286 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [APRIL 
This is all the more necessary since they are intended for a class of readers 
who are incapable of sifting the true from the false. 
In the book in hand statements similar to the following are frequent. 
“Many species . . . . rise to the surface and lodge in the pellicle to form their 
seeds” (p. 19). Such a use of the word “‘seed’’ is unwarranted even ina 
popular treatise. On page 16 may be found this erronéous statement: 
“ Micrococcus agilis is the only coccus which has flagella and active motion.”  - - 
On page 36 the word “attenuated” is used in such a way as to lead the : 
unwary to believe that attenuation is synonymous with decrease in vege- 
tative power. Bacz/lus tuberculosts i is a well-known example of an organism 
which decreases in virulence as it increases in vegetative power in artificial 
culture. On page 68 is given a very questionable method for the diagnosis 
of cholera, viz., the direct examination of flakes of detached epithelium. 
As types of loose or misleading sentences, which are very common, may 
be = the following: “It will be understood that bacteria do not live in 
" (p. 107), a statement that quite fails to express the meaning intended. 
2 The gases (!) essential to plants are four, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, oxyge?, 
ee and nitrogen” (p. 146); and again on p. 147, “ Here then we have the neces- 
oo. sary food of plants expressed in a sentence: water, gases, salts, the most impor 
tant and essential gas and some of the salts being combined in nitrates.” : 
“The reduction of a nitrite is a common property of bacteria” (p. 150). The oe 
expression “organismal process” (p. 29) is surely very unusual. “Pure cholera — 
bacillus in suspension and typhoid bacillus in suspension were passed through» 
these filters and not a single bacillus was detectable in the filtrate” (P- we 
While this loose diction may not lead to error, it does cost the reader M 
time to discover tk d meaning. 
- On the whole, the book i is like so many other popular. works, a mixture 
= i and bad, the accurate and the misleading. Because of the lk : 
and the actual error it can only be commended to the discriminating student 
nS for whom, least of all, ‘it was s intended and who needs it least. For ye 3: 
. F. L. STEVENS. 
Faas announcement that Yale Cavey) is to have a oe of . 
and the appeiance of a ees of publications dealing with different 
_of the fo how that the crusade for a better understandin 
the problem i is having i its effect. A recent work by Mr. Bruncken on } 
: American forests and forestry is not intended to be a guide f ge the. 
- sional forester, but rather to make clear to the general reader ‘ 
« dition. of affairs. Tt s written for those who take a living ines 
_ ABRUNCKES, Enest: North American forests and forestry. Their relation 
tional life of the Am people. 8vo. pp. 262. N Hew Yor! aS 
