40 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
It is safe to say that no single student of the fungi is doing more 
than Mr. Lloyd to advance our knowledge of this group of plants, 
He has recently erected a new four story building of brick and 
stone in Cincinnati to be used as a museum and library which is 
estimated to be capable of holding nearly five hundred thousand 
specimens of puff-balls and allied plants. 
Almost without exceptioii our out-of-door books have been 
written in the Northeastern States and treat of the features of 
that part of the world written from the Yankee point of view. In 
''Next to the Ground" by Martha McCuUough Williams we get 
a view of the seasons as they pass in the South, by one who has 
grown up in such surroundings and is thoroughly familiar with 
what she writes about. In the ''foreword" the author says that 
"as one star differeth from another in glory, so does one field or 
wood or hedgerow differ from another." How much her fields 
differ from those of the New England and Middle States one per- 
ceives before he goes very far in the book. The very methods of 
tilling the soil and gathering the crops are different. In the chap" 
ters on "Ploughing," "Shooting" and the like, the author shows 
a knowledge of the subject that would do' credit to a man while 
in other chapters the habits of insect, beast and bird are entertain- 
ingly set forth. She has even succeeded in making a most inter- 
esting chapter on "The Hog." When she touches upon the 
plants it is from an original point of view. "A clown among 
oaks is the black-jack, the genuine scrub oak. The trunk is so 
crooked woodsmen vow it takes it half an hour after it has been 
cut down to find out how it can lie still. It is knottier than it is 
crooked. * As it grows, small branches develop all round, 
standing stiffly out at almost exact right angles. After a few- 
years they die, but do not break off and have done with it. In- 
stead they shed twigs, bark and sap-wood, yet persist as to the 
heart, standing out all along the trunk like bluntish iron pegs." 
The nature lover will certainly find this an agreeable change from 
the average book on such subjects. It is published by McClure, 
Phillips & Co., New York at $1.20 net. 
