604 BOOK RECORDS. 



equally reliable as a specially printed list should be. The 

 chances for inadvertently marking a wrong name, while check- 

 ing the names in a printed general list, or of entering a wrong 

 name while writing out a local list of plant-names, must be at 

 least appreciable, and in some cases even considerable ; and 

 there is no check or test against such inadvertencies, except that 

 they will have been afterwards subjected also to the receiver's 

 scrutiny and scepticism. In a printed Flora, it may be assumed, 

 the list of plants or names will have passed repeatedly under the 

 writer's eyes and ideas ; leaving small chance for mere inad- 

 vertencies, as distinct from errors arising through inadequate 

 knowledge. 



But if the Local Floras, books in which accuracy might more 

 especially be expected, often add their quotas to the store of 

 false records, what else can be expected from the Reports of 

 Provincial Societies ; so many of whose members must be com- 

 paratively quite novices in science. It is only to those reports 

 from provincial societies, which have regularly passed under the 

 supervision of some competent and responsible botanist, that 

 trustful credence can be given. There may be much that is 

 useful and correct in them ; the objection lies in the mingled 

 errors too often allowed to find entrance. Fortunately, most of 

 those reports remain merely local ; being seldom copied from 

 into the more general works. If they do become the means of 

 giving wider currency and more permanent record to some errors, 

 it is mostly effected through being recognized and re-copied in 

 the periodical journals. 



The editors of Natural History journals, in any department, 

 have a somewhat difficult task to perform. It is slow suicide to 

 let their journals sink into the low grade of becoming repertories 

 of blunders ; and yet they are compelled to admit much that is 

 worthless, if not positively erroneous, to please their contributory 

 subscribers. On the rule of propitiating subscribers, what a host 

 of blunders did Loudon's Magazine of Natural History bring into 

 permanent record ! At a later date something of like kind, 



