28o NATURAL SCIENCE. Oct.. 



The Ardennes. 



Walks in Belgium : Cycling, Driving, by Rail, and on Foot, with some Fishing 

 and Boating Notes. Edited by Percy Lindley, with maps and illustrations, and 

 a chapter on the French Ardennes. Svo. Pp.94. London [1895]: 30 Fleet 

 Street. Price 6d. 

 We are glad to notice this attractive little guide to a country so 

 interesting to the English student of Natural History, who, when he 

 wishes to study continental types not to be found in his own country, 

 cannot do better than pay a visit to the Belgian Ardennes. The book 

 contains a great deal both of practical and picturesque information, 

 arranged and indexed so as to be easily found when wanted. The 

 author has a keen sense of the picturesque, and gives much 

 information of a kind often impossible to glean from guide books, but 

 which influences very largely a tourist's impressions of continental 

 towns. We find it mentioned, for instance, whether a building has 

 been much altered in appearance by restoration, and on which days 

 markets are held, with a good deal of very readable information about 

 the towns. There is also very useful advice for travelling and 

 management of expenses. Perhaps it would be easier to use the 

 advice on p. 11, where the traveller is recommended to go to good 

 second-class hotels, if the names of these hotels were systematically 

 given for each town. We think it a pity that two or three pages have 

 not been devoted to saying something about the natural history of the 

 country ; but perhaps this would be too much to expect in so small 

 a book. 



Decimal Cataloguing. 



The Manchester Museum Owens College. Museum Handbooks. A 

 Catalogue of the Books and Pamphlets in the Library arranged 

 ACCORDING TO SUBJECTS AND AUTHORS. By William E. Hoyle. Svo. 

 Pp. xvi., 302. Manchester, 1895. Price 2s. 6d. 



In this very practical catalogue Mr. Hoyle devotes 230 pages to a list 

 of titles of books and pamphlets arranged under subjects, and in the 

 remaining pages these papers are placed under authors in alphabetical 

 order. One is thus enabled to find at a glance the work required, 

 and as the press-mark is inserted at each entry both subject-catalogue 

 and author-catalogue are complete in themselves. There is also an 

 alphabetical index of subjects. 



Marine expeditions and surveys are catalogued under the name 

 of the ship, a practical method, and one most satisfactory to the 

 weary searcher, who has often to shift from one end of a catalogue to 

 the other. The chief point in the work is, however, the complete 

 adoption of Professor Melvill Dewey's Decimal Classification, which 

 Mr. Hoyle has also applied to the classification and registration of 

 Museum specimens. " It is believed that the present catalogue is the 

 first published in this country in which the method has been fully 

 carried out." Such a lucid work as the one before us is the strongest 

 argument in favour of the Dewey System, which in some form or 

 other is the only possible one in large and rapidly-growing libraries 

 where the -ready finding of books is indispensable. 



Starch. 

 Untersuchungen iJBER DIE Starkekorner. Wescn und Lebensgeschichte der 

 Starkekorner der hoheren Pflanzen. By Dr. Arthur Meyer. Svo. Pp. xvi., 

 318, with 9 plates and 99 woodcuts n the text. Jena; Fischer, 1895. Price 

 20 marks. 



If anything were required to emphasise the extreme specialisation 



