382 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [NOVEMBER 
in the preceding chapter, methods of measurement are described, but of course 
they are much less satisfactory. This is a difficulty that in part inheres in the 
more complex phenomena that are to be measured, but also in part in the fact 
that physiologists have failed to cultivate as they might this fertile and enticing 
One might wish for a softening of the teleological terminology, as in p. 129 
and p. 143; whether there is or is not an ultimate teleology, it seems wiser to 
discard its vocabulary. It seems to the reviewer that expressions implying pur- 
pose are in part responsible for the disfavor in which ecology is sometimes held. 
The close of this chapter is devoted to a consideration of experimental evolution, 
and a full account is given of natural, habitat, and control cultures. 
The final chapter considers plant formations, and their study is based on 
the quadrat method, much of which the author has previously published. Among 
the subjects here treated are cartography, photography, and formation herbaria. 
The discussion of the development and structure of vegetation is much like a 
separate treatise on the same subject already reviewed in these pages. Methods 
for the study of succession and competition are given. At the close is a helpful 
glossary. 
One can scarcely praise this work too much; it is what is needed to prevent 
ecology from falling into a swift and merited disfavor. If read and pondered, 
it will prevent the thoughtless from entering the ecological field, and it will serve 
the higher end of directing the thoughtful as to the methods of procedure— 
H. C. Cow1es. 
MINOR NOTICES. 
THE ADMIRABLE illustrations of vegetation issued by KarsTEN and 5 
have frequently been noted in the GazeTre. A somewhat similar idea a 
been pursued by WerrsTErn,? who has issued reproductions of ‘ large _ 
of the Brazilian photographs secured by F. von KERNER and himself fi 
recent journey to South America. There are fifty-eight plates in agen 
four colored plates, and six text figures. In nearly every instance the 
photographic work and the subsequent reproductions have been adm! accurate 
one who has never visited the Brazilian tropics may yet gain herefrom an tropi- 
idea of their general appearance. Not only are there illustrations from the 
cal and subtropical rainy forests, but the savannas and the mountains a7¢ Be 
as well—H. C. Cow es. 
Scotts has given an exceedingly interesting and pees the Cat 
of the recent development of knowledge in reference to the seed arg pas 
boniferous. It will prove very useful to those who have neither 
2 WerrsrEIN, R. von, Vegetationsbilder aus Siidbrasilien. Let 
1904. vded in the Car- 
3Scott, D. H., The early history of seed-bearing plants, * _ no, 12 PS 
boniferous flora. The Wilde Lecture. Manchester Memoirs 49: 1 
pls. 3. 1905. 
