i/4 
NATURE NOTES 
fruits, on the “Substitution of Domestic for Foreign-grown fruits;” one on 
“ Lawns anrl Lawn-making,” indicating the usefulness of sheep in this respect ; 
another, well illustrated, on “Hybrids and Plant-breeding;” one on “Edible 
and Poisonous Fungi,” by Prof. Farlow, most of the species figured in which 
are also common with us ; and one on the “ Danger of Importing Insect Pests ; ” 
besides appendices on remedies, the preparation of insecticides, twenty-five most 
harmful weeds, nineteen of which are of Old World origin, with suggestions for 
their control, a hundred most valuable timber trees, food analysis, &c. We 
note in passing that the Department seem to have prevented the introduction of 
the woolly mullein as an addition to the list of weeds of European origin. We 
cannot help pitying the sixty or seventy young women who are apparently per- 
manently engaged in the scarcely exhilarating pursuit of microscopically testing 
pork. 
Missouri Botanical Gardens. Ninth Annual Report. 
This is another sumptuous volume reaching us from the United States, contain- 
ing 160 pages and 50 plates as the year’s work of one public garden. The more 
important of the scientific papers it contains are “ A Revision of North American 
Lemnaceae,” by Charles Henry Thompson, in which Lenina potyrrhiza is 
separated under Schleiden's genus Spirodela, and “ A Revision of the Genus Cap- 
sicum, with especial Reference to Garden Varieties,” by H. C. Irish, with 21 
plates, the author following a hint of Asa Gray’s in reducing all cultivated red 
peppers to forms of two species, Capsicum annuttm and C. frutescens. 
Pansies , Violas and Violets (Dobbie’s Horticultural Handbooks), edited by W. 
Cuthbertson. Macmillan & Co., is. 6d. 
This is a well executed manual by various hands, with a historical introduc- 
tion by the Editor, a chapter on the botany of the group, dealing chiefly with 
their fertilisation, by John Ballantyne ; one on the allusions to these flowers in 
poetry, by Jessie M. Burnie, and several chapters of practical advice for cultivators. 
Off your Bikes ! A Series of Rustic Rambles and Sketches, including a Rhymed 
Rigmarole, entitled “ Rummy Dick's Ghost," a Legend of Leith Hill Tower. 
By Walker Miles. (The Rambler’s Library, No. 2.) R. E. Taylor & Son, is. 
Any pedestrian will appreciate Mr. Walker Miles’ practical directions, and 
all Selbornians will sympathise with the plea for foot-paths in the opening 
article of this little book, and thank him for his kindly words for our Society ; 
but we think his guides to the North Downs, the South Downs, and Monmouth 
and Raglan, would have been more useful separately, and we do not care person- 
ally for his seventy-two pages of rhymed imitation, a long way after the Ingoldsby 
Legends. The book contains many pretty views, chiefly from Surrey and Sussex, 
and may well enliven the tedium of a solitary railway journey or a midday rest. 
Knowledge for July and August maintains the general excellence of our con- 
temporary’s repute. In the former there is a continuation of the Rev. T. R. R. 
Stebbing’s “ Karkinokosm,” and of Mr. Vaughan Jenning’s “ Botanical Studies,” 
the latter dealing with Milium as a type of the mosses ; and in the latter Pro- 
fessor G. A. J. Cole has a geological paper on a corner of Wild Connaught, and 
Mr. Enock begins to deal with “Insect Miners.” In each number there is an 
instalment of the Rev. A. S. Wilson’s interesting description of “ Self-irrigation 
in Plants,” in which, however, we miss any reference to Mr. Grant Allen’s 
suggestive essay, “The Root of the Matter” in his “Moorland Idylls,” or to 
that striking illustration of his theme, the spirally inverted leaves of Alstroemeria. 
Science Gossip for July and August, besides its usual array of valuable notes, 
contains a startling exposition of a new theory of the Glacial Period, instalments 
of a paper, by Mr. Tutt, on “The Origin of Species in Insects,” and two of .the 
papers read at the recent congress of the South-eastern Union of Scientific 
Societies, one, by Dr. H. F. Parsons, on “ Plants and Animals of Different 
Soils,” and the other, by Mr. C. Dawson, on “ Natural Gas in Sussex.” 
The Animal World for July and August, with ils full-page illustrations of 
nothing in particular, reminds us loo strongly of a Band of Hope magazine or 
paper for children and those who read or think little, not that it does not contain 
