168 
ODOARDO BECCARI. 
cord their appearance alive.” After this essa}' on palms come 
others on various natural groups of plants, selected in each case 
with the idea of clearing ground where the difficulties lay thick. 
The second volume of Malesia is occupied by his classical essay 
entitled “Piante ospitatrici,” that is plants which provide hostels (for 
ants, etc.). The third renews the subject of the Palms, and is like 
the first, a series of systematic studies in difficult groups of plants. 
He prefaced his essay on “ Plants which provide hostels ” by a 
discussion upon the part stimulation or irritation by insects could 
have had in calling into existence characters now inherited, such 
as hollow stems and hollow tubers, eminently prepared as it were, 
for the insects to occupy them. In this his views were Lamarckian, 
— that is to say he accepted Lamarck’s “ inheritance of acquired 
characters” as a working force in the shaping of this world. Such 
views have long been unacceptable to the majority of workers on 
Evolution : but he set them forth again in his Nelle Foreste di 
Borneo where the possibility of the pull of river currents in giving 
submerged leaves length that becomes ultimately inherited, is 
among further illustrations one of the more striking. 
Death found him engaged in preparing for the press his New 
Guinea diaries; and in putting the last touches to two further 
monographs of palms, one on the Lepidoearyeae in English, and 
the other on the Areceae in Italian. These monographs are likely 
to be published shortly. A third on the Borassineae was left some- 
what advanced. 
It is intended in the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, to make, 
with palms first described by Beccari a small avenue as a memorial 
to this great naturalist, who ever since Singapore had a botanic 
department has been a frequent correspondent, and was always 
ready to give the assistance of his profound knowledge. 
I. H. Bukkill. 
In the foregoing pages Mr. Burkill has summarized the travels 
which occupied the earlier years of Beccari’s manhood and the 
botanical work which filled the remainder of his life. But it is 
as no ordinary traveller or worthy botanical systematist that 
his name will live or indeed that he himself lived. For an insight 
into the true nature of the man one must read his “Wanderings 
in the Great Forests of Borneo” — a veritable Natural History 
epic, replete with a mass of most varied observations, original and 
inspiring theories, and as the narrative of a born naturalist, worthy 
to rank with the more widely read nature-diaries of Darwin, Wal- 
lace, Bates or Belt. 
This book appeared first in 1902 in Italian under the title of 
“ Nelle foreste di Borneo.” The English edition, translated by 
Dr. E. H. Giglioli and F. H. Guillemard 3 and enlarged or other- 
s The well-known naturalist, author of the “Cruise of the Marehesa,’' 
and himself a traveller of no mean repute in Borneo some twenty years 
after Beccari. 
Jour. Straits Branch 
