202 THE NATURAL ItrSTOTlT HKTIEW. 



of mind on whose exercise the genial interpretation of Nature depends. 

 Yet, in spite of the example which Linnaeus has set, do we still find 

 botanists ignorant of zoology, and zoologists equally ignorant of 

 botany, to the great detriment of both. Is not the healthy observa- 

 tion of living animals, the best preliminary study for every young 

 zoologist, too often wantonly divorced from systematic zoology on 

 the one hand, and from embryology and anatomy on the other ? 

 Persons educated in other respects, but unacquainted with Biology, 

 are deterred from its pursuit by such unnatural isolations. Why is 

 it made to assume this forbidding aspect to those without the gate, 

 who very willingly would come in, were they graciously invited ? 

 "Everything in science," now, as in Goethe's time, "is become too 

 " much divided into compartments." On this account a Society, 

 embracing Biological inquiry in all its aspects, deserves the fullest 

 recognition. Linnaeus himself owed to the diversity of his studies, no 

 less than to his mental endowments, that extraordinary influence 

 which, during the lifetime of their master, inspired his pupils with 

 such zeal, that it might be truly said they would have compassed sea 

 and land to make one addition to the ' Systema.' The spirit of the 

 great Swede, loath to leave his collections, still survives, and beholds, 

 unseen, the substantial progress of the Linnean Society. 



XX. — The Ancient and Modeen Floras of Montpellier. 



Etude des Tufs de Montpellier af point de tue Geologiqfe 

 et Paleontologique, par G. Planchon, Docteur-des-Sciences. 

 Montpellier: 1864^ 4to. 



Des Modifications de la Flore de Montpellier depuis le 

 seizieme siecle jusqu'a nos jours. By the same. 



These are, as far as we know, the first productions of a young natu- 

 ralist, and we hail them with satisfaction as evincing great ability, and 

 doing credit to a name already eminent in systematic and structural 

 botany through the labours of his distinguished brother. From their 

 form we conclude that the tAvo memoirs constitute the author's 

 thesis on taking his degree of Doctor of Science, and he justifies the 

 presenting them together, notwithstanding the diff'erence of their 

 titles, as being closely connected, each one forming as it were the 

 complement of the other. The two tend to the solution of one and 

 the same problem, the one in investigating the state of the Montpel- 



