74 



NA TURE 



[May 28, 1896 



THE KEW INDEX OF PLANT NAMES. 

 Index Kc'LOcnsis Plantai-uin P/iaiu'roi^iiiunniin. Sumptibus 

 beati Caroli Robert! Darwin ductii et consilio Joseph! 

 I). Hooker confecit B. Daydon Jackson. Fasc!cLiIus 

 !v. Pp. 641-1297. (Oxbni! : e prelo CIarenclon!ano, 

 18950 



THE serial issue from the press of large works of 

 reference like that under notice does not always 

 proceed with the rapidity which, to those whose appetites 

 arc whetted by foretaste, appears possible and desirable. 

 It is therefore with all the more satisfaction that we 

 chronicle the issue with commendable promptness of this, 

 the fourth, fasciculus of the Kew Index, by which the 

 work is brought to completion. Botanists and all who 

 have concern in the names of plants are thereby furnished 

 with a book which must always form an essential tool in 

 their library equipment. 



The appearance of the earlier fasciculi gave occasion 

 for a notice in Nature of the aim and scope of the work, 

 and it is not necessary therefore to refer to these again, 

 the less so as the two years that have elapsed since 

 the first fasciculus came into our hands have sutificed to 

 familiarise those who have need to use such a book with 

 its value as a standard work of reference. It may not, 

 however, be mistimed to repeat here the caution given by 

 the Director of Kew in his address at the Ipswich meet- 

 ing of the British -Association, that the work is no more 

 than its name signifies. It is a sound and safe guide ; it 

 is not a critical botanical work. The bulk of the names 

 as cited in the Index may be regarded as definitely 

 fixed for the nomenclature of botanists, at least 

 in Great Britain ; but throughout the volumes any 

 one may find abundant evidence that it was not the 

 intention of those who have laboured to produce this 

 magnificent work to go beyond the identifications 

 established in the literature of botany at the date at 

 which their citations close. Further study and investi- 

 gation must result in modifications of limits imposed 

 by the state of botany in 1885, and names will change 

 therewith ; but such alterations of names, the acceptation 

 or rejection of which must be a matter of botanical 

 op'nion, will not detract from, but will rather enhance 

 the value of the Index as a standard of botanical 

 nomenclature. 



In no direction is the beneficent influence of the 

 publication of the Index more immediately to be looked 

 for than in the literature of horticulture, and it is in this 

 aspect that the book will appeal to that large section of 

 the public delighting in gardening, and which naturally 

 objects to purchasmg from a nurseryman the same plant 

 over and over again under different names. It would 

 appear that the Index is already exercising an effect, and 

 that nurserymen are disposed to use the botanical name, if 

 not instead of, at least cited alongside of, the trade name 

 for plants in their catalogues — a practical result for which 

 we cannot be too thankful, and in the hastening of which 

 we must recognise the stimulus given by the e.xcellent 

 seiies of hand-lists of plants cultivated in the Royal 

 ("lardens, Kew, now in course of publication. 



On the completion of their labours upon this vast 

 work the botanical world will accoi'd to Mr. Daydon 

 Jackson and Sir Joseph Hooker its hearty congratula- 

 NO. 1387, VOL. 54] 



tions, nor will it forget that to Mr. Darwin it owes the 

 projection and endowment of the book. To the Clarendon 

 Press, too, its thanks will be given for the dress in which 

 it has sent out the volumes. Whatever may be the 

 future of botanical nomenclature— and the opening of 

 the twentieth century is threatened with no less an in- 

 fliction than a new " nomenclator," prepared in conformitj' 

 with his own special principles Ijy Dr. Otto Kuntze, 

 which is to sweep away the nomenclature of the Kew, 

 Berlin, and New York "cliques" (the productive seats of 

 systematic botany) — botanists in all time must recognise 

 the sound, judicious, conscientious workmanship displayed 

 in the Index Kewensis through which it takes and will 

 retain its value as a work of reference. 



THE ANATOMY OF FEAR. 

 Fear. By Angelo Mosso. Translated from the fifth 

 edition of the Italian, by E. Lough and F. Kiesow 

 8vo. Pp. 277. (London, New York, and Bombay : 

 Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896.) 



THE learned and eloquent Professor of Physiology at 

 Turin has given us in the book which he has 

 entitled " Fear," an analysis of this mental condition and 

 its accompanying physical states, which, marked as it is 

 by scientific accuracy and couched in charming and 

 even in poetical diction, will take high rank as a 

 popular exposition of our knowledge of the e.xpressior* 

 of one of the most interesting of the emotions of both 

 men and animals. The extent of ground which is covered 

 by the author, and the amount of infonnation which he 

 has contrived to convey within a small compass, excites 

 our astonishment and admiration. Nor, in spite of the 

 complicated scientific problems which are dealt with, is 

 there a word of heavy reading from beginning to end. 

 The book is beyond measure interesting^, and one that 

 when taken up it is difficult to lay down unread. Clearly 

 it was impossible in a work with this title to avoid 

 gruesome details, and readers whose nerves are dis- 

 agreeably affected by descriptions of morbid conditions 

 may put the book down with a shudder when tliey arri\e 

 at a passage in which a pathological case, which is used 

 to illustrate the argument, is painted in glowing language 

 from the life. For the author has in no wise burked such 

 details ; on the contrary, they come before one from time 

 to time in the work with a vividness which transports one 

 bodily to the hospital ward, the asylum, the vivisection 

 table ! But there is at the same time such a strong 

 under-current of sympathy with suffering pervading the 

 whole, that while the reader will come away froin the 

 scenes depicted, deeply interested in the lessons which 

 they teach, there is no fear that he will be rendered 

 callous by the famiharity which he has acquired with 

 their horrors. 



The idea of the book is to endeavour to rest the 

 expression of this important emotion upon a physio- 

 logical basis. With this aim in view, the effects of dread 

 upon the heart and circulation, upon the respirations, 

 upon the muscular system both voluntary and visceral, 

 upon the secretions, and upon the central ner\ ous 

 system, are portrayed. Nor does the author confine 

 himself strictly to the emotion which gives the book its. 



