156 Scientific Intelligence. 



numerous reciprocal crosses have determined the direction of the 

 line in which their posterity have evolved. But he mantains that 

 these individuals, and all existing species, had a common origin 

 in a " proto-organism ;" and that the various lines of descent 

 acquired fixity into species only as they acquired sexuality. If 

 we rightly apprehend it, Naudin's idea of the purport of sexual 

 reproduction (as contrasted with that by buds) is, to give fixity to 

 species. Our idea is a different one, both as to the essential mean- 

 ing of sexuality, and as to its operation in respect to fixity. His 

 conception may be tested by enquiring which are the more varia- 

 ble or sportive, seedlings or plants propagated from buds. This 

 we suppose can be answered in only one way. 



M. Naudin is a veteran and excellent investigator ; and nothing 

 which he writes is to be slighted. We have frankly set down our 

 impressions upon a first perusal of his important communication ; 

 but are ready to revise them, if need be, upon more deliberate 

 consideration. a. g. 



2. First Forms in Ver/etation ; by the Rev. Hugh Macmillan, 

 LL.D., F.R.S.E. With numerous illustrations. Second edition, 

 corrected and enlarged. London : Macmillan & Co. 1874, pp. 

 438, ISmo.— The first edition under a somewhat different title, 

 was published in 1861. In the present volume it is brought up to 

 the time, and we suppose much amplified. As it stands it forms 



plitied. 

 >f the 1 



Cryptogaraic botany, from Mosses (and even Club-mosses) to 

 Fungi. The materials of its chapters were first used for popular 

 lectures, and this primary form and use gives its character to this 

 re-written and now extended volume. The author wished to re- 

 cast it in a systematic mold, but was deterred not only by the 

 labor required, but by the doubt whether it were worth the while. 

 We fancy it is better as it stands, and more likely to fulfill its pur- 

 pose, which is "to kindle the sympathy and awaken the interest 

 of the reader in a department of nature with which few, owing to 

 the technical phraseology of botanical works, are familiar." The 

 book is full of information, possibly too full for the object in view, 

 except that it cannot be amiss to gratify as well as awaken inter- 

 est in the lower forms of vegetation by referring to as large a 

 number as is practicable. The spirit in which the subject is 

 handled is indicated by the motto: '■'■ Deus magnus m magnis, 

 maxinms in minimis;'''' and the sermonizings, being apposite, 

 we have no right to intimate that they are too many and too 

 long. There are good indexes of scientific and of popular names. 

 It is not often that an amateur-botanist writes a book of this kind 

 which is more free from serious errors or misunderstandings. But 

 the statement that the antherozoids of mosses, although "furnished 

 with cilia, like animalcules," yet " their motion is simply a hygro- 

 metical action, like that of the teeth which fringe the mouth of the 

 capsule," must be one which unaccountably escaped revision, even 

 in the edition of 1861. So also the suggestion that sexual repro- 

 duction may be gradually dispensed with in the lower plants and 



