28 NOTICES OF BOOKS AND MEMOIRS. 



The usefulness of the book as a work of reference is seriously 

 imi3aired by the badness of the index, as well as by the jDrinting of 

 scientific names in roman letters and without capital initials. 

 Sentences like the following: — "The sides of streams in these 

 dry districts are shaded by such trees as heritiera litoralis, 

 afzelia bijuga, terminalia catappa, kleinhovia hospita, cynometra 

 grandiflora, cibicibi (pr. thimbi-thimbi), bamboos, calophyllums, 

 eugenias, &c." — are not agreeable to the eye, and misleading to 

 those who may glance through the pages of the book in search of 

 information which they ought to find pointed out by the index. 



J. B. 



The student of phonological phenomena will welcome the 

 appearance of 'The Cobham Journals' (London, Stanford, 1881). 

 The expanded title explains the contents of the work : ' Abstracts 

 and Summaries of Meteorological and Phenological Observations 

 made by Miss Caroline Molesworth, at Cobham, Surrey, in the 

 Years 1825 to 1850.' The preparation of the work, which must 

 have involved considerable labour, has devolved upon Miss Eleanor 

 Ormerod, a lady favourably known' to naturalists as the author of a 

 very useful ' Manual of Injurious Insects.' The observations 

 relating to plants include "dates of the first flowering of many 

 cultivated plants and flowering shrubs, and of some native plants ; 

 first ripening of common garden fi-uits ; dates of foliation and 

 defoliation of a few trees, and of the completed fall of leafage at the 

 end of autumn. Occasional notes are also given of the general 

 state of the crops, as of the first cutting of the hay, first ripening of 

 corn, and first destruction of the more tender garden plants by 

 frost." Miss Ormerod has made her selection from " many scores 

 of thousands" of observations made by Miss Molesworth ; she has 

 tabulated these and made them accessible ; and to her in scarcely 

 a less degree than to Miss Molesworth herself the thanks of 

 naturalists are due. If a similar task could be similarly executed 

 in connection with the MS. diaries of Gilbert White, which have 

 lately come into the possession of the British Museum, a worthy 

 companion to the ' Cobham Journals ' would be the result. 



In his ' Lectures on the Vegetable Kingdom, with special 

 reference to the Flora of Australia,' Mr. William WooUs gives 

 much information which must have been very acceptable to the 

 members of the Cumberland [Australia] Mutual Improvement 

 Society, before whom the discourses were delivered. The one 

 which is most interesting to an extra-Australian reader is that on 

 the *' Progress of Botany in Australia," beginning with Dampier's 

 landing in 1688, and coming down to the i)resent time, a fitting 

 tribute being paid to Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, whose "merits 

 as a botanist [are] only superseded by his modesty as a man." 

 George Caley's name, by a curious slip, is throughout spelt 

 "Cealey." Mr. WooUs mentions that Bauer's "illustrations of 

 Australian plants are still extant" : he might have added that they 

 are preserved in the National Herbarium at South Kensington. 



