September 17, 19 14] 



NATURE 



57 



in this diagram. This certainly should be altered 

 before a new edition is printed. 



Although it takes a good deal of space to point 

 out these defects, they are not numerous or im- 

 portant enough to decrease the value of the book 

 sensibly. It is scarcely necessary to advise stu- 

 dents to get the volume, as they will find it indis- 

 pensable if they wish to obtain a good working 

 knowledge of the fundamentals of electrostatics 

 and magnetism. P. P. 



BOTANY AND NATURE STUDY. 

 (i) Introduction to Botany. By J. Y. Bergen 

 and Prof. O. W. Caldwell. Pp. vii + 368. 

 (Boston and London: Ginn and Co., n.d.) 

 Price 55. 



(2) .4 Flora of Norfolk. Edited by W. A. Nichol- 

 son. Pp. vii + 214 + 2 maps. (London: West, 

 Newman and Co., 1914-) Price 6s. 



(3) and (4) Wild Flowers as They Grow. Photo- 

 graphed in colour direct from nature by H. 

 Essenhigh Corke. With descriptive text by 

 G. Clarke Nuttall. Sixth series. Pp. viii + 200 

 + plates. Seventh series. Pp. viii + 204 + 

 plates. (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1914-) 

 Price 55. net each. 



(5) The English Year: Spring. By W. B. 

 Thomas and A. K. Collett. Pp. ix+334 + 

 plates. (London and Edinburgh : T. C. and 

 E. C. Jack, n.d.) Price 105. 6d. net. 



(6) My Garden in Spring. By E. A. Bowles. 

 Pp. XX + 308 + plates. (London and Edin- 

 burgh: T. C. and E. C. Jack, 1914.) Price 

 55. net. 



(i) 'TpHE authors of this excellent elementary 

 L text are practised hands in the produc- 

 tion of books on botany for students, and the 

 present work is mainly a condensation of their 

 larger work published a few years ago, entitled 

 "Practical Botany," though from the abbreviated 

 list of their works on the title-page one might 

 infer that each author had published an earlier 

 book with this name. However, it differs con- 

 siderably in style from the authors' previous 

 works, and indeed from most other elementary 

 books on botany, in two features which are con- 

 sistently kept in view throughout — namely, the 

 emphasis which is laid on the dynamic side of 

 botany, the plant being regarded as an organism 

 forced to maintain its existence under conditions 

 sometimes favourable and sometimes unfavour- 

 able to it, and the constant reference to the prac- 

 tical side of plant life in all its bearings. That is, 

 while the work gives a good general grounding in 

 botany, the ecological and the economic aspects 

 of the subject, taken In the widest sense, are 

 NO. 2342, VOL. 94] 



never lost sight of and at the same time are not 

 unduly stressed. Since there are comparatively 

 few references to plants unknown in the wild 

 state or unfamiliar in cultivation in Britain, the 

 book is one that can be warmly commended to 

 teachers, at any rate to those who have no set 

 syllabus to work from, while those responsible for 

 j the framing of syllabuses in elementary botany 

 might learn much from a book like this as to what 

 is wanted in the case of a subject with such 

 marked educational significance. The book is 

 generously illustrated, and the figures are remark- 

 ably clear and well executed. 



(2) The Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' 

 Society is to be congratulated on the production 

 of this admirable flora of a remarkably interest- 

 ing county, a book which was certainly required, 

 considering that the only previously published 

 Flora appeared so far back as 1866 and has long 

 been out of print. The editor of this work has 

 left no stone unturned in his efforts to make the 

 lists of the flowering plants and the higher 

 flowerless plants of Norfolk as complete as pos- 

 sible, while he has enlisted the services of other 

 writers in the earlier part of the book, dealing 

 with climate, soils, physiography, and plant dis- 

 tribution, which precedes the plant lists. Both 

 sections of the book are, however, open to a 

 certain amount of criticism. While the articles 

 on climate and on soils are all that could be 

 desired, being admirably clear though brief, that 

 on physiography and plant distribution is rather 

 weak as regards the latter or vegetational aspect, 

 though the part dealing with physiography is 

 good so far as it goes. The author of what 

 ought to be the most important portion of the 

 general discussion of the flora of a county or 

 other area fails to arrange his subject-matter 

 clearly and logically, and his treatment of the 

 ecology and distribution of the flora will, we fear, 

 be useful neither to the average field botanist 

 unfamiliar with the terminology or the ideas of 

 modern ecological plant-geography, nor to the 

 ecologist desiring to compare the vegetation of 

 Norfolk with that of other parts of the country 

 which have been systematically investigated from 

 this point of view. In a flora of this kind, the 

 general account of the vegetation should be pre- 

 ceded by an outline of general ecological prin- 

 ciples, with an indication of the relations of the 

 plant-communities represented in the area to the 

 general scheme upon which these communities are 

 based and classified. Again, in the systematic 

 portion of the work, following on the flowering 

 plants, we find the heading "Cryptogamia," but 

 the list of flowerless plants stops short with the 

 mosses and liverworts; either such a heading 



