154 Scientific Intelligence. 



halogen compounds, the cyanides and oxides of the metals and 

 the corresponding alcohol compounds. The second part will be 

 devoted'to the inorganic oxy- and sulpho- salts, and is promised 

 towards the end of 1907. The organic compounds follow and are 

 to fill parts III and IV, which it is hoped will be brought out in 

 the spring of the successive years following. It is certainly 

 remarkable that one whose activity has extended into so wide a 

 field, and who has carried, in other directions, so. heavy a burden 

 of work, has found it possible to marshal into order the immense 

 array of crystallographic and physical data here presented to the 

 public. Few men have been able to publish so much as Professor 

 Groth and to exert so strong an influence upon the development 

 of the science in which they were interested. 



III. Botany and Zoology. 



1. Sinnesorgane im Pflanzenreich zur Perzeption mechanischer 

 Meize y von G. Haberlandt, Professor an der Universitat Graz ; 

 second edition (enlarged), pp. viii+ 207 ; 9 double plates. Leip- 

 zig, 1906 (W. Engelmann). — The first edition of this work was 

 published only five years ago, and the demand for a second 

 edition within so short a time is especially remarkable, because 

 the subject treated falls wholly within the domain of pure 

 science. According to the author the higher plants develop dif- 

 ferentiated sense-organs which are quite comparable with those 

 found in animals. These organs differ according to the stimulus 

 which it is their function to perceive, but the present volume 

 confines its attention to organs of touch, those which perceive 

 pressure, friction or mere contact, and which bring about definite 

 movements in the plant as reactions to such stimuli. In organs 

 of this character, which usually consist of individual cells or of 

 groups of cells, anatomical peculiarities are found which lead to 

 a sudden alteration in the form of the enclosed protoplasm when 

 the stimulus is applied. The organs are epidermal in nature, and 

 among the most characteristic are those in the form of papillae, 

 which consist of projecting epidermal cells. In these papilla? 

 thin places in the wall can be detected, beneath which the sensi- 

 tive protoplasm is situated. The organs may, however, be either 

 simpler or much more complicated than papillae, and Haberlandt 

 devotes the greater part of his book to the detailed description 

 of the various types which he has observed, selecting his exam- 

 ples from stamens, from pistils, from petals, from foliage leaves, 

 from the digesting leaves of insectivorous plants, and from ten- 

 drils. The concluding chapter is of a general nature and dis- 

 cusses, among other topics, the phylogeny of the sense-organs in 

 plants, the transmission of the stimulus, and the similarity 

 between the organs of touch in plants and those in animals. 

 The plates, three of which are new to this edition, figure the 

 various types of organs described. A. w. e. 



