1857.] REVIEWS. 299 



ries will form the last new object of foshion and wonderment." 

 The belt of gardens round London formed with the purpose of 

 exhibiting all the climates and all the productions of the earth 

 was as nothing to the gigantic scheme of glass-walled seas, with 

 space enough for animals rivalling in size the saurians of old^ 

 with shoals of modern herrings and haddocks to harry them. 

 The balance, nicely adjusted as it is, between animal and vege- 

 table life, is a wonderful, instructive, and interesting example of 

 the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, but its admirers and 

 illustrators are in some risk of becoming ridiculous. 



On the Structure of Lecidea lugubris, Sommf By William 

 L. Lindsay, M.D., Perth. (Reprinted from the 'Journal of 

 Microscopical Science.') 



Botanists of the older and conservative school will be pleased 

 to learn that Dr. Lindsay, one of our most indefatigable, accu- 

 rate, and successful Lichenologists, is no admirer of the splitting 

 and subdividing principle, which is so characteristic of modern 

 practice in the natural sciences. 



The discoverer of this Lichen, new to Britain, informs us that 

 he retains the ancient name, L. lugubris, though not so euphonious 

 as Schcereria lugubris, a name conferred on it by Korber, in 

 honour of Schserer, the illustrious Lichenologist of Switzerland, 

 and that he does this " as a practical protest against the fastidi- 

 ously elaborate subdivision of genera and species ; this is probably 

 the result of a mono-ideaism " (will some learned reader tell us 

 what this is ?), "I shall [will] not say a morbid one, but one which 

 is apt to lead to a repulsively minute and difficult classification.'^ 

 Many of our readers will agree with Dr. Lindsay that classifica- 

 tions are sometimes needlessly as well as repulsively minute, and 

 the terms whereby these are represented are not seldom difficult 

 and obscure. The European habitats of this newly-discovered 

 treasure are "primitive rocks on high mountains, above 3000 

 feet of elevation.'' Two stations are given in the Riesengebirge 

 (Germany), and the more general one, '^subalpine rocks in 

 Sweden and other parts of Northern Europe." The place in 

 which the Doctor found it is one which cannot be called alpine, 

 viz. " on a low ground — a moor immediately to the west of the 



