Schimmel & Co., Leipsic and New York. Semi-annual Report (Essential Oils, etc.). April, 1899. Pp. 68. Smith, D. T. Philosophy of Memory, and other Essays. Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton & Co. Pp. 203. Smithsonian Institution. Crookes, William. Diamonds. Pp. 16.--Nutting, J. C. Hydroida from Alaska and Puget Sound. Pp. 12, with plates. Todd, David P. Stars and Telescopes. A Handy Book of Astronomy. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Pp. 419. $2. Wetterstrand, Otto Georg. Hypnotism and its Application to Practical Medicine. Authorized Translation. By Henrik G. Petersen. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 166. Wilkensen, H. E., Acting Secretary, and French, H. A., Acting Secretary. An Earnest Word to Our Friends. Portland, Oregon. (Home Making there.) Woodhull, John F., and Van Arsdale, M. B. Chemical Experiments. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 136. Fragments of Science. =The Gypsies and their Folk Tales.=--In the introduction to his collection of Gypsy Folk Tales Mr. Francis H. Groome describes the wide dispersion of the gypsy race as extending, in Europe, from Finland to Sicily, and from the shores of the Bosporus to the Atlantic seaboard; in Asia, from Siberia to India, and from Asia Minor (possibly) to China; in Africa, from Egypt and Algeria to Darfúr and Kordofan; and in America, from Pictou in Canada to Rio Janeiro. Believing that the gypsies, originating in India, left that region at an unknown date very long ago, he traces their migrations in the past and shows that a part of the race is still very migratory, passing, among other routes, between Scotland and North America, and between Spain and Louisiana. Another migration not mentioned in his book is the annual oscillation between north and south of the North American gypsy colony, which is growing healthily. The author finds it at present quite impossible to fix the arrival of the gypsies in southeastern Europe at a thousand years before Christ or a thousand years after. If the Komodromoi of the Byzantine writers were gypsies, then these people must have been a recognized and familiar element of the Balkan population about as early as the latter date. Gypsies pass for a very cunning people, and such they are to outsiders, so that Romany or gypsy guile is a very common expression. Centuries of suspicion and repression have taught them to arm themselves proof against confidence in strangers; but to those who become acquainted with them, as Mr. Groome professes to have done and George Borrow did, they present a character of simplicity and frankness. There is, as a gypsy woman once said to a writer in The Athenæum, "somethin' in the mind of a Gorgio that shuts the Romany's mouth and opens his eyes and ears." Gypsies are active transmitters of folklore, and have rich funds of stories; and many believe that the folklore stories of Europe are traceable to Indian sources, whence they may have been transmitted to Europe. Mr. Groome suggests how some of these stories may have