February i6, 1905] 



NA rURE 



study of organisms, which in a living state are for 

 the most part many hundreds of miles from his door, 

 must have presented a task in conquering which his 

 zeal and power of work can find no better example 

 than the volume before us. To a great extent this 

 work must have been book work, and excellent book 

 work it is, the purely bibliographical work especially ; 

 and with the aid of herbarium specimens Dr. Oltmanns 

 has succeeded in giving us a general morphology of 

 the .Mgse — a treatise to have been expected only from 

 one with abundant leisure and a microscope near the 

 sea. To approach, then, in a spirit of criticism an 

 encyclopaedic book of this kind, to try to gauge its 

 worth, seems in the circumstances scarcely " sports- 

 iiinnlike," if I may use such a term, on the part of 

 one who has had so many greater opportunities of 

 observation. 



The De Bary of the subject is, of course. Dr. Bornet, 

 and no student can for a moment question his pre- 

 eminent claims to instruct us. Schmitz, of Greifs- 

 wald, whose loss we can never cease to deplore, seemed 

 destined to employ his indomitable industry in a work 

 of this kind. Happily we have Dr. Oltmanns, and 

 happil)' he has had the courage to undertake a task 

 so full of use and pleasure to all students of this 

 fascinating group of plants. 



I do not wish for a moment even to seem to detract 

 from the great performance of Dr. Oltmanns. One 

 irresistibly comes back to the Freiburg and De Bary 

 standard. One hoped for a general morphology of the 

 .\lg£E as De Bary gave us one of the fungi. Dr. 

 Oltmanns has given us an encyclopaedic book — an 

 admirable one — but not the reasoned work of genius 

 botanists have dreamt of. 



-According to personal prejudice, very possibly, I 

 mean prejudice in the right sense of the word, I turned 

 first to the obscure groups of primitive -AlgEe, groups 

 that I have had so many opportunities of studying on 

 the sea, and of which Dr. Oltmanns can have had few 

 chances of seeing living specimens. It so happened 

 that while writing this review the present writer was 

 engaged in describing a new generic form of pelagic 

 Alga obtained on the outward voyage of the Discovery. 

 The point was put to the test by consulting Dr. 

 Oltmanns's descriptions and bibliography. From that, 

 of course, the original sources were taken and verified, 

 not so much for the immediate purpose, as was natural 

 in any case, as for the aim of doing justice in review- 

 ing Dr. Oltmanns's book. The result was triumphant 

 for Dr. Oltmanns — every reference and every descrip- 

 tion having been pursued to its original source. It is 

 difficult to establish a negative, but no reference was 

 found wanting. 



Naturally one turned next to the group Dr. 

 Oltmanns has made his own — the Fucaceas. It may 

 seem presumption, but it was dutiful, and here, again, 

 the book stood every test. The other groups of Algse 

 were not made the subject of such rigorous treatment, 

 but they were examined with scrutiny enough to 

 warrant the expression of a very warm and hearty 

 recommendation of this great book to the consideration 

 of botanists and cultivated readers. 



George Murray. 

 NO. I 842, VOL. 7 l] 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Game, Shore and Water Birds oj India: with 

 Additional References to their Allied Species in 

 Other Parts of the World. By Colonel A. Le 

 Messurier, C.I.E., F.Z.S., F.G.S. Fourth edition. 

 Pp. xvi + 323. (London: Thacker and Co., 1904.) 

 The first edition of this work was a modest little 

 volume, printed for private circulation only, on the 

 birds of Sind. This appeared so far back as 1874. 

 Four years later, with some additions, it was issued 

 to the public. Hume and Marshall's epoch-making 

 work on the game birds of India appearing at the 

 same time made a third edition imperative. This 

 in due time appeared, and large additions were made 

 thereto, taken, with acknowledgments, from this 

 formidable rival. Meeting with a well merited 

 success, a fourth edition has now been issued, which 

 differs from the earlier volumes in that it " includes 

 references to all species in other parts of the world 

 that are allied to the Game, Shore, and Water 

 Birds of India." 



This addition is made on the curious plea that 

 " owing to the facilities of travel, Anglo-Indians are 

 now engaged in most countries either on business or 

 pleasure." It is to be supposed that Anglo-Indian 

 sportsmen are here specially referred to, and further, 

 that, save for this volume, no information concerning 

 the avifauna of the countries they propose to visit 

 is obtainable. That this is not the case it is needless 

 to sav, and the traveller-sportsman would be ill 

 advised who started on his journey with this volume 

 for his only guide and counsellor. 



In so far as it concerns the birds of India likely 

 to interest the sportsman, this book will do very 

 well ; but it would have been vastly improved if the 

 space now devoted to extra-Indian birds had been 

 utilised for fuller descriptions of the native species, 

 and for the description of the geographical and climatic 

 conditions of the several regions of this vast hunting 

 ground. 



The introduction to this book contains, we venture 

 to think, not a little that is out of place in a work of 

 this kind. Much of it is admittedly compiled from 

 abstruse scientific treatises, or from the labels of the 

 Natural History Museum at South Kensington. 



There can be no doubt but that the author, during 

 his long residence in India and his wide experience 

 in the field, must have accumulated a vast store of 

 facts concerning Indian birds which would be well 

 worth recording. For this reason, therefore, we 

 regret that he decided on including in this edition 

 matter really foreign to the scope of his book. 

 His first-hand observations would have been of in- 

 finitel}' more interest and value than the compilation 

 now presented. 



The illustrations are numerous, and mostly very 

 crude. W. P. P. 



The Species of Dalbergia of South-Eastern Asia. 

 By Dr. D. Prain. (Annals of the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens, Calcutta, vol. x., part i.) Pp. iv+114; 

 and plates. (Calcutta, 1904.) Price il. 13s. 

 The stages in the evolution of the genus Dalbergia 

 are sketched in the early pages of this memoir. 

 After removal of the extraneous species, the genus 

 was delimited by Bentham in 185 1, and four sub- 

 divisions, Selenoloblum, Dalbergaria, Sissoa, and 

 Triptolomea, were mapped out. Although Bentham 

 himself pointed out that there was overlapping in 

 these subdivisions, the grouping has been maintained 

 by later systematists down to and including Taubert, 

 who undertook the Leguminosse for the " Pflanzen- 

 famillen " in 1894. Dr. Prain, who had previously 

 reviewed the genus when collating the Leguminosse 

 in connection with " Materials for a Flora of the 



