=Poison in Wild Cherry Leaves.=--Instances having been brought to the notice of the directory of the New Hampshire College Agricultural Experiment Station of cattle presumably fatally poisoned by prussic acid from eating wild cherry leaves, the subject has been investigated by Fred W. Morse and Charles D. Howard. Five species of wild cherry grow in New Hampshire, of which the red cherry and the horse plum are not regarded as dangerous, and the dwarf cherry has not been examined, but is strongly suspected. The wild black cherry is the most noxious species, and the chokecherry is not far behind it. The poisonous principle in these cherries is hydrocyanic or prussic acid, which, however, does not exist in the leaves as such, but is derived from the amygdalin they contain. The popular opinion that only the wilted leaves are specially dangerous is not borne out. The authors found both wilted and fresh leaves poisonous, and the dried leaves worthy to be regarded with suspicion. Vigorous, succulent leaves from young shoots, which are the ones most likely to be eaten by cattle, are far more poisonous than the leaves from a mature tree or stunted shrub. The largest amounts of prussic acid were derived from leaves wilted in bright sunlight to about seventy-five per cent their original weight, or till they began to appear slightly limp and lose their gloss. Leaves wilted in the dark were much less dangerous. =Dr. Brinton's Contributions to American Linguistics.=--At the suggestion of the late James Constantine Pilling, Dr. D. G. Brinton has prepared an analytical survey of his contributions in the field of American linguistics, which have now extended over forty years. The list includes seventy-one titles of books and papers, of which sixteen are classed as general articles and works. The first four of these are occupied with the inquiry whether the native American languages, as a group, have peculiar morphological traits that justify their classification as one of the great divisions of human speech. Dr. Brinton finds a feature--incorporation--which, under the form polysynthesis, is present in a marked degree in nearly all of them. Another paper shows that the various alleged affiliations between American and Asiatic tongues are wholly unfounded, and another pleads for more attention to American languages. A volume of nearly four hundred pages--The American Race--was the first attempt at a systematic classification of all the tribes of North, Central, and South America on the basis of language. It defines seventy-nine linguistic stocks in North America and sixty-one in South America, pertaining to nearly sixteen hundred tribes. Other volumes in the list include writings, preferably on secular subjects, by natives in their own languages. One contains a list of native American authors, and notices some of their works. Another vindicates the claim of native American poetry to recognition. These works were followed by the