256 Bibl tographical Notice. 
[ ADDITIONAL. | 
Mempranipora, De Blainville. 
Membranipora protecta, n. sp. 
Zoecia contracted above, expanded below, disposed rather 
irregularly in lines, set closely together, front wall wholly 
membranous, margin smooth ; 2 erect spines (sometimes bifid) 
at the top, below them on each side a single bifid spine, and 
below these 2 large, branched, antler-like spines, which meet 
over the aperture ; numerous avicularia interspersed amongst 
the cells, placed on a distinct area; beak elongate, slanting 
upwards, mandible with a triangular base, the upper portion 
long, slender, setiform. Occiwm (?). 
Loe. Virago Sound, Queen Charlotte Islands (Dr. G. MW. 
Dawson). 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 
Manual of British Botany. By Cuartes Carpate Basineton, M.A., 
F.R.S.,. F.L.S., &c., Professor of Botany in the University of 
Cambridge. Eighth Edition. Corrected throughout. London: 
_ Van Voorst, 1881. 
THe veteran Professor of Botany at Cambridge may certainly be 
congratulated, not only on the fact that he is alive and well at the 
seventh revision of his magnum opus, which first saw the light 
thirty-nine years ago, but also that he has, during that period, 
virtually educated his critics and his public. The achievement of 
Professor Babington’s life has been the removal of the reproach of 
insularity from British botany. Sir J. E. Smith was unrivalled in 
his day in his skilful tracing of synonyms in our earlier writers ; 
Sir Joseph Hooker, in our own time, has brought the vast experience 
of the geographical botanist to gauge the relative value of our 
British forms; but it is to Professor Babington we owe that minute 
examination of fresh specimens, and: that careful comparison with 
foreign herbaria and foreign critical writings, that has made the 
study of our flora a part of continental botany. His ‘ Manual’ has 
become essentially the companion of working botanists, and its suc- 
cessive editions have most ably reflected the stages of progress made 
by them between 1843 and 1881. 
To the general publicit may seem a small matter whether a plant 
is to bear one of two conflicting names, whether it is to rank as a 
species or a variety, or whether the name originated with this or 
with that authority. The theory of evolution does indeed make us 
attach less importance to the second of these questions ; but any one 
who has attempted original botanical work will have felt the immense 
advantage of a most precise system of nomenclature. Ifcontinental 
botanists are to know of what plants we may happen to be writing, 
