CURRENT LITERATURE 



BOOK REVIEWS 



Another mushroom book 



Mushrooms, by reason of their beauty and edibility, are almost as attract- 

 ive and popular as pretty wild flowers, and so we may expect to see popular 

 guides to their collection and consumption multiply. The latest candidate for 

 favor is a book by Mr. Hard, now superintendent of public instruction in Kirk- 

 wood, Mo., but for some years located in southern Ohio, where he became inter- 

 ested in collecting and studying- these plants. Under the encouragement of 



Kellerman, Atkinson, Lloyd, Morgan, Peck, and other mycologists, he has 



I 



evidently become an enthusiastic amateur. By his camera, supplemented occa- 

 sionally by those of his friends, he has pictured a great number of representative 

 specimens. Presenting these photographs, to the number of 500 and more, 

 combined with descriptions, sometimes technical, but usually popular and more 

 or less diffuse, he has prepared a ponderous volume. 1 



This volume, chiefly on account of its excellent half-tone illustrations, which 

 include almost all of the common species, will be of good service to those who 

 wish a book less expensive and voluminous than McIlvaine's, and at the same 

 time comprehensive enough to enable them to identify the plants they pick up in 

 fields and woods. 



It is evident that the author has no adequate technical training in taxonomy 

 or morphology; and in presenting such matters, neither his keen powers of obser- 

 vation nor his enthusiasm could prevent him from falling into errors both of form 

 and fact. The typography of the book shows, also, that both author and pub- 

 lisher are unacquainted with scientific practice, while the proofreader and the 

 author alike are responsible for many typographical errors. The etymology of 

 the scientific names, by which the author hopes to show their significance to those 

 unaccustomed to them, is often erroneous and occasionally ludicrous. The 

 glossary does not define all the technical terms that are used, no less than four in 

 a single description of eight or ten lines having been hit upon by mere chance. 

 The list given of authorities for generic and specific names is far from complete, 

 so that abbreviations used in the body of the text (which are not consistent) could 

 not possibly be identified. 



1 Hard, M. E., The mushroom, edible and otherwise; its habitat and its time o 

 growth, with photographic illustrations of nearly all the common species. A gui e 

 to the study of mushrooms, with special reference to the edible and poisonous varieties, 

 with a view of opening up to the student of nature a wide field of interesting and use u 

 knowledge. 4 to. pp. x + 609. pis. 60. figs. 504. Columbus, O.: The Ohio Library 

 1908. $4.75. 



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