"The only living creature that came near me was a _bee_, which hummed merrily by. What did the busy insect seek there? Not a blade of grass grew, and the only vegetable matter on this point was a cluster of withered moss at the very edge of the awful precipice, and it I gathered at considerable risk as a memorial of my visit." So in Fremont's _Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains_, 1842, p. 69., he speaks of standing on the crest of the snow peak, 13,570 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, and adds: "During our morning's ascent, we had met no sign of animal life, except the small sparrow-like bird already mentioned. A stillness the most profound, and a terrible solitude, forced themselves constantly on the mind as the great features of the place. Here on the summit, where the stillness was absolute, unbroken by any sound, and the solitude complete, we thought ourselves beyond the region of animated life: but while we were sitting on the rock, a _solitary bee_ (_Bromus_, the humble bee) came winging his flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men. "It was a strange place, the icy rock and the highest peak of the Rocky Mountains, for a lover of warm sunshine and flowers; and we pleased ourselves with the idea that he was the first of his species to cross the mountain barrier, a solitary pioneer to foretell the advance of civilisation. I believe that a moment's thought would have made us let him continue his way unharmed, but we carried out the law of this country, where all animated nature seems at war; and seizing him immediately, put him in at least a fit place, in the leaves of a large book, among the flowers we had collected on our way." A. B. Philadelphia. * * * * * Minor Notes. _Tippet._--The origin of words signifying articles of dress would be a curious subject for investigation. Tippet is derived by Barclay from the Saxon _taeppet_; but I find the following passage in Captain Erskine's Journal of his recent _Cruise in the Western Pacific_, p. 36. He is writing of the dress of the women at the village of Feleasan, in the Samoan Islands: "And occasionally a garment (_tiputa_) resembling a small poncho, with a slit for the head, hanging so as decently to conceal the bosom." May we not trace here both the article and the name? W. T. M.