1899] PHYLOGENY OF PLANTS 473 



PHYLOGENY OF PLANTS. 



Lectures on the Evolution of Plants. By Douglas H. Campbell, Ph.D. 

 8vo, pp. viii. + 319, 60 figs. London and New York: Macmillan and 

 Company, 1899. Price 4s. 6d. net. 



It is difficult to refrain from effusiveness in welcoming this book. Prof. 

 Campbell has accomplished the feat of writing a botanical book which may be 

 read right through by the merest zoologist or cultivated reader, and this with 

 profit. His account of the vestiges of the evolution of plants — rather than of 

 the evolution of plants — is admirable from all points of view. It would be 

 absurd, of course, to claim that his opinions, or anybody's opinions, would 

 receive a general assent, but the reader who wishes to get a general idea of what 

 botanists think at the present day of the line of descent and succession of forms 

 could not do better than read these lectures. He will perhaps unconsciously 

 absorb a deal of good botany at the same time. As for Prof. Campbell's views 

 one may summarise them in a few words. He thinks it "not unlikely that the 

 separation of the two great branches of organisms, plants and animals, took 

 place among the Flagellata." He regards the ciliated Volvocineae as primitive 

 forms from the very frequent reversion to this condition exhibited by higher 

 plants in their reproductive cells. The Chlorophyceae may be assumed to have 

 given rise to the Bryophytes — the Phaeophyceae and possibly even the red Algae 

 constituting an independent developmental line. The Archegoniate plants in 

 general find their ancestors in the Hepaticae. Of the seed plants the Gymno- 

 sperms are obviously the lowest types, though it is not likely that they constitute 

 a homogeneous class. " It is much more probable that they represent the 

 remnants of two, and possibly more, quite distinct developmental lines. The 

 cycads show close affinity with the true ferns, while the conifers recall more 

 strongly the Lycopods." 



There are few books of general botanical interest better worth reading than 

 Prof. Campbell's excellent " Lectures." ' G. M. 



MILK. 



Milk : Its Nature and Composition. A Handbook on the Chemistry and Bac- 

 teriology of Milk, Butter, and Cheese. By C. M. Airman, M.A., B.Sc. 

 2nd Edition. Crown 8vo, pp. xx. + 180, illustrated. London: A. and 

 C. Black, 1899. Price 3s. 6d. 



The author's preface tells us that the aim of the volume is to give a short 

 popular statement of the more important facts of the chemistry and bacteriology 

 of milk. The book is essentially one made from books, and contains much 

 useful information of a sketchy kind about milk, its various products and 

 composition. Unfortunately, one finds that much of the information inserted 

 in the chapters on bacteriology, which occupy 50 pages of the 174, has not been 

 weighed by a competent authority. For example, it is indicated that tuber- 

 culosis is largely spread to human beings by milk. One also finds ridiculous 

 statements such as, that Prof. M'Fadyean says " that one calf in every four is 

 born tuberculous," that diphtheria and scarlet fever are transmitted directly from 

 the cow to man, that the microbe of diphtheria has not been isolated, and that 

 of all media milk is the best for growing microbes. These and other serious 

 errors might easily have been avoided by exercising a little more care in com- 

 pilation. S. 



