io8 
Review. 
classification of “morphoses”and “tactisms” is perhaps too elaborate 
and rigid. The final section on “ Phylogeny ” is interesting throughout, 
and nearly all the recent lines of work on heredity and variation 
receive some attention. 
There are no references in the body of the work—the author 
remarks that anything like a full bibliography would have occupied 
fifty pages—but there is a list of the more important general 
modern treatises arranged under the general heads into which the 
author divides the subject, and there is also a list of the more 
important botanical journals. While one may be permitted to 
doubt whether the non-botanical scientific man could obtain a good 
idea of modern botany from a work such as this—or indeed 
from any work of similar length planned on these lines—Professor 
Chodat’s book may be very cordially recommended to the botanist, 
who will find in it a thoughtful, often original, and sometimes 
distinctly luminous, succinct exposition of most of the fundamentals 
of modern botany. 
Messrs. Bergen & Davis’ book is really a text-book divided 
into three sections, the first, by Mr. Bergen, being a brief account of 
the structure and physiology of the flowering plant. The familiar 
material is well and intelligently treated. Some of the physiology 
is not quite up to date. For instance the treatment on p. 116 of 
the conditions of assimilation and respiration require serious 
revision in the light of Blackman’s work on optima and “ limiting 
factors.” Dr. Davis’ contribution to the book is an evolutionary 
treatment of the vegetable kingdom from the lowest to the highest 
forms. This is attractively carried out and should certainly arouse 
the interest of the student. While much of the section is of a high 
degree of excellence, exception may be taken to certain passages. 
Even the doughtiest adherent of the theory of the antithetic origin 
of the Pteridophytic sporophyte would hardly contend that that 
theory is certainly established and should be treated as a dogma, 
yet that is practically how Dr. Davis treats it. The attention devoted 
to fossils is in the present state of comparative morphology quite 
inadequate, and the remarks that are made do not properly bring 
out the importance and real bearing of recent discoveries. The 
final section on Ecology by Mr. Bergen is most judicious. The 
author has threaded his way with great skill through the difficulties 
and ambiguities of this subject and has yet succeeded in bringing 
out its interest and attractiveness very fully. There are a number 
of nice new illustrations and a few excellent “ half-tones ” of vegetation. 
It is always a little difficult to tell whether a book like this is 
intended for the teacher or the student, or both. It seems that a 
teacher who undertakes a course of the range of the subject matter 
here dealt with should not be content with so brief a treatment, 
while a student could scarcely acquire a sound knowledge from so 
condensed a treatise. But this criticism applies to so many 
text-books that perhaps it is a little otiose. The present work is 
certainly a favourable example of a modern text-book. 
K. Madley, Printer, 151, Whitfield Street, Fitzroy Square W. 
