AucGusT 26, 1915] 
NATURE 
699 




knowledge of the fern flora of the reconstituted 
South Africa. Hence the new edition of the book 
enumerates 220 species, as compared with 179 in 
the first edition, and, the author states, this 
number should be further increased when the 
northern Drakensberg ranges, the Portuguese 
mountain slopes, and the valleys of the Zambesi, 
have been more closely investigated. Mr. Sim 
has taken the opportunity of revising the nomen- 
elature, which now follows Christensen’s Index 
Filicum, and thus renders the volume comparable 
with recent fern literature. The arrangement 
adopted by Christensen is also followed in the 
classification of the ferns proper, that is, exclusive 
of the Lycopods, Psilotum, and Equisetum. 
Of the introductory chapters, that on “ Culti- 
vation’ has been rewritten and much extended; 
but there is room for a good chapter on the 
general life-history of a fern, which is at present 
somewhat scrappily treated. The plates are more 
numerous, 186 as against 159, and on the whole 
better, than in the first edition, and the general 
get-up of the book, which is now issued by the 
Cambridge Press, is also greatly improved. 
(3) “With the Flowers and Trees in California” 
is a delightful series of word-pictures descriptive 
of the plant-life of one of the most brilliantly 
floriferous regions on the face of our earth. Ina 
series of thirteen chapters, Mr. Saunders describes 
as many phases of his subject from first-hand 
knowledge. There is no definite plan, each 
chapter is complete in itself, and, open it where 
he will, the botanist or intelligent general reader 
will find matter of interest charmingly  por- 
trayed. The first chapter is retrospective: an 
attempt to depict the virgin flora as it appeared 
to the first white men who visited the country, 
the Portuguese navigators, and later the Padres, 
who were the earliest settlers. Some account is 
also given of early botanical explorations, especi- 
ally of David Douglas, who introduced to Euro- 
pean gardens so many Californian flowers and 
trees; the Yorkshireman, Thomas Nuttall; and 
the American, John Fremont. The author does 
not overstate the case when he says that “the 
value of annuals in horticultural effect was first 
realised when the Royal Horticultural Society of 
London sowed the seeds of the scores of beautiful 
annuals which their collector, David Douglas, 
back in the 1830’s, brought them from California,” 
and ‘“‘the gardens of Europe are full of California 
wild flowers, such as clarkias, lupines, gilias, 
eschscholtzias, godetias, penstemons,” and, best 
known of all, nemophila. Intimately associated 
with Douglas also are some of the finest conifers, 
which he discovered in the West American forests, 
Pinus lambertiana, the Douglas pine (Pseudo- 
tsuga douglasii), and many others. 
NO. 2391, VOL. 95] 

The story of Californian plant life would not 
be complete without mention of the Big trees, and 
the chapter entitled ‘The Sequoia and its Adven- 
tures in Search of a Name” gives a racy account 
of the red-wood and its ally, the Sequoia gigantea, 
and the vicissitudes connected with the botanical 
name of the latter. If California has been 
generous she has also proved hospitable, and her 
| wayside trees have been brought from all quarters 
of the globe; one may mention among many 
various palms, New Zealand cordylines, Austra- 
lian eucalyptus, acacias, and casuarinas, and the 
widely-spread pepper-tree (Schinus molle), a 
native of Peru: as “the professor” remarks, “a 
walk along a California avenue is like a trip 
round the world.” “ Tree-hunting on a California 
desert’? depicts another phase, and introduces the 
reader to the yuccas, mesquit, cacti, and brilliant- 
flowered shrubs of the desert. A few daintily 
coloured plates and a number of half-tone illus- 
trations enhance the value of an interesting and 
eminently readable book. 
TENS, INIL VN IBIS IN. 
(1) Fighting the Fly Peril. A Popular and Prac- 
tical Handbook. By C. F. Plowman and W. F. 
Dearden. Pp. 127. (London: T. Fisher Un- 
Wwinkplotdes 1915.) | ericesis. net. 
(2) The House Fly: A Slayer of Men. By F. W. 
FitzSimons. Pp. vi+89. (London: Longmans, 
Green and Co., 1915.) Price 1s. net. 
(1) HIS volume is practically an exposition 
in popular terms of the use of borax 
as a destroyer of the eggs and larve of the house 
fly, with suitable quotations from Gordon Hewitt 
and other writers. The use of traps, of formalin, 
of some general precautions is also advocated. 
The authors lay stress on the importance of cover- 
ing manure with soil, but it is not clear how far 
this will affect its rotting and so its manurial 
value. 
Above all, the authors recommend borax, using 
the matter in Bulletin 118 of the United States 
Department of Agriculture and adducing an ex- 
periment of their own. We pass over the American 
bulletin, since it is now recognised in America 
that borax is not a suitable material for preventing 
fly-breeding in manure heaps. The “British 
Experiment ” of chapter ix. is of interest, as it 
goes completely contrary to experiments made in 
this country on a much larger scale. This ex- 
periment was made in three tea boxes, with three 
cubic feet of manure in each. Flies hatched out 
from the untreated manure, not from the treated. 
It is noticeable that flies began to emerge on the 
eighth day from the untreated manure: they must 

