156 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
work on the same subject was proposed to him, with full descriptions 
and numerous plates, taking the ‘ Muscologia Britannica’ and its figures 
. &s the groundwork, with entire permission to make what alterations he 
thought proper, the terms were accepted ; he devoted his time and his 
talents to the work, and the ‘ Bryologia Britannica’ now before us Is 
the result. 
The many additions that have been made of late years to the native 
Mosses of Great Britain; the great changes that the genera and species 
. and arrangement, or classification, of the Mosses, have undergone, 
mainly due to the admirable ‘ Bryologia Europea’ of Messrs. Bruch 
"and Schimper, required that corresponding improvements should be 
made in a work on British Bryology, as the science is now termed. 
© While utterly disclaiming," says Mr. Wilson in his well-written in- 
troduction, “servile imitation, or indolent escape from the Jabour of 
_ sedulous examination of every point connected with the subject of this 
- Work, we have adopted the system of Bruch and Schimper, because it 
appears to be founded upon a legitimate and philosophic basis, and 
because any attempt to set up a rival system would be as presumptuous 
as it is superfluous. Entertaining harmonious views, and grateful for 
the kindly intercourse which we have so long enjoyed with our honoured 
friend Dr. W. P. Schimper, the principal and surviving author of the 
‘Bryologia Europea,’ we gladly acknowledge the excellence of that 
admirable work, wherein the principles of natural arrangement, imper- 
fectly developed in the works of Hedwig and of Bridel, are so well and 
maturely carried out and applied." 
"This is then a new era in Bryology, and here the Mosses of Great 
in and Ireland are for the first time attempted to be arranged ac- 
to their natural affinities, and the author in a few words defines 
difference between the artificial and natural classification. “ The 
artificial classification had almost exclusive reference to the structure of 
the peristome, in conjunction with the form of the calyptra. The 
natural arrangement combines into one group all those species which 
have a stronger natural resemblance of structure, in all parts, than to 
of any other group; the sum of characters, and not any single 
naracter exclusively, being taken into account.” We can hardly fancy 
one so insensible to the beauty and harmony of the latter arrange- 
it as not to feel its superiority over the former. But as far as our 
own observations go,—and Acotyledonous plants have occupied no small 
