226 
Review: 
“ field ” in modern English retained the wide significance of the 
Scandinavian “Mark” or the German “Feld.” “ Felsenflur ” 
(given as the German equivalent of “Fjeldmark”) itself does not 
seem satisfactory, since “ Pels” means specifically “ rock,” and the 
pi'oposed English term, besides having a slightly ludicrous effect, 
only makes the confusion worse confounded. 
It would no doubt be very convenient if we could find good 
equivalents in different languages for well-defined and widely 
spread types of habitat or of vegetation. But it is in most cases 
impossible without doing violence to the genius of the different 
languages. In some cases the foreign word has been directly bor¬ 
rowed, as for instance the French word maquis, and this is the natural 
course when the type of vegetation and the descriptive term are 
native to their own country. But the close relationship of the 
Teutonic languages should not blind us to the fact that each has 
developed on its own account and in its own direction, so as to make 
it impossible, in most cases, to find true equivalents by compounding 
simple words taken from the everyday language of the people. 
We think it may be safely laid down as a principle, that a term 
derived from any language must be indigenous to the country of its 
birth, such as “ fen,” “ moor,” “ heath ” in English, and its technical 
use must not depart widely from its common use. Any attempt at 
compounding must be done with the greatest care so as to avoid 
ludicrous effects and any straining of the genius of the language. 
It is much better to borrow a foreign term which is really autoch¬ 
thonous than to fall into these errors. In the future, when different 
types of plant-community are sufficiently known and analysed to 
make common appellations essential, recourse will have to be made 
to Greek or Esperanto ! 
In general we are afraid that the English terminology of the 
present work will not be satisfactory to English students of ecology. 
The book is not quite free from slight mistakes. To mention a 
few taken at random, we find on p. 18 “ sycomore ” which should be 
“sycamore”; “ hylophytes ” are called “ woody plants,” instead of 
“ wood-plants” (p. 135); on p. 143, footnote 4, “ substitute ” should 
be “substituted”; on p. 146 Holcus lanatus appears for H. mollis, 
though the species is correctly cited on pp. 95 and 368. Aira 
ccespitosa is evidently written for Aira jlexuosa on p. 363. This is 
particularly unfortunate when we consider the very different 
ecological characters of the species. Three lines lower down on 
the same page, the statement that “ the beech is incapable of 
natural regeneration ” requires qualification. On p. 394 “ C. G. 
Pethybridge ” should be “ G. H. Pethybridge ”; on p. 403 “J. E. 
Weiss” should be “ F. E. Weiss”; and on p. 408, under 
“ Blekinge ” the “ 2 ” should be “ 3.” “ Physically ” appears for 
“ physiologically” on p. 136. 
Surely it is not true to say that “ Moor-soil (in the sense of 
peat) is probably always acid” (p. 195). Certain types at least of 
“ low-moor” give a neutral reaction. There are one or two cases 
in which references to British work should have been included. 
Thus on p. 200 the statement that “The moor, known as high moor, 
Sphagnum moor, sphagnetum, or heather-moor, is mainly formed 
by bog-moss (Sphagnum),” requires qualification. In the British 
Isles, as may be seen from the papers of Smith, Moss and Rankin, 
of Lewis, and of Pethybridge and Praeger, “ Hochmoor ” is 
