BOOKS REVIEWED. 



203 



facts are assimilated without any unpleasant flavour, like the powders of 

 our youth which were administered in jam. The " plot " of the book is 

 that a court of assize is formed, presided over by a bird (the blackcap, 

 a very suitable name) ; before him the commoner of our insect pests are 

 arraigned by the plants on which they feed, and are accused of their various 

 misdeeds. At the end of the account of each trial there are paragraphs 

 headed " What was not said in court," and these portions are by far the 

 most instructive parts of the book ; they are written in plain language, 

 and not in the supposed utterances of insects and plants wrangling with 

 one another. In an appendix various recipes are given for the destruction 

 of insect pests, and then, under the names of various insects (which are 

 very casually grouped together), are given the best means for destroying 

 them. As an instance of this grouping, the saw-flies, the asparagus 

 beetle, and the onion fly are placed together, for what reason is not 

 apparent, and there are other equally strange combinations. Most if not 

 all of the pests are figured, but the majority of the figures are very poor 

 indeed. There are various inaccuracies in the text. Among them the 

 female " mussel scale-insect " is said to be of " about the size and shape 

 of an ordinary pea." The insect in question is really shaped like a mussel- 

 shell, and is about one-eighth of an inch in length ; the figure of the scale 

 is not at all like it. There is a figure of a crane-fly emerging from its 

 chrysalis case which is not at all correctly drawn, and it is described as 

 " Pupa escaping from case of Leather Jackets." To destroy the magpie- 

 moth the reader is advised to remove the surface soil from under the 

 bushes and burn it so as to destroy the chrysalides which are formed in 

 it. The chrysalides of this moth are not formed in the soil, but the 

 chrysalides of the gooseberry saw-fly are. This work cannot be recom- 

 mended as a useful addition to the amateur gardener's library, though the 

 perusal of it might cause some amusement to those who appreciate the 

 idea of animals and plants being supposed to converse. 



"The Classification of Flowering Plants." By A. B. Rendle, D.Sc, 

 &c. Vol. i., Gymnosperms and Monocotyledons. 8vo., 403 pp. (Cam- 

 bridge University Press.) 10s. 6c/. net. 



" The present is an attempt to give the student who has some 

 acquaintance with the rudiments of botany a systematic account of the 

 flowering plants." In this the author has succeeded very well ; the 

 novelty lies in introducing orders known only in the fossil state which 

 have helped to trace affinities between Cryptogams and Gymnosperms, 

 as well as the existing orders of the last to pre-existing and extinct 

 groups. 



After an historical introduction, in which previous systems of classifi- 

 cation are given, Dr. Rendle discusses in detail the structure of the 

 vegetative and reproductive systems of all the orders of Gymnosperms 

 and Monocotyledons, with the addition of 187 figures. 



A few points invite slight criticism. While retaining those old terms 

 which do not carry a wrong impression, the author regards Equisetum as a 

 " flowering plant " (p. 32) ; " angiospermous " means " seeds in a vessel " 

 (aggeion) not " covered " (p. 32) ; seed of Ginkgo is covered by the aril (?), 

 but it is not angiospermous. 



