GARDEN LITERATURE. 
1871.] 
203 
butterflies, some of them, as the large white, being most destructive to his cab¬ 
bages and other brassicaceous crops, while others are welcomed as the pretty 
genii of the garden, 44 daintily fed with honey and pure dew,” from the most 
fragile of flower-cups. In this work of Mr. Newman’s will be found most accurate 
wood-cut portraits (marvellously effective as figures in mere black and white) of 
Red Admiral Butterfly (Pyramen Atalanta). a Caterpillar, b Chrysalis, c Perfect Butterfly. 
one and all of them, with a clearly-written life history and a popular description 
of each, together with a note of the localities in which they have been severally 
observed. As a cheap publication on this interesting department of natural, 
history, the book stands alone for utility and pictorial excellence. 
Botany need not be unfamiliar for want of text-books, nor for want of 
materials for study, since, as Mr. Smith tells us in his recent work entitled 
Domestic Botany,* every garden, field, park, common, road, and river-side affords 
them in ample measure. This Domestic Botany forms a neat volume of consider¬ 
able bulk, and is illustrated by 16 coloured plates by Fitch, mostly devoted to 
groups of related plants. The text is divided into two parts, the first forming 
about one-sixth of the whole, and being devoted to matter such as we find in 
ordinary introductions to botany; this portion, considering the much higher 
interest attaching to the second part, might have been very well omitted. 
The second most important part of the book, and that to which we would gladly 
have seen its pages wholly devoted, is that in which 44 the families of plants are 
systematically arranged, with a description of their characters, properties, uses, 
&c.” This portion of the book is mainly devoted to economic botany, a branch 
of the subject on which a more complete treatise would have been most welcome. 
* Domestic Botany; an Exposition of the Structure and Classification of Plants , and of their Uses for Food, 
Clothing, Medicine, and Manufacturing Purposes. By John Smith, A.L.S., ex-Curator of the Royal Botanic 
Gardens, Kew. London: Reeve and Co. Pp. 547. 
