102 
REVIEWS, 
The next work on our list is a supplement to the previous one, and will 
prove most useful to every one engaged in investigating our native Equise- 
taceae, Lycopodiaceae, Marsileaceae, and Characeae. The figures illustrating 
the first three are very good ; but as much cannot be said for those of the 
Characeae. Yet we think it a valuable adjunct to the Native Ferns, and 
are not disposed to be over critical. The last work we have to notice will, 
we trust, command an extensive circulation. It most decidedly deserves 
to be recommended, and will be found a most useful manual. The following 
notice prefixed to this work will explain why it was published, better than 
we could, and we give it with pleasure :— 
“ The occurrence from year to year of cases of accidental poisoning, by the 
substitution of a deleterious for a wholesome vegetable, has led to the idea that a 
small work, illustrative of the poisonous plants indigenous to Great Britain, might 
be useful in rendering the subject one of more general interest than it has hitherto 
been ; and that by directing attention to the dangerous results of such mistakes, 
originating in correspondence of form to well-known articles of food or condiment, 
it might render such casualties less frequent in future. 
u The present work, first suggested by a letter in the Times deprecating the 
absence of this branch of education in schools, will contain illustrations of twenty- 
eight of the principal species, transferred to stone from the plates of the original 
edition of English Botany ; and the descriptive portion being written by a gentle¬ 
man, the greater part of whose life has, from his position as botanical lecturer at 
Guy’s Hospital, necessarily been directed to this portion of natural history, will 
be a guarantee for its correctness. 
“ To persons residing in the country, and especially to clergymen and others, 
whose advice and influence in their respective neighbourhoods may lead to the 
improvement of the less educated, it is considered that such a publication may 
prove valuable. At the same time, the low price at which the uncoloured copies 
are issued will place it within the reach of the school library, and thus tend to 
render service to the rising generation. The knowledge once implanted, that 
many of the most admired ornaments of our fields, and woods, and gardens, not 
only contain within them the elements of disease and death, but that these are in 
many instances of a character so powerful as to render the fragment of a leaf, 
stem, or root, a few seeds or berries, almost immediately subversive of human life, 
cannot fail to instil caution into the most careless, and thus lessen the liabilities 
to danger by which we are surrounded.” 
In conclusion, we hope this little manual will be the means of saving many 
a life, which, through ignorance of its contents, might otherwise have been 
lost. 
