XI 



thought unfair by the author reviewed, and has led him to publish a 

 reply [Id. 1085). In distinctly stating that the notice in question is 

 not my own, I by no means desire to shrink from every responsibility. 

 The public has no rule for separating the anonymous " we " of a 

 reviewer from the actual and avowed editor, although the latter may 

 possess neither the talent nor the knowledge to write the article in 

 question ; and I therefore adopt as my own the said review, and nei- 

 ther evade nor extenuate the responsibility incurred. Regarding, 

 then, the review of the ' Tourist's Flora' as my own until another shall 

 claim its paternity, I think it right to say that I extremely regret the 

 use of such terms as " false " and " faithless " as applied to that work 

 (I cannot admit that they are applied to its author), because, although 

 in the multiplicity of the statements it contains, some may not be per- 

 fectly correct or perfectly trustworthy, yet I believe such exceptions 

 to arise solely from the difficulty of attaining perfect accuracy, and 

 therefore not deserving the epithets in question. On the other hand, 

 I cannot but regret that Mr. Woods should have stated his objections 

 in the manner he has done. " The whole charge against me," says 

 Mr. Woods, " was, that I had not given certain habitats of plants, 

 when I knew them, or ought to have known them, since they had 

 been published in the works of Mr. H. C. Watson." Now the 

 reviewer, as an example of insufficient habitat, cites Lycopodium 

 annotinum, and of erroneous habitat, Lastrea foenisecii, plants the 

 habitats of which Mr. Watson, as far as I am aware, has nowhere 

 given. 



The other books noticed during the present year are three : ' A 

 Manual of the British Marine Alga?,' by W. H. Harvey, M.D. ; ' A 

 Flora of Leicestershire, comprising the Flowering Plants and Ferns 

 indigenous to the County,' by Mary Kirby, with Notes by her Sister. 

 ' Entwickelungs Geschichte der Farrnkrauter,' von J. Grafen Lesc- 

 zyc-Suminski. The first of these has taken its station among the 

 standard publications of the day ; the last is one of those German 

 wonders which, whether intrinscally true or somewhat poetical, we 

 are too apt in this country to regard with distrust. It is intended to 

 resume the notice at an early period, but the testing of Suminski's 



