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include other matters the omission of which we must regard as an 

 actual defect in the work. But we are not wishing to censure this 

 publication just because it is not found to harmonize with our own 

 individual standard of perfection. Whether taken by itself and for 

 itself, or viewed in comparison with other volumes of its class, the 

 'Flora of Forfarshire ' may be honestly pronounced a work creditable 

 to its author's abilities and taste, and an useful contribution to science; 

 and while it exhibits occasional defects and inaccuracies, these are 

 much more than counterbalanced by that which is accurate and 

 valuable. 



Among the recommendations of the work, we may probably say 

 that it gives a very full list of the plants, cellular as well as vascular; 

 the latter likely to prove almost a complete list for the county. They 

 are arranged by natural orders, which every local flora ought to be, 

 as was long since particularly urged on local authors by the illustrious 

 Humboldt, the laborious collector and connector of local facts in 

 Natural History. Generally, too, the author appears to have written 

 with truth and good faith his opinions respecting the nativity or other- 

 wise of the species, and the reasons for supposing them to be one or 

 the other. And when we look at the reprehensible custom with many 

 other local writers, of straining the truth for the silly vanity of making 

 their district (or its flora) appear rich in botanical rarities, we must re- 

 gard the greater sincerity of Mr. Gardiner with no small approval. 

 Some notices are occasionally given about the range of altitude over 

 which the species extend, and we could wish they had been more 

 frequent and more precise. 



Among the superfluities we would particularly instance a most un- 

 reasonable quantity of poetry, irrelevant in a scientific publication, 

 and not of high quality in its own character, being either feebly 

 pretty versifications, or poems of higher mark which have been ren- 

 dered stale by reiterated quotation. Thus, Hypericum pulchrum and 

 Bellis perennis usher in some sixty lines of verse apiece ; Primula 

 vulgaris and Rubus fruticosus have over thirty lines each ; some two 

 dozen lines are devoted to Myosotis in general or generically, and 

 then the Myosotis alpestris has near three dozen more for its own par- 

 ticular share, — being mentioned probably for the purpose of bringing 

 in the verses, as that species has not been found in Forfarshire. Nu- 

 merous other plants are be-tailed with their half-dozen, or one dozen, 

 or two dozen lines of rhyme. Another superfluity is seen in the run- 

 ning references to the pages of Hooker's ' British Flora' and Babington's 

 Manual for each species in succession ; as if anything more could be 



