i 2 6 The Scottish Naturalist. 



Alga and Fungi. Notable among these were Gray's " Natural 

 Arrangement," and Withering's "Arrangement." Since that 

 period, however, the investigation of the lower orders of plants 

 has made such progress, that most botanists are obliged to 

 limit their attention to a single group, or part of a group ; and 

 hence the necessity of such manuals as Mr. Cooke's " Hand- 

 book of British Fungi." Thirty-five years ago the Rev. J. M. 

 Berkeley published, as one of the volumes of the "English Flora," 

 descriptions of all the species of Fungi then known as British, 

 but up to the present time there has been no attempt to publish 

 another Mycological Flora of the British Isles, therefore Mr. 

 Cook ehad no easy task when he undertook the publication of 

 such a work. This involved the preparation and arrangement of 

 descriptions of nearly three thousand plants, the comparison of 

 specimens and figures, and the measurement of spores ; the 

 result is, that we have a volume of nearly iooo pages, con- 

 taining descriptions of 2810 species, and illustrated by upwards 

 of 400 woodcuts and 7 plates. 



In the arrangement of the Hymenomycetes the author has 

 followed the illustrious, and now venerable, Fries, and Mr. 

 Worthington Smith. To the latter botanist, he acknowledges 

 his indebtedness for the measurements of the spores of the 

 Agaricini, and for the drawing of many of the woodcuts. 



Mr. Cooke apologises for the absence of an introduction, and 

 for the imperfection of that part of the work relating to the dis- 

 tribution of the species. To supply the place of the former 

 he hopes some day to publish another work. With regard to 

 the indication given of the distribution of the various species 

 in Britain and elsewhere, we think something more might have 

 been done, though this is a matter of but secondary importance. 

 In many cases, too, the season of the year at which the species 

 may be found is not indicated. A mistake (in our opinion) of 

 greater importance is the adoption of subgenera — a mode of 

 division which we neither believe in nor see the advantage of. 

 If the genus Agaricus, for example, containing upwards of 45° 

 British species, is of too unwieldy dimensions, by all means let 

 it be broken up, if characters sufficiently marked to constitute 

 several genera are found : but why call these subgenera ? As 

 far as we can see, the chief result is to replace the binomial 



