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good sound Text-book. That he should do so has been long desired 

 by those who mourned tbat the best available ones had been made 

 in Germany. We owe a heavy debt of gratitude to Germany for 

 these books; but the point needs no arguing that a good one 

 of British make would suit native teacbers and students much 

 better. This is such a book and its excellences are proof of the 

 matter. The morphology and the anatomy and histology are all 

 that can be desired. The Cryptogamic portion is not on the same 

 level of excellence, and it seems to me that, without being 

 fastidious, the treatment of the Algae in particular would have 

 been better for more judgment. For example, the putting of Hali- 

 meda and Udotea into Codiea might be justifiable, but surely not 

 Bryoptis into Dasydadea, while to follow De Toni (in his Sylloge) 



this plant and put it with the Caulerpece, Asa Gray pointed out the 

 absurd mistake in Silliman's Journal, but in spite of the reinvesti- 

 gation of the matter by Prof. Cramer, and the description of the 

 thallus and apothecia of this very obvious lichen, the error obtained 

 a long start by its inclusion in De Toni's Sylloge and in Engler & 

 Prantl's Pflamenfamilien. Again, Codiolurn, which Prof. Vines 

 follows Wille in placing among the Botrydiea, does not belong to 

 the Siphonaeea at all. There can hardly be any particular reason 

 for putting the diatoms among the Phceophycea beyond the character 

 of colour. However, Prof. Vines openly, on p. 221, says :— " The 

 nature of this additional colouring matter is usually the same 

 throughout whole families, which also resemble each other in their 

 modes of reproduction. Hence this characteristic affords a trust- 

 worthy basis [ital. ours] for classification," &c. It would have been 

 preferable, surely, to point out that it frequently coincides with the 

 natural basis of classification in a very striking way, so that the 

 names Phaophyce®, Rhodophyce®, Chlorophycea, which come down to 

 us from the older artificial colour classification, still fairly describe 

 otherwise natural subclasses. But Prof. Vines, having adopted the 

 principle of colour classification, is consistent in putting the 

 diatoms with the Ph®ophyce®, though this is a regrettable thing. 



The high level of excellence in the rest of the book has invited 

 this criticism of points that are not very serious (apart from the 

 too pervasive terminology), and it would be ungracious to refrain 

 from saying that if the second half is as good as the first, students 

 of botany in this country will have reason to be grateful to its 



The Flowering Plants of Western India. By the Eev. Alexander 

 Kyd Nairne, late Bombay Civil Service. London : W. H. 

 Allen. 8vo, pp. xlvii, 401. Price 7s. 6d. net. 

 " Science is a steep island surrounded by a few more rocks than 

 are necessary, to which every savant makes it a pleasure and a duty 

 to add some asperities. I pass people over in a light wherry." 

 This sentence, to which is appended the name of Alphonse Karr, 



G. M. 



