134 REVIEWS. [June, 



combe. ColcMcum officinale : a meadow near Milton Wood. 

 Tamus communis, Pteris aquilina, Blechnum boreale, Polypodium 

 vulgcCre, Polypodium calcareum,: Cheddar, ''bystopjeris fragilis : 

 Cheddar. Polystichum angulare, Lastrea Filix-mas, Lastrea 

 spinosa, Lastrea multiflora, Athyrium Filix-foemina, Asplenium 

 Adiantum-nigrum : not common. Asplenium But a-mur arid, As- 

 plenium Trichomanes,' Scolopendrium vulgare, Ceterach officina- 

 rum : very common. Ophioglossum vulgatum : meadow near 

 Wal combe Wood. 



The British Botanist's Field Book : a Synopsis of the By-itish 

 Flowering Plants. By A. P. Childs^ F.R.C.S. London: 

 Longman^ 1857. 



It is now just ten years since an original work on the British 

 Plants was offered to botanists. The ' Phytologist ' then de- 

 scribed it in the following rather cool terms : — " This work omits 

 a very great portion of the more useful parts of Hooker's ' Flora ' 

 and Babington's 'Manual/ and contains no useful additions to 

 make amends : it appears ill-adapted for students, the arrange- 

 ment of matter being obscure, and in many instances unintel- 

 ligible." 



Again, '^'We can scarcely imagine that the most remote proba- 

 bility of success attends the publication of a descriptive list of 

 British Plants in opposition to the established works of Hooker 

 and Babington ; but we have no wish on this account to prejudice 

 the work before us/^ etc. 



This is all very like offering the cold shoulder to the netv- 

 comer, the friendless stranger, and reminds us of Bailie Nicol 

 Jarvie's remark on the shabby reception he received from his 

 fair cousin, Helen Macgregor, in the pass of Aberfoyle. The 

 virago attempted to hurl him headlong over a precipice into 

 Lochard, which the Bailie quietly said was a sort of Highland 

 hospitality far on the noi'th side of friendly. The author of the 

 present work will at all events get a more genial greeting from 

 the ' Phytologist ' now, than his immediate predecessor got then. 

 Literary and scientific sinners will not be roughly handled in the 

 pages of the New Series of the only serial work now existing on 



