September 1, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



277 



book would not seem to be well adapted for use 

 as a class test in American colleges. 



A. D. Cole 



BOTANICAL NOTES 



MORE ELEMENTARY BOTANY 



For a long time there have been many 

 school-men who have wished to unite the study 

 of living things (plants and animals) into 

 one subject, hence we have had " biology " in 

 the curricula, and " biological " teachers, 

 " biological " departments, as well as '' bio- 

 logical " books. The present writer has not 

 felt that such a fusing of two sciences is nec- 

 essary, nor has he felt that it has ever been 

 done successfully. In fact, the pupil in " biol- 

 ogy " studies either plants or animals, unless 

 he devotes himself to the few organisms that 

 are on the border line between the two king- 

 doms, e. g., the slime organisms (Mycetozoa), 

 or the Volvocineae. This of course is never 

 done. What is done is to take parts of the 

 two related sciences, botany and zoology, and 

 match them together in some fashion, and 

 call the result " biology." 



This is what has been done in the " Essen- 

 tials of Biology," prepared by George W. 

 Hunter (American Book Co., New York, 

 1911). In a prettily illustrated, well printed 

 and well written book the author has at- 

 tempted the impossible task of combining 

 some study of plants and some study of ani- 

 mals into a consistent, single presentation. 

 The botanical part of the book treats of flow- 

 ers, fruits, seeds, roots, stems, leaves, forests, 

 various forms of plants (only 13 pages), the 

 modifications of plants, beneficial plants, rela- 

 tions of plants to animals, which is distinctly 

 the old way of looking at plants. The zoolog- 

 ical part begins with protozoa and takes up in 

 succession worms, crayfishes, insects, mol- 

 lusks, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and 

 mammals (and man). In the botanical part 

 the pupil goes from higher plants to lower, 

 while in the zoological part he goes from 

 lower to higher. 



There is much that is good in the botanical 

 part, in fact the work seems to be good in the 

 details, but the sequence is all wrong, and the 



author has been hampered by the attempt to 

 unite into one, two totally different concep- 

 tions of living things — plants and animals. 



Accompanying this book is another de- 

 signed as a companion volume, entitled " A 

 Laboratory Manual for the Solution of Prob- 

 lems in Biology," by E. W. Sharp, a col- 

 league of the author of the " Essentials of 

 Biology." Here the same criticisms hold as 

 to the general plan of the book. However, in 

 each chapter the work is well done, and no 

 doubt the book will be helpful to many a 

 teacher of botany and zoology. 



A NEW MANUAL OF BOTANY 



For so many years we have been accus- 

 tomed to looking to the well-known botanical 

 masters for general systematic manuals that 

 we were surprised when we picked up Dr. 

 George T. Stevens's " Illustrated Guide to the 

 Flowering Plants of the Middle- Atlantic and 

 New England States" (New York, Dodd, 

 Mead & Co., 1910). The author has not been 

 known to the botanical fraternity as one of 

 their number, and there was doubtless some 

 rubbing of eyes when the book first appeared. 

 But an examination of the book shows that 

 the author has a good acquaintance with the 

 systematic botany of the portion of the coun- 

 try which his book covers and this gives him 

 the right to add his book to the list of man- 

 uals we already have. 



Opening it, one finds a pleasantly written 

 preface in which we observe that " the classi- 

 fication adopted in this work is, in the main, 

 that of Professor Adolph Engler in his Sylla- 

 bus der Pflanzenfamilien." Further he says: 

 " In the preparation of the work I have made 

 use of my very large private herbarium, a 

 collection which has been the work of many 

 years, but I have had constantly before me the 

 works of the latest German, French and 

 English authorities and I have as constantly 

 consulted the American works of Professor 

 Wood, Dr. Asa Gray and that of Messrs. 

 Britton and Brown." He gives especial credit 

 to the work of Britton & Brown. 



Before the descriptive portion of the man- 

 ual is entered upon there are about fifty 



