BOTANICAL OBITUARY. 307 



our own country ; for tlie Continent, almost within the same time, has 

 lost Auguste St. Hilaire, Gaudichaud, Adrien de Jussieu, Kichard, fils, 

 Ledebour, Fischer, Kunze, Schwsegrichen, Eeinwardt, Schaerer: and 

 again, in our own country, we still feel the loss of Lemann and 13romfield. 

 We had scarcely announced the demise of Dr. Wallich, than the daily 

 journals conveyed to us the death of 



1. JAMES EDWARD WINTERBOTTOM, ESQ., 



Who died at Rhodes, on his return from Egypt and Nubia, and 

 while on his way to Constantinople, in prosecution of further scientific 

 journeys- Of independent fortune, well educated, well informed, pos- 



w 



sessing a mind deeply imbued with a love of Natural History, and en- 

 dowed with almost an athletic frame, — -it is no wonder he early sought 

 to improve his mind by travelling. Owing to his remarkably retiring 

 habits, and a disposition to avoid whatever might bring him into public 

 notice, it is quite out of our power to do justice to his memory by a 

 statement of all the services which Mr. Winterbottom has rendered to 

 science. Our earliest acquaintance with him was when he had com- 

 pleted his studies and taken his B.M. degree at Oxford (for he was 

 educated for the medical profession, though he never practised medi- 

 cine), about the year 1825, in the summer of which year he did 

 us the favour to accompany a party on a botanical excursion to the 

 Breadalbane Mountains. Two circumstances remain strongly impressed 

 upon our memory connected with that tour: one was his ardent 

 zeal in pursuit of plants, and the other an instance of his humanity. 

 A sick sheep had strayed from its companions, and was unable to ex- 

 tricate itself from the dangers of the rocky precipices which almost 

 everywhere surrounded the spot. lie took up the animal, which woidd 

 have been more than a load for any one of the rest of us, and with the 

 greatest care, and all the skill that a practised shepherd might be 

 pected to possess, raised it on his shoulders, and, with only a few mo- 

 ments of rest here and there, carried it a long distance, till he placed 

 it in safety among its companions, near the base of the mountains. 



From that period, Mr. Winterbottom was entirely lost sight of, by us 

 at least; a vague report only, that he was gone to travel in India, and as 

 a Botanist, had reached us, till about 184-6, when we heard he had joined, 

 as a volunteer. Captain Richard Strachey, who was engaged by the In- 

 dian Government to make a survey of certain portions of the Hima- 



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