1897] SOME NEW BOOKS 345 
The following paragraph may be quoted as exemplifying at once 
Mr Martin’s scientific attainments and his literary style :— 
“To be thoroughly acquainted with the beautiful grasses of Great 
Britain is to possess a knowledge of which I am ambitious. As I 
was collecting grasses on my walk, I pulled. some concerning which 
I was at a loss to know whether they were of identical species, or 
whether they were distinct. Almost as the thought passed through 
my mind, my eyes lighted upon a grass of which the lower half of the 
blossom was fully expanded. This showed the features of one speci- 
men, whilst the upper part, which evidently was yet to expand, showed 
the features of the other. Thus Nature answered her own problem 
which she had put to me.” (P. 34.) 
We are tempted to ask why Mr Martin has not acquired the 
“knowledge of which [he is] ambitious”? The number of common 
British grasses is not large; every manual contains their description. 
But it is only too clear that Mr Martin has not even a slight acquaint- 
ance with grasses, for he talks of ‘the blossom’ when he means the 
inflorescence, just as he speaks of a ‘specimen’ when he means a 
species. And what was the plant after all? He tells us that “Nature 
answered her own problem,” but does not give us her reply. We 
feel inclined to imitate Nature in “putting a problem” to Mr Martin 
—What useful purpose can be served by printing paragraphs of this 
kind ? 
Mr Martin made the strikingly original observation that the flowers 
of the everlasting pea turn blue when fading. He then “watched the 
creeper closely, with the result that it has borne blossoms which were 
blue in the first place.” This curious consequence of Mr Martin’s 
vigilance leads him to say—‘the seeds it will be well to collect”: 
but he was counting his chickens too soon, for on p. 77 we read: “In 
a former letter I referred to the blue blossoms of the everlasting pea 
which had appeared in my garden. Neither of them have been suc- 
ceeded by the usual pods of seeds, so that I shall not have the satis- 
faction of rearing seedlings from them, as I had anticipated.” Can Mr 
Martin suppose that this kind of thing adds to our knowledge ? 
But the author rises to higher flights than these. “ You know,” 
he says, “the yucca, which is said [inaccurately, but this Mr Martin 
does not know] to flower but once in a hundred years. Then comes 
such a burst of brilliance that it requires a period equal to that which 
allows our orb to roll its ponderous body along its tremendous path 
around the sun, a hundred times or thereabouts, in order to recover 
its flowering energy. What an act of self-denial is this: what an act 
of self-immolation, in order that its duty may be fulfilled!” The only 
parallel to this reflection is one which occurred some years since in 
the catalogue of a picture exhibition in South London—“Scene in 
Ceylon: Elephants bathing. How much the elephants in the Zoo 
have given up for our sakes!” 
The book is full of inanities and ineptitudes, and the literary style 
is in harmony with the subjects discussed. If a fly tumbles into the 
milk-jug, Mr Martin speaks of its ‘unwelcome last sad bath.’ Dead 
nettles are ‘ magnificent’ and ‘gorgeous.’ Certain flowers smell like ‘a 
glass of sherry’; two plants in the same paragraph ‘rejoice in’ their 
names. The author speaks of his ‘legal brother, as if he had another 
