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Notice of ' Species Filicum ; being Descriptions of all known Ferns. 

 Illustrated with Plates. By Sir William Jackson Hooker, K.H., 

 LL.D., F.R.A. & L.S., &c. &c. &c., Vice-President of the Liimean 

 Society of London, and Director of the Royal Botanic Garden of 

 Kew, Part V., or Vol. II. Part I. London : William Pamplin, 

 45, Frith Street, Soho Square. 1851.' 



So long a period has elapsed since the fourth part of this work 

 issued from the press, that we fear our readers will find some diffi- 

 culty in recalling that event to their remembrance. How far it is 

 desirable to publish a connected series of technical descriptions in 

 this disjointed and irregular manner, is a matter to be decided be- 

 tween the purchasing public and the selling author and publisher. 

 We confess to a feeling of discontent as one of the former. We 

 argue that as the periods between the appearance of successive parts 

 increase, so does the improbability of the work's ever attaining its 

 completion increase also : and there is, or there ought to be, some- 

 thing like a feeling of bounden duty to perform, of solemn engage- 

 ment to keep, between the buyer and seller of a book like this. We, 

 the buyers, do not begin to take such a work except on the un- 

 derstanding that it shall eventually be what its name implies, a de- 

 scription of all the known ferns ; and should the work cease after the 

 completion of two or three easy groups, however interesting those 

 groups, we contend there is a breach of faith on the part of the au- 

 thor, for we commenced our subscription not merely for the sake of 

 becoming acquainted with the Polypodieae, Hymenophylleae, and Adi- 

 anteae, with which we were already tolerably familiar, but for the sake 

 of instruction in the more difficult genera, which, notwithstanding 

 the labours of recent pteridologists, still remain in a state of compa- 

 rative obscurity. Perhaps no one is more intimately aware than the 

 writer of these observations, how manifold and how multifarious are 

 the engagements of the learned author of the ' Species Filicum.' 

 That he has no spare time for such a work, is a most patent truism : 

 that he has done and is doing a vast amount of good in his wider 

 and more diversified field at Kew, is also most patent. Whenever 

 the highly-useful and highly-laborious career of Sir William Hooker 

 shall close, and far off be the day ! his fellow-countrymen will point 

 with just pride to the amount, the utility, the applicability of his 

 exertions. All praise and honour to such a labourer ! Still it is 

 possible to undertake too much. Noh omnia jJossumus omnes. And 



