NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 429 
distinctive characters, and the more prone he will be to multiply 
small genera—that is to enhance beyond their due value the races 
of the lowest grades—to the great inconvenience of the general 
naturalist who has to make use of the results of his labor. 
Genera Plantarum is still within the capabilities of a single 
botanist, although he must, of course, trust much to the observa- 
tions of others, and it therefore cannot be so satisfactory as if he 
had examined every species himself. The last complete one was 
Endlicher’s, the result of several years’ assiduous labor, but now 
thirty years old. Dr. Hooker and myself commenced a new one, 
of which the first part was published in 1862, and which might 
have been brought nearly to a close by this time had we not both 
of us had so many other works on hand to deter us, although the 
researches necessary for these other works have proved of great 
assistance to the Genera. As it is, the part now nearly ready for 
press carries the work down to the end of the Compositie, or about 
half through the Phenogamous plants. In regard to works of a 
still more general description, the exposition of the families or 
orders of plants, we have nothing of importance since Lindley’s 
“Vegetable Kingdom,” dated 1845, but republished with some 
additions and corrections in 1853, and Le Maout and Decaisne’s 
‘¢Traité Générale,” mentioned in my address of 1868, and of which 
Mrs. Hooker is now preparing an English translation, under the 
supervision of Dr. Hooker. Dr. Baillon has also commenced a 
“ Histoire des Plantes,” containing a considerable number of use- 
ful original observations, and illustrated by excellent woodcuts, 
but as a general work, one portion is of too popular a character, 
and in some cases too diffuse to be of much use to science, and 
the generic character too technical for a popular work without any 
contrasted synopsis, and its great bulk in proportion to the infor- 
mation conveyed will always be a drawback. I cannot believe 
that the author can have been a party to the unblushing announce- 
ment of the French publisher, that it is to be completed in about 
eight volumes. If carried out on the plan of the first one, it must 
extend to four or five times that number. In Zoology, Bronn’s 
most valuable “ Klassen und Ordnungen der Thierreichs,” contin- 
ued after his death by Keferstein and others, which I mentioned in 
my address of 1866, has advanced‘but slowly. The Amorphozoa, 
Actinozoa, and Malacozoa, forming the first two volumes, were 
then completed, and Gerstaecker has since been proceeding with 
