126 REVIEWS. 



formed with credit the task they have undertaken. The result has been 

 a treatise more useful than profound, partaking less of the nature of a 

 grammar than of a dictionary. It would be false criticism, therefore, to 

 complain of the copious introduction of long quotations from various 

 writers, in the place of condensed statements of their more general con- 

 clusions. Lastly, it should be understood that original matter is by no 

 means wanting, especially in those portions of the work which treat of 

 vegetable forms. 



The number of plates has been largely increased in the present issue, 

 and most of the numerous new illustrations appear to have been selected 

 with considerable judgment. 



To the purchasers of Dr. Pritchard's book there is one word in conclu- 

 sion, which we do not wish to leave unsaid. While eminent success has 

 attended English naturalists in their investigation of the lower forms of 

 vegetable life, they have almost wholly abandoned to their Continental 

 brethren the widely extended field of research which the great group of 

 animal Infusoria so accessibly affords. Cordially congratulating our 

 French and German fellow- workmen on the rich contributions made by 

 them to this last department of inquiry, we feel, nevertheless, that many 

 more observers are yet wanting to complete what has been already so 

 happily begun. The Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science has 

 just entered on a new series. We heartily wish it success, and hope of- 

 ten to find throughout its pages ample records of future British disco- 

 veries in the structure and life-history of the true Infusoria. 



XIV. — Primitl^: Floile Amueensis. By C. J. Maximowicz, Traveller 

 to the Imperial Botanical Garden of St. Petersburgh. 4to. (Sepa- 

 rately printed from the ninth volume of the " l^emoires presentes a 

 l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg par divers 

 Savans.") 



In our last Number we adverted to the prompt liberality of the Russian 

 Government in the publication of the results of their scientific expedi- 

 tions, as exemplified in the accounts of their explorations of their newly 

 acquired Amurland, of which we then reviewed the zoological portion. 

 No less activity was displayed in the botanical department. The col- 

 lectors returned to St. Petersburgh in the spring of 1857 ; and by the 

 end of 1859, very full sets of their specimens were deposited in several 

 of the principal national herbaria of Europe, including those of Paris and 

 Kew; and early in 1860, all that could be known on the botany of the 

 country was published in the shape of the large quarto of 500 pages now 

 before us, accompanied by ten plates and a map, the whole issued at a 

 price (about 16s. 6c?.), which places it within reach of the working- 

 botanist. And this is not, as is but too frequently the case after similar 

 expeditions, a hasty catalogue of the plants gathered by the collector 



