INDEX BRYOLOGICUS. 27 



any single herbarium in existence wliich at all covers the ground 

 of the total nioss-flora described. There is no free system of 

 exchange such as ought to be maintained ; and, even if there were, 

 it would prove a failure in the case of the numerous rare and 

 unique specimens which are too small to admit of division and 

 distribution. 



The rapidity with which the moss-flora has increased since the 

 publication of Bridel's Bnjologia Universalis in 182G-27 is strikingly 

 shown by the following figures. That work contained 931 species. 

 Carl Mueller's Sijnojjsis Muscorum (1847-51) raised the total to 

 2364 ; Jaeger and Sauerbeck's Genera et Species Muscorum. (1870-79) 

 to 7422 species ; and the work now under review is likely to carry 

 the total to upwards of 11,000 species. Nor are we as yet anywhere 

 near the end of the story. Further researches into the fiora of 

 Africa, Australasia, and China cannot fail to result in the output of 

 thousands of new species. However, at the present time it is of the 

 utmost importance that we should be put in touch with all the work 

 that has hitherto been accomplished. Until Jaeger and Sauerbeck's 

 Genera appeared, we were very much at sea in the matter. The 

 natural classification attempted by those authors serves very well as 

 a basis for the arrangement of a herbarium, and it has been adopted 

 for that purpose in the British Museum. The book has many errors 

 of detail, but its greatest fault is the absence of an index to the 

 species and their synonymy. Of course any one can make his own 

 iudex ; but that is a tedious operation, as I know from my own 

 experience. However, the labour of making such an index is far 

 more than recompensed by the command of the literature thereby 

 obtained. But the book soon fell behind the times. In 1880, 1888, 

 1891, Kindberg gathered together in his Enumcratio Brijincarum 

 Exoticarum a large number of additional species, but gave no refer- 

 ences to show Avhere they might be found. Indeed, many of them 

 remain nuiaina nwla to this day. Thus in 1891 the want of a 

 Nomenclator became more manifest than ever. 



Great, then, was the feeling of relief with which one read in the 

 Revue Bryologique (1892, p. 41) that General Paris had begun the 

 preparation of such a work so long ago as in 18(52, at the instigation 

 of his illustrious master, W. P. Schimper ; and that, after having 

 been forced by the demands of active military service to lay it aside 

 for more than a quarter of a century, he intended to devote himself 

 to its completion. And now we are able to enjoy the first fruits of 

 his arduous labours. The manuscript is complete; and the Linnean 

 Society of Bordeaux has undertaken to publish it in five annual 

 parts of 320 pp. each. The book is much more than an Index 

 BrijDlogicus, as its alternative title shows; for it gives to each species 

 a very full synonymy (but not always a complete synonymy, as 

 I shall point out further on), and where the synonymy is unsettled 

 it refers to special papers on the subject; it gives the geographical 

 distribution, and, so far as they are known, the inflorescence and 

 habitat. The cross-references are ample and exact. Discarded 

 generic and specific names are clearly distinguished from those that 

 are maintained by the employment of special type. The plan of 



