1893- NOTES AND COMMENTS. ii 



nationale des Sciences naturelles et mathematiques de Chevbouyg (vol. xxvaii., 

 1892). These Algae were collected so long ago as 1815 29 by Peter 

 Schousboe, Danish Consul at Morocco, and a part of them were 

 bought by the King of Denmark, who placed them in the Botanic 

 Garden of Copenhagen. The rest, together with a herbarium of 

 Phanerogams, came into the hands of M. E. Cosson, and the late M. 

 Thuret undertook and began the working out of the Algae. He 

 did not live to complete his labour, but sets were distributed 

 by M. Kralik, under the name of Alga Schoushceanae, and the 

 British Museum possesses a very excellent one. M. Bornet has 

 set to work on the complete series in Herb. Thuret, and the result is 

 the admirable treatise just issued. The numerous phycologists who 

 have found trouble in dealing with the AlgcB Schoushceanae will be able 

 to appreciate this authoritative publication, and especially the 

 valuable critical notes on the species, as excellent and useful as any 

 systematic work yet done by the great French botanist. A good 

 deal of it will have particular interest to those who study seriously 

 the distribution of our Channel Algae. 



Mr. James Ellis Humphrey, at present attached to the Agri- 

 cultural Station at Amherst, Mass., is about to visit Jamaica for the 

 purpose of working specially at the Algae of that island. He intends 

 to pay attention to the development of the multinucleate forms and 

 in so rich a field is sure to meet with rewards. 



Recent Progress in the Study of Fungi. 



Among new mycological literature, the Vegetable Wasps and Plant 

 Woi'ins, by M. C. Cooke, furnishes an account of the Fungi that prey 

 upon insects. His book is based on the privately-printed Insect Bases 

 of Fungoid Pavasites, by G. R. Gray (1858). Dr. Cooke brings it up 

 to date in his own way, which is not remarkable for severe accuracy, 

 but the result is a guide, at all events, to the literature of the subject. 



Messrs. Ellis & Everhart's North American Pyrenomycetes has at 

 last appeared and in a ponderous form. It is an excellent piece of 

 work, and, so far as we have tested it, errs only in the references not 

 being sufficiently exhaustive — especially the earlier historical 

 references, if these may be so distinguished from the more modern. 



Mr. Massee, whose activity in book production threatens Dr. 

 Cooke's supremacy in this respect, has produced the first volume of 

 his British Fungus Flora (Bell & Sons). Mixed with much that is both 

 acutely and shrewdly critical, there is considerable credulity in the 

 matter of taking references and statements for granted as correct. 

 This kind of credulity may be beautiful as a matter of sentiment, and 

 convenient in cases of haste, but it makes a vast difference to the 

 value of a book. 



An interesting and very comprehensive book on the truffle, by 

 M. A. Chatin (" La Truffe," Bailliere et Fils, Paris), has just been 



