256 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 



review during tlie past few months, of varied worth, 

 a notice of which may be deemed acceptable. The 

 first on our list is the " Handbook of Hardy 

 Trees, Shrubs, and Herbaceous Plants," by 

 W. B. Hemsley, formerly an assistant at the Her- 

 barium of the Kew Gardens. This is a copious 

 volume, of upwards of six hundred pages, illustrated 

 by nearly three hundred first-class woodcuts, many 

 of them by Riocreux and Leblanc. The text is 

 based on the well-known French work of Decaisne 

 and Naudin. It deals with the descriptions, native 

 countries, &c., of a selection of the best species of 

 hardy plants in cultivation, together with their 

 cultural details, comparative hardiness, and suit- 



y^ 



Fig. 169. Clarkia pulchella, J nat. size, North-west America. 



ability for different situations. This work is simply 

 and plainly written, without being popularly dis- 

 cursive ; and the author has evidently felt that his 

 work was too large for him to indulge in anything but 

 a serious and earnest treatment of it. The greatest 

 prominence is given to descriptive garden botanyj 

 a department that has been, without doubt, much 

 behind others. Although Mr. Hemsley has evi- 

 dently made a free use of the original French work, 

 that fact does not detract from the genuine origin- 

 ality of the present work, as regards his treatment 

 of it. It bears the marks of being thoroughly 

 understood and delighted in by its writer, and we 

 need hardly say that to the horticulturist, whether 

 practical or amateur, it is an invaluable manual- 

 To the English botau'st, familiar with the appear- 

 ances of our numerous garden plants, to many of 

 which there is attached an almost historical interest, 

 this book will be very acceptable. And, as a general 



work of reference on all the subjects it professes 

 to teach, we believe there is none like it in the 

 English language. 



Whatever Mr. Prank Buckland has to say about 

 fishes (and, for the matter of that, about anything 

 else that lives in the water) is sure to be listened to. 

 He talks like a man to whom the fishes are old 

 friends, and who make known to him the secrets of 

 their habits even more intimately than they did to 

 Charles Kingsley's " Water Babies ! " Hence a 

 Familiar History of British Pishes from his pen, in 

 spite of Yarrell's more expensive work, cannot fail 

 to be acceptable to those whose pockets are not so 

 extensive as their desires. In truth, this little 

 volume is charmingly and naively written, and the 

 numerous illustrations are of a tolerably effective 

 character. A good deal of new matter from Land 

 and Water is worked up, as well as recent observa- 

 tions in the Brighton Aquarium ; so tliat the reader 

 will be put in possession of the newest facts relating 

 to tlie natural history of fishes. 



Mr. B. T. Lowne's essay on the " Philosophy of 

 Evolution" is one of the two which carried off the 

 Actonian prize. Although unassuming in its cha- 

 racter, it gives the reader a fair and just summary 

 of what the scientific doctrine of Evolution means. 

 The advance which this doctrine has made among 

 the best naturalists in all countries, and the un- 

 doubted light it has thrown on many " hidden 

 secrets," make it imperative on all professing to 

 have an intelligent knowledge of natural history to 

 know something about it. We need not say that 

 Mr. Lowne does not profess to exhaust the subject. 

 Within the short limits of an essay many of the most 

 important points can only be glanced at, which the 

 student will find worked out in detail in Mr. C. 

 Darwin's more voluminous works. Many of 

 Mr. Lowne's views are, notwithstanding, original, 

 and will be received as welcome contributions to 

 Evolution. The latter doctrine is treated from a 

 physiological, as well as from a natural-history 

 point of view ; and the plates at the end of the 

 essay help the student very considerably to anato- 

 mical and other details of structure. The aim of 

 the e.'^say is to prove, further, that the doctrine of 

 Evolution, instead of being atheistic and irreverent, 

 as some ignorantly suppose and still more igno- 

 rantly proclaim, gives a higher and nobler conception 

 of the Creator's works, and of the wise plan on 

 which the scheme of animal and vegetable life has 

 been based. We congratulate Mr. Lowne on his 

 well-written and most readable essay. 



We hardly know what to make of the next book 

 on our list. We have been amused by many smart 

 sayings it contains, and pained by others attempting 

 to be smart, but which have not got beyond being 

 flippant. It professes to give a popular and 

 " funny" description of the earth's biography, from 

 an ultra-evolutionist view; but if it had been a 



