1896 SOME NEW BOOKS. 417 



which it treats, and is more free from mistakes than many popular 

 works on natural history. The full-page plates of British Birds, one 

 of which the courtesyof the publishers enables us toinclude(PlateVII.), 

 are well executed, and will enhance the merit of the work in the eyes 

 of holiday-makers, for whose consumption upon the beach this effort 

 seems to have been chiefly intended. 



Fossilised Botany. 



Catalogue of the Mesozoic Plants in the Department of Geology, British 

 Museum (Natural History). The Wealden Flora. Part II. Gymnospermae. 

 By A. C. Seward, M.A., F.G.S. 8vo. Pp. viii., 259, g woodcuts and 20 plates. 

 London, 1895. Price 15s. 



In the first part of the Catalogue Mr. Seward described the Algae, 

 Characeae, Equisetineae, and Filicineae of the Wealden, and, as no 

 Angiospermae have been discovered, part ii., including the Cycadeae 

 and Coniferae, concludes the work. 



In reviewing the book it is important to understand clearly what 

 should be our point of view. Certainly not that of systematic botany. 

 The catalogue is an admirable illustration of the present position of 

 palaeobotany, and its unhappy separation from the study of recent 

 plants. Its author has, we doubt not, often regretted the many 

 stairs which have to be traversed in passing to and fro between the 

 great herbarium and the Geological Gallery at Cromwell Road. 

 And, lest we should seem to depreciate its value, let us say at once 

 that careful, thorough, and critical enumerations like the present will 

 go a long way towards uniting the two branches of study, by 

 demonstrating the unsatisfactory character of the present method, 

 and, secondly, by affording material for a more comprehensive 

 survey. 



The author is not to blame for the faulty method, and his work 

 must be criticised as an account of the gymnosperms of the Wealden 

 flora. As such it is eminently useful. Every specimen is described 

 in detail, while the numerous excellent plates are an additional help. 

 Each family and genus is introduced by a valuable account of its 

 occurrence and the literature relating thereto, with numerous critical 

 remarks and often useful hints and warnings gleaned from a study of 

 allied present-day forms. It is, however, hard to reconcile some of 

 the author's scientific remarks apropos of the great variations known 

 to occur in some genera of Coniferae, and the consequent danger of 

 describing new species on unsatisfactory material, with his foundation 

 of a new genus Becklesia (p. 179) on specimens which are "too 

 imperfect to admit of any satisfactory generic or specific diagnosis." 

 The more so as there are already two names in existence for 

 specimens which " present a more or less close resemblance to 

 Becklesia anomala." And why honour with a new binomial (Pinites 

 Ruffordi sp. nov.) " a specimen of coniferous wood with the minute 

 structure clearly preserved, and showing the characters of the genus 

 Pinites " ? Why not " Wood of Pinites sp. " ? There are several 

 species of the genus in the same beds, and it seems probable that the 

 wood belonged to one of them. What is gained by giving it a new 

 specific name which is nothing more than a specimen label ? The 

 practice is, moreover, misleading, for it implies that there are a larger 

 number of species of the genus in question in the given horizon than 

 we have any evidence of. 



As Mr. Carruthers has already pointed out in the Journal of 

 Botany (May), Mr. Seward's neglect of principles generally recognised 

 in botanical nomenclature is matter for regret. The specimens 



