BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 373 
shortly to lay before our readers an account of the journey of 
Dr Krauss into Natal, a district which he visited after having 
made collections in the Cape territory. 
a ARRIVAL OF MR CUMING FROM THE PHILIPPINE 
ISLANDS. 
This enterprising Naturalist, who first distinguished him- 
self by his voyages and collections made in the islands of the 
Pacific, and on the western shores of South America, to 
which the pages of the Botanical Miscellany, and the early 
numbers of the present work, bear honourable testimony, has 
recently returned from a long visit to the Philippine Islands 
made for a similar purpose as his former voyages, that of in- 
creasing our knowledge of the natural productions of a group 
of islands, little trodden by men of science, and singularly rich 
in the several departments of nature. Alive to the importance 
of every department in the wide field in which he wasengaged, 
and wholly neglectful of none, Mr Cuming had the judgment. 
to devote his attention mainly to two branches, Botany and 
Conchology, i in which, as may be expected from so acute and 
$0 experienced a traveller, his collections are eminently 
Yaluable and extensive, in each of the two departments, the - 
numbers of species being estimated at between three and four 
thousand. Again, in Botany, Mr Cuming had his favourites, 
these were the Ferns, and there is reason to believe thatsave — 
assistant, during a period of many years in all parts of the — 
East Indies, no such collections have ever before been 
: eight to Europe by any single individual. It. is well 
known to Botanists, that amongst Dr Wallich’s Ferns, 
the rarest and most interesting one was that which has 
been figured and described by Mr Brown in the * Plante 
Asi Rariores;’ under the name of Matonia pecti- —— 
naia,” of which a solitary specimen was } gathered by Sir D i 
ae See also Hooker's Gods Filicum, Tab. LIX. 
the rich stores of that family made by Dr Wallich and his 
