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appears on the title-page of Mr. Nairne's book, and at once invites 

 the mind to speculate. How many rocks are "necessary" to a 

 " steep island" ? How does a savant — nay, "every savant" — " add 

 some asperities" to these rocks? Who, what, where, are the 

 "people" whom Mr. Nairne "passes over in a light wherry"? 

 Taking the whole sentence as metaphorical, and assuming that the 

 steep island symbolises the Indian Flora, and that the rocks repre- 

 sent technical descriptions, it is easy to identify the people "passed 

 over" with the sedges, grasses, and other monocotyledons which 

 are excluded from "the Flowering Plants of Western India" 

 because their flowers "consist only of bracts or scales." But then, 

 how about the wherry ? 



Arrested thus on the very threshold, we tear ourselves away to 

 enter upon the feast which Mr. Nairne has prepared for us. Not at 

 once, however, do we arrive at the table. A tray of dainty little 

 morsels — whets to the appetite— is provided, in the shape of a 

 "prelude of quotations," from the works of Locke, "Hooker" 

 (which ?), Wordsworth, Darwin, Canon Henry Melvill, " The Path 

 of Virtues (Buddhist)"— a mysterious saying —Mr. Grant Allen, 

 and Southey — who is responsible for the statement that " the 

 Linnaean traveller who, when you look over the pages of his 

 journal, seems to you a mere botanist, has in his pursuit an 

 object that occupies his time and fills his mind and satisfies his 

 heart." We do not know whether Mr. Nairne is a "Linnjean 

 traveller," but he is certainly not "a mere botanist." 



Other introductory remarks are found under "Errata,"— in 

 which Mr. Nairne does scanty j ustice to his material, — "Preface," 

 "Introduction," "Definitions," "Classification"; and by the time 

 we have glanced through these, we are able to form some estimate 

 of Mr. Nairne's qualifications (which are not extensive) for his self- 

 imposed task, and of his literary style, which is odd. For example, 

 he says he has not included "the flowerless orders, such as ferns 

 and mosses, much less the seaweeds" (p. xix) ; and that "every 

 plant as a rule [has] its own fruit" (p. xxxvi) ; here we seem to 

 have hit upon a rule without an exception. Mr. Nairne is critical 

 in his choice of terminology, as when he retains trifoliate in 

 preference to "the modern and more correct word trifoliolate, 

 which seems needlessly pedantic for [his] purpose": and we 

 suspect him of sarcasm when he refers "the unscientific reader" to 

 "the works of Mr. Grant Allen" : we should be inclined to suggest 

 Father Gerard's little books as a wholesome corrective. 



The scientific portion of the book shows only too plainly that 

 the author has not mastered his subject, and is therefore an in- 

 adequate guide. It must be added, however, that his preface 

 expresses a consciousness of this, but his suggestion that those who 

 use the book should send him "a list of the mistakes and omissiona 

 they find," shows that he does not realise its inadequacy. The 

 "mistakes" are perhaps chiefly typographical — there are at least 

 four on the page (8) open before us, not one of which is mentioned 

 in the errata, — but there are others, as when the Compositas are 

 defined as having "flowers composed of many distinct perfect 



