58o 



NATURE 



[April 21, 1898 



unless they be made by the soil. To follow the outlines 

 of the various formations, as Babington well did in his 

 " Flora of Cambridgeshire," would for Berkshire be a 

 difficult task ; and Mr. Druce may not have done amiss 

 in defining his regions by drainage. The result of his 

 division is that every region contains some chalk, and 

 consequently some of its characteristic vegetation. 



An original dictionary is aggravating ; and Mr. Druce 

 is unwise in choosing, by his changes in nomenclature, to 

 publish such. Of all places, except perhaps a seeds- 

 man's catalogue, such alterations could not be more out 

 of place. And when he selects to give Poiamogetoii two 

 genders he becomes pedantic. To expect a man with 

 more common sense than leisure to inquire before 

 writing the name of a species of this genus whether its 

 author made it masculine or neuter, is to proffer him a 

 fetter of a nature as galling as purposeless. It may be 

 safely said that this is a demerit possessed by no other 

 English county flora. 



In the next place, a county flora must be considered as 

 a geographical study. Great pains are usually taken to 

 get together accurate facts (and this flora is no exception) ; 

 but the builder tips up his bricks and mortar at your 

 door, leaving the building to your own architectural 

 fancy. As long ago as 1863, in Baker's "North York- 

 shire," an admirable model was set, but no one has 

 followed in the same lines. Mr. Druce in the intro- 

 duction gives a long description of his districts, and 

 long lists of the noteworthy plants, but in the summary 

 he fails to point out any connection between these ; he 

 points out the soils of the county well — perhaps not so 

 well as in Pryor's "Hertfordshire Flora" — but fails to 

 summarise their effects on the plant formations ; he 

 has pointed out the deforesting of the land, but hardly 

 notices its effects ; and he has given us agricultural 

 returns, and passes unnoticed the effects of agriculture. 

 Surely such things should be the crowning of such a 

 book — a bringing into one view the long arrays of facts 

 which have gone before. It is a fault of most floras that 

 they are wanting in this. 



This " Flora of Berkshire " forms a thick volume of 

 more than 800 pages ; and it is not free from irrelevant 

 remarks. For instance, the fossil shells of the Lower 

 Greensand (p. xxxi) have no bearing on the subject ; 

 the history of the " Imp " stone (p. xlii) is out of place ; 

 most of the matter on river drainage (pp. xlvii-liii) is of 

 little use ; to be informed that the late M. A. Lawson 

 compiled a MS. index to Jaeger's "Adumbratio" (p. 

 clxxvii) is not of interest, and but poor salve to one who 

 needs use those two cumbersome volumes ; nor does it in 

 the least benefit us to be told that Mr. Druce has been 

 unable to elicit any reply from certain critical botanists. 



Caution, too, is sometimes left behind. That Elodeais 

 dying out by reason of the absence of the $ plant 

 (p. 465) is merely a conjecture. A little knowledge 

 of recent literature should have shown that Nepeta 

 Glechoma v^x. parviflora (p. 402) is merely a condition. 

 In fact, Mr. Druce's " Flora of Berkshire," founded on 

 so much labour, deserved a careful revision before it 

 went to press, and did not get it. It may rank with our 

 best county floras in some ways ; but most of these are 

 far from approaching a high scientific standard. There 

 is a tendency now to aim at more ambitious works than 

 NO. i486, VOL. 57] 



catalogues of " Phanerogams." The comprehensiveness 

 of Purchas and Ley's " Flora of Herefordshire," the notice 

 of the past vegetation of the peat in Hind's " Flora of 

 Suffolk," the scattered biological notes of Scott-Elliot's 

 " Flora of Dumfriesshire," and the critical remarks of 

 Druce's "Flora of Berkshire" are good signs, which we 

 hope may lead to better things. I. H. B. 



AMONG THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 

 Wild Life in Southern Seas. By Louis Becke. Crown 

 8vo. Pp. viii -f- 369. (London : T. Fisher Unwin. 

 1897.) 

 'T^HE author of "Pacific Tales" and "By Reef and 

 -*- Palm " stands in no need of introduction either to 

 the reader of fiction, or to the more serious-minded who 

 seek for information upon a part of the world where the 

 "personally-conducted" tour is as yet unknown. Mr. 

 Becke, in virtue of his twenty-six years of wandering 

 among the islands of the Pacific, has made himself an 

 acknowledged authority upon most of them, from the 

 Carolines to the Paumotus, and now that Major Stern - 

 dale is no longer with us, is probably better qualified to 

 speak of this region as a whole than any person now 

 living, though there are doubtless others whose know- 

 ledge of individual groups is more extensive. The 

 volume before us is upon the same lines as " By Reef 

 and Palm," a collection of reminiscences per ci per la., 

 rather less full of deeds of bloodshed, perhaps, than the 

 latter volume, and containing more of interest to the 

 naturalist and ethnologist, but at the same time possibly 

 not devoid of fiction, or at least of fact and fiction com- 

 mingled. Some of the articles seem familiar to us ; one 

 at least, upon Birgus lalro, has appeared in the columns 

 of the Field. 



The volume is one which will appeal especially to the 

 sea-fisherman who has tasted of the delights of reef- 

 fishing in Pacific waters, for half a dozen or more of the 

 articles are devoted to this sport in one shape or another. 

 The abundance of fish is not less remarkable than their 

 variety. Mr. Becke tells us that in the Ellice group he 

 has seen as many as twenty canoes loaded to sinking 

 point in less than an hour ; while, as for size, the takuo^ 

 a large species of albacore, reaches the weight of 120 lb. 

 and more. Shark-fishing is no very novel amusement, 

 perhaps, but catching flying-fish is a sport not so 

 widely practised, and Mr. Becke's description of it is a 

 vivid one. He has also done well in putting together his 

 sketch of the history of whaling in the South Seas. 



No new fight is thrown upon the curious stone build- 

 ings and fortifications which exist over the length and 

 breadth of the South Pacific, and have for so long 

 puzzled archaeologists, though Mr. Becke speaks of what 

 are probably the most extensive of all — those on Espiritu 

 Santo. Some interesting facts concerning population are 

 given. It has now been known for some time that the 

 extinction of these island peoples in consequence of the 

 advent of the whites, formerly regarded as an immediate 

 certainty, is not only not impending, but is never likely 

 to occur, except by the process of fusion — that the census 

 minimum has been reached, and that steady increase is 

 the rule rather than the exception. Funafuti, the island 

 lately visited by the coral-boring expedition, is a good 



