NOTICES OF BOOKS. 159 



same indefatigable artist, we would venture to hint that less shading, a 

 more delicate outline, and a little more attention to symmetry, especi- 

 ally in the nervation of leaves, would improve his woodcuts very much. 

 As Professor Gray's work will no doubt pass through many editions* 

 we shall shortly allude to one or two matters that have struck us as 

 defects : thus the definitions of the two branches of botany, Physiolo- 



gical and Structural, given in the first lesson, are involved. According 

 to the plan pursued, the pupil reaches his twenty-sixth lesson before 

 he knows what a stamen is, and the twelfth before he meets with calyx 

 and corolla. In practice such a plan could not succeed. These de- 

 fects might be remedied by either of two ways : a short introductory 

 lesson might contain a summary of the principal organs and their uses, 

 which should at once be committed to memory as a preliminary ; or 

 the germinating seed might be traced up to the fully formed plant, 

 with its flower and fruit, in two or three lessons, before the morphology 

 of the root, stem, etc., were discussed. These are matters of detail, 

 easily compensated for or adjusted in practice where the teacher is 

 competent, which is however seldom the case in the schools of this 



country. 



In the description of stems, those of Endogens and Exogens are 

 loosely worded and insufficient. The direction of the woody bundles 

 in the Endogenous stem, and the fact of their forming arcs, is of more 

 importance than their being' scattered, as distinguishing them from 

 Exogens ; for some Exogens have scattered wood-bundles, and some 

 Endogens have these bundles arranged in concentric rings ; but in no 

 Endogen do the bundles run parallel throughout the stem, and in no 

 Exogen do they cross one another in arcs. 



The exorhizal and endorhizal germinations do not, as far as we have 

 observed, find any place in the body of the work, nor are these terms 

 alluded to in the Glossary. Professor Gray no doubt rightly considers 

 that the importance of these distinctions is more apparent than real ; 

 but they should be alluded to, as should the real significance of the 

 characters of root and seed, which they are intended to express. 



In the lesson upon species and kinds, certain words are assumed to 

 have a definite value which we are not familiar with : thus it is said 

 that "all the descendants from the same stock compose one species; 

 but we have no definition of stock beyond this inferential one, to which 

 many would demur. Kind, again, is used as synonymous with genus, 



>i 



