REVIEWS 349 



habits of Hippobosca equina and Melophagus ovinus (figs. 153 and 155 respectively) 

 are both peculiar and incorrect. With each species the larva matures within 

 the body of the female and is deposited as such, although the subsequent trans- 

 formation to the pupal stage or puparium is very rapid. The author, apparently, 

 would have us believe that the puparium itself is deposited, and further that, in 

 the case of the sheep ked, the length of the larval period within the female is so 

 short as to be almost negligible. 



To the novice this work cannot fail to be of great assistance. Perhaps all too 

 frequently it has happened that, owing to the difficulty of obtaining an elementary 

 and inexpensive treatise on the subject, the dipterological aspirations of a beginner 

 suffer materially — even though not entirely repressed. This little volume will 

 help considerably to overcome that difficulty, and thus may direct more general 

 attention to a most interesting and important order of insects. 



H. F. C. 



BOTANY 



A History of Botany in the United Kingdom from the Earliest Times to 

 the End of the Nineteenth Century. By J. Reynolds Green, Sc.D., 

 F.R.S. [Pp. xii + 648, with 2 illustrations.] (London : J. M. Dent & Sons, 

 Ltd., 1914. Price \os, 6d. net.) 

 The author of this volume had, in addition to winning a distinguished place 

 among plant physiologists by his work on vegetable enzymes, made for himself 

 an enviable reputation as teacher, text-book writer, and, above all, as a brilliant 

 historiographer of botany — indeed, it is not too much to say that in the last-named 

 capacity his work stands supreme. His research work broke fresh ground in 

 several respects, as might have been expected from the fact that he approached 

 the study of plant physiology after having been trained in animal physiology and 

 having acted as assistant to the late Sir Michael Foster. His text-book of botany, 

 which has unfortunately been allowed to get out of date, if not out of print, is, in 

 the present writer's opinion, by far the best that has been published in this country, 

 and if revised and brought down to date would easily oust the German volume, 

 which in an English translation holds the field at present simply because of the 

 lack of enterprise shown by English publishers. The only reason why college 

 students of botany have to use a thoroughly unsatisfactory text-book is, apparently, 

 that paying a fee for the use of illustration blocks comes cheaper than having 

 original ones made. Dr. Reynolds Green's History of Botany from i860 to 1900, 

 published a few years ago, is so extraordinarily good that we have never been able 

 to see why it should have been necessary to restrict its scope and make it a mere 

 "continuation of Sachs' History of Botany, 1380-1860" (to quote the sub-title). 

 It is regrettable that Reynolds Green was not allowed to write a complete history 

 of botany to replace, not merely to supplement, a previous work which, though 

 admittedly good in parts, is marred by almost every fault from which an historical 

 monograph should be free. 



In the present volume, published after the lamented death of the author and 

 prepared finally for the press by the pious and loving care of his friend and 

 colleague Prof. Harvey Gibson, we have Reynolds Green at his best as an historian 

 for here he had a free hand and a relatively limited though still wide enough 

 scope. Botanists in this country have been in the past too much inclined to over- 

 rate the importance and value of botanical work done everywhere else under the 

 sun. A humble frame of mind is in some respects a good one for the worker in 

 science, and certainly a good deal of what is passed for publication by perfunctory 



23 



