64 BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC, 



The 9th edition of the London Catalogue is in the press. The 

 Rev. W. Moyle Rogers has arranged the Rubi for it, and the notes 

 which he is pubUshing in this Journal will elucidate the views taken 

 in the Catalof/ue of this troublesome genus, on which he is our chief 

 authority. The new Catalogue will contain some startling though 

 necessary changes in nomenclature, which we fear will be unwelcome 

 to many. 



We do not know why Natural Science is inspired to defend, by 

 an odd sort of tu quoque, the numerous misprints in the Geoi/raphical 

 Journal, to which we referred at p. 32 : but in its February number 

 (issued, like more mundane magazines, some days in advance of the 

 month), an editorial comment deals with us very severely. It is 

 pointed out — what we cannot, alas ! deny — that misprints occur in 

 the Journal of Botany ; and a search in our last year's volume 

 has discovered that certain African geographical names are very 

 incorrectly spelt. We accept the corrections with becoming humility 

 and gratitude, although we might fairly plead that the collector's 

 writing of the names might be plainer, and only regret that they were 

 not made sooner, in order that we might have taken notice of them in 

 the proper place. Unluckily, we are not fortunate enough to have 

 on our staff a distinguished naturalist whose acquaintance with 

 unfamiliar African geographical names ensures their being accurately 

 spelt. 



But when Natural Science comes down upon us because we allow 

 "Cameroons" to be also spelt "Camaroons," we are inclined to 

 enter a plea for the defence. Certainly both forms are commonly 

 employed ; and is not a certain latitude allowed in the spelling of 

 such names ? The variants of what used to be called " Moulmein," 

 for example, are very numerous; and if we come to Africa, we shall 

 find that what our latest explorer, Dr. Gregory, now calls " Laikipia " 

 began by "Likipia," and passed through "Leikipia" before it 

 attained its present form ; while the mountain which we first knew 

 as "Kenia" has now become "Kenya" on the same authority. 

 And how is the unhappy editor to decide between two travellers of 

 eminence, when a place spelt by one -'Kjandjabu" is named by the 

 other "Chanjavi," or when the same river is written indifferently 

 " Thikathika," "Thaka," "Thuaka," and "Athika"?^'= We are, it 

 must be confessed, all of us sinners in the matter of spelling — 

 even Natural Science miscalls Mr. Hugh Stannus " Stanners," — and 

 the best of us needs toleration. Yet ten mistakes in twenty-five 

 lines, with a nomen nudum thrown in, still seems to us excessive in 

 a scientific journal. 



Pbof. Sargent has reprinted from Garden and Forest, in a 

 handsome volume entitled Forest Flora of Japan, the notes made 

 during his journey in that country in 1892. 



We are glad to announce the publication of the long-expected 

 second edition of Mr. Mansel Pleydell's Flora of Dorsetshire, which 

 arrives just as we are going to press. 



See Geographical Journal, iv. 508. 



