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THE TASMANIAN NATURAlIST.matter of individual opinion haw ftlr thename shall cover varieties, and whereanother name shall be used. Hotanistsha ve long given up the idea of immutah!lit,v, and recognise that exceptin fa voured cases 'U specific namei" only a convenient but arbitrary appellation for a poorly circumscribed group of varying forms. Biologists, in order to avoid confusion, de-cribe a particular being under a ~ e r t a i nname. That form, whether well or illchosen, becomes for all time the typebearing t.hat name, and all related formsare compared with it. The elder gumoil' ll'aSlmaniRhs ,tlhe itylpe I f o ~ m of '"Jjhl'cal-yptus gunnii" of Hooker. Any personswho endeavour tu shift this .uuk com-mit an offence against the laws of botanical nomenclature, They not only ro bthe first person of his little bit of sponsorial conceit, but raise up confusion inth e work to be done by subsequent students. Ther" has been no botanist sogreat that by his ipse dixit he could,with certainty, change a name. Von

~ f u e l l e r , great as he was, failed IJ l mostinstances where he tried it_ He triedi t in 1&30 with Hooker's "Eucalyptusgunnii," only to bear the unfortunate re-sult that to-day few Australian botanistsrefer to th e same form when they ust'the name, aud men, when they sendorder" t o . ~ u s ~ t r a l j ' , L :for seed: OIf "IE'U'0aly:p-

tUB gunnii" sometimes get what theywant, but they generally do not. Thetypical tree has a smooth, white bark;alternate, sblked, oblong, equal-sidedleaves of rather thick texture, seldom ornever pointed. Flowers are small, shortlystalked, and three together in axillaryu)llbels. 'rhe operculum varies fromshortly hemispheritl to nearly conical.'rhe fruit is small oblong to hemispheric,about two to three lines diameter, witha thin rim, and sunk capsule. EvenHooker was guilty of an error. We havea tree common on lowlands closely related to cider gum. I t has somewhatdifferent bark and leaves, more fiowersin the umbel, different fruit, all different in degree, but not essentially.Hooker described this as "Eucalyptusacervuhj, of' fSleber, which it certainlyi,s no't. 'Muelle'r, Tefcognis,ing ".le errorHooker had made tried to remedy it bymaking a worse one. He suppressed thename "acervula," and adopted the plantgO described as the type form of "eucalyptus gunnii" Hooker. I t appears assuch in his "Eucalyptographia," with a.little bit of the original form appearingas an interesting variety. The platewhich appears in this number is a photograph of a sprig of the type plant. I tis not a very good spedmen, but was th e!les't lLntilahle. The ,piece with I)J'oad.pale

' l e l l n " ~ is t 1w jlH'PlI'ile e(1'n'.lit-ion of the piant

exeursions.On :-;atmday, Odober 5, the first ex-cursion of the session was held, th e ob-ject of study being botany, and theleader 'sfI', [.. :Roaway, Iwho 'took theparty to Bellerive and thence along theRokeby-roatl. After walking about amile a large lowlying piece of groundwas met with, and here were foundmany fiourishing shrubs, and in spring i tlooks' quite gay wi,th the f,ollowingplants: -Saeckia diffusa, Aotis villo.sa,Pimelia Iinifolia, Leucopogon ericoides,Epacris impress'U, several acacias, and

many other kinds. Club moss was alsofound growing freely.

in the bird line was a large nest in aeucalypt, which was probably that of a.g08-hawk, as this bird. was seen fiying.high overhead with something in itsclaw. \Vedge-tajled eagles had a nestnear the summit of this mountain formany years, and the Stewarts, of RisdonFerry, have said they had been there for30 years. Young birds were reared forthe last time in 1J.006. The tree theybuilt ,in was an exceedingly hard one to,climb, and few, if any, ever reached thenest. The tree blew down in July orAugust of this year, and scat,tered ,thenest amongst the scrub.

A geologica:J excursion to Sandy Baywas held ori November 16, with Dr. F.~ o e t l i n g as leader. The Cliffs on theroadside were first examined, and a clearaccount of their formation was given by,the leader. CoUectors obtained fossils'pecimens of leaf impressions, e,tc., fromthe sedimentary deposits here. A visitwas also paid to One Tree Point, wherethe strata of volcanic and sedimentart

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THE TASMANIANrocks were examined, and clearly explained by Dr. Noetling. Numerousques,tions were replied to by the leader,and members expressed themselves aswell plea-sed with the information imparted. This excursion was highly succe.sfu!.

A general collecting outing was helda t South Arm on November 30 ,per motor

NATURALIST.launch. Members separated immediate

~ y o n !a-llIding, s'o'me dredge'CL !a- sma1:l la goon for ent.omnstraca.; others collectedpla.nts or insects, while a few went overto the roc'ks towards the Derwent l ight.house and found some little penguinsnesting. The lncality, however, wasnot a good collecting one, ,thoug'l thetrip proved most enjoyable.

'l96e fBandieoot.BY P. LOIC1(JWOOD, F.L.S. (X.S.W.)

.During Ill,}' ' ~ - h o r t hut vcry p r o f i : t l l i h ~ estay of 'fifteen UlO'nths in th,e Patersoniadi"tr.it:t-w,h,j('h i, situated on theScot.bllaJcwa,l, H,t the foot of :\IountArth.ur, :lnJ about I i miles frolll L::tllnces ton-l bel'i1llle in't-erest,ed in the!potl-Clhed llla-tllLUai..; fouwi in that loea-lity,{:m! lIone seemed llIor,e interesting toTIle ti.Hlll the U:lll:licoot. The 'imntlicoot!belongs to the ol'ller 1Ia[, ,upalia and thej'enns l 'erameies, of which Tasmaniapoor;eso;e,,, ,t wo ,pedes o l l l y ~ P e r a l 1 1 e : l e sohesula and Pem.nH'les guuui-but thereare >lib-out a llozen different species ranging o\"