162 NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
customs of the New Year's Eve are termed in Scotlandj lias puzzled antiquaries^ 
The most probable derivation is perhaps thisj from the words au gni nienez 
(to the mistletoe go), or au gid Fan neiif (to the mistletoe this HGW y^ar), being 
an allusion to the ancient Druidical ceremony of gathering the plant. In the 
patois of Touraine, in France, the word used is Aguilannsitj in Lower Kor- 
mandj and in Gnernsey, poor persons and children used to solicit a contribu- 
tion under the title ' Hogninenno,' or ' Ogninano.' Guisers, or Guizards 
(that is, masquers, or mummers) is a part of Scotch New Year's Eve proceed- 
ings. Sir Walter Scott had invariably a setof ^K^5e/'5toperfoi*m on New Year's 
Eve, before Iilg family and friends at Ashestiel and Abbotsford." — Chamhers^s 
* Book of Bays,' vol. ii. p. 788. 
NEW PUBLICATIONS, 
VAmerique Centrale^ Beclierches sur sa Flore et sa GeograjjJiie phy- 
sique ; riuiltaU d'un Foyage Jans les Etats de Cosla-Rica et de N't- 
caragua^ execute pendant les Annees 1846—48, Par A.-S. OrsteD- 
Copenhague: 1863. Polio. Parti. 
This is the first part of a work on Central American "botany, a sub- 
ject with which Professor Orsted's name has been for a long time 
honourably connected ; and we believe that, in consequence of the 
Dano-German war^ the second part has not yet been published - 
Scientific men belonging to the nations whose language is not spoken 
by more than a million or a couple of millions find themselves in an 
unpleasant position, since Latin is going more and more out of use, and 
the feeling of nationality is growing stronger every day. If they write 
in any other but tlie vernacular, their countrymen accuse them of 
being unpatriotic ; and if they wish to avoid such an accusation, and 
publish in a langiiage understood only by an infinitesimal portion of 
mankind, the result of their labours is, to a great extent, lost; for, at 
the utmost, the scientific public as a body is not acquainted with more 
than the five leading European languages, and more can hardly be ex- 
pected from them. It may answer any other purposes, but certainly 
not those of science, if scientific men continue to bow down to popular 
prejudice by writing in languages of the most limited geographical 
range. We are therefore glad that Professor Orsted, by writing in 
French instead of Danish, has made an important concession to the 
catholicity of science at a time when nationality of feeling ran unusu- 
ally high amongst his countrymen. 
