36 The Irish Naturalist. February. 
REVIEW. 
BRITISH AND IRISH LICHENS, 
A Hand List of the Lichens of Great Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands. 
By A. R. HoRvvooD. London : Dulau & Co. Price is. net. Pp. 45. 
We do not think British Lichenologists will receive this Hand List of 
Mr Horwood's with much enthusiasm. The present seems a particularly 
inopportune moment in which to produce it. A bare list which is in- 
tended for reference in field-work and for use in the herbarium should 
almost of necessity be founded on some accessible standard work where 
the species listed are described, and where the synonymy is given. In 
the present instance the only modern British work of the kind is the 
" Monograph of the British Lichens in the Herbarium of the British 
Museum." But this work is in a transition stage. The second volume 
has only been published a short time ago, and the second edition of vol. 
i. of which the first edition appeared in 1894 is in course of re-arrangement, 
and may be expected in a year or so. So under these circumstances we 
think Mr. Horwood would have been wiser to have postponed the com- 
pilation of his list until the complete work was available. 
As it is he has followed closely the arrangement and nomenclature 
of Vol. II. Indeed he tells us in the introduction that it would have 
been "a work of supererogation" to have made any alterations in it, 
but into the arrangement and nomenclature of Vol. I. he has introduced 
many changes and innovations. It would be impossible in a short 
notice like this to criticise these alterations in detail ; we can only say that 
many of them seem to us unjustifiable. Moreover, we do not consider 
that a Hand-List of this description — a mere list of species — where no 
explanation or reason can be given for the changes, is the place in which 
important alterations in nomenclature and classification should be made, 
and certainly not without correlating the new arrangement with the old. 
The inaccuracies of the volume are not confined to matters of a tech- 
nical character. For instance, we notice that Mr. Horwood has included 
Massalongo and Schneider amongst the European writers on Lichens 
of the last twenty years. But Massalongo died in i860, and Schneider 
is an American. 
M. C. K. 
IRISH SOCIETIES. 
ROYAL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
Recent gifts include a Long-eared Owl from Mr. W. Moore Lawrenson, 
a Rainbow Trout from Mr. F. C. Kenning, and 15,000 eggs of Brown and 
Rainbow Trout from the Irish Fisheries Office. A Cow-bird has been 
received on deposit, and two Black-faced Spider Monkeys and a pair of 
Marmosets have been purchased. 
