1G2 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
England, found the practical instruction of the school-children in Botany 
exert a most ameliorative influence upon their minds. His son, the Rev. 
George Henslow, anxious to place in the hands of country clergymen and 
school-teachers the means of employing the same method of cultivation, has 
written a little hook of practical instructions under the title of Botany for 
Children , which, he hopes, may serve to indicate to teachers the mode of 
leading their younger pupils to a comprehension of the simpler facts of 
Botany, and to guide children of larger growth in their first steps in the 
study of the science. For this purpose he has selected a certain number of 
common flowering field-plants, belonging to various natural orders, and de- 
scribed in the plainest possible terms the mode in which their structure 
should be investigated, indicating at the same time the way in which the 
facts thus ascertained are applied to the classification of plants, explaining 
the physiological functions of the various parts, and very briefly discussing 
the general principles of vegetable morphology. The choice of plants for 
investigation seems to have been very judiciously made, although it is, 
perhaps, to be regretted that a few more orders are not represented. We 
notice especially that no example is cited of so important a group as the 
Umbelliferse, which surely ought to have received some notice, many of its 
members being such striking objects that the young botanist can hardly help 
wishing to know something about them, whilst their structure is remarkable 
and exceedingly interesting from a •morphological point of view. The 
Urticacese, Papaveracege, Dipsaceae, and some other groups, are in the same 
case. Nevertheless, the readers .for whose advantage Mr. Henslow’s little 
book has been prepared, have every reason to be grateful to him for the 
trouble he has taken to make the path before them smooth and easy for 
their first uncertain steps ; and we may say with confidence, that any young 
botanist who carefully follows out in .practice the course of study here laid 
down, will arrive at the close of his first summer with no inconsiderable 
amount of precise knowledge, which will render his further progress com- 
paratively easy. We may add, that the little volume is illustrated with a 
series of very characteiistic figures of the plants noticed, with details of their 
floral structure, nicely executed in lithography, by the hand, we presume, of 
the author himself. 
ITH the revival of the doctrine of the origin of species by a process of 
evolution, which was brought about by the publication of Mr. 
Darwin’s celebrated work on the subject, the relation of man to other 
organisms at once became a question of great prominence. It was evident 
that, man being physically an indubitable mammal, he must, on this side 
of his nature at any rate, be regarded as subject to the same laws as the 
rest of the organic world, and the expressed or implied recognition of this 
fact certainly gave rise to much of the opposition with which the new 
* Mind in the Lower Animals, in Health and Disease. By W. Lauder 
Lindsay, M.D. 2 vols., 8vo. C. Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1879. 
INTELLECT IN ANIMALS.* 
