104 a ACCARDO “ SYLLOGE FUNGORUM.” 
is suspected of belonging to another sub-family. Ratber a strange 
family when its head is believed to belong to another family. As 
for Scleroderma itself, as here interpreted, it is merely a sort of 
omnium gatherum, a receptacle for all species with a thick, hard 
coat, without any regard either to internal structure, capillitium, 
spores, or even the verrucose cortex, which, by-the-bye, is one of 
the salient features of the genus. Had the names of all the species 
of Trichogasters been put into a hat and shaken up, then picked 
out haphazard, and made into piles to represent genera, such a 
process would have accomplished a result almost as satisfactory as 
the one we have felt compelled to deride. It is no pleasure to us, 
or anyone, to condemn, but rather to praise, but public duty must 
control private feeling. All we can say is, that we wish this portion 
of the volume before us had never been written, to impose upon us 
such an unthankful duty. In the future it would be extremely 
prudent for the learned Doctor to confine his critical revisions to 
the Algae, which surely is a group large enough to satisfy the 
ambition and capacity of any single individual. 
“THE FLORA OF WEST YORKSHIRE.”* 
This volume, which forms the second volume of the “ Botanical 
Series of the Transactions -of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union,” 
is neatly and well “ got up.” The paper is good, and the type 
leaves nothing to be desired. The portion devoted to the Phanero- 
gamia has been modelled upon Mr. Baker’s “ North Yorkshire,” 
and, we are credibly informed, is well done, although outside our 
special province. The Cryptogamia occupy the latter 340 pages, 
or nearly half the work, and this has been compiled by the aid of 
various individuals, whose services are duly acknowledged. It is 
difficult to give an opinion upon a catalogue of Cryptogams 
without having had an opportunity of testing it. There are but 
two ways of making a catalogue of such a kind of any value. 
First, the preservation of a herbarium of the species included, 
which shall be available for reference at some public institution. 
Secondly, in default of this, the responsibility of some well 
known and thoroughly competent authority. We fail to recognize 
either of these safeguards against error in the work before us, and 
yet critical species amongst the Cryptogamia are not things which 
any novice can determine. In the present instance the local 
collaborateur may, for aught we know, be quite competent, but it 
has a suspicious appearance when the list of Fungi is arranged and 
based upon a work now wholly out of date, whilst a little trouble 
and a little more intelligent appreciation of his work were only 
required to have adopted a method more in accord with the 
progress of science. That he has not done so is tantamount to an 
* “ The Flora of West Yorkshire,” by Frederic Arnold Lees, M.R.C.S., 
1 Vol., cloth, pp. 843. London : Lovell, Reeve, and Co., 1888. 
