LECTURES ON BACTERIA. 61 



minima " — which " has remained doubtful for nearly two hundred 

 years " is cleared up by Mr. Jackson's consultation of the Sloane 

 Herbarium, and shown to be a "compact" (? young) form of 

 Moehringia trinvrcia. Pyrola " media " of the New Bot. Guide 

 figures here, although the authors of the ' Flora Hertfordiensis ' 

 say that the station was in Bucks, and there can be no doubt but 

 that P. minor was meant ; so that the query may be removed from 

 the word "error?," which Mr. Jackson has appended to the 

 record.' 1 ' Euphorbia stricta is surely an error. B I y sinus compressus 

 is here added to the Flora on the authority of Dr. De Crespigny, 

 but without locality; a reference to the British Museum Herbarium 

 shows specimens collected by that botanist on Rickmansworth 

 Common Moor in 1877 ; Middlesex is queried for this species, but 

 the same herbarium contains it from Harefield, collected by Dr. 

 Forbes Young. Cystopteris fragilu surely has no claim to thick 

 type and a number. 



The list of "additions and corrections," independently of the 

 above, extends to five pages, but is certainly by no means complete ; 

 e.g., on p. 151, " Journ. Bot. 1874, 272," should be 1875, 212; 

 " Coitrinyia" (p. 31) should be Conringia, and " Vaccinum" (p. 269), 

 Vaccinium ; the last error might well be taken for a " recurrence to 

 primitive type," in these days of restoration of old names and 

 spellings. James Britten. 



Lectures on Bacteria. By A. de Bary. Translated by Henry E. F. 



Garnsey, Revised by Isaac Bayley Balfour. (Oxford : 

 Clarendon Press, 1887). Pp. xii. 193 ; 20 cuts. Price 6s. 



About a year ago it was said in these pages that the study of 

 Bacteriology was rapidly becoming an affair of pots and pans, — 

 apparatus, staining media and the like, — that the Bacteria them- 

 selves were being lost sight of. No naturalist could survey the 

 literature of the subject in our language without a misgiving that 

 true words were then spoken in jest. Since they were printed, 

 however, two remarkable additions have been made to our literature, 

 m., the section on Bacteria in De Bary's ■ Comparative Morpho- 

 logy and Biology of Fungi, Mycetozoa and Bacteria,' which has 

 been published in English form, and the same author's ' Lectures 

 on Bacteria,' now under notice. These books have been made part 

 of our literature, accessible to all ; and they exhibit to us exactly 

 the state of our knowledge of the natural history of Bacteria. 

 The 'Lectures on Bacteria' are remarkable, not only on account 

 of the survey of the subject and admirable arrangement of the 

 matter, but in an equal degree for the style of exposition, which 

 the translators have rendered very happily. The book not only 



* In Fl. Hertfordiensis we read, M P. media is certainly a native of Bucks." 

 This is an error; and we learn from Mr. Watson V MS8. (now in the British 

 Museum), that "the certainty rests on Mr. Pamplin's authority, who says that 

 he knows both species (P. media and minor), and that he found the former two 

 or three miles w ^t of Tring, which would certainly be in Bucks.— Bev. B. H. 

 Webb, in letter of April 10, 1849." 



