Botany and Zoology. 411 



4. Comparative Morphology and Biology of the Fungi, 

 Mycetozoa and Bacteria ; by A. DeBary, Professor in the 

 University of Strassburg, Translated by H. E. F. Garnsby, M.A., 

 Revised by Isaac Bayley Balfour, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., Pro- 

 fessor of Botany in the University of Oxford. Oxford, at the 

 Clarendon Press, 1887, 8vo, 525 pp. — This translation affords 

 gratifying proof of the strong hold which questions bearing on 

 the structure and life of plants have lately acquired among 

 English-speaking people. A few years ago, no publishing house 

 would have been willing to hazard a publication like the present ; 

 the demand for such a treatise would have been confined to 

 specialists and to a few teachers who probably could have made 

 equally good use of the original. But, now, such a volume meets 

 with a considerable sale, ever, on this side of the Atlantic. 



From the good degree of prominence which the author gives to 

 the phenomena presented by these lowest vegetable organisms, the 

 work is of great interest to everyone who is attracted to the study 

 of physiology, and we may also say to pathology. When it is 

 remembered how important a part the organisms last mentioned 

 in the title play in health and disease, we cannot be too grateful 

 that so sound a treatise has been offered to medical students in so 

 attractive a form. As will be noticed in the title above given, 

 those organisms of uncertain place, termed in most of our recent 

 botanical works, Myxomycetes, are treated under the better name 

 of Mycetozoa. 



The translation is good throughout, and the choice of technical 

 English equivalents for German scientific terms has been, for the 

 most part, judicious. The translation of such a work as this must 

 hasten the time when there will be some convention with regard 

 to English terminology applied to the morphology of Cryptogams. 

 Such convention would doubtless have due respect to certain 

 prior claims held by the morphology of phanerogams, and which 

 are nowadays somewhat ignored. It is proper that we should 

 express our feeling of obligation to the English press which has 

 given to our students within a short time five volumes of great 

 excellence. g. l. g. 



5. Journal of Morphology ; edited by C. O. Whitman", 

 with the co-operation of Edward Phelps Allis, Jr., Milwaukee. 

 Vol. I, No. 1, Sept., 1887. 226 pp., 8vo, with several plates. 

 Published by Ginn & Co., Boston, at six dollars a year. — This 

 new journal, devoted principally to embryological, anatomical, 

 and histological subjects, comes into existence with all those 

 high qualities as regards grade of scientific memoirs, beauty, full- 

 ness of illustrations, paper, typography, and generous capacity 

 that we usually look for as the characteristics of slowly devel- 

 oped and successful maturity. It shows confidence in the scien- 

 tific spirit of the country by placing itself at once on a level with 

 the journals of the kind abroad, and well merits the success 

 it looks for. Although its active editors are at Milwaukee in 

 Wisconsin, the contributors to this number are from various parts 



