NOTICES OF BOOKS. 127 



pensed with ; and, if we are not misinformed, the so-called Botanic 

 Garden is a mere lounge for the townspeople, attracted thither thrice 

 a week by the presence of a band of music. We had hoped for better 

 things under the present talented and enlightened Governor. 



cc Untersuchungen iiber die Milzfarne Europas ; " or " Asplenii Species 

 Hurop&ce;" by Ludwig Hitter von Heufler. (Kead before the 

 Meeting of the Zoologico-Botanical Society of Vienna; May and 

 June, 1856.) 



This is a remarkable book: it contains 120 pages, all very full of 

 matter, and all devoted to eight of the best-known plants in Europe. 

 Nevertheless the work is systematically done, and well done in its way ; 

 and, though longer by a hundred pages than we care to see or wished 

 to read, it is throughout so well arranged and furnished with such good 

 tabular analyses of the author's results, that we have no difficulty in 

 appreciating its contents and referring to them when wanted. The 

 author attempts to exhaust the literature, structure, affinities, distribu- 

 tion, habitats, localities, and history of the European species of Asple- 

 nium,, viz. A. palniatum, marinum, viride, Trichomanes, Petrarchce, Ger- 

 manicum, Adiantum-nigrum , and Ruta-muraria ; and, so far as we can 

 judge, has succeeded in his attempt perfectly well. 



Though we must confess that we should have preferred seeing much 

 of the writer's undoubted industry, knowledge, and accuracy, directed 

 into another and wider channel, there is something singularly classical 

 as well as able in the whole treatment of the subject ; and though essen- 

 tially a mass of details, the majority of which have no interest or im- 

 portance per se> these are so skilfully arranged that the simple opera- 

 tion of glancing over them gives a vast deal of information on the 

 literature of botany and Res Botanices of Europe, past and present. 

 The book begins with a quotation in Latin verse from Valerius Cordus 

 on the beatific influence of the study of Nature, and ends with two 

 verses from the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, telling us that the 

 works of Nature are beyond our comprehension, and that when we 

 have concluded our study of them we may begin again,— a course which 

 we hope Herr von Heufler will not adopt. 



In the work, the first thing that strikes us is the fact that these eight 





