igoa] A New Popular Field Book. 20 r 



Committee to receive such evidence and to report on any cases 

 which may be thus brought before it. All persons who are able to 

 send details and information concerning cases of depredation upon 

 our plants, are earnestly requested to communicate with the Chair- 

 man of this Committee, Nathaniel T. Kidder, 610 Sears Building, 

 Boston, Mass. 



A New Popular Field Book. 1 — The past summer has given 

 those who wander afield in search of flowers an opportunity to test 

 the helpfulness of a little pocket field-book by Mr. F. Schuyler 

 Mathews. Written from the point of view of a lover of nature, and of 

 an artist who keenly appreciates the beauty and individuality of 

 every plant he treats, it offers itself as a charmingly companionable 

 guide to a first acquaintance, with our wild plants. To a first 

 acquaintance, we say, for, although a botanist of experience will 

 find here and there a suggestion that may be new and a lesson or 

 two in the accurate naming of colors, he will be less inclined to use 

 the book himself than to wish it well and to recommend it to friends 

 less well informed. Yet it is perhaps well to remember that 

 thorough botanists are few in comparison with the increasing host of 

 intelligent observers who are looking for accurate information, not 

 too dimdult of acquirement, in regard to our wild flowers. To this 

 large class of summer enthusiasts, amateur collectors, and even to 

 the serious student who is beginning to make a herbarium, Mr. 

 Mathews's book will be very welcome. 



In size, the book is made to conform to the requirement that it 

 "must fit the narrow limits of our pocket at all hazards." In saying 

 this the author is perhaps forgetting that most of the users of his 

 book may be so unfortunate as not to have a pocket for any book at 

 all. But it will certainly go into a Boston bag or other substitute for 

 the masculine receptacle. The make-up of the book is well suited to 

 the field use for which it is intended. Every right hand page bears 

 a clear-cut drawing in black and white of a species, often of two or 

 three, described in the opposite text. In the margins of the text, the 



1 Field Book of American Wild Flowers — being a Description of their Charac- 

 ter and Habits, a Concise Definition of their Colors, and Incidental References 

 to the Insects which Assist in their Fertilization. By F. Schuyler Mathews, 

 G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902. 



