PLAKT SUCCESSIOIS^ 95 



the advantage of his experience in making a suitable selection from 

 the vast body of material that must have passed under his purview ; 

 for he has not much more than fifty pages at his disposal for this 

 important section of his subject. Chapter XI., " Succession in 

 Em-asia," disposes of this section in a further forty pages, — a resume 

 of the chief work recorded upon the vegetation of Scandinavia, 

 Britain, Middle Em-ope, Ilvissia, Mediterranean region, and the 

 Tropics. Britain can claim but a dozen pages in this really well- 

 balanced text-book of Ecology. The next thi-ee chapters, XII. to 

 XIV., deal with the past history of the world from the phvto- 

 geographical standpoint, and constitute a welcome new departure in 

 the treatment of the history of formations. The author displays his 

 originality by the very presence of these pages, which deal with con- 

 siderations too often lost sight of in this branch of study — conside- 

 rations lying at the very root of the matter. By the way, we would 

 suggest that if the Professor feels bound to economize by the spelling 

 cenophytic for the more familiar cainopJiytic, he might omit the 

 second e in ceneosere, vieseosere. The last chapter is a succinct 

 account of practical methods in ecological research, of which the 

 writer has already revealed himself as no dilettante, in his Besearch 

 Methods in Ecoloyy. The remainder of the book is occui^ied with 

 Tables of Genera, Life Forms and Dominants, Bibliography, and, 

 last — in this case least, for it represents the one serious omission in 

 the work, — an imperfect Index, containing the names of plants and 

 communities only. We are in direct disagreement with the author's 

 i-emark at its head — " The full table of contents and the selection of 

 running heads appear to make it undesii-able {sic) to index subiects."' 

 Like all good text-book writers. Professor Clements reveals himself 

 here as a conscientious and able compiler. The compiler's is largely 

 a thankless task, for he labours under the suspicion not only of the 

 absence of originality, but of the lack of even the possibility of it. 

 The book before us affords a clear proof to the contrar}'. Althouo-h 

 but little of the author's own research is described in these pages, this 

 is due as much to his sense of proportion as to his modesty. We 

 have said enough to reveal him as possessed of a rare gift for arrange- 

 ment of his intricate subject, as well as of a happy and original knack 

 of expressing clearly and readably the work of others, blending the 

 heterogeneous mass of research-work into an organic whole. This is 

 the gift not only of original talent, but of genius. 



H. F. Wkknham. 



BOOK-NOTES, NEWS, etc. 



At the meeting of the Lin'nean Society on February 7th, 

 Dr. Daydon Jackson gave an account of the Fanphyton Sicidum of 

 Francesco Cupani (1G57-1710) which was described by Pritzel as 

 "liber ineditus rai-issimus." A few copies, none of which were com- 

 plete, were issued in 1713 by Cupani's patron, the I'rince Delia 

 Cattolica; the cojiy in the library of the Jesuit Fathers at Palermo 

 ■ is the nearest complete and is therefore cited by Gussone in his 

 Prodromus and Synopsis ; it consists of three volumes with about 

 700 plates, without text ; the copy in our library has only 196 plates, 



