142 
NATURE NOTES 
K.C.B., and the meeting opens on July 31. Leicester is easily 
reached^from Marylebone Station, and the Great Central Railway 
Company is issuing return tickets at a fare and a quarter. 
REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES. 
Flowers of the Field. By Rev. C. A. Johns. Revised throughout and edited by 
Clarence Elliott. Routledge. Price 7s. 6d. net. 
In the advertisement of this book on the cover of Nature Notes, it is 
described as A really trustworthy popular guide to the Wild Flowers of 
Britain, up-to-date in its text and representative of the latest methods of coloured 
book illustration. We regret to say that it fails to realise this laudatory announce- 
ment. The introduction contains all the old errors of “ Johns,” such as under- 
ground stems being described as roots, the embryo being called a seed, and then 
confounded with its own plumule, certain fruits are called seeds, &c. It is thus 
by no means “ up to date ” I 
With regard to the text several species are omitted. The slight verbal 
alterations Mr. Elliott has made are of no special significance, but he has 
cancelled the whole of the two important families of Grasses and Sedges 1 He 
has, however, introduced the word Glumaceae (to which these two families 
belong) over funcacece (Rushes) ; and then headed every left-hand page to the end 
of the book, Glumace/e, therefore leading the student to imagine eight families 
(persistently miscalled ‘‘ tribes ”) to be of that group, whereas not one of them is 
so ; yet the book is described as “ trustworthy.” 
Mr. Elliott has also cancelled all the accents, a most important help to the 
pronunciation of Latin names for beginners. Why he gratuitously places 
Diplotaxis under Cardamine we do not know. He also misspells sceleratus. 
With regard to the illustrations, we presume the plates with small coloured 
figures are supposed to be an attractive feature, but the value of Johns’ large 
wood-cuts is greatly sacrificed by their being much reduced in size, as embodied 
in the text. We have compared this edition with Johns’ original one, as well as 
the latest issued by the S.P.C.K., edited by Professor G. S. Boulger, the 
skilful and exact Editor of Nature Notes ; and we find — omitting the allusion 
to coloured plates — the above italicised paragraph is strictly applicable to the 
latter. The Families are arranged in the sequence adopted by our leading 
botanists, the Grasses and Sedges being in their right place at the end, while 
the best of the full-sized figures are retained. 
We cannot, therefore, agree with the ” Opinions of the Press,” quoted under 
the advertisement, nor do we consider it justifiable to include it under the general 
heading ‘‘New Nature-Study Books.” It is simply a reprint of an old book, 
good enough in its day, but to re-issue it with all its defects — at the present time 
they have become serious ones — is not what Nature Study requires. We rio not 
hesitate to say that its “ attractive features,” if we may so style them, as resting 
upon ‘‘ colour,” are of no real value to the student. 
The Wit of the Wild. By Ernest Ingersoll. 7J inches X sJ inches, Pp. 288. 
Illustrated. T. Fisher Unwin. Price 6s. 
This is a collection of disconnected chapters on animal life, mostly that of the 
snakes, birds and beasts of North America. They are mostly reprinted from the 
New York World and The Field, and are told in simple attractive style and 
illustrated by a large series of excellent photographic pictures. Printing and 
binding are all that can be desired. 
Woodlanders and Field P'otk : Sketches of Wild Life in Britain. By John 
Watson and Blanche Winder. 8J inches x 54 inches. Pp. 304. With 40 
Illustrations. T. Fisher Unwin. Price 5s. net. 
Dealing as it does with our own fauna, this volume is, peihaps, more attrac- 
tive than the last mentioned. In some three hundred pages ot clear type we 
