31 AUGUST 1901, Page 23

Playing at Botany. By Phcobe Allen. (Wells Gardner, Darton, and

Co. 3s. 6d.)—This is a second edition, revised and enlarged, and—a very great recommendation—illustrated. It is meant, as the title indicates, for children, whom it initiates by degrees into some of the difficulties of the subject, for, indeed, nothing worth knowing can be learnt without difficulties. Cowper thought it needless "to ask Jean Jacques Rousseau If birds confabulate or no." So we will not object to conversations between Rhoda and Miss Buttercup, otherwise Miss Ranunculus Bulbosus and Mr. Wallflower, known on occasions of ceremony as Cheiranthus.