276 NATURAL SCIENCE. April, 



vol. xxxi.) amount to nearly i,ooo pages, imperial octavo. For 

 some time before his death Professor Gray, continuing this work, 

 was engaged in monographing the earlier Polypetalous Orders. 

 After the death of Professor Gray the preparation of the Synoptical 

 Flora was carried on by Dr. Sereno Watson, Curator of the Gray 

 Herbarium of Harvard University, and, after his death in 1892, by 

 his successor. Dr. B. L. Robinson. Following the original plan of 

 the Flora, the treatment of the Polypetalous Orders will form, when 

 completed, vol. i., part i." 



Such is the history of the work of which the first fascicle has lately 

 been issued. This includes the orders of the group Polypetalae from 

 Ranunculaceae to the Frankeniaciae. A second fascicle is, we are told, 

 in advanced preparation ; this will continue the group as far as 

 Polygalaceae. The time which has elapsed since the commencement 

 of the work has necessitated many additions to and some revision of 

 the manuscript of Drs. Gray and Watson. Such alterations have 

 been indicated in the text by an asterisk — rather an unnecessary 

 proceeding, as it adds another to the already sufficiently large number 

 of signs and abbreviations. The mark of many meanings (!) occurs 

 in some of the diagnoses, but there is no indication as to which 

 meaning is here intended. The work has been carefully done and its 

 appearance will be welcomed by all interested in American botany ; 

 also by the neo-nomenclaturists as affording a new subject for their 

 criticism, since Dr. Robinson has not always seen fit to follow their 

 rules for the time being. 



Another Attack on Darwinism. 



Nature versus Natural Selection. By Charles Clement Coe. Pp. xx., 591. 

 London : Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1895. Price los. 6d. 



These six hundred pages are agreeably lightened by quotations from 

 lay authors, such as Tennyson, Shakespeare, Canon Kingsley, George 

 Eliot, Goldsmith, St. Paul, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and we are 

 bound to confess that this happy knack of the author made it easier for 

 us to wade through his barren argument. But we are not in a position 

 to recommend those who are not reviewers to tackle the volume. In 

 a question of theology, or of metaphysic, a gentleman may sit in his 

 library and turn out laborious treatises full of sound scholarship and 

 ripe learning. The interpretation of a clause, or a new light on a 

 subjunctive mood may be elaborated in a study, and, thrown into the 

 world, may prove a wall of separation between nations. But the 

 arguments upon which natural selection depend are of another order. 

 The most studious poring over what others have written, the widest 

 collation, and the most ingenious quotation avail you nothing. You 

 must be a naturalist of the laboratory or of the field even to follow 

 the arguments, which, indeed, are frequently doubtfully expressed in 

 the books. Above all, you must be a naturalist, submitting new facts 

 from the natural world, or new sides of old facts, to gain a hearing. 

 Mr. Coe, we fear, has not grasped the nature of the problems he is 

 dealing with. Naturalists who come across his book will see that he 

 has nothing but words to offer them, and will pass by to some 

 wretched little pamphlet, describing a new nodule on the shell of a 

 snail, or some exact statistics as to the breeding of a louse. 



New Serials. 



We have received the first part of the Oynithologist, a monthly 

 magazine of ornithology and oology, edited by H. K. Swann, with the 



