LDOTRABf SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



Ixxi 



stecher's Contributions to the Anatomy of the Acari or Mites. In 

 the lower subkingdoms Professor Milne-Edwards's Xatural History of 

 Corals and Polypes has been completed by the publication of the third 

 volume, whilst the works of Claparede and Lachmann and of Stein 

 on the classification and organization of the Infusoria, and especially 

 of M. Balbiani on the reproduction of those animals, cannot but be 

 regarded as of the greatest interest and value. Xor can the im- 

 portant and curious observations of Dr. George Wallich and of 

 M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards on the existence of even highly 

 organized animal life at enormous depths in the sea be passed over 

 without especial notice, subversive as they are of many of the 

 hitherto prevalent notions on the subject, and of the highest interest 

 in several points of view. 



In Cryptogamic Botany I need not mention the numerous illus- 

 trated fern- works which the present fashion has called forth ; for 

 the majority of them are hardly scientific ; but I cannot pass over 

 the elaborate and careful Species Filicum of Sir William Hooker, of 

 which the 13th Part, comprising the first portion of the most difficult 

 Aspidieae, has been lately issued, without expressing my most anxious 

 hope that its distinguished author may long enjoy his present health 

 and vigour, so as to bring that valuable work to a conclusion. I must 

 also refer to Tulasne's beautifully illustrated Selecta Fungorum 

 Carpologia as the most important work on fungi which has appeared 

 for a long time. 



In Phaenogamic Botany we have not within the last year or two 

 witnessed the publication of any of those model monographs of 

 Orders of which we owed so many to the late Adrien de Jussieu and 

 others of the French school ; v7eddell's Urticeae being one of the last 

 that has appeared. But several monographic papers have been 

 inserted in Journals or Transactions of Societies which may illustrate 

 the principles I have above alluded to. Of those orders which, having 

 been treated onlv in the earlv volumes of DeCandolle's Prodromus, 



ar v ' 



have now required a thorough revision, a considerable number have 

 been the subject of more or less complete monographs, amongst which 

 I would particularly mention Planchon and Triana's Guttiferae in the 

 Arm ales des Sciences Xaturelles, and Prof. Oliver's Aurantiaceae in 

 our own Journal, — both of them valuable contributions to science as 

 examples of thorough investigation, careful observation, and sound 

 criticism ; whilst M. Jacob Miiller, who in a three days' excursion 

 in the Yosges finds 31 new Brambles, and devotes 40 pages of the 

 Bonplandia to their description, and 225 pages of the Pollichia to 

 239 Rubi from a very limited Gallo-Germanic region, may be said 



