LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. 
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identity of his plant, “ he must refer to the plate last , to see it that and his 
specimen agree with each other.” This is advice to render the acquisition of 
knowledge tedious, and if it were really followed, many a young botanist would 
never look at the plates, for the previous description would soon give him a 
sufficient disrelish of Botany. In the commencement of any scientific study, the 
first object should be the giving of ideas. Words are not ideas, and give no 
information to those who have not already ideas formed in the mind. But when 
a youth has seen and examined a number of plants, or plates of plants, he has 
laid up a stock of ideas, and is in a fit state for understanding the written descrip¬ 
tions of them. Besides, a correct figure must be a better representation of a 
plant or any other natural object, than the most careful description; the eye and 
the brain seize it at once as a whole ; whereas the reduction of verbal descriptions 
into correct mental images of things, is slow and uncertain. We say to the 
young botanist, first compare your plant with plates, and then read the descrip¬ 
tion of that species, the figure of which seems to yourself most like your own 
plant, whose name or qualities you desire to learn. This is the natural, and 
always the favourite mode of study, and being inevitably so from the laws of 
mental action, it is idle to attempt to set it aside, by the advice of first learning 
words and then ideas. Every child is a lover of flowers, but not one in a 
thousand becomes fond of Botany, and the cause of this is less in the children 
than in the writers on Botany. 
Contrary to Mr. Francis’s direction, we recommend specimens to be fastened 
on paper with very thin glue. All the best collections we have seen are thus 
fastened, and experience has convinced us of its superiority over gum or gum- 
paper. To dry plants well, plenty of soft paper should be used, and no change 
till the specimens are dry.—H. C. W. 
LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. 
Preparing for publication, The Fishes of Madeira , by R. T. Lowe, M.A., 
with original figures of each species, from Nature. To be completed in about 
thirty monthly numbers, each containing four plates.—Part ii. of Bell’s British 
Reptiles is published this day; and the third and last number will shortly be 
issued.— Yarrell’s British Birds has reached its tenth, and Jones’s Animal 
Kingdom its fourth, part. 
