced by different ones. We are often surprised to learn that our neighboring botanists find species with which we are most familiar to be only local or altogether wanting in their vicinity.

I have been able to learn of but few attempts to find out the manner in which our New England flora is distributed, or to ascertain the causes which have placed our plants as we find them now.

I do not claim to point out many of the latter, but hope that a few facts as to the manner in which some of the plants in the Connecticut Valley, and elsewhere in New Hampshire and Vermont, are found to be distributed, may not prove wholly uninteresting. I shall not attempt to classify them in the same order as we find them arranged in the manuals, but present them, as nearly as possible, as they would be seen to occur by an observer in journeying from the sources of the rivers toward the sea.

The most important, probably, of the causes which limit the range of different genera and species of plants is that of altitude, or the height of the land above the sea-level, as this serves to produce the same differences in the temperature over a small extent of country, which change in latitude does over a larger one.

The flora of Northern New England presents two well-marked divisions, depending mainly upon the different temperature caused by this difference in elevation, which have been termed the Alleghanian and the Canadian. The former is represented by forests composed of chestnut, oak, pitch and red pine, and the latter where spruce, fir, arbor vitæ, and beech predominate.

It is not possible to draw a definite line for the meeting of these two floral districts, because differences of soil and the power which plants have of adapting themselves in some degree to climatic changes bring about a meeting ground of varying width between them.

Were one at the sources of the Connecticut, he could not fail to remark the very different appearance of the flora from that of

1 A paper read before the meeting of the Connecticut Valley Botanical Society, held at Hanover, N. H., June 6, 1876.

Massachusetts. Here, black spruce (Abies nigra), white spruce (A. alba), and arbor vitæ (Thuja occidentalis), take the place of the oaks, hickories, and pitch pines of this river further south. These, together with the beech (Fagus ferruginea), sugar-maple (Acer saccharinum), the canoe and yellow birch (Betula papyracea and B. lutea), constitute the greater part of the forest and present a good type of the Canadian wilderness.

Here, also, Labrador tea (Ledum latifolium) and the Canada blue-berry are the representatives of the multitude of ericaceous. shrubs found further south. The high cranberry tree (Viburnum Opulus) may be found throughout the valley, but in this region it finds its proper home, occurring in abundance along the streams. With it is the hoary willow (Salix candida), which, as it is common throughout Northern New Hampshire and Vermont, and extends into Maine, may be considered as a strictly Canadian species.

Two or three species of Glyceria, blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis Canadensis), timothy (Phleum pratense), and redtop (Agrostis vulgaris), represent the greater part of the grass family (Graminea) belonging to this region. The ponds and slow streams are more likely to contain the variety pumilum of the yellow water-lily (Nuphar advena) than the typical form.

Going southward, we find that the white spruce (Abies alba) disappears from the New Hampshire side of the river at North Stratford; but, singularly enough, it is still found along the Vermont side as far as to the mouth of the Passumpsic River.

At Dalton, N. H., near the head of Fifteen Miles Falls, the hoary willow (Salix candida) disappears. The purple meadowrue, which seems to have a truly Canadian habitat, continues common throughout the length of this long rapid, and is last seen at the Nine Islands near the mouth of the Passumpsic.

The Canadian character of the flora predominates nearly to the foot of these falls, or to within six hundred feet of the sea-level. Here are to be found maiden-hair (Adiantum pedatum), Orchis spectablis, sweet-fern (Comptonia asplenifolia), frost grape (Vitis cordifolia), and sheep-laurel (Kalmia angustifolia), forming the first group of strictly Alleghanian species.

As these plants are found in other parts of New Hampshire to have this altitude above the sea at their northern limit, the contour line of six hundred feet can be taken for our purpose, as the dividing line between the two districts.

But there is no disappearance of Canadian species until we

reach the mouth of the Lower Ammonoosuc and Wells rivers. There the Labrador tea (Ledum latifolium) is altogether wanting, and the arbor vitæ and high cranberry tree become much less

numerous.

The forests which cover the high terraces at the mouth of these rivers are composed of pitch and red pines (Pinus rigida and P. resinosa) and white oaks (Quercus alba).

Mountain rice grasses (Oryzopsis Canadensis and O. asperifolia) first appear in these woods, which would indicate that they as well as the trees are Alleghanian. A few miles south of this, at Haverhill, N. H., hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) and bitter hickory (Carya amara) are added, and below this point the Alleghanian type of vegetation predominates in the immediate vicinity of the river. Arbor vitæ and the mountain alder (Alnus viridis) are the only Canadian species present, and these find their southern limit at the White River Narrows between Hanover and White River Junction.

Azalea nudiflora is the most noticeable addition before reaching North Charlestown, where we abruptly meet with a group of trees common throughout the valley in Massachusetts. These are chestnut (Castanea vesca), yellow oak (Quercus coccinea, var. tinctoria), shell-bark hickory (Carya alba), button-wood (Platanus occidentalis), and, growing in their shade, the huckleberry (Gaylussacia resinosa) and the rattlesnake weed (Hieracium venosum).

Bellows Falls, Vt., seems to be the next place for the appearance of another group, apparently marking the northern limit of dwarf sumac (Rhus copallina), shrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia), summer grape (Vitis æstivalis), liberty tea (Ceanothus Americanus), cranesbill (Geranium maculatum), Aster lævis, Solidago gigantea, Bidens chrysanthemoides, Cassia Marilandica, butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), spice bush (Lindera Benzoin), foxtail grass (Aleopecurus pratensis and A. geniculatus), Calystegia spithamaa, and Vaccinium vacillans; quite an array of species which seem to have found these falls an effectual barrier to their march northward.

Along the valley between Bellows Falls and Brattleboro are the high blue-berry (Vaccinium corymbosum) and Andromeda ligustrina, but it is not quite certain whether or not they should belong with this group.

The cotton-wood (Populus monilifera) first appears on an island in the river near the north line of Westmoreland, N. H.,