XVIGHt's BOTANICAL LETTKK.S. 171 



and no very easy task has it hitherto proved, through want of 

 accommodations, vvliich I delayed getting, under fear of the re- 

 moval, which I formerly mentioned. That is now at an end, 

 and I have been supplying myself with shelves, &,c., which I 

 find a vast convenience, as I can now arrange my plants in 

 a way nearly as convenient for reference as you do iti your 

 iierbarium. There are however so many of them tiiat I fear 

 It will take a long- time to go over the whole. I name and 

 number as I go along, a plan which I could not very conve- 

 niently adopt at first through want of proper paper ; a diffi- 

 culty also in the course of being removed, by my having 

 coaxed a manufacturer to make me a kind that answers my 

 purpose, though not the best in the world. Under these ad- 

 vantages I expect to move forward with much greater rapidity 

 than liitherto, the more especially that the monsoon has now 

 changed, and the atmosphere has become nearly 10° cooler, a 

 point of no small importance, although even now it is rarely 

 under 90° in the forenoon — a great drawback to application, 

 of such continuance as is requisite when so much is to be done. 

 I intend in the course of to-morrow or next day to go over my 

 cryptogamic collections, and pack the whole up in order to 

 be sent home by a ship which is to sail from the neighbouring 

 coast in the course of this month. I will then resume the Legu- 

 minos(jo, the order on which I am now engaged, and will try 

 to send you a few choice specimens in the parcel of Ferns. 

 By the same opportunity that conveys this, you will receive 

 a copy of two little contributions of mine to the Madras 

 Journal of Science, the one on Calotropis, the other on the 

 Ischcemitm or Nutth-grass, which I iiave since discovered to 

 be Spodiopogon pilosiim N. ab E., in consequence of a miser- 

 able fragment so named by him in my collection. I have 

 notes of characters of two or three more plants which I intend 

 to extend for the next number of the Journal, and will con- 

 tinue to do so from time to time, so as to endeavour to have a 

 paper in each number: these must generally be of a character 

 to combine the utile with the dulce, or they will not do here, 

 i have not heard from Wuilich or Griffith for a long time; I 



