SHORT ARTICLES. 177 
to quote, has shown how enormously the interest of Natural 
History is enhanced ‘when we regard every production of 
Nature as one which has had a long history,’ and ‘when we 
contemplate every complex structure....as the summing up 
of many contrivances.’ But this can only be done, or at any 
rate begun, in the field and not in the laboratory. 
A more serious peril is the dying out amongst us of two 
branches of botanical study in which we have hitherto 
oceupied a position of no small distinction. Apart from the 
staffs of our official institutions, there seems to be no one 
who either takes any interest in, or appreciates in the 
smallest degree, the importance of systematic and descriptive 
botany. And geographical distribution is almost in a worse 
plight, yet Darwin calls it, ‘ that grand subject, that almost 
keystone of the laws of creation’ (i. 356). 
T am aware that it is far easier to point out an evil than to 
remedy it. The teaching of botany at the present day has 
reached a pitch of excellence and earnestness which it has 
never reached before. That it is somewhat one-sided cannot 
probably be remedied without a subdivision of the subject 
and an increase in the number of teachers. If it has a 
positive fault, it is that it is sometimes inclined to be 
too dogmatic and deductive. Like Darwin, at any rate in a 
biological matter, ‘I never feel convinced by deduction, even 
in the case of H. Spencer’s writings’ (iii. 168). The 
intellectual indolence of the student inclines him only too 
gladly to explain phenomena by referring them to ‘ism,’ 
instead of making them tell their own story. 
(To be Concluded) 
SHORT ARTICLES. 
Dares or PusticaTion or Nurratt’s Composit#.—The 
most important of all earlier contributions to the knowledge 
of Northwest American Composite is Nuttall’s elaborate 
25 Origin, 426. 
