REVIEWS AND EXCHANGES. 
Manual of British Botany. By the late Prof. C. C. Babington. Ninth Edition, 
enlarged from the Author’s Manuscripts and other sources. Edited by 
Henry and Janies Groves. Gurney and Jackson. Price 9s. net, or thin 
paper edition bound in leather, los. 6d. net. 
Since its first appearance in 1843, Babington’s “ Manual” has marked in its 
successive editions as no other book has, the progress of our critical knowledge of 
the British flora. It would have been a great loss to science if its author’s death had 
been permitted to close this long career of usefulness, and no more competent 
editors could have been found to bring it up to date than the Messrs. Groves. The 
study of such ‘ ‘ critical ” genera as Rubus, Hteraciuni, Potamogeton and Euphrasia 
has rendered the growth of the thickness of the volume inevitable, though some- 
thing might have been saved if we had not been given two distinct accounts of 
the genus Rubus. True respect for the memory of a botanist who was throughout 
his life receptive of new ideas would not retain his arrangement of this genus 
or of the willows or mints merely because it was his twenty-three years ago ; and 
some of those students of British plants whose eyes are not as young as they 
were, may regret the very minute type in which some of the additions have been 
printed. The assistance of Mr. F. J. Hanbury, Mr. Townsend, Rev. W. 
Moyle Rogers and Mr. Fryer, has been obtained in the cases of those genera 
with which their names are chiefly associated. This is not the place for any 
attempt at a discussion of minutiae, so that we can only express our gratitude to 
all concerned in its production for once more giving us an authoritative flora. 
Now we want a new edition of the London Catalogue to correspond. 
The Student’s Handbook of British Mosses. By H. N. Dixon. With illustrations 
and keys to the genera and species by H. G. Jameson. Second Edition, 
revised and enlarged. V. T. Sumfield, Eastbourne, and Wheldon and Co. 
Price 1 8s. 6d. net. 
Handbook is too modest a title for this standard work, in which our British 
mosses, some 630 in number, are fully described, somewhat on the scale of 
Syme’s “ English Botany,” with a glossary, artificial keys to genera and species, 
a concise account of the external anatomy of the group, and sixty-five plates, 
including figures of every species. Of these last, five are new to this edition, and 
illustrate the new forms discovered in Britain since the publication of the first 
edition in 1896. The derivation of the generic names and the indication — in 
the Index — of the pronunciation of all the names, are further improvements that 
have been now introduced. It is, in fact, a double subject for congratulation 
that there should so soon be a demand for a new edition of such a work on 
bryology, and that the demand should have been so admirably met. 
In the King’s County. By E. K. Robinson. Isbister and Co. Price 6s. 
Mr. Robinson is fortunate enough to live in Norfolk, to have his eyes open, 
and to possess a facile pen. Hence we get a light and handy volume of some 
350 pages, containing nearly forty brightly written papers, mostly about birds, 
suggested by first-hand observation and eminently readable. Our readers, whilst 
in a boat on the Broads, or on the beach at Cromer, or elsewhere, will be 
amused to learn how to tell the time of year by a study of small boys' hands, 
or to trace the connection between hibernating tortoise-shell butterflies and the 
same small boys’ demand for dock leaves. 
Dunstable : Its History and Surroundings. By Worthington G. Smith. The 
Homeland Association. Price 6s. net. 
Many who know Dunstable will probably not know a tithe of what they may 
here learn about it and its neighbourhood from the learned first fieeman of the 
borough ; but those who know Mr. Worthington Smith and his writings will 
know beforehand that they are sure to get from him something readable and worth 
reading. He has for some years been identified with Dunstable, so that a most 
successful portrait of him forms a fitting frontispiece to this book, which is issued 
by the Homeland Association in conjunction with the Corporation. The pre- 
historic, Roman and later remains from the district, including the fine Priory 
