Étude sur l'Espèce, à l'Occasion d'une Révision de la Famille des Cupulifères, par M. Alphonse De Candolle.—This is the title of a paper by M. Alph. De Candolle, growing out of his study of the oaks. It was published in the November number of the Bibliothèque Universelle, and separately issued as a pamphlet. A less inspiring task could hardly be assigned to a botanist than the systematic elaboration of the genus Quercus and its allies. The vast materials assembled under De Candolle's hands, while disheartening for their bulk, offered small hope of novelty. The subject was both extremely trite and extremely difficult. Happily it occurred to De Candolle that an interest might be imparted to an onerous undertaking, and a work of necessity be turned to good account for science, by studying the oaks in view of the question of species.

What this term species means, or should mean, in natural history, what the limits of species, inter se or chronologically, or in geographical distribution, their modifications, actual or probable, their origin, and their destiny—these are questions which, surge up from time to time; and now and then in the progress of science they come to assume a new and hopeful interest. Botany and zoölogy, geology, and what our author, feeling the want of a new term, proposes to name epiontology, all lead up to and converge into this class of questions, while recent theories shape and point the discussion.