Woodland Gleanings. 269 



views in his investigation of this family; but in this respect he 

 has been unsuccessful. The present work must have required 

 a great deal of laborious research in its compilation ; but we 

 cannot help expressing our regret that the author should not 

 have attached the names of the localities in which the various 

 species occur, and also references to the works in which they 

 are described or figured. Had this plan been adopted, the 

 usefulness of the work would have been increased tenfold, 

 and without requiring a proportionate expenditure of labour. 

 The Synopsis, however, will always be valuable as a work of 

 reference, and should certainly be in the hands of every 

 eoncholomst. 



Art. IV. Woodland Gleanings. By the Editor of the " Senti- 

 ment of Flowers;" with numerous Illustrations. One Vol. 

 12mo. London, Tilt, 1837. 



Since the publication of Dr. Aikin's Woodland Companion, 

 upwards of forty years ago, nothing, on a similar plan, suf- 

 ficiently popular in its character, has appeared in this country 

 to record the thoughts and rich fancies of our poets respecting 

 the most ornamental of its features — the trees, which rise from 

 the bosom of the earth in majesty and grace. The present 

 volume, however, seems well calculated to supply what had 

 become a desideratum : a pocket companion for those who, 

 unacquainted with the principles and practice of botany, yet 

 feel an interest in trees, and might wish to identify such trees 

 as they meet in their rambles with the accounts they may 

 have read of them, or to link the individual tree which pre- 

 sented itself before them with any passage in some favourite 

 bard. For either purpose, the Woodland Gleanings will be 

 found an eligible manual ; more especially as, in addition to 

 many well-known quotations from anterior poets, the editor 

 has introduced many from more recent sources, chiefly from 

 Wordsworth aud the American poets. That Wordsworth 

 has made a valuable increase to our stock of images respecting 

 trees and sylvan scenery, and delineated as no pen but his 

 own can do the elevating effect of contemplating such objects, 

 no one who is familiar with his writings is ignorant. Many, 

 however, have yet to gain an acquaintance with his refined 

 and soul-purifying works, and may, perchance, be first in- 

 duced to read and value them as they deserve from meeting 

 with such extracts as this volume supplies. 



The illustrations scattered through its pages are of two 

 kinds ; a delineation of the aspect of the entire tree, as a pic- 

 turesque object ; and a specimen of the leaves, flower, and 



