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There have been accomplished great feats of investigation since 

 Schleiden bitterly pointed out {Grundziige der wissensc 

 Botanih) that by making a thorough investigation of a tree-fern 

 stem a traveller in Brazil would perform a greater service to science 

 than by collecting a few thousand dried new species, of which 

 80,000 were then known, without a thorough knowledge of one 

 worth mentioning. The migrations of botanists to such places aa 

 Buitenzorg to study tropical vegetation, which are now so frequent, 

 are probably due more to the great impetus given by Mr. Darwin 

 to the study of adaptations than to any other single cause. The 

 advance in our knowledge of plant structures and functions that 

 has grown out of such visits to the tropics has been one of the 

 most marked features of the history of Botany during the last 

 twenty years. It has introduced new fields of investigation, as well 

 as furnished explanations of many obscure matters. The part taken 

 by this country in this advance has been a comparatively slight 

 one — in inverse proportion to the facilities provided by our colonial 

 tropical gardens, in only one of which (Peradeniya) is there a 

 laboratory, which appears to languish somewhat for lack of visiting 

 investigators. Calcutta, without the adventitious aid of emigrant 

 botanists, has by its own officials and other resident botanists not 

 only averted all possible reproaches of this kind from itself, but has 

 shown us researches of which Buitenzorg would be proud. 



After giving an account of his journey, including a visit to the 

 Singapore gardens, Prof. Haberlandt begins with a description and 

 a short history of the Buitenzorg garden, and its laboratory and 

 other institutions, as well as the other gardens in connection with 

 it. He next describes the Climate in a fashion more interesting 

 and intelligible than the familiar and concise efforts of the meteoro- 

 logist. The most interesting part of the book, however, is contained 

 in the chapters on tropical trees, their habits of growth, &c, 

 involving points of comparison with European trees; on charac- 

 teristic tropical leaves (of particular interest), and on tropical 

 flowers and fruits. Successive chapters on lianas, on epiphytes, 

 and on the mangrove, are full of most suggestive observation, and 

 it is not possible to get within so short a compass a better picture 

 of these forms of vegetation so exclusively and characteristically 

 tropical. A too brief chapter on the relations of ants and plants 

 follows these — with a short description of Myrmecodia, that sad 

 example for warning to the transcendental school of speculative 

 botanists who know all about "why" insects run their rigs among 

 vegetation. This salutary lesson, by the by, we owe to the 

 investigation by Treub in the Buitenzorg garden, and for some 

 time there has been, and will be, less indecent haste in obeying 

 Solomon's advice to the sluggard. Prof. Haberlandt next devotes 

 several chapters to his botanical excursions, written in a more 

 spirited style than the earlier portions of the book, one to the 

 animal life of Java, another to the natives and their manners and 

 customs, and concludes with his return journey via Ceylon and 

 Egypt. German works of this kind are commonly written in such 

 a tedious style, turgid with verbiage, that it is a genuine pleasure 



