1899] ANOTHER TEXT-BOOK OF BOTANY 69 



entomological works, but familiar to those who know Lflvendal's plates to his 

 countryman Schi0dte's " De Metamorphosi Eleutheratorum." No more beauti- 

 ful or accurate illustrations of these insects, so hard to delineate successfully, 

 have ever been made, and they alone entitle the book to distinction. 



To write a discriminating notice of a work in a language that 01 e can read 

 but slowly and laboriously is impossible. But, so far as we have been able to 

 form an opinion, we cannot say less than that we regard this work as one of 

 the most thorough and perfect faunistic monographs it has ever been our good 

 fortune to examine. It furnishes the Danish entomologist with everything he 

 can require to know on these interesting and important little beetles. It may 

 be added that its publication has been rendered possible by a State subsidy 

 from the Carlsberg Fund. W. F. H. Blandford. 



ANOTHER TEXT-BOOK OF BOTANY. 



An Elementary Text-Book of Botany. By Sydney H. Vines, M.A., D.Sc, 

 F.R.S. 8vo, pp. xv. and 611, with 397 illustrations. Sonnenschein 

 and Co., London, 1898. Price 9s. 



Those of us who remember the old " Prantl and Vines " which, fifteen years 

 ago, was perhaps the most generally used elementary text-book in medical 

 schools and colleges, will scarcely recognise any resemblance to it in the present 

 volume. This is not a new edition of the old translation from the German of 

 Prantl, but a new text-book brought almost as nearly up to date as is possible 

 for an elementary work. It vividly recalls the Students' Text-Book of 1894-95, 

 and is, so to say, a carefully edited abridgment of the latter. Difficult and 

 debatable topics have been omitted, the more fundamental recent discoveries 

 have been incorporated, and there has also been some rearrangement of the 

 subject matter. The result is a diminution in bulk by one quarter, and a pre- 

 sentation of the elementary facts of botany in so complete a manner as to place 

 the Students' Text-Book at 16s. in the position merely of an edition de luxe. 

 In fact, the author has created the necessity for the more advanced and larger 

 edition of the latter which he contemplates in his preface, and which we shall 

 hope to review at no very distant period. 



As Natural Science has already noticed at some length the Students' Text- 

 Book (see vol. iv. p. 376, and vol. vi. p. 424), and the present work is on the 

 same lines, it will be sufficient to note here the main points of difference between 

 the two. Modern tendency is to bring as nearly together as possible the stories 

 of form and function. Van Tieghem, in his most recent text-book on Botany, 

 has incorporated them in one section, and discusses seriatim the morphology 

 and physiology of the various plant-members. This mode of treatment, though 

 doubtless the most scientific, has many disadvantages. Professor Vines does not 

 attempt it, but we are glad to see that the section on Physiology is brought from 

 the end of the book, and follows that on Morphology and Histology. These 

 first three parts, dealing respectively with general form, anatomy and histology, 

 and physiology, leave little to be desired. The confusion over the Stelar theory, 

 which has bothered so many students in the larger work, is here avoided, doubt- 

 ful points relating to the minute structure of the cell are omitted, and a tangible 

 physical explanation is given of the ascent of the sap, based on the recent work 

 of Messrs. Dixon and Joly. In Part IV. (Classification) we are a little disap- 

 pointed to find no revision of the sub-classes Algae and Fungi, and in Croup II., 

 Bryophyta, we should like to have seen a fuller description of at least one 

 typical thalloid and foliose member of the class Hepaticae. 



In the treatment of the Seed-plants, account is taken of the recent discovery 

 of motile male cells in the Cycads and Conifers, and two distinct groups, each 

 comparable with Bryophyta or Pteridophyta, are now recognised under the 

 old class-names Gymnospermae and Angiospermae. The general introduction to 



