Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/157

 137 NOTICES OF BOOKS. Guide to the British Mycetozoa exhibited in the Department of Botany ^ British Museum. By Arthur Lister, F.L.S. 8vo, pp. 42; 44 woodcuts. 8d. Another of the bye-ways of natural science has recently been traversed, and important discoveries nave rewarded the eli'orts of the patient investigators, i^'or upwards of a decade Mr. Arthur Lister ana menioert; of nis talented family iiave studied moat assiduously the curious group of organisms linown as Mycetozoa or Myxomycetes. bome of the results of their labours have recently been given to the scientific world. The Monoyraph of the Mycetozoa was reviewed in this Journal for 1895, and now we liave this Guide, whicfi is further illus- trated by a set of drawings and specimens representing the forty geneia known to occur in this country, now on exhibition in the botanical gallery of the liritisli Museum. The illustrations are true to life, and snow most charmingly both the natural colours and general habit of these creatures in their fruiting stage. They indicate not only artistic skill, but a practical knowledge of the intimate struc- ture of the organisms. Possibly the drawing of a Lamproderma would most readily arrest the attention of the casual visitor ; to the practical worker m this department of knowledge possibly the sketch of tlie plasmodium of Badhamia utricularis would appeal most strongly. It is so realistic that one almost expects to see it crawl off in search of food. Miss G. Lister deserves ail the con- gratulations she may receive for this, her special work. By means of the printed guide, and a careful examination of the drawings with accumpanyiug specimens, one may gain as much knowledge of the subject in an hour as could formerly be obtained by months of personal search. In the preparation of the system of classification Mr. Lister has had a most arduous task. The nomenclature has been cumbered with numerous synonyms ; specimens in herbaria have been wrongly named; in some published lists closely allied species have been strangely dissociated, and many superfluous specific names have been given. Mr. Lister has endeavoured to bring order out of comparative chaos, and to represent as concisely as possible what is now known of the natural sequence of the various genera and groups. In pursuit of this object he has examined the national collections at bouth Kensington and Kew, and the principal herbaria on the Continent ; has criticized the naming of large numbers of specimens sent by correspondents in Britain, Europe, and America; and, above all, has spent much time in searching for these creatures m their natural haunts, both here and in other countries. It is probably present to the mind of the author, more forcibly than to any of his possible critics, that no verbal descriptions — no linear arrangement — can fully cover all the diverse forms, nor suggest all the affinities of the varieties one meets with in the field. Even the Sub-cohort L, Cakarinem^ has its exception in the lime- less form of Bhysarum nutans a. violascens (Men. 61) ; and the order