Geology and Natural History. 477 



described, it is difficult to reach conclusions which differ materi- 

 ally from those stated by Professor Bose. 



The author has undertaken to show that the plant is a machine, 

 the movements of which in response to external stimuli are 

 "reducible to a fundamental unity of reaction." He says, "In 

 analysing- plant-movements the greatest complexity arises from 

 the confusion of effects due to internal energy and external 

 stimulus respectively. I have however been able to discriminate 

 the characteristic expressions of these two factors and thus to 

 disentangle the complex phenomena which result from their com- 

 bined action. Another very obscure problem is found in the 

 nature of so-called spontaneous or autonomous movements. By 

 the discovery, however, of multiple response, and by the con- 

 tinuity which I have been able to establish as existing between 

 multiple and autonomous responses, it has been found possible to 

 demonstrate that there are, strictly speaking, no spontaneous 

 movements, those being known by this name being really due to 

 external stimulus previously absorbed by the organism. Thus 

 all the experiments have tended to show that the phenomenon of 

 life does not, as such, connote any intrusion into the realm of the 

 organic of a force which would interfere with that law of the 

 Conservation of Energy which is known to hold good in the 

 inorganic world. The elucidation of the fact that such varied 

 and obscure phenomena in the life processes in the plant, as, for 

 instance, growth and the ascent of sap, are fundamentally due to 

 the same excitatory reactions as are seen otherwise exemplified in 

 the simple mechanical response now familiar to us, constituted a 

 further result which, at the outset of the investigation, was little 

 to be foreseen. It has been shown finally that there is no physio- 

 logical response given by the most highly organised animal tissue 

 that is not also to be met with in the plant." 



In a further notice an analysis will be made of some of the 

 chapters : the present is simply to call attention to the general 

 chai'acter of a very suggestive work. G. l. g. 



20. A Monograph of the British Desmidiaceae ; by W. West 

 and G. S. West. Vol. II, pp. 204; 32 colored plates. London, 

 1905 (printed for the Ray Society). — The first volume of this 

 important monograph, published in 1904, has already been 

 reviewed in this Journal (xviii, 473). The second volume main- 

 tains the high standard set for it by the first and continues the 

 description of species. Only three genera receive treatment ; 

 namely, Euastrum, with 40 species, Micrasterias, with 18 species, 

 and Cosmarium, with 50 species. These genera include some of 

 the most beautiful of the Desmids, and all three have a very 

 wide geographical distribution. Of the species here described 

 and figured nearly four-fifths have already been recorded from 

 the United States. a. w. e. 



21. Die Pflanzenfabel in der Welttiteratur / by Aug. Wunsche. 

 Pp. 184. Akademischer Verlag fur Kunst und Wissenschaft, 

 Leipzig and Vienna, 1905. — The various fables in which plants 



