REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES 
'5 
quickly inserted into the bottle, it will go out, being suffocated 
by the carbonic acid gas. quantity of the flowers of daisies or 
dandelions will answer the purpose as well. If a small quantity 
of lime-water be put in and well shaken it will become milky by 
absorbing the gas, thus making carbonate of lime. 
Difkerkncks in Germination. — In noticing how the 
seedlings appear, it will be observed that there are differences. 
Thus in an acorn the plumule first arises while the thick, fleshy 
cotyledons remain below ground. This can be well seen by 
growing an acorn in a wide-mouthed bottle half-filled with 
water. The acorn should be well soaked first, and the radicle 
allowed to appear, and then suspended over the water, the tip 
just touching it. 
In mustard-and-cress, the plumule remains arrested, while 
the radicle ascends and forms the stalk, the cotyledons turning 
green at the summit. 
In the case of the onion and date, after the protrusion of the 
radicle, the single cotyledon also escapes excepting its tip, 
which remains bent down and embedded in the endosperm. 
This is gradually dissolved and then absorbed by the cotyledon, 
which finally frees itself and becomes erect. 
In the wheat, the primary radicle is arrested and several 
secondary roots come out instead. This arrest of the primary 
or axial root is characteristic of monocotyledons and aquatic 
dicotyledons, as may be well seen in germinating waterlilies, or 
in growing seeds of the water crowfoot (Ranunculus heterophyllus), 
if they be sown on mud in a glass bowl kept full of water, and 
when they are about an inch high examined under a microscope. 
It may be added that this is one of numerous points of agree- 
ment, making it pretty certain that the first-mentioned class has 
descended from aquatic members of the second. 
George Henslow. 
REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES. 
Drift from Longshore. By “ A Son of the Marshes,” edited by J. A. Owen, 
with a frontispiece by A. Thorburn. London: Hutchinson & Co., 8vo. 
Price 6s. 
There is always a numerous clientele who await with interest a new volume 
of his personal natural history experiences from the pen of “A Son of the 
Marshes,” and they will not be disappointed by this, his Latest book. Additional 
interest is given to it by the mention of the actual name of the home of his youth, 
Milton-next-Sittingbourne. We can sympathise with the editor in the disgust at 
seeing “ pochard” persistently misprinted as “ poachard ” which led her to pen 
a letter of protest to the Atkenaum. 
Wild Animals I have Known and 200 Drawings. By Ernest Seton Thompson. 
London : David Nutt. Printed in New York, 8vo. Price 6s. 
Only last month we had the pleasure of reviewing a book illustrated by Mr. 
Thompson, and now we have a work entirely from his hand, letterpress and 
illustrations alike. There is a charming air of the open prairie about the whole, 
and a truth to Nature that even the tragedy which the author shows to be the 
