Bibliographical Notices. 105 
third subdivision deals with the Characeze, which are now univer- 
sally admitted as a distinct structural type. The fourth subdivision 
deals with the Algee, and is fuller in detail than any other part of 
the book. The types included here are placed under eight classes— 
Florideze, Confervoideze Heterogame, Fucacex, Phceospore, Conju- 
gate, Confervoidee Isogame, Multinucleatz, and Coenobierw. In 
the fifth subdivision the Fungi are primarily subdivided as Phyco- 
mycetes and Sporocarpez, the Lichens being dealt with as parasitic 
fungi which do not develop beyond the earliest stage of germination 
without the aid of an algal host. Subdivision six deals briefly with 
the Mycetozoa, distinguished from the Fungi by their saprophytic 
nutrition and vegetative body constituting a plasmodium formed by 
the coalescence of peculiar swarm-spores. The seventh subdivision 
deals with the Protophyta, under which are included Diatoms, Pro- 
tococcoidex, and the Cyanophycez, the series ending with the Bac- 
teria. Under each chapter is given a list of the principal recent 
memoirs that relate to its subject, and this bibliographical part of 
the work will be very useful to beginners and isolated workers. 
The great puzzle for students in Cryptogamic Botany is in the 
nomenclature of the parts of the organism. It is most difficult to 
carry out the principle that the same organ should always bear the 
same name throughout the various orders, and that organs that are 
not identical should receive different names. The plan adopted by 
our authors is as follows :—They propose the restriction of the term 
spore to any cell which is produced by the ordinary processes of 
vegetation, not directly by a union of the sexual elements, which 
becomes detached for purposes of direct vegetative propagation. 
The simple term spore is used in the Pteridophyta and Muscinee ; 
but in the Thallophytes it is generally qualified by a prefix, e. g. 
zoospore, tetraspore. The cell in which spores are found is called 
a sporange. In the heterosporous Pteridophyta the spores from 
which the female prothallium arises are called megaspores and 
those which give birth to the antherozoids microspores. The cases 
which contain them are called megasporangia and microsporangia. 
The cell containing the male organs of fertilization is called an 
antheridium and the fecundating bodies antherozoids. Spore being 
abandoned for the female reproductive organs it is proposed to use 
sperm as a root-term in its place, oosphere for the unfertilized pro- 
toplasmic mass, and gone as a root-syllable for the various forms of 
the entire female organ before fertilization. In a similar way they 
differentiate between a sexual and non-sexual multiplication of 
individuals, by calling the first process reproduction and the latter 
propagation. If some such plan of limiting terminology could be 
carried out it would effect a great gain in clearness and precision. 
A general elementary handbook of this kind was much wanted, 
and it deserves and no doubt will obtain a wide circulation. The 
Pteridophyta and Muscinee are now known as thoroughly as the 
Phanerogamia ; but in all the other divisions there is a wide field 
for further work in the study of life-histories. 
