are valuable handbooks and amply illustrated. Clute's is larger, more
scholarly, and more inclusive of rare species, with an illustrated key to
the genera; while Mrs. Parsons' is more simple and popular, with a naive
charm that creates for it a constant demand.

We trust there is room also for this unpretentious, but progressive,
handbook, designed to stimulate interest in the ferns and to aid the
average student in learning their names and meaning. Its geographical
limits include the northeastern states and Canada. Its nomenclature follows
in the main the seventh edition of Gray's Manual, while the emendations
set forth in _Rhodora_, of October, 1919, and also a few terms of later
adoption are embodied, either as synonyms or substitutes for the more
familiar Latin names of the Manual, and are indicated by a different type.
In every case the student has before him both the older and the more recent
terms from which to choose. However, since the book is written primarily
for lovers of Nature, many of whom are unfamiliar with scientific terms,
the common English names are everywhere given prominence, and strange to
say are less subject to change and controversy than the Latin. There is
no doubt what species is meant when one speaks of the Christmas fern, the
ostrich fern, the long beech fern, the interrupted fern, etc. The use of
the common names will lead to the knowledge and enjoyment of the scientific
terms.

A friend unfamiliar with Latin has asked for pointers to aid in pronouncing
the scientific names of ferns. Following Gray, Wood, and others we have
marked each accented syllable with either the grave (`) or acute (´)
accent, the former showing that the vowel over which it stands has its long
sound, while the latter indicates the short or modified sound. Let it be
remembered that any syllable with either of these marks over it is the
accented syllable, whose sound will be long or short according to the slant