224 NATURAL SCIENCE. April, 



later age ? There are, we gladly admit, writers who recognise and 

 allow for these difficulties, but the case for " Antarctica " has received 

 little support of value since Dr. Blanford's presidential address to 

 the Geological Society in 1890. 



The Distribution of Plants. 

 The foregoing criticism applies to distributionists (chorologists, 

 some of them like to be called) in general, and to botanists quite as 

 much as to zoologists. In this country, at all events, few botanists 

 seem quite to realise that plants, like nations, have a past history, 

 which must be studied by those who would understand the existing 

 geographical distribution of species. Scandinavia, however, is in 

 this respect far in advance of England, for many of her botanists 

 make a point of enquiring into the bygone distribution of each species, 

 to compare with its present limits. Norstedt & Sons, of Stockholm, 

 have just published a little book by Dr. J. Gunnar Andersson, entitled 

 '* Svenska Vaxtvarldens Historia i korthet framstalld,' which con- 

 tains 106 pages, a map, and 53 text-figures. Herein, Dr. Andersson, 

 who has himself done good original work on the fossil flora of 

 Sweden, gives a clear account of the leading points in the present 

 and former distribution of various plants, illustrating the limits of 

 certain of the species by maps. No doubt the relation of past to 

 present distribution is a far more involved question in Britain ; but 

 before long we ought to be able to put together a similar, or even 

 fuller, history of our flora. On comparing Dr. Andersson's lists of 

 fossil plants found in Sweden with those found in England, one is 

 tempted to speculate on the curious absence of certain species from 

 one or the other country. It is, of course, dangerous in the present 

 state of our knowledge to lay much stress on negative evidence ; still, 

 one cannot help noticing that some plants common in the fossil state 

 in Sweden, seem to be absent in England, and others common in 

 England are missing in Sweden. Before the period of naval enter- 

 prise the discordance probably was far greater than at present. 



Flowers and Insects. 

 Lately, we have all been interested in the wail that there are no 

 "naturalists" — except deceased. On reading Professor Plateau's 

 recent contribution to the Bulletin de I'Academie de Belgique, xxx., 

 November, 1895, " Comment les Fleurs attirent les Insectes," one can 

 almost believe that it is better not to be a naturalist — at least if one 

 has to suffer many such processes of disillusioning as this memoir 

 reveals. The Professor's experiments must be quite a shock to those 

 who have been brought up in the idea that the lovely hues of flowers 

 are due to insects, for he concludes that neither the form nor the 

 colours of the blossoms are the means of attraction. There are 

 naturalists and naturalists (we are sure Mr. Thiselton Dyer will forgive 

 us for making so outrageous a statement), and some have for long 



