Bibliographical Notice. 59 



who in other classes of plants, and in the animal kingdom, shall in due 

 time follow in the track so ably marked out by Mr. Watson, and thus 

 at length give us a complete system of the distribution of the exist- 

 ing fauna and flora of Britain. Not that it is desirable to attempt 

 rash generalizations upon the range of any species within Great 

 Britain ; but we think an English naturalist will have done his duty, 

 and have done it well, when he has arranged, in a manner so ready 

 for reference, as many valuable details as those given in the ' Cybele 

 Britannica.' 



A first step has already been taken towards tracing the range of 

 some of our Insects (Butterflies and Sphingina) through the same 

 eighteen districts as the Flowering Plants ; and we hope the system 

 of the * Cybele ' will soon become generally adopted by English 

 Faunists. Too much care cannot be exercised in strictly conforming 

 to the rules laid down by Mr. Watson ; and, as was said before, the 

 mention of the authorities in each case will be a most desirable addi- 

 tion. It is hardly to be hoped that a similar exactness or fulness 

 of detail is to be obtained at once in the various classes ; but if even 

 the horizontal range be carefully traced, it will be a great gain to the 

 philosophic naturalist. We could wish, for instance, that the accom- 

 plished author of the 'British Quadrupeds' would, in his second 

 edition, devote two or three pages to a sketch of Mammal distribu- 

 tion, as this would afford an opportunity of comparing more strictly 

 the respective range of the so-called "faunas" and "floras" of 

 Edward Forbes, in part founded upon the "types" of Mr. Watson. 



On this subject our author remarks (pp. 8 and 506 of vol. iv.) that, 

 although prepared to admit the possible soundness of Forbes' s idea 

 of a difference in age between the alpine and lowland floras, he does 

 not see the necessity of granting that there is any real distinctness 

 between the other "types." The plants are collected into groups 

 only because they present a close resemblance in the direction of 

 their increase and decrease ; and if this be suggestive of a migration, 

 it by no means equally indicates a difference of age and origin be- 

 tween the groups. It is often so difficult to assign a plant to any 

 one type, that Mr. Watson has been compelled to have recourse to a 

 double system of letters to indicate the species whose distribution is 

 of this intermediate or uncertain character. Moreover, considerable 

 changes have been made, since the appearance of the earlier volumes, 

 by removing species from one " type " to another. Thus the " At- 

 lantic" has 9 added, and 18 removed, chiefly to the " English " type. 

 The proportions and constituents of the " Germanic " are still more 

 altered, no less than 43 species being added, and about 30 taken 

 away. The totals at present remain — 127 for the "Germanic" 

 against 69 for the "Atlantic," which thus becomes hardly more 

 than one-half as large as the former, instead of about equal, as esti- 

 mated in 1847. Mr. Watson also urges that the "types" are, after 

 all, little more than " climatal arrangements," determined by actual 

 physical conditions : besides, it is well observed that it is easy to 

 divide into as many groups the flora of any country, yet the geolo- 

 gical history of each is utterly different. Such are some of the 



