224 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
ductory Explanations,” and foretells that * Hooker’s ‘British Flora ’ 
will soon fall into disuse, like the floras of Hudson, of Withering, of 
Smith :” and while he takes Mr. Babington’s ‘ British Manual’ under 
his fostering wing, he does not fail to blame that gentleman severely 
“for his eagerly adopting the spurious and doubtful species of other 
botanists, but also for adding to their number himself, together with a 
proneness to adopt and make unrequired changes in nomenclature ;” not- 
withstanding that Mr. Watson “ resisted several of these ill-judged inno- 
vations both by ridicule and by reason," and, he flatters himself, “ not 
wholly ineffectually :"— so that “the author of the ‘Cybele’ therefore — 
felt it would be no wise course to tie himself to the views and nomen- 
clature of the author of the ‘ Manual,’ which then threatened to be so 
capricious and changeable.” 
“True,” writes Mr. Watson, “Hooker’s ‘ British Flora’ has re- 
cently been re-edited in its sixth edition by a botanist of merited re- 
putation, who has bestowed considerable pains upon it, and has doubt- 
less made many emendations in it. But the attention of Professor 
Arnott, equally with that of Sir William Hooker, had been long given 
to exotic botany, and almost entirely withdrawn from British and even 
European species. And thus he too came to the task unprepared with 
the special kind of knowledge required for its proper performance. "— 
As an old friend and not very distant neighbour, the writer of this 1s 
willing to let all pass that Mr. Watson may have said on this or on 
former occasions unfavourable of himself; but he cannot admit that 
his able coadjutor in the editing of the 6th edition of ‘British Flora,” 
Professor Arnott, has “almost entirely withdrawn from British and 
even European species of plants."— We have indeed yet to learn that 
a knowledge of exotic botany (unless unduly absorbed by it) disqua- 
lifies a man from being a good British botanist ;—but this we will say 
without fear of contradiction, that no one has ever come to a task of 
the kind more thoroughly prepared by a theoretical and practical know- 
ledge of British and European plants, a knowledge gained in the field 
as well as in the closet, during a period of thirty years, to which may 
be added the information obtained by a ten years’ course of instruction 
to his students,—than Professor Arnott. 
_—_ 
