258 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



able from one of the papers how a scientific subject can be handled 

 to make it both attractive and interesting. 



The volume is handsomely got up, and is extremely well printed 

 and illustrated. It has been carefully edited and printed, and few 

 if any inaccuracies occur. Botanists may find fault in some places 

 with the nomenclature. On page 2 the generic name Sarothamnus 

 is preferred to Cytisus, and on page 67 Caucalis to Torilis. On 

 pages 63 and 77 the lesser club-moss is placed under the genus 

 Selaginella, where it ought properly to be ; but before doing so it 

 would be advisable to alter its specific name, now no longer intelli- 

 gible under this genus. A few more such trivial discrepancies occur, 

 and will occur in such publications until some uniform system of 

 botanical nomenclature is introduced and adopted by phytologists. 



All the papers are well worthy of being put on record, and we 

 congratulate the society on its advent, and trust that other and 

 equally useful volumes may appear in due course. 



DR. JOHNSTON'S LETTERS. Selections from the Correspondence 

 of Dr. George Johnston . . . collected and arranged by his 

 daughter, Mrs. Barwell- Carter. Edited by James Hardy, LL.D. 

 Hon. Secretary to the Berwickshire Naturalist's Club. (David 

 Douglas, Edinburgh, 1892.) 



A remarkable phenomenon in history is the extraordinary 

 influence exercised on intellectual progress by "borderers," that is, 

 people of mixed race, combining the strong rather than the weak 

 points of the two races which mingle at their point of contact. To 

 naturalists, and especially those whose work in the field is furthered 

 by the active existence of field clubs and out-of-door societies for the 

 investigation of natural phenomena, the name of George Johnston 

 carries with it special veneration as that of the man from whose 

 vigorous brain and bright interest emanated the idea that led to the 

 successful establishment, and no less successful prolonged career of 

 the first, and in many respects still one of the best organisations of 

 its kind. Dr. Johnston was pre-eminently a Borderer, a native of 

 Berwick, that bit of English land which lies on the Scottish side of 

 the Tweed ; and his memory is cherished with equal pride by Scot 

 and by Southron. 



The volume before us is remarkably interesting, and gives us an 

 excellent notion as to the kind of man Johnston was. No one can 

 rise from its perusal without an added feeling of regard for the man 

 and his versatile, many-sided nature, the genial character which 

 made for him such hosts of friends, the scientific acumen that 

 enabled him to enrich natural history with a series of works that 

 were really required. The volume, however, does not merely reveal 

 Dr. Johnston himself, but also many of his contemporaries ; and while 

 the English will take pride in the names of Alder and Selby, the 

 Scot will evince no less interest in those of Landsborough and 



