264 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
siderable dimensions, but it bids fair to furnish British Botanists with a 
very complete Hand-book of the Mosses, embodying the results of recent 
foreign work, even to the extent of indicating the extra-British European 
species. Our only regret is that the author should have adopted the very 
inconvenient system of personal publication, which always increases the 
difficulty of procuring a book. 
SPRING.* 
I T is rather remarkable in these years to find any one capable of getting 
enthusiastic on the subject of Spring. Of course there are many effete 
articles of faith to which some men cling tenaciously for years after they 
have been proved to have no real foundation ; but these generally rested 
originally upon intangible bases ; and it is well known that many people 
(especially women) persist in the belief that certain other persons are angels, 
whom the general voice of society would pronounce to be of a very different 
quality. Such delusions must be matters of memory, and to the same cate- 
gory we must refer Mr. Heath’s encomiums on Spring. Por the last few 
years, indeed, it has been rather hard to say when spring began or ended. 
The whcle year has been one continuous wet March, varied only by frost 
and snow and fogs, in those months which have always been denominated 
winter, and by occasional hot days in the season which is still, by courtesy, 
named summer ; and it can only be by an effort of memory that even a poet 
could sing the charms of spring. To avoid confusion (influenced probably 
by the peculiar meteorological conditions above referred to), Mr. Heath 
makes spring commence in January. He might also, with some show of 
justice, have made it include June, but, yielding to old prejudices, he con- 
tents himself with May. 
The earlier chapters or sections of Mr. Heath’s Sylvan Spring contain general 
descriptions of the delights of country, and particularly of woodland scenery 
in the early part of the year, and this part of his work especially we must 
regard as embodying reminiscences of the past and anticipations of the 
future rather than the records of present experiences. The sun shines 
brightly in Mr. Heath’s pages ; the flowers bloom, the birds sing, and the 
trees burst into leaf as they used to do in days long past, and the whole story 
of Spring is told with a most enviable freshness. In the later sections our 
author ties himself down to a chronological arrangement of his subject, and 
treats successively of the months from January to May, indicating under 
each the principal phenomena which may be observed in the progress of 
vegetation, and interspersing his narrative with some notices of birds and 
insects, among tho latter, especially, the butterflies. The book is illustrated 
with numerous woodcuts, among which some of those representing country 
scenes are exceedingly beautiful; and also with a dozen plates printed in 
colours, which, although not first-rate productions, are pretty and attractive 
* Sylvan Spring. By Francis George Heath. Sm. 8vo. London : Samp- 
son Low & Co., 1880, 
