SCIEXCE-GOSSIP. 



Practical Botany for Beginners. By F. O. Bower, 

 D.Sc, F.R.S , Regius Professor of Botany in the 

 University of Glasgow. 275 pp. 8vo. Illustrated. 

 (London. Macmillan and Co., 1894.) Price 3s. 6d. 



This remarkably concise little work is an abridg- 

 ment of the larger "Course of Practical Instruction 

 in Botany,"' and we may safely say that it has 

 lost none of the more important points of the 

 author's larger work in consequence. One of the 

 disadvantages of teaching Natural Science by these 

 concentrated text-books, is the production of pupils 

 with a too superficial knowledge of the subjects with 

 which they are " crammed." through such hand- 

 books. As pointed out by Dr. Bower in his preface, 

 there is a dangerous tendency in beginners towards 

 too early generalisation, when they depend upon 

 such a limited area of fact for their knowledge. 

 Against this disadvantage, however, is the fact that 

 many who first learn through text-books, later 

 develop a real taste for their respective subjects, 

 and become serious students in later life. The 

 arrangement and varied type of this latest and most 

 up-to-date treatise upon structural botany, is such, 

 that any person in earnest could very soon get an 

 excellent knowledge of the subject, including the 

 cryptogams. It is one of the most practical 

 manuals we have yet met with, as it gives full 

 instructions for using the elaborate paraphernalia 

 described for a complete study of Botany. 



Alternating Generations : A Biological Stud}- of 

 Oak Galls and Gall Flies. By Hermann Adler, 

 M.D. Translated and edited by Charles R. 

 Stratton, F.E.S. 240 pp. 8vo, with coloured 

 plates and other illustrations. (Oxford, at the 

 " Clarendon Press," 1894.) Price 10s. 6d. net. 



The delegates of the "Clarendon Press" have 

 just published a very good book upon a most 

 interesting though comparatively little worked 

 branch of insect economy. Mr. Stratton has 

 faithfully acted his part of translator of Dr. Adler's 

 well-known monograph of the alternating genera- 

 tions of gall-flies. Excellent copies have been 

 taken of the coloured and other plates, the original 

 stones from which they were printed ha\ing been 

 cleaned. To the work of Dr. Adler, Mr. Stratton 

 has added much information of a collateral character 

 in the form of an introduction and appendices. 

 One of these is a history of Cynips kollari ; another 

 contains a synoptical table of oak-galls ; while the 

 third is devoted to a classification of the Cynipidse, 

 with their food plants. 



The first discoverer of alternate generations in 

 one species was Adalbert de Chamisso, the author 

 of " Peter Schlemihl," who accompanied, as 

 naturalist, Rumjauzon, in his voyage round the 

 world, in 1815. He observed that among the 

 Salpae, a genus of marine mollusca, an individual 

 salpa gave rise to a generation of a different form. 

 Thus a mother salpa did not resemble its daughter 

 or its own mother, but was like its grandmother 

 and granddaughter. Since then other animals of 

 widely apart orders have been found to continue 

 their existence in generations with distinct forms, 

 either alternately or in other numbers, each 

 ancestor producing offspring unlike itself, but 

 like a former parent. Among the better known 

 instances are zoophytes and jelly-fish. Some liver- 

 flukes, parasitic on mammals, propagate a genera- 

 tion of aquatic animals which swim freely for a 

 time. It is the study of this remarkable alternation 

 of generation among the gall-flies that has produced 

 the most interesting work under notice. 



iTO lCOUNTKYLOREI fel 



Commercialism in Rural Districts. — In 

 urban districts some restraint can be placed by 

 the operation of the building laws upon the excesses 

 and iconoclasm of a selfish commercialism. 

 When the same spirit invades regions outside the 

 control of town boards, it is far more difficult to 

 bring the force of public opinion to bear upon 

 offenders against the interests of rural communities 

 and the amenities and beauties of the countryside. 

 Such a difficulty is found in the short-sighted pro- 

 ceedings now in progress on a very wide scale in 

 the neighbourhood of Hampton Hill and Hanworth, 

 but a little removed from the better known districts 

 of Teddington and Hampton Court. The practices 

 complained of are peculiarly offensive and objec- 

 tionable to all lovers of nature, whether wild or 

 restrained by the hand of man, and if the object 

 was to depreciate a whole neighbourhood, no 

 more effective steps could have been taken. To 

 establish a jam factory and fruit farm, many 

 hundreds of acres have been secured, intersected 

 by miles of what heretofore were pleasant country 

 roads, with bordering ditches overhung with 

 bramble and bracken, topped by live hedges of 

 maple, whitethorn and elm, over which festoons 

 of honeysuckle, white bryony and hop swung in 

 the wind, with here and there trees of more 

 stalwart growth to break the monotony of the 

 hedge-line : and affording roosting and nesting 

 places for the birds of many species which so 

 richly endow our rural districts with movement 

 and song. In place of these country charms, we 

 find in this unfortunate district lines of hideous 

 corrugated iron hoardings lining the roads and 

 footpaths, with never a break or curve to vary the 

 horrid vista. Trees have been felled, hedgerows 

 stubbed up, and the wild vegetable life of the 

 bordering watercourses removed to check the 

 visits of birds at flowering and fruiting seasons. 

 That birds do take a toll of the ripening fruit may 

 be freely admitted, but that they inflict any 

 appreciable damage in the flowering season is much 

 more open to question. But what is unquestionable, 

 is the good they do to the culturist in fighting 

 his insect foes. England is happy in numerous 

 species of insectivorous birds, the want of them is 

 cruelly felt on the Continent, where insect life, 

 through the insane destruction of the air fauna, 

 has obtained the upper hand. The true and only 

 satisfactory check against the undue increase of 

 insect pests, are the birds which prey upon them. 

 Where the food plants of such insects are aggre- 

 gated in immense breadths, it is the more necessary 

 to secure the presence of insectivorous birds, whose 

 services far outweigh their minor depredations in 

 harvest time. To destroy their nesting places is to 

 put difficulties in the way of their natural increase. 

 This protest is made against the destruction of 

 vegetable life by the roadsides over a large district, 

 and the infliction of crude ugliness upon the 

 inhabitants and wayfarers condemned to traverse 

 such roads. — John Allen, Hon. Sec., Lower Thames 

 Valley Branch, Selborne Society. 



