462 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [DECEMBER 
may reasonably be expected to perfect his book to the limit of his powers, embrac- 
ing the opportunity not only to bring the work up to date, but also to eliminate 
crudities of design and execution, well-nigh inseparable from a first edition. 
These expectations, unhappily, are not fully met in the revision of Mosses 
and ferns. This is the more disappointing in that the volume is indispensable, 
both because it is unique in its field, and because of certain undeniably excellent 
features. These have become well known, and we do not recount them because 
they are so. They are transmitted, undiminished, to the present edition. 
That the book is fairly brought up to date goes without saying, though one 
may differ from the author as to relative values among some of the newer 
researches, and may wish that some of the old figures had been replaced by 
new and better ones. In the bryophyte portion there is less change than among 
the chapters on pteridophytes, because among the mosses the researches have 
been fewer and less important. This is shown by space comparisons: 
Paces Approxi- FIGURES Approxi- 
mate per- mate per- 
centage centage 
ist Ed. and Ed. increase 1st Ed. and Ed. increase 
aa dS ath 217 228 5 107 123 7 
passer penile ies 290 333 15 155 199 25 
geet Rage ie 519 606 1636 266 322 2I 
In the bryophytes there are no notable changes of view;. in the pteridophytes 
there are some; but on the whole the author believes that later investigations 
have confirmed his earlier views. The Isoetaceae have been removed from 
their association with the Marattiaceae and placed after the Lycopodineae, 
ee other large groups hold 106 same position as in the first edition. The most 
te ferns, where particular 
attention is paid to the work of Bower. ‘ 
me new material is here published for the first time, but it is mostly taken 
(with due acknowledgment to others) from papers previously published. A 
new chapter on the nature of alternation of generations discusses the probable 
origin of the liverwort thallus, the origin and evolution of the sporophyte, and 
presents the arguments for homologous and for antithetic alternation, the author 
giving his adherence to the latter theory. He reiterates the opinion also, that 
the weight of evidence is in favor of a genetic connection of Pteridophyta with 
Bryophyta, through Anthocerotes. There is also a new chapter on fossil arch- 
egoniates, in which Scort’s results figure largely. 
Some inaccuracies of the first edition are corrected ad some persist. Thus, 
in an attempt to correct the curious error as to the annulus of the moss capsule, 
the author doubles it on p. 210, but leaves it in the adjacent figure and on p. 213 
in its Simon-pure form. The obviously misleading account of the megaspo- 
® Greater than either part on account of added chapters. 
