177 
Plant Physiology and Ecology. 
University, with the students of which classes it is possible, the 
author believes, to accomplish all the work set out in the book ” in 
a course requiring six to eight hours of laboratory time each week.” 
In our opinion, however, the author’s ideas of the capabilities of 
such students reflect his unbounded enthusiasm for his subject. 
“ A bibliography has not been deemed necessary and has not been 
given,” but it is a pity, we think, that there are no references to 
original memoirs. 
The first eight chapters deal respectively with such questions 
as Stimulus and Response, The Water of the Habitat, Adjustment to 
Water, Adjustment to Light, Adjustment to Temperature, Adjust¬ 
ment to Gravity, Contact and Shock, Adaptation to Water, and 
Adaptation to Light. It will be seen that these are matters which 
are usually left to the plant physiologist. The author has stated 
elsewhere his reasons for regarding ecology and physiology as 
essentially identical; and in his preface to the present work he 
anticipates a possible objection that since ecology and physiology 
are here blended, it is impossible to give to either what would be 
regarded as a complete treatment by a specialist in either line. 
Though the author states he has made no attempt to touch all the 
points in each, he thinks that nothing fundamental has been omitted. 
Whether or not we agree with this view depends on our views of 
what is fundamental to physiology. For ourselves, we regard 
respiration as distinctly fundamental, and we cannot think that this 
aspect of physiology has received in this text-book, the attention 
which its importance demands. In fact, we feel that it is an aspect 
of physiology which does not lend itself to adequate treatment by 
the author’s general method of study. It is true, indeed, as 
Professor Clements maintains, that much of the observational and 
experimental physiology of the laboratories has, in the past, been 
pathology ; and although pathology is a necessary study we are 
unable to agree that it is desirable to introduce it into courses of 
elementary physiology, and Professor Clements will have rendered 
an inestimably high service to botany if he initiates, as in this work 
he endeavours to do, a study of precise observations and experiments 
of the functions of plants in their normal habitats. We seriously 
doubt, however, if the course of study outlined in the present work 
is either practicable or desirable in the case of students who are not 
already acquainted with the experimental study of the functions of 
normal terrestrial plants. If the author had written his book for 
such students, he could, without fear of criticism, have omitted much 
