1 899] E VOL UTION OF FR UITS 403 



EVOLUTION OF FRUITS. 



Sketch of the Evolution of our Native Fruits. By L. H. Bailey. 8vo, 

 pp. xvi. + 472, with 125 figures. New York: The Macmillan Co., 

 1898. Price 7s. 6d. 



From Professor Bailey always something new ! and moreover refreshing in its 

 novelty, and put before us in so bright and interesting a manner that even the 

 account of the origin of the numerous varieties and forms of cultivated fruits 

 becomes a story fraught with interest and often with romance. With the 

 history of the evolution of the fruits which are familiar to every citizen of the 

 United States, the author has interwoven the life-story of the workers to whom 

 is due the vastly improved condition of the fruit of the market as compared 

 with its ancestor of the woods. And a great nation is much indebted to 

 Professor Bailey for bringing into prominence, often at the expense of con- 

 siderable work and trouble, the facts of the life of those who have rendered 

 invaluable services in fields which are but little appreciated. His book is 

 moreover a striking controversion of the argument that with so many good 

 fruits and vegetables, the outcome of centuries of cultivation, it is waste of 

 time for man to make new beginnings on the endemic products of a new 

 continent. The story of the attempt to grow the Old World vine on New 

 World soil is pathetic in its unbroken series of futile efforts, ruined prospects, 

 and sometimes hearts broken by a succession of disappointments. But the 

 story of the evolution of new kinds, in many ways superior to the European 

 stocks, from the native American species, should be an inspiration to agricul- 

 turists working in a new country. While appealing more directly to our Trans- 

 atlantic brothers, the book has a wide general interest, and in particular we 

 would heartily recommend it to the botanist as a pleasant change from the 

 more severe literature of his subject. A. B. R. 



ZOOLOGICAL RESULTS. 



Zoological Results. Based on material from New Britain, New Guinea, 

 Loyalty Islands, and elsewhere, collected during the Years 1895, 

 1896 and 1897, by Arthur Willey, D.Sc. Lond., Hon. M.A. 

 Cantab. Part II. 4to, pp. 121-206, plates xii.-xxiii. Cambridge 

 University Press, 1899. Price 12s. 6d. 



The contributors to this part of Dr. Willey's "Results" are for the most 

 part well-known authorities on the subjects on which they report. Of the 

 eleven excellent plates illustrating the 74 pp. of text, we have besides litho- 

 graphs, of which one is coloured, both photographs and photogravures, in each 

 case probably as well as they could be done. This juxtaposition of the two 

 last-named processes is of no small interest. The decision as to which method is 

 preferable will of course depend upon the point of view, but the working 

 zoologist can hardly fail to decide for the photographs, which will stand examina- 

 tion with a pocket-lens. 



Confining ourselves to matters of general interest, we would call special 

 attention to the first paper. It is by Prof. Hickson, and in it he shows us how to 

 classify the Milleporae without the use of that indefinable word species. The 

 various growth-forms are termed "facies." Instead of species " complanata" 

 it is facies " complanata" and so on. This seems to assume some stability in 

 the different forms, and that there are some laws of growth, both general and 

 special, which when they can have free play result in definite recognisable 

 shapes. If so, it is open to doubt whether the mere change of words is of 

 sufficient importance to warrant its adoption. Apart from this criticism the 

 paper itself suggests the question whether systematists generally might not 



