CLASSIFICATION. 59 



artificial — frequently placing far apart genera united by 

 many natural ties — it is the only one that is adapted for 

 those who have but little opportunity of seeing the plants 

 at all seasonSj or Avho are not in circumstances to use the 

 dissecting knife and microscope, so necessary for those "who 

 would make more natural systems the bases of their study. 

 Tor these reasons we think it much the most useful to em- 

 ploy, in a popular work such as the present professes to be ; 

 and without further remark we refer the reader to a detailed 

 Synopsis of the British Mosses immediately preceding the 

 description of genera and species ; giving such explanation 

 of the terms as wiU, we trust, enable the tyro Muscologist, 

 with the help of preceding chapters, and a good use of his 

 eyes, natural and artificial, to assign their proper station and 

 name to the mosses he may pick up. 



Before closing our remarks on this branch of Musco- 

 logy, we must briefly notice two other systems of more re- 

 cent promulgation — that of Professor Lindley of London, 

 in ' The Vegetable Kingdom,' and that adopted by Dr. C. 

 Miiller, a German mnscologist, in his recently published 

 * Synopsis Muscorum Frondosorum.' These are both founded 

 on the natural affinities and minute structure of Mosses, and 

 therefore their excellencies can only be appreciated by the 



