308 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
individualized and defined in perfect good faith as the deliberate result 
of the labour of many years, cover a wider range of form, or a materially 
greater degree of variability within that range, than the 43 species in 
the other, individualized and defined with a sincerity and an amount 
of labour which every one in England, who knows anything about the 
matter, is fully prepared to appreciate. 
e one point on which we have felt disappointed in Professor 
Babington’s work is, that he says so little about the result of his ex- 
periments in cultivating Rubi. His only material allusion to the matter 
is an entirely general one, ** More than forty of the supposed species 
have been raised from seeds in the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, and 
the produce has not varied in form or characters from the parent 
plants.” As bearing upon his plan of species-limitation we should 
have liked very much to know, in exact detail, which are the plants 
to whieh he here alludes, and for how many generations each of them 
has been reproduced, But as the matter stands, we cannot form the 
slightest idea to what extent he has been guided by the result of his 
experiments in planning out the rank of the forms. 
olding, as we have just indicated, that into whatever number of 
portions the original Rubus fruticosus be subdivided, they cannot 
possibly be separated and characterized as absolutely limitable indi- 
vidualities, we would strongly recommend to our rising generation of 
collecting botanists the study of the Fruticose Rubi, as furnishing one 
of the best means within their reach of gaining sound conclusions on 
the nature of species. Let them in the first place, leaving books and 
names altogether on one side, gather some autumn the forms which 
grow in the neighbourhood where they live, and try to reckon up 
meanwhile how many they can individualize, and note down what are 
their distinctive marks. After having done this, let them take Pro- 
fessor Babington’s book and get access to a set of specimens named 
iruthenitielly after it, and compare their own specimens and notes wit 
hese. And then, if possible, let them, another autumn, visit some 
other neighbourhood, and pursue there the same process that they fol- 
owed at home ; and we feel confident, if they do this with reasonable 
care, that whatever be their after botanical experience, they will fin 
their time has not been wasted. 
