BOTANY : ADDRESS TO STUDENTS*. 37 



and ants, they are said to have only one queen, and to be able 

 in ease of need to evolve a queen from a larva, which in the ordinary 

 course, would have produced a worker by special feeding and 

 education. 



I hope I have given you some idea of the variety of curious points 

 on which information is wanted. I will refrain from quoting a 

 familiar hymn to which my subject might have tempted me ; but 

 I will apply the moral of the honey bee so far as to point out that if 

 each member of this Society would contribute something, just an 

 interesting fact which had come under his own notice, a specimen 

 or a nest which he had found in his house, we should soon have a 

 respectable store of information on the manners and customs of 

 this most interesting order of insects. 



AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS OF BOTANY IN 

 WESTERN INDIA. 



By A. K. Nairne. 



It may be assumed that in our days mauy of the young English 

 men and English women who go out to India would like to know 

 something about the floral beauties which meet their eyes wherever 

 they turn. Many of them have known all the common flowers of 

 the woods and the roadsides at home, and have very likely learnt 

 enough of the elements of Botany to know the orders to which the 

 commonest or the most beautiful belong. And it seems unnatural 

 to them to be set down in a country full of beautiful flowers and to 

 get no knowledge of them. In the same way there must be many 

 intelligent young natives, whose education has taught them that 

 every plant has its name and its place in classification, and who 

 would therefore like to learn a little practically about Botany and 

 its treasures. Now ( at home the number of small books intended to 

 heljD beginners in the study of Botany is very great ; the number of 

 those which give lists of all the wild plants in England, more or less 

 scientific, but all simple, is very considerable, so that it is very 

 easy for any Englishman to get up the Flora of his native land, if 

 only he chooses to give the time to it. But it is very different in 

 India. None of these small hooks of Botany have yet appeared 

 here. The enquirer may, indeed, find the names, both native and 



