396 Dr Murray's Northern Flora. 
to lists of names, but it may be questioned whether their utility in 
affording hints and information to students, should not be deemed a 
sufficient counterpoise to any disadvantages arising from their use. 
We care little for the grammatical, or rather scholastic accuracy of 
either method ; its usefulness is the proper question. But we should 
be glad to see scientific writers keep uniformity in this respect ; and 
we would remind botanists that they cannot determine this point by 
themselves ; it is a question equally applicable to zoology as to bo- 
tany. 
III. The Northern Flora ; or a Description of the Wild Plants be- 
longing to the north and east of Scotland, with an account of 
their places of growth and properties. By ALEXANDER MUR- 
RAY, M. D. Part I. Edin. 1836. 8vo. 
THIS work is evidently the result of much pains- taking and la- 
bour : and, although it does not exactly correspond in its plan with 
our ideas of what a Flora ought to be, it were to assume a very un- 
becoming censoriousness, not to admit its great merits which are 
certain, while what we deem its faults may lie in our own disput- 
able conceptions. It may be characterized as a faithful Flora of the 
shires of Forfar, Kincardine, Aberdeen, Banff, Murray, and Nairn, 
with frequent notices of the rarer plants of x Ross, Sutherland, and 
Caithness. The descriptions of the species are original, and deriv- 
ed from specimens gathered in the district, which is as it ought to 
be ; and to each genus there are some useful remarks appended to 
facilitate the student's attempts in discriminating nearly allied spe- 
cies, and not unfrequently a note on the validity of certain among 
them, which may set the experienced botanist to work again. We 
find besides, a copious list of habitats, and a detail of the medicinal 
and economical virtues of the herbs, which occupies a space that, in 
our opinion, might have been better occupied with their present 
vulgar usages among the natives of these wild Highlands. It is 
not in a " Flora" that the mediciner qualified or quack will seek 
his remedies, and we botanists are too healthy a race to care for"* 
these things. 
We refrain from entering into a minute examination of the book at 
present, when completed we may find time to write a lon- 
ger lecture, but we must now express the pleasure we have had 
in perusing the notices which the preface contains of Dr David 
Skene, a naturalist whose merits have been too long buried in for- 
getfulness. It seems to us, that it would be erecting a just tribute 
