1893. | Current Literature. 3r 
distinguished specialists, but how can he be expected to keep step 
with the rapid advance in every department? It is our opinion that 
more antiquated anatomy and physiology, to say nothing of taxonomy 
(which of course includes the facts of morphology), are being taught 
in this country by well known botanists than we would care to acknowl- 
edge. Anatomists (still called histologists in some quarters) are apt to 
give little or no conception of modern physiology, and none whatever 
of our fluctuating taxonomy. Taxonomists (both in specific and 
genetic lines) are likely to be fair anatomists, but simply retailers of an 
obsolete physiology. As for physiologists, we may be said, as yet, to 
have none. We have some fair “readers” of the subject, and others 
who are mechanically expert enough to devise pieces of apparatus, but 
as a distinct department in this country, physiology is yet to be es- 
tablished. 
A ScHOooL oF Botany would prevent this lop-sided presentation 
of the subject, and would develop a race of botanists with broader 
views. Such a center of investigation and instruction will doubtless 
soon be established, as educational matters are moving just now with 
remarkable rapidity. ; 
CURRENT LITERATURE. 
Handbook of British Fungi. 
Few systematic works, especially of those relating to cryptogams, 
have enjoyed such a long period of uninterrupted usefulness as Cooke’s 
“Handbook of British F ungi,” published in 1871, in two volumes. 
Although long since out of print, the demand for it has not abated, 
as the high price in the second-hand catalogues fully shows. Its pop- 
ularity was not due to its ever having been a satisfactory work, but to 
the fact that it was the only work covering the ground. The number 
of species included in it was 2,810, while the number now recorded 
for the same territory is about 4,900. There have also been great ad- 
vances in the classification of the fungi in the Jast two decades. 
In view of these facts the announcement of a new handbook like 
the old one, but “with all the modern improvements,” gives much 
Satisfaction. The new work is to be in three volumes, the first one 
being already before us. It is prepared by Mr. George Massee,' and 
mM size and general appearance resembles Cooke’s work. 
*Massze, Gzorce. — British fungus-flora: a classified text-book of mycol- 
BY. 3 vols. 8vo. Vol. I. pp. xii, 422. Illustra 
