No. 376.] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 287 
to showing how the grounds may be made more attractive at slight 
expense. 
Throughout the book the fact is kept constantly before the mind 
that plants are not fixed and unchangeable objects, but very plastic, 
gradually changing with changing conditions. Perhaps no text-book 
ever written is more successful in this respect. ‘‘ The present forms 
of vegetation, then, are the tips of the branches of the tree of life. 
Therefore, the ‘ missing links’ are to be sought behind, not between: 
they are ancestors, not intermediates.” Again: ‘“ We really cannot 
understand plants by interpreting them solely upon their present or 
obvious characters; the reasons for the appearing of given attributes 
should be sought in the genealogy, not in the present-time character- 
istics. It is possible that many of these structures which seem to us 
to have arisen for the purpose of dispersing the seeds may have 
originated as incidental or correlative structures, and that it merely 
so happens that they serve a special but incidental purpose in dis- 
seminating the plant. If we once assume that every feature of a 
plant is adapted to some specific purpose, and that it has arisen by 
means of the effort of the plant to adapt itself to such purpose, we 
are apt to find adaptations where there are none. We are really 
throwing our own thoughts and feelings into the phenomena ; and 
we are developing a superficial method of looking at nature.” 
Occasionally one notices such slips as are inseparable from first 
editions, but the errors are remarkably few and of such a nature as 
to admit of easy correction in the next edition, which we understand 
is already in preparation. Undoubtedly, the book will open the eyes 
of a great many people to the delights of meadows and woodlands, 
and also to the many interesting things that may be found even in a 
window garden or in the.smallest dooryard. It deserves to have a 
very wide reading, and it is not too much to wish that it might find 
its way into the hands of a majority of the teachers in our common 
schools. Erwin F. SMITH. 
Morphology and Development of Astasia asterospora and Bacil- 
lus tumescens. — In recent years several well-known writers, like 
Bütschli, Fischer, and Migula, have given us their views on the bac- 
terium cell. Since these writers do not.agree as to the structure 
and nature of all the parts, Arthur Meyer’ has made a careful study 
1 Studien über die Morphologie und Entwickelungsgeschichte der a0 
ausgeführt an Astasia asterospora A. M. und Bacillus tumescens Zopf. 
pp. 186-248, pl. 6. ; 
