150 
Notices oF New Books. 
‘A Plain and Easy Account of the British Ferns; wherein each 
Species ts particularly described under its respective Genus, 
and the characteristics of those Genera given in words in com- 
mon use: with a Glossary of Technical Terms, serving as a Key 
io larger Treatises. London: Robert Hardwicke, 38, Carey 
Street. 1854. 
“ Of what vast consequence am I! 
Not of the importance you suppose, 
Replies a flea upon his nose.” 
Gay's Fables. 
Herz is a book that must subtract very materially from any inflated 
idea that Mr. Newman may have formed of his own importance as an 
historian of British ferns. He is not criticized; he is not in any way 
spoken slightingly of; but there is the most clear and unmistakable 
evidence that he is utterly unknown. Francis is regarded as the 
great pteridologist of Britain: Thomas Moore’s ‘ Handbook’ is 
too “ complicated in its plan of arrangement ;” and the same author’s 
‘ Popular History’ “has the same complicate classification.” We 
may, perhaps, venture to correct the author on the latter point, by just 
mentioning that the “ complicate classification ” complained of is not 
intended as a classification at all: it is an alphabetical arrangement. 
“In the following pages,” says our author, “the subject has been 
more simplified.” In order to acquire a knowledge of the British 
ferns without troubling himself with the recondite labours of Francis 
and Moore, the reader is informed, in the opening paragraph, that— 
“As every formal fern comes under one or other of the Heads 
[what Heads ?], it is only necessary in any case to look at its fructifi- 
cation, and then, by casting the eye down the following list, the genus to 
which it belongs will be seen at once.” The characters of the genera 
on which the reader is requested to cast his eye are recorded thus :— 
** Sori in entire cups, springing from the branch.” 
** Sori oval, on the inner surface of the Indusium.” 
It strikes us as possible that not only beginners, but also experts, 
might be found who would stumble even at these curt and simple 
definitions ; but then the remedy is at hand: the glossary’s the thing 
