BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, ETC. 395 



conclusion at all, wbilo the language is not unfrequently so careless 

 as to make it somewhat difficult to know what is meant ; as in the 

 following : — 



" Now the way this [change of aleurones into peptones] is done 

 is exactly like the process in our own bodies, for these substances 

 stored up are the white ' endosperm,' as botanists call it, but 

 everybody else 'flour,' when ground, have to form our own flesh 

 and bones and nerves, etc." (p. 46). 



So again of the modification of organs we are told (p. 98) : — 

 " All the above mentioned instances and many more might be 

 given would have been called sports, ' imitative sports,' perhaps, 

 had they occurred suddenly. But since they are now constant 

 features in the plants possessing them, they cannot be classified as 

 such, though possibly originating in the same way." 



J. G. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, dc. 



The sudden death of Thomas Rogers, of Manchester, on 30th 

 May last, has removed one of the very few remaining links between 

 the old race of Lancashire botanists and those who now follow in 

 their footsteps. His loss is deeply felt in many a local institution 

 and society, for he had been during a very long period a vigorous, 

 though unassuming and modest, supporter of nearly all those asso- 

 ciations which have for their aim the promulgation of botanical and 

 biological study. Born in 1827 at St. Helens, from early life he 

 had lived in the heart of the city of Manchester, and may be said 

 to have been the architect of his own fortunes. In 1857 he wrote 

 a short paragraph in the National Magazine describing a small fern- 

 conservatory he had both designed and affixed outside his windows. 

 This good work and example, soon successfully followed by several 

 who could afford the small cost, in the smoky neighbourhood of 

 Ancoats, brought him into prominence, and was the means of his 

 introduction to many scientific botanists and horticulturists, and it 

 may be said that from this date he began critical research into the 

 Cryptogamia, more especially studying the Filices, Musci, and 

 Hepatic£e. He personally collected in all the most favoured 

 localities in this county and Ireland : in 1875, for instance, and 

 again a year or two later, in company with Messrs. J. Whitehead, 

 S. Ashton, and others, he visited the Breadalbane and Cairngorm 

 Mountains, and published an account, read before the Oldham 

 Scientific Society, of the results of these expeditions, which were 

 altogether extremely successful. He was a correspondent of Dr. 

 Braithwaite, the late Mr. Henry Boswell, of Oxford, the late Dr. 

 Carrington, Mr. Abraham Stansfield, Mr. John Nowell, of Tod- 

 morden, among others ; and exchanged considerably with several 

 Austrahan and Tasmanian collectors, notably Mr.'R. A. Bastow, 

 his herbarium becoming especially perfect in Musci from that con- 

 tinent. Nor did he altogether neglect the Phanerogamia, either 

 British or exotic. One of his early friends was the late Mr. Richard 



