In presenting to the British Association the final report on the northwestern tribes of Canada, Professor Tylor observed that, while the work of the committee has materially advanced our knowledge of the tribes of British Columbia, the field of investigation is by no means exhausted. The languages are still known only in outlines. More detailed information on physical types may clear up several points that have remained obscure, and a fuller knowledge of the ethnology of the northern tribes seems desirable. Ethnological evidence has been collected bearing upon the history of the development of the area under consideration, but no archæological investigations, which would help materially in solving these problems, have been carried on. THE NEW FIELD BOTANY. BY BYRON D. HALSTED, Sc. D., OF RUTGERS COLLEGE. There is something novel every day; were it not so this earth would grow monotonous to all, even as it does now to many, and chiefly because such do not have the opportunity or the desire to learn some new thing. Facts unknown before are constantly coming to the light, and principles are being deduced that serve as a stepping stone to other and broader fields of knowledge. So accustomed are we to this that even a new branch of science may dawn upon the horizon without causing a wonder in our minds. In this day of ologies the birth of a new one comes without the formal two-line notice in the daily press, just as old ones pass from view without tear or epitaph. _Phytoecology_ as a word is not long as scientific terms go, and the Greek that lies back of it barely suggests the meaning of the term, a fact not at all peculiar to the present instance. Of course, it has to do with plants, and is therefore a branch of botany. In one sense that which it stands for is not new, and, as usual, the word has come in the wake of the facts and principles it represents, and therefore becomes a convenient term for a branch of knowledge--a handle, so to say--by which that group of ideas may be held up for study and further growth. The word _ecology_ was first employed by Haeckel, a leading light in zoölogy in our day, to designate the environmental side of animal life. We will not concern ourselves with definitions, but discuss the field that the term is coined to cover, and leave the reader to formulate a short concise statement of its meaning.