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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Philosophical Notes on Botanical Subjects. By E. Bonavia, M.D. 



8vo, pp. v. 368, 160 figs. London : Eyre & Spottiswoode. 

 Price 2s. 6d. 



Since Mr. Grant Allen took to writing novels, and Messrs. 

 Romanes, Geddes, Weismann, and Hartog have had their theories 

 either changed at birth or otherwise blighted, there has been a 

 period of repose during which one has been compelled to take one's 

 Botany "neat." This state of affairs has not been without its 

 compensations, but it is surely well that from time to time we 

 should be roused from the sloth and stagnation of ideas that mere 

 science breeds. Dr. Bonavia's Philosophical Notes stir up our 

 formal notions of plant morphology in a way that has never been 

 done before. No man living or that ever lived has taken more 

 original views of this subject than Dr. Bonavia. He thinks it 

 necessary to apologise for their publication. " The fact is that, in 

 this stage of human existence, certain thoughts are often a great 

 worry. One cannot get rid of them. They turn up by day, they 

 turn up at night, they turn up in the morning, they haunt one at 

 all times, and the only remedy for mitigating this worry of 

 civilisation is to commit them to paper." The upshot of all this 

 "worriting" in Dr. Bonavia's mind has been the publication of his 

 Notes in the "endeavour to lay the foundation of a philosophy of 

 plants," after removing the troubles and obscurities that encumber 

 the subject, and "simplifying the conception of the living thing we 

 call a plant." It does not seem to Dr. Bonavia "of much im- 

 portance whether we call the student of plants a botanist, a horti- 

 culturist, or a goldsmith." This does not -look like simplifying 

 matters much, but then we must bear in mind that students of 

 plants are frequently called harder names than these by all of us, 

 without any tendency to simplify matters. After confessing that 

 some of his speculations "may be still in the nebular stage of 

 development," he exhorts the "reader who may think what I say is 

 absurd, and not worth the paper it is printed on, to read the parts 



kn 



'liferent times of 



•♦i, w e at midda y ! later on > atter tea, we see differently from 



either before or after dinner, and so on." This is sound advice, 



for it is unfortunately true of many people that things seen clearly 

 earlier in the day appear to them nebular after dinner. For 

 example, "On one occasion I was talking of fruits and such things, 

 and repeated the statement that they were all made out of sea- 

 weeds. My listener jumped off his chair, in a fit of incredulity, 

 took up his hat, and said, • Good morning ' ! " Had the author 

 chosen, instead of morning, a later period of the day, he might have 

 earned a hearty acquiescence. 



These pages are quite inadequate for giving even an outline of 

 the startling theories set forth in this book. One view advanced 

 is that the oil-glands of citrus are "no other than remnants of 



