BOOKS RECEIVED. 



713 



" A Handbook of Systematic Botany." By Dr. E. Warming. Trans- 

 lated and edited by M. C. Potter, M.A. Second edition. 8vo., 620 pp. 

 (Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London.) 15s. 



This was an excellent edition, when it first appeared in 1894, of an 

 excellent work dating from 1892. It includes the Myxomycetes, classes 

 the Schizophyta among the Alga?, and the Uredines among Protobasidio- 

 mycetes, and gives some account of fossil Pteridophytes and Gymnosperms. 

 Its classification of Angiosperms is moreover mainly Eichler's of 1883. 

 We cannot, however, discover that the present so-called "edition" is 

 anything more than a reprint. Isoctes still appears among SelaginellecB 

 and Ginkgo among Taxacea ; there is no mention of the Cycadofilices ; 

 and Treub's paper on chalazogamy in Casuarina, dating from 1893, is still 

 spoken of as recent. This re-issue of stereotyped books as new editions 

 is unfair alike to author, editor, and purchaser, and in many branches of 

 science handicaps English students as compared with their Continental 

 fellows. 



" An Outline of the Theory of Organic Evolution, with a Description 

 of some of the Phenomena which it explains." By Maynard M. Metcalf, 

 Ph.D., Professor of Biology in the Women's College of Baltimore. 8vo., 

 204 pp. (Macmillan, London.) 10s. 6d. net. 



This book is based on lectures at the Women's College, Baltimore. 

 The author admits that "little claim to originality can be made for it." 

 It contains the more striking cases of evolution in the ancient world, 

 and is splendidly illustrated with numerous plates, plain and coloured, 

 and figures. The explanation given of evolution is by Darwin's theory 

 of natural selection ; hence differing in toto from Dr. Eimer's work 

 with the same title (1890), in which that author shows how specific 

 structures are the outcome of direct adaptations to the conditions of life. 



There are two parts, Part I. dealing with " The Theory of Organic 

 Evolution," and treating of natural selection, heredity, variation, &c. 

 Part II., " The Phenomena explained by the Theory," deals with com- 

 parative anatomy, classification, homology, &c. The work concludes with 

 " Man in relation to Animals " and " General Considerations." 



" The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication." By 

 Charles Darwin, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. Two vols., 8vo., 566 and 605 pp. 

 (John Murray.) 5s. net. 



This reprint of Darwin's well-known work will no doubt have a 

 wide circulation among horticulturists, breeders, and others in its present 

 cheap form. The first volume deals with the history of our domesticated 

 animals and cultivated plants, and concludes with chapters on bud 

 variation and inheritance. The second volume has chapters on inherit- 

 ance (reversion, fixedness of character, prepotency, sexual limitation), 

 crossing, changed condition of life, hybridism, selection by man, causes 

 of variability, action of external conditions, laws of variation (use and 

 disuse, correlated variability), and the provisional hypothesis of pan- 

 genesis. 



