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thor's elementary text-book, and accordingly we start straight 

 ay with the Thallophyta, and are gradually led up through 



Algae and Fungi, Muscinefe and Pteridophytea, to the Seed-planl 

 time of fruiting, and 



•oscopic 



Valuable hints as i 



preparation 

 ui ine less Known Cryptogams 

 eluded, as a help to private students who are beyond the 

 preparations are 



than half of the book, and the Monocotyledons are considered first; 

 we think the author is wise in starting with the Liliaceee, and 

 passing from the petaloid orders with superior ovaries to their 

 epigynous allies, and then to those with more irregular and 

 highly specialised flowers like the Musacea and Orchids, while the 

 sedges and grasses are left to the last. Dicotyledons are divided 

 into the three classes of the Genera Plantarum — Polypetala, Gamo- 

 petala, and Apetala or Incompletes, and the sequence of orders is 

 also the same as in that work. No attempt is made to indicate 

 the affinities of the so-called "Incompletse," and we find Casuarince 

 in its old position, with no mention of Treub's work published 

 more than two years ago, though its importance from a systematic 

 point of view is great, especially as somewhat similar discoveries 

 have been made in various genera of Cupuliferas. Apart from these 

 blemishes, the book is well arranged and clearly written, and there 

 are not the frequent errors so characteristic of some works. The 

 those in the 



nd discoveries will find it a useful 

 class-book. 



Mr. Snelgrove's little book contains a series of thirty-three 

 object-lessons, intended to serve as an introduction to Botany as a 

 class subject m schools. About a score of the commonest fruits 

 and vegetables are, in as many lessons, shown to the children, and 

 by a process of questioning they are led to tell first the general 

 appearance, and then, by cutting up or pulling to pieces the speci- 

 men, to investigate the structure ; while another series of questions 

 elucidates the uses of the parts both to the plant and to mankind. 

 In the second half of the book, other plant products, like wheat, 

 sugar-cane, sago and tapioca, tea, coffee, cotton, &c, are treated in 

 the same way. The idea of the book is an excellent one, and in 

 the hands of an apt and capable teacher the lessons will be a 

 valuable help in the cultivation of the habits of observation in 

 children, and in leading them to take an intelligent interest in 

 their surroundings. The illustrations are often very poor, but as 

 the teacher is supposed to show the children either the real object 

 .... .1 this, it is 

 stand why some have been inserted at all, , 



good pictur 

 . to understai 



sugar-canes in fig. 31, which look like representations of fossil 

 plants; while fig. 32 is a wretched apology for a "cocoa-nut," 

 which, by the way, should be coco-nut, A B Bfndle 



