- 90 
is of greatest importance to any student of microscopy. The di- 
rections for free-hand cutting will prove valuable for such as 
have not had the advantage of good instructors, 
Second, that in the directions for preparing and preserving 
material, the author has given a judicious selection of the best 
methods and solutions, omitting a great mass of formule and 
recipes, which only confuse the beginner. Such methods, for- 
mulz, and solutions as have been given, have all been tried by 
the author and found to work well. 
The book would make a valuable manual for our young 
students of botany were it translated just as it stands. It 
would give them in the hand the most recent methods for the 
manipulation of microscopic objects ; which knowledge now must 
be picked up wherever it can be found. 
. W. P. WILSON. 
Biographical Index to British and Irish Botanists. James Brit- 
ten and G. S. Boulger. (Journ. Bot. 1888-1890). 
This very useful index, published in the numbers of the 
Journal for the last three years, is now about completed. It con- 
sists of a list of all persons residing in the British Islands who 
have been at all prominent in thescience, including collectors and 
patrons of Botany. The date and place of birth and death, the 
place of burial, chief titles, dates of election to the Linnzan or 
Royal Societies, with references to sources for further informa- 
tion, as the following sample will indicate. 
SHUTTLEWORTH, ROBERT JAMES (1810-1874): b. Dawlish, 
Devon, Feb. 1810; d. Hyéres, 19th April, 1874. Captain, 
ist Regiment, Duke of Lancaster’s Own, 1833. F.L.S., 1856. 
Orig. memb. B.S.Ed. Conchologist and critical botanist. 
Resided many years at Berne. ‘Excursion in the Valais,’ 
Mag. Zool. Bot. 1838. Had large herbarium, now in Herb. 
Brit. Mus. (see Journ. Bot. 1878, 179). Jacks. 158; R.S.C. 
v. 681; Trans. Bot. Soc. Ed. xii. 203; Bull. Soc. Bot. France, 
xxx. cxxxi.; Whittle, Hist. Preston, ii. 235 ; Journ. de Conch. 
xxii. 92. Shuttleworthia Meisn.=Verbena., 
The authors now propose to issue the work as a reprint, and 
ask for subscriptions at four shillings per copy, bound in cloth, the 
