120 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
has especially fitted for the task. The volume is entitled 
"Notes on the Life History of British Plants " and follows 
the arrangement of the ordinary British botanical man- 
ual, but the material it contains is far different in char- 
acter. It might be described as the matter that sometimes 
follows in small type the scientific description of the 
species, or is placed at the bottom of a page as a foot 
note or perhaps relegated to the limbo of an Appendix. 
It is, however, the information most in demand by the|gen- 
eral plant student, and from it onemay learn what insects 
visit the flowers, when the flowers open, the methods of 
pollination, and numerous other curious facts about them. 
The volume simply bristles with information about plants 
for which we search other books in vain, and although 
the species treated are British species, they are so nearly 
allied to our own that the book is almost as valuable for 
use on this side of the Atlantic as on the other. Indeed, 
many of the species mentioned are those that have become 
naturalized in our own country and so give the book an 
added claim upon our attention. There are more than 
350 illustrations and 450 pages of text. (New York, The 
MacMillan Co. 1905. Price $5.00). 
Value of Nectar.— Our entire supply of sugar, ot 
course, comes from the vegetable kingdom, but we are 
likely to lose sight of the fact that up to the seventeenth 
century the only sweet in common use was derived from 
nectar. According to Country- Life in America the United 
States now annually produces more than one hundred 
and twenty-five million pounds of honey. When we re- 
flect that these millions of pounds of s\A eets have been 
gathered b^- bees from the nectar of flowers the immense 
value of nectar is apparent. Hone\' is held to l>e the most 
wholesome and digestible of all the forms of sugar. 
