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excellent figure of a species of Antipathes, in his "Prodomus fasciculi rariorum plantarum anno 1679 in hortis celeberrimis Hollandiæ, etc., observatarum." He calls it Abies maritima, and mentions it as a fossil plant; thus beginning his Prodomus with a form which was not a plant, and which certainly never grew in any of the Dutch gardens. After the bibliography there is a critical review of the literature; it is pleasing to find the author doing justice to Esper's "beautiful work 'Die Pflanzenthere," and without wishing to enter on any technical criticism in a general notice like this, we may mention, in reference to a remark that "Esper does not describe Ant.pathes ericoides, but gives a figure of it," that in the second volume of his work, p. 150, he tells us that the name Antipathes myriophylla should replace the name of Antipathes ericoides engraved on the plate, and having adelamarck's copy of the "Fortsetzungen der Pflanzenthiere" open before us, we may add that nearly all the references to Part ii. of this work in Mr. Brook's Report should be to Part i. Part ii. contains only 48 pages, and Antipathes virgata, Esper, is the only species of the genus described in it. In justice to Esper it may be also mentioned that he corrects his mistake of describing a decorticated gorgonid as A. flabellum (vide “ Pflanzenth. forts,” ii. Th. p. 33).

The general morphology is next treated of, a general outline of the structure of the various genera, more especially with regard to the forms of the zooids and the number of and relative development of the mesenteries; this is the first detailed outline of the kind yet published on the morphology of the group, and it is illustrated by odcuts. The classification and description of the genera and species follow; then notes on the geograhal and bathymetrical distribution. Four species were taken at depths of between 2000 and 3000 fathoms.

A chapter on the anatomy concludes the Report, but e must content ourselves with quoting only the last ew words of this most valuable contribution :

"The Antipathinæ approach the Cerianthidae more losely than the Hexactinia in structure, particularly in the frowing points: the arrangement of the mesenteries; the relatively thin mesogla, which is entirely devoid of stellate connective tissue cells; the presence of an ecrodermal muscular layer in the stomodæum and body wall; and the rudimentary condition of the musculature of the mesenteries."

This Report extends to 222 pages, and has an atlas of 15 plates.

The second Report in this volume is by Prof. Th. uder, M.D. Bern, being a "Supplementary Report on the Alcyonaria." We quote the short preface :

After the main Report on the Challenger Alcyonaria was in the press, several further specimens were found. These were in part new species, of which however, it was no longer possible to insert a description in the text.

I

under great obligations to Dr. John Murray, the editor of the Challenger Reports, for allowing me to ablish in the form of a supplement an account of these new species with the necessary illustrations. At the same ime I have seized the opportunity to insert further illustraKons of such forms as Dr. Wright and myself had only Seen able to describe in the Report, as Telesto trichoAmma and Siphonogorgia kollikeri. This supplement

'30 Lamarck has written his name on the title-pages.

extends the list of the Challenger collection by three new species of the genus Siphonogorgia, three Muriceida, an Indian representative of the genus Bebryce (which before of the Plexaurida." had been known only from the Mediterranean), and one

It seems surprising that as a matter of courtesy, quite apart from other considerations, either the editor of these Reports or the author of this supplementary one, could have brought out this 81st Part of the Challenger Reports, without any communication with or participation therein, by Prof. Wright, to whom the preparation of the Report of the fixed Alcyonaria was originally committed.

With personal matters the reader has no right to be troubled, but he may well inquire why, when the Report itself was published in 1889 as the joint work of two Reporters, who narrate in their preface how pleasantly they worked in unison, there should appear in the same year this supplementary Report, written by but one of the two, and why he should acknowledge "his great obligations to Dr. Murray for enabling him to describe seven new species, under his own name," which had been found not by himself, but had been transmitted to him by his co-reporter as new forms early in 1888. The dates of the reception of the manuscript of this supplement prove that it could have been easily added to the appendix to the Report.

This supplementary Report adds eight, not seven as stated in the preface as quoted above, to the species collected during the cruise of the Challenger. The "Indian representative of the genus Bebryce" belongs to the Muriceida; but the interesting Sarakka crassa, Dan., belonging to the Alcyonidæ must be added to the list. Seven new species are described and figured, in addition to the last mentioned species, and figures are given of Siphonogorgia kollikeri and Telesto trichostemma which were described in the original Report. To the fourteen pages of the Report is added a list of the Alcyonaria (Pennatulacea excepted) obtained during the voyage, arranged according to the order of the stations at which they occurred; this comparatively useless record occupies ten pages, and is followed by a four page account of the bathymetrical range of the species, which takes no account of the record of the ranges as given in the original Report, which omits references to some of the Challenger forms and alludes to a large number of genera not found by the Challenger.

The six plates have been well drawn by Armbruster of Berne.

The third Report and the last of the series is by Prof. Ernst Haeckel, on the deep-sea Keratosa.

It will be remarked that this is not a "supplementary" Report to the Report on the Keratosa by Dr. Poléjaeff published in 1884, and it may be mentioned that the forms herein described appear to be of a very doubtful nature, "several spongiologists (among them some well known authorities) had denied their sponge nature and declared that these peculiar objects were either Rhizopods or other Protozoa. Other naturalists on the contrary who were closely acquainted with the Rhizopods, could not acknowledge their Rhizopod nature, neither could they make out the class to which they belonged." Possibly Prof. Haeckel was even one of these later for he tells us that "A closer comparative examination of these doubtful

organisms of the deep sea has led me to the conviction that they are true sponges, for the most part modified in a peculiar manner by the symbiosis with a commensal organism which is very probably in most cases (if not in all) a Hydropolyp stock."

Four families and eleven genera of these strange forms are described, and the species are well illustrated. With some few of them we may have had a previous acquaintance, but these turn up here with quite new faces; for, "to avoid further confusion," the author "proposes to employ the term Haliphysema for that monothalamous Foraminifer in the sense of Mobius, Brady, and most recent authors"; while "for the true Physemaria, however," which he described in 1876" as Haliphysema primordialis, &c., it will be best to adopt the term Prophysema," and he thinks that "it may be that the body-wall (in these Physemaria) is perforated by numerous microscopical pores, and that these were closed temporarily and accidentally during the few hours I was examining them; in this case they are Ammoconidæ," that is, belong to the first family of these deep-sea Keratosa.

In the truly extraordinary forms placed in the fourth family of Stannomidæ, containing specimens taken from depths of between 2425 and 2925 fathoms, we find present a fibrillar spongin skeleton, composed of thin, simple or branched spongin fibrillæ, never anastomosing or reticulated and also symbiotic Hydroids. Haeckel thinks that these "fibrilla" throw some light on the peculiar filaments met with in the Hircinidæ, and that in both instances these fibres are not independent organisms, but are produced by the sponges, in which they occur, and should be regarded, as “monaxial Keratose spicules."

In concluding this notice of one of the most remarkable of the series of animal forms found during the expedition of the Challenger, we feel compelled to protest against the style of the author's criticisms on Poléjaeff's previously published Reports on the Keratosa. It is very easy to write that "the whole systematic work of Poléjaeff turns in a large circulus vitrosus," &c., &c., but is it fair or just for one Reporter to thus, at the expense of Her Majesty's Treasury, write of a fellow Reporter? Such sentences must have been overlooked by the editor.

This Report extends to ninety-two pages, and is accompanied by an atlas of eight coloured plates.

THE VERTEBRATES OF LEICESTERSHIRE AND RUTLAND.

The Vertebrate Animals of Leicestershire and Rutland. By Montagu Browne. Pp. 223, illustrated. (Birmingham and Leicester, 1889.)

As we are informed in the preface, the volume before us is the first complete work treating of the vertebrate fauna of the two counties mentioned in the title, which has hitherto appeared, although scattered notes and a few lists have been published by several writers. The author, who, from his position as Curator of the Town Museum at Leicester, has exceptional opportunities for a work of this nature, can certainly claim that the

result of his labours does not err on the side of incompleteness. Thus this volume is not only a record of all the existing species of vertebrates which have been observed within the limits of the counties in question, but

likewise includes the fossil forms hitherto described from the same area. The recent and extinct forms are, indeed. arranged together in a systematic manner, without any difference of type or other indication to distinguish at i glance the fauna of the present from that of the past and it is certainly rather startling, at first sight, a find in a fauna of an English Midland county the domouse immediately followed by elephants and th ceroses. Now, although we are not on the side of thos who regard the sciences of zoology and paleontology a separated by a wide gulf, yet we venture to think that :a this instance the author would have been better advised had he given his synopsis of extinct types in a separate portion of the volume, after having first dealt with the existing species. Faunas are, indeed, to a very large extent, features of one particular epoch; and when we have those of two or more distinct epochs mixed up together, we tend to lose sight of the peculiar feature of each one. The ordinary student of the local distribution of existing English mammals will find that the introduction. of a number of extinct types, of which he knows nothing. tends to distract his attention from the observations regarding the local distribution of the living form Fortunately, indeed, this objection does not apply to the birds, in which no extinct forms are recorded.

The very natural tendency on the part of the author to make as much as possible of his subject, probabl accounts for the introduction of some groups or species which might have been better omitted, or, at all events passed over with a brief foot-note. Thus, in the first place. the introduction of the family Hominide could have ber very well spared, at all events in the systematic arrange ment. Then, again, the devoting of nearly two pages lv the order Cetacea seems to be very unnecessary, seeg that the only ground for the introduction of this order into the fauna of Leicestershire is that the bones of whales are sometimes used as gate-posts, or in ce instance as an ornament to a carriage-drive! To: author's remark in the latter instance that he records "these, lest, in the event of their getting loose and bers subsequently dug up, they should be mistaken for bones of an extinct elephant," reads as though intended for a caustic sarcasm against palæontologists. As anoth instance, we may mention the case of the avocet (p. 13 introduced on the ground that a gentleman fishing the junction of the Soar with the Trent, at the extract northern limit of West Leicestershire, saw what he believed to be an example of this bird flying overhead. The inclusion of species on this account would almost just passengers passing through a town by railway be entered among the list of visitors thereto.

The same natural tendency to make the most of the subject will probably account for the introduction f sub-ordinal and sectional names (e.g. Carnivora Vel Eluroidea, Arctoidea, &c.) which are of no possible importance in a work of this nature, and are really un incumbrance.

The author tells us he has followed the latest descrip tions throughout his work, and we see that in several instances he is even in advance of many writers in regi to the adoption of early names on the ground of priority. Thus the name Microtus is employed for the voles, lieu of the well-known Arvicola; but in this particul

instance it would surely have been well for the author to have departed from his rule and introduced the latter term as a synonym. A still more glaring instance of the nadvisability of dropping all mention of synonyms occurs in treating of the lesser shrew (p. 13), for which the name Sorer minutus, Linn., is adopted, in place of the later S. pygmæus, Pall. Now, the author refers to Pell's "British Quadrupeds" for the distinctive characters of this species, which is there mentioned only as S. fymzus; thus laying himself open to the criticism of those who are not specialists that he has confused the terms pygmous and minutus. This species has, moreover, never been recognized in the district, so that its mention seems rather unnecessary. In discarding the name Lepus timidus in favour of L. europeus for the common hare, our author follows those who regard the setter of the law as more than the spirit; and although there is but little, if any, doubt that at least some of the Lares to which Linnæus applied the name of L. timidus were really of that species to which we commonly apply the name L. variabilis, yet we cannot help thinking that the former name might be advantageously retained in its common acceptation.

Among the Ungulata, the author retains the fossil Box longitrons frontosus) as a distinct species, although bas been shown over and over again that it can only be regarded as a race of B. taurus. Similarly, all recent onservations tend to show that Bos primigenius is nothing more than a larger variety of the same species; while There appear to be no valid grounds for specifically disinguishing the Pleistocene Bison priscus from the living Lithuanian aurochs. The author would confer a great benefit upon paleontologists if he could show how the skull he refers to the so-called Sus palustris can be specifically distinguished from one of S. scrofa.

In commenting upon the absence of remains of fossil Carnivora from the Leicestershire Pleistocene, Mr. Browne does not appear to be aware how extremely rare these remains are in the equivalent deposits of other counties. Thus, at Barrington, in Cambridgeshire, where bones and teeth of Ungulates are found by the hundred or housand, those of Carnivores may be reckoned by units or tens; and the introduction of special hypotheses to account for their absence in Leicestershire is, therefore, quite superfluous.

The total number of mammals mentioned is forty-eight including man, but of this list only twenty-five are now found in a wild state in the area described. The number of species of birds is very large, as we might expect n an area of the size of that forming the subject of the work. Several species, such as the gannet, cormorant, Ac, are, however, but occasional stragglers from the Dist; while in other cases, as we have already remarked, the evidence of occurrence within the two counties is of •he slightest. A good lithographic plate of Pallas's sand-grouse, and a coloured one of the cream-coloured urser, are given; and we also have an elaborate table of the dates of arrival of summer immigrants. In the reptiles, the five existing species are almost lost among a "mber of fossil forms, to which they have but a very mote kinship. This swamping of recent forms by their fsal alles is, however, not so marked among the fishes, owing to the circumstance that all the fossil forms belong

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to extinct families, which follow the recent ones. Mr. Browne follows Prof. Cope in abolishing the orders Teleostei and Ganoidei, and arranging the representatives of the former and the typical groups of the latter in a sub-class Teleostomi, which is ranked as equivalent to the Elasmobranchii. The Salmonide are thus immediately followed by a family which the author, in defiance of all grammatical rules, terms Leptolepida, and which forms a transition from the Ganoids to the Teleostei. It seems strange that, while employing the correctly-formed term Rhizodontide (instead of Rhizodide), the author should retain names like Leptolepida and Osteolepidæ in place of Leptolepididae and Osteolepidida; but here, perhaps, he merely follows those who ought to know better. The number of fossil fishes from the Lias quarries of Barrow-on-Soar is very considerable; and we believe that the Leicester Museum is rich in this respect, as well as in the remains of Saurians from the same locality.

The author seems to have spared no labour in looking up references and making his work in all respects as nearly complete as possible; and, since the volume is handsomely got up and well printed, with a remarkable freedom from misprints, it should take a place in the first rank of local faunas.

R. L.

THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS OF ASA GRAY.

Scientific Papers of Asa Gray. Sprague Sargent. Two Vols. and Co., 1889.)

Selected by Charles (London: Macmillan

O more fitting monument could have been raised to the memory of the late Dr. Asa Gray-who was almost as well known to botanists on this side of the Atlantic as on the other than a reprint of a selection o his numerous writings. During a period of upwards of fifty years he was actively engaged in the investigation and publication of the botany of North America, and studies of a wider range. As Prof. Sargent says, in his preface to the present collection, "The number of his contributions to science and their variety is remarkable, and astonishes his associates even, familiar as they were with his intellectual activity, his various attainments, and that surprising industry which neither assured position, the weariness of advancing years, nor the hopelessness of the task he had imposed upon himself, ever diminished."

The hopeless task, it may be explained, was a complete "Synoptical Flora of North America." Botanists need not be told how he laboured to complete this gigantic undertaking, even at an age when most men are past work. Taking up the work where the unfinished "Flora of North America," by Torrey and Gray, ceased thirtyfive years previously, Gray published the remainder of the Gamopetala in 1878. This was followed in 1884 by a re-elaboration of the Composite and neighbouring natural orders; and the whole was re-issued in the form of one volume in 1886. This volume comprises about 1000 closely printed pages of descriptive matter-descriptive matter perhaps unsurpassed in botanical literature, and dealing with 567 genera and 3521 species. Whatever may be done by Gray's successors towards completing the "Synoptical Flora," his own contribution is a

most valuable one-valuable because it embodies the whole of his numerous scattered writings on the group in question.

In making a selection of Dr. Gray's work for republication, Prof. Sargent naturally did not choose descriptive botany, though an index to the genera and species described in a variety of more or less inaccessible publications would be of the utmost service to botanists; for even under the most favourable conditions a long time must elapse before the completion of the "Synoptical Flora."

The selection, "which was found difficult and embarrassing," is limited to reviews of works on botany and related subjects, essays, and biographical sketches, and it is on the whole, doubtless, as good a one as could have been made. Gray wrote "more than eleven hundred bibliographical notices and longer reviews," and, as space for only fifty is found in a volume of 400 pages, it follows that "it was necessary to exclude a number of papers of nearly as great interest and value as those which are chosen."

ence of Nitrogen "; Bentham's "Hand-book of the British Flora"; De Candolle's" Géographie Botanique"; Hookers "Distribution of Arctic Plants"; Ruskin's "Proserpina Darwin's "Insectivorous Plants"; and Wallace's "Epping Forest."

Among the fourteen "Essays" in the second volume. those on the longevity of trees, the flora of Japan. Sequoia, and forest geography and archæology, may be named as specially interesting.

The biographical sketches are thirty-eight in number, ranging from Brown and Humboldt to Bentham and Boissier. As only some two hundred pages are devoted to them, these sketches are, many of them, necessarily very brief; but, as Gray had a personal knowledge of most of the men of whom he wrote, they contain origina and interesting observations and facts not to be found elsewhere. And all who knew Dr. Gray will enjo reading again his opinion of other men and their works W. BOTTING HEMSLEY

Dr. Gray's method, if I may so term it, of reviewing the productions of his contemporaries was of such an instructive, temperate, and impartially critical character that these reviews have a permanent value. On reading some of them again, one is more than ever impressed with the fact that he made himself thoroughly acquainted THIS

with the works he criticized, and that he well fulfilled his duty alike to the public and the author. He did not hesitate to point out what he regarded as defects in the writings of his most intimate friends; but he was more careful to give an analysis of the contents of a book, with his own views thereon, than to condemn it on its faults or weak points.

These reviews cover a wide field, as well as a long period, and still remain profitable and interesting reading. The selection is too limited to be a history of botany during the last half-century, but it is sufficiently comprehensive to give an idea of the most notable events. It is true that the essays on the Darwinian theory are not here reproduced, as they had already been republished by

their author.

The first volume, which is devoted to reviews, commences with a detailed notice of the second edition of Lindley's "Natural System of Botany" and ends with Ball's "Flora of the Peruvian Andes," reminding us of our most recent loss in the very small circle of private gentlemen who may be said to have studied botany successfully.

Early among the reviews is that of Endlicher's "Genera Plantarum," a work published at intervals between 1836 and 1840; and, almost at the end, a short article on the completion of Bentham and Hooker's "Genera Plantarum," 1862-83. In the latter we find a comparison of the number of genera admitted in various works of the same class, from the appearance of the first edition of Linnæus's "Genera Plantarum," in 1737, down to Bentham and Hooker, and remarks on the ideas of generic limits entertained by the different authors, and on the relative quality of their work.

Interspersed between these are notices of such widely different subjects as De Candolle's "Prodromus"; von Mohl's "Vegetable Cell"; Boussingault, "On the Influ

MANURES AND THEIR USES.

Manures and their Uses. By Dr. A. B. Griffiths. (London:
George Bell and Sons, 1889.)

HIS is a hand-book for farmers and students, and
may be described as a smaller and less ambitions
successor to the treatise on manures, by the same author.
reviewed some months ago in NATURE. The principal
value of this latter work consists in the direct information
it contains as to sources of phosphatic, potassic, and nitro
genous manures, including guanos, in all parts of the world
The analyses, localities, amounts imported, and values, art
all interesting facts for farmers, and this little book
well take its place in an agricultural library as supplying
knowledge which otherwise might need research through
many scattered sources of information. When, however,
we consider the book as a means for imparting sound
views on agricultural principles, we must advise caution
on the part of the reader. Dr. Griffiths is one of those
teachers who are infected with an inordinate affection for
chemical manures. He believes, with M. Ville, that "the
farmer who uses nothing but farmyard manure exhausts
his land." Now, a man who starts with such an obvious
fallacy can scarcely get into the right path. This doc
trine is contrary to science and practice; and until Dr
Griffiths relinquishes it he cannot hope to enjoy the con-
fidence of any farmer. We venture to put the matter in
two or three positions from which it can be clearly viewed
Dr. Griffiths says, "This [farmyard] manure is erroneousl
supposed to contain all the necessary plant-foods required
for the growth of crops." Erroneously! why, farmyard
manure at least must contain all the constituents of straw,
for it is largely made of straw. Similarly, it must contain
the elements of turnips and root crops, when it is com-
posed of them in no small proportion. Also it must
contain the constituents of corn, because all meals and
cakes which are consumed by cattle, and all hay, which
is also consumed by cattle, contain the constituents of
corn in the form of nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, potash,
lime, magnesia, &c. Whether looked at chemically t
approached through pure reasoning, it is clear that farm-

body in octavo form, have contained a number of articles from his pen upon the Cetacea of the European seas, and it has been a happy idea of the author to collect these together, and republish them in a handy form, so as to render them accessible to many who would have difficulty

of the journal in which they first appeared.

The work treats systematically of all the species known to inhabit any of the seas by which Europe is surrounded, and under each species are sections devoted to the

literature, the history, the synonymy, the characters, the organization, the habits, the geographical distribution, the mode of capture, the museums in which specimens are known to exist, the published figures, and finally an account of the commensals and parasites which dwell upon or within them. On all these subjects the information given is derived from years of close and diligent gathering, and the result is an exhaustive account of our present knowledge of the European Cetacea. As a book of reference to all who are engaged in the study of cetology this work is absolutely invaluable, and if figures, even in outline, of all the species had been added, it might have gone far to occupy the place of the muchneeded popular hand-book of this still little understood, though interesting order of mammals.

and manure is the true restorer of fertility, the very milk of plants, the very life-blood of the soil, if such an expression may be allowed. Farmyard manure during its decay has its elements liberated from organic combinations gradually, and when wanted, as well as in a condition so avail-in referring to them when scattered throughout the pages able for the food of plants, that as a manure it is inimitable. No other manure can in all cases be applied to all crops with the same marked effects. It is strange that farmyard manure alone acts promptly and certainly upon leguminous crops such as beans, peas, and clover. No chemical manure, whether nitrogenous or phosphatic, can be relied upon to affect these crops, and yet farmyard dung tells upon them at once. Dr. Griffiths lays stress upon the fact that animals retain phosphates and nitrogen for The formation of bones, nerves, and muscles, and therefore to some extent rob the land. This fact is, however, entirely over-ridden by the customary importation of extraneous matter on to the farm in the form of foods purchased. The amount of phosphates and nitrogen removed by animals in their bodies is as nothing compared to the tons of cake, meal, hay, and even roots which are imported. Nexther must we forget the town manure which is so often bought by farmers, and which will compensate for such a loss as that which Dr. Griffiths fears. Too much prominence is given to chemical manures, and too little importance is attached to stock-feeding as a manurial gency. Dr. Griffiths quotes many writers upon matters on which they are scarcely to be regarded as authorities. On such matters he might just as well have told us r's opinion, instead of backing it up with the name of a solicitor who has been dead for years and whom nobody now knows of. Neither is an agriculturist, pure and simple, an authority on a chemical point such as the valuation of farmyard manure on the basis of its chemical constituent parts.

Dr. Griffiths claims to have made a discovery with regard to the use of iron sulphate as a fertilizer, and a good deal of space is devoted to this subject, which is not without interest. Half a hundredweight of iron sulphate per acre produces extraordinary results, according to experiments recorded in this book. No doubt this is Dr. Griffiths's great point, and far be it from us to detract from its atgnificance. If it is as potent a fertilizer as Dr. Griffiths thinks, we shall probably hear more of it. He is evidently not the man to let the matter rest. W.

OUR BOOK SHELF.

Hataire Naturelle des Cétacés des Mers d'Europe. By P. J. Van Beneden. Pp. 664. (Brussels: F. Hayez. 18597

IT is fifty-three years since the veteran Professor of Zoology in the University of Louvain published his first paper on the Cetacea, entitled "Caractères spécifiques des grands Cetacés tires de la conformation de l'oreile geseuse" During the greater part of this long period he has made this group of animals especially his own, having industriously collected from every available source information upon them, which he has given to the world, not only in his great works on the osteology of the Cetacea and the fossil Cetacea of Antwerp, but also in a series of memoirs which have appeared from time to time in the publications of the Belgian Academy of Sciences. During the last three years the "Mémoires couronnés et autres Mémoires," published by that learned

The number of species admitted is judiciously restricted, many of those appearing in previous works being relegated either definitely or provisionally to synonyms. Twenty-six are, however, left, all undoubtedly distinct are whalebone whales, viz. forms. Of these, seven Balana biscayensis, B. mysticetus, Megaptera boöps, Balaenoptera rostrata, B. borealis, B. musculus, and B. sibbaldii; five are Ziphioids, viz. Physeter macrocephalus, Hyperoodon rostratus, Ziphius cavirostris, Micropterus sowerbyi, and Dioplodon europaus; and the remaining fourteen are Delphinoids, viz. Phocæna communis, Pseudorca Orca gladiator, crassidens, Globicephalus melas, Grampus griseus, Lagenorhynchus albirostris, L. acutus, Eudelphinus delphis, Tursiops tursio, Prodelphinus tethyos, P. dubius, Steno rostratus, Delphinopterus leucas, and Monodon monoceros. only exceptions we can take to this nomenclature are the adoption of the generic term Micropterus in preference to Mesoplodon, as the former was preoccupied by a genus of Coleoptera, and the use of the needless term Eudelphinus for the common dolphin. If this should be generally accepted, the good old Linnean genus Delphinus would disappear altogether from the list. That it should be greatly restricted by the lopping off of aberrant branches was inevitable, but surely the name might have been left for such a characteristic species.

The

W. H. F.

Hand-book of Practical Botany for the Botanical Laboratory and Private Student. By E. Strasburger. Edited, from the German, by W. Hillhouse, M.A., F.L.S. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged. With 116 original and 33 additional Illustrations. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1889.)

66

THE first edition of Prof. Hillhouse's translation of Strasburger's "Practical Botany" was reviewed in NATURE (vol. xxxv. p. 556). The new edition has been considerably enlarged, and is now intermediate in extent between the smaller and the larger German editions. The new matter, mainly derived from the larger “ Botanisches Practicum," second edition, adds greatly to the value of the book. The most important additions are the accounts of the reproduction of Fucus and of Chara, and of the fertilization and embryology of Picea. The much fuller description of the reproduction of Mucor must also be noticed, as well as the considerable alterations, affecting both text and figures, in the chapters on vascular bundles. Further, the structure of the grain of wheat is now described-a very useful addition.

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