244 Miscellaneous. 



wHch wo heartily concur. In fact we are quite assured that, in the 

 case of n prhnd facie discovery of a new form, Mr. Watson is too 

 sound a working botanist not to admit that in minute attention to 

 " small differences " and " little distinctions " — occasionally stamped, 

 for attracting or facilitating further observation, and whilst yet un- 

 proved to be really trivial or inconstant, with a special name — lies 

 the very safest way to truth in settling the limits ultimately of a 

 species, and this despite all liability to abuse that may accrue in 

 thus "allowing nice opportunities to petty minds to make petty 

 distinctions on paper" (p. IGl). 



This very valuable portion of the book is followed by a carefully 

 compiled list by Mr. Mitten of all the Mosses and Liverworts 

 (Ilepatlcce) hitherto discovered in Madeira, the Canaries, and Acorcs. 

 Of these, we have only time and space to observe that they appear 

 entirely to confirm the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Watson (p. i376) 

 with reference to the Flowering Plants and Ferns, viz. that " on 

 the whole they can hardly be said to yield any special evi- 

 dence in support of the Darwinian theories ; " though instead of 

 admitting that "their affinities on the general view are more in 

 support of those theories", than adverse to them," we should rather 

 have remarked that, in many signal and decisive points, they seem 

 to us to run directly counter to them. 



Mr. Godman concludes his interesting volume with a short 

 summary and general remarks, followed by a full index of scientific 

 names and two small maps, showing the relative position of the 

 islands and of the whole group. It remains to be noted, for the en- 

 couragement of future investigators, that he has still left unexplored 

 in Botany the Lichens, Algae, and Fungi, and in Zoology the highly 

 interesting provinces, in their relation to the Canaries and Madeira, 

 of the Arachnida, Crustaceans, lladiates, Sponges, Corallines, Sea- 

 Fishes, and Mollusks, 



He has added, however, to our " helps to knowledge " a book 

 from which not only the practical naturalist, but any one who is at 

 aU competent unbiasedly to sift and weigh the alleged " facts " of 

 modern " science," and the varieties of airy theoretic superstructure 

 attempted to be raised upon them, may derive not less profit than 

 interest and entertainment. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



The late Adrian Haedy Hawoetu. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.E.S. &e. 



It has often occurred to me that English naturalists have hardly done 

 justice to the great scientific merits of this industrious and far-seeing 

 botanist and entomologist, no doubt in consequence of his being so 

 far in advance of his age at a time when not to be a worshipper of 

 the Linnean school as understood in England (which is most unlike 

 the practice and example of Linnaeus himself) was a sufficient mark 

 of opprobium to almost exclude him from scientific societies. As a 



