80 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
first a seems strange that there should be no work on the 
when we get beyond a few about which there can be no mistake, we 
are brought face to face with a number of doubts and opinions and 
conjectures, from which our only way of escape is in the reflection 
that after all it does not very much matter. 
Neither of the volumes before us is likely to be accepted as 
ring any material help in our researches on the s subject. The 
second, which is the less “petinitione is the better of the two: it 
has not the air of bookmaking about it which characterises 
57. a 
manifestly out of date; and we should cer ertainly have had Fees. ; 
— to those who have by travel and a. date late — 
of a a sketch of the botany of Palestine in its meta Brie aspect 
m en. 
We regret we cannot speak more favourably of what might 
have been a good book. But its scientific value is of the slightest, — 
while its given reflections are see de ommonplace. orse th 
all, there is no index ; a defect which is isead by ‘ Bible Flowers.’ 
This latter is a pleasantly- written little book in a pretty cover, and 
would make a suitable Sunday-school prize 
Tue recently issued (Dec.) part of the ‘Icones Plan 
contains descriptions and figures of some o 
ants and of other noveltie ng them a 
genus (Psyllothamnus Oliv.) of Illecebracea, sent “ with 
of specime den and thereabouts,” by Dr. Hugh Beev 
New Books. — Isase: 
Hawaiian Islands’ (44 ge 4to, a nd pret ious : Londail 
Sampson Low: £1 11s. 6d. — Josepu Hervier, ‘ Recherches sur 
la Flore de la Loire’: Paris, ee (fase. i. 8vo, pp. viii. 60, tt. 2 
— Heyer Bam ‘ Histoire des Plante 8’ 
Paris, Hache 
ne “1886 ” (vol. viii. ; Composite ; 
