150 NEW BOOKS, WITH SHORT NOTICES. 



we observe a lamentable deficiency of information. This question has 

 of late years had an amount of attention paid to it by Bastian, Sander- 

 son, and others, which has given it a considerable interest to the micro- 

 scopic observer. Therefore it is a subject which ought not to be dealt 

 with as it was in the old edition, with merely the title of the " Begin- 

 nings of Life" added. Again, under the heading of Glands, some re- 

 ference should have been made to the essays in the splendid treatise of 

 Dr. Strieker, and for this absence the less excuse is to be ofiered, as 

 the book has been for some years in an English dress. There are other 

 articles of less importance, which, however, we shall not refer to. 



Of the better parts of these two numbers we may particularly refer 

 to the botanical portions, and especially to those of the numerous in- 

 stances of fungi. These are, as we might have imagined, invariably 

 lucid, to the point, and as advanced as possible. There are articles 

 too of a geological character which are particularly well done. "We 

 may refer to the article Foraminifera, as one which is thoroughly 

 well written and arranged. In this the author enters upon their 

 general history, describes very fully their minute structure, tells 

 where the recent and fossil forms are each to be found, and finally gives 

 an ample synoptical list of the genera and sub-genera, with references 

 to the figures of nearly all those enumerated. Finally, he appends 

 an admirable bibliographical list of the various works necessary for 

 consultation, from that of D'Orbigny in 1826, to those of Parker, Jones, 

 and Brady, in the ' Transactions of the Linnean Society,' 1870. 



Now, having said so much about the older numbers, let us examine 

 what has been done for us in the two latest issues which have been 

 brought out under the supervision of Dr. M. Duncan, F.R.S. We find 

 in the first place the conclusion of the article Hydra, which is not 

 quite as full as it might be, having taken little or no notice of the 

 more recent Austrian inquiries. This article, too, seems somewhat 

 hastily written, as the following sentence will show. " On placing the 

 plants subsequently in a glass jar containing water, they will be found 

 at the end of some hours with the tentacles fully extended in search of 

 prey, when they are easily recognized." Of course we have no doubt 

 that the author means the Hydra, but it is the plant to which he refers. 

 The article on Hydrodydion is good, as is also the paper on Hypho- 

 mycetes, which is capitally illustrated. The section devoted to Illumi- 

 nation is extremely short, and though the editors may make up for it 

 by increasing the length of Polarization and Test-objects, yet we think 

 the subject of illumination should have been in itself more fully written ; 

 indeed, we think the writer would have done well not merely to have 

 referred to one of Mr. Wenham's papers in this Journal, but to have 

 gone fully into the whole subject, and to have given the results to his 

 readers. The paper on Inflammation is, we are bound to say, in 

 every respect worthy of its position. It is a condensed account of the 

 entire subject, giving even the latest researches, and stating as much 

 as possible facts to the exclusion of useless hypotheses ; indeed, it is 

 one of the best contributions to the present edition. Next in order 

 come the Infusoria, and as these are perhaps the most important groups 

 with which the Dictionary has to deal, no less than ten pages are 



