558 Reviews. | July, 
so he employs the commonest, but by no means the least interesting 
and attractive objects throughout his survey of organic nature. 
From the vegetable kingdom we have the leaf of a geranium, the 
starch granules of cereals, or of the potato; the stalk of garden 
rhubarb, with its exquisite structures; sections of deal and holly; 
hairs of London pride; pollen grains of the crocus, primrose, and 
sunflower; sting of the nettle; petals, sepals, and other parts of the 
common chickweed ; sections of mustard-seed, &e.; and again, the best 
known ferns, such as Polypodium and Scolopendrum vulgare, the most 
familiar mosses, lichens, and sea-weeds, a few of the commonest 
desmids and diatoms. 
From the animal kingdom, which is by no means so largely 
illustrated, we have the blood-corpuscles of man, of the fowl, &e.; 
hairs of men and of mice; fibres of flax, silk, and feathers; scales of 
familiar fishes; heads and weapons of offence of too familiar insects ; 
cilia from the gills of the oyster; along with examples of the most 
widely-distributed Rotifera, Infusoria, and Entozoa: all the objects 
enumerated, with many more (in all 451 figures) being grouped in 
twelve plates, well coloured after nature, and engraved by a new micro- 
scopical artist, Mr. W. Bagg. 
As we have already stated, however, the little work is by no means 
perfect, much as it deserves our commendation. If, instead of devoting 
by far the greater portion of his volume to the vegetable kingdom, of 
attempting to explain the more obscure phenomena of magnification, 
polarization, &c., the author had favoured his readers with a few more 
original drawings of the minute forms and microscopical features of 
animal life, some of the most important of which are left quite un- 
represented, whilst those selected are by no means the most beautiful ; 
and if he had appended a chapter on crystals and other inorganic 
objects, his work would have been greatly benefited, and it would not 
have been open to the objection that it is rather a guide to the micro- 
scopical study of organic nature, than what it professes to be, namely, 
a text-book of the microscope generally. 
We leave these hints with the able author im case a second edition 
is called for, as no doubt it soon will be, and meanwhile we recommend 
the book as a fresh, useful little work, full of accurate original deli- 
neations of well-classified microscopical objects in organic nature, and 
not as we sometimes find to be the case in such treatises, a mere patch- 
work composed of the researches of other men, and with (made up by 
the help of scissors and paste) a heterogeneous jumble of drawings, 
correct or otherwise, not one tithe of the objects which they represent 
having been seen by the authors who profess to describe them. 
There is, however, one class of persons to whom the little book 
will appear very imperfect,—namely, to those who desire, not alone to 
inspect, but to prepare and mount objects for preservation. The 
chapter on this subject is very meagre; and to readers thus inclined 
we have no hesitation in recommending the second work of which we 
give the title. It must be clearly understood, however, that we have 
not placed them thus with a view to institute a comparison between 
them, inasmuch as Mr. Davies's book is devoted solely to the mount- 
