: 
; 
NOTE—BOTANY. 271 
scientific and botanic character of the work is simply beneath 
contempt. ‘A potato pie is believed to invigorate the sexual 
functions’ (pp. 281 and 446) is really not an unfair example of the 
undigested trivialities to which, by repetition without dissent, our 
author gives his imprimatur. In brief, the book’s facts offer 
‘a reflexion of the distorted mirror of the Medizeval, but with far too 
little reflection thrown on them by the greater search-light of latter- 
day knowledge. If the author’s present day reading has led him to 
that knowledge he seems to us to have culpably withheld it whilst 
quoting such long-exploded taradiddles as he does—excerpts from 
the doctrine of signatures, and that variant, the ‘law’ of ‘ similars 
which leads to fixed-practice dogma—when there is no such thing as 
fixed-action and uniform- aS in the world at all.—F. A. LEEs. 
NV OF. E—B or. AN if 
New Lincolnshire Plant Records. F : 
Carduus ~ Fagg (Nena H. C. Wats.). Martin, Div. 10, Rev. 
F. . epee , 1897. In Cty. 
‘x undulata Ehrh. = S. aeceal ata Sm., 1.€ triandra x alba of the 
Ve ae F. Linton’s arrangement. He kindly named ae specimen forme. Great 
Cotes, Div. 4, J. Cordeaux, 8, 1897. Cty. Herb. 
cojum oo a Calcethorpe Wood, Div. 8. gia Lewin, 5, 1897. In 
making a new footpath. I have always won ndered why we have no meus ced 
this species as an escape from preci in Lincolnshire, where it has been grow 
gr 
Euphorbia portlandica L. ‘Given e (F. A. Lees) in the train (an excursion 
rat ES to ae which I boarded at Doncaster) by a lady who had a bunch of 
She had bee b 
im etc. kegn y trip. 
ould ot she Sod gather d them all on the sands approaching —— _ 
specimen was as quite fresh when given 4 me. The date was 3.8.1897 5 
pécimen now in Cty.. Herb. Seal A. Woop RUFFE-PEACOCK, Cadney, Brige, 
August 13th, 1 7. me 
NOTES “AND "NEWS. 
‘ Studies in the Art | of | Rat-Catching. | By H. C. Ba RKLEY, | author of 
|. . . | Popular Editon. | London: | John Murray, Albemarle Street. | 
90. is is a somewhat slight book of 185 pages in cloth, written more to 
i i ec 
e informa - 
natural history of the animals caught; but its anecdo tal character wi 
doubtless do iaach 16 give—as the: =< puts it—a taste for a ‘ wholesome country 
pastime.’ The price is half-a-cr 
cage cr ; 
Si | of | Lake land Birds | By | Mary L. Armitt | Ambleside : 
a Middleton | 1897’ isa sesdeet sfrtiending little book} in _—— senate 
extending to 117 pages, and issued at One Shilling net. The c adds ‘ Fi 
: i a 
