Aspects of Ecology. 
imagines. Some correlation and uniformity is certainly needed, 
and we hope it may he attainable by the Committee which will 
report at Brussels, but the aim should he the minimum of necessary 
new terms, and we can see no good reason why vernacular formation- 
names should be abolished in favour of Greek, provided they are 
properly sub-ordinated in a logical classification. 
Many of the terms employed in the earlier part of the present 
work are admirable and will no doubt come into general use. 
Holard , chvesavd , echard, ecad and some others may be taken as 
examples, but the advantages of substituting xerad for the 
perfectly established x'erophyte, etc., in the interests of formal 
uniformity are not obvious. 
Looking back on the subject of this somewhat lengthy review, 
we perceive clearly that it possesses the defects of its qualities. 
A comprehensive logical view of the proper ultimate objects of the 
worker in the enormous field with which it deals, reinforced by a 
resolute and dauntless determination to get to the bottom of its 
infinitude of complex problems is its outstanding and commanding 
merit. That this admirable resolution is likely to meet with success 
along the exact lines laid down by the author in his second and 
third chapters we have seen rather grave reason to doubt. 
Premature anxiety to correlate habitat and formation as quickly 
and simply as possible involves serious entanglement in crude and 
misleading conceptions of the relation of plant and environment. 
The first analysis of the complex forms and activities of vegetation 
itself is a much more practicable task and meets with striking and 
often brilliant success. It seems we must not be in too great a 
hurry with our attempt to formulate the plant universe, but in some 
places be content to walk slowly and warily. For the present the 
first analysis of vegetation must go on its own way to some extent 
divorced from the investigation of fundamental causes, though we 
should never neglect a real opportunity of bringing the one into 
relation with the other. 
In the meantime we can be truly grateful to Dr. Clements, not 
only for his great and lasting positive contributions to our subject, 
but also for his bold and serious presentment of the ideal. 
