222 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



the object of the author being especially to guard the student against 



nalogy 



Much 



curious matter on the subject of life, irritability, powers of selection and 

 rejection displayed by animals and vegetables, Cryptogamic and Phse- 

 nogamic, are profusely introduced. The uses and abuses of Fungi, etc., 

 as articles of food or luxury, are fully detailed ; remedies for diseases 

 of plants are given ; monsters, anomalies, paradoxes, curious instances 



of deceptive appearances, and their results on the progress of science 

 are all noticed, and cautions to young microscopists deduced from the 

 effects of hasty observations. The general remarks upon Ferns will 

 have a wide-spread interest now that these beautiful plants are as 

 commonly cared for as coins, seals, and shells are and have been for 

 many years past. But to give any idea of the mass of matter or 

 extent of original observation displayed in Mr. Berkeley's book is 

 wholly beyond our power : in our opinion it exhibits a wider and more 

 varied range of personal observation than any botanical work of the 

 present century, and its general excellence is quite in keeping with its 

 merit in this respect. 



The work is well but not profusely illustrated with woodcuts, and it 

 is no little addition to Mr. Berkeley's accomplishments that these have 

 all been drawn on wood by himself, and are, almost without exception, 

 from original dissections; though neither so numerous nor so well- 

 executed as the book deserves, they are all useful and accurate. In 

 these days of exquisite wood-engraving, they will disappoint many ; 

 but for our own part we prefer these honest pictures of the mutilated 

 structures that the microscope presents, to the beautiful lace-like tissues 

 and mathematically-drawn cells, tubes, and networks, which we often 

 see projected over many square inches of paper,— claiming for the sub- 

 ject, dissector, and artist a degree of accuracy, beauty, and skill, to 

 which the artist alone has any just claim in reality. 



The defects of Mr. Berkeley's work chiefly be in the details of exe- 

 cution, and, in some degree, in the arrangement j the general matter 

 reads too much like a diffuse discourse upon certain matters connected 

 with the study of Cryptogamic Botany; and the different branches of the 

 subjects are not so well arranged or skilfully subordinated as they might 

 have been ; this leads to some confusion and repetition, always however 

 of important matter which we do not grudge to read again. The au- 

 thor is further apt to forget that he has no reader in England who is 

 his equal in knowledge of his subject ; comparisons of great truth, and 



