28 BOl AA'ICAL GAZETTE. 



ed in the Gazette from the pen of this genial writer; articles which 

 no one could have read with more cordial appreciation than T. The 

 truth is, I was away from home, and dropping into a public read- 

 ing room to spend a leisure hour, 1 picked up a periodical 

 which, for all the botany it contains, I have not considered worth 

 subscribing for, and the whole spirit of the little I did read on this 

 occasion prompted my hasty and inconsiderate protest. Had I 

 waited for the next number of the Gazette, giving Prof. Beal's 

 methods and the editorial comments theron I would have felt reas- 

 sured and remained in becoming obscurity. 



I wrote in the interest of the "average amateur 11 — being of 

 that "small fry 11 myself. I had no right — indeed am utterly incom- 

 petent — to write in the interest of the average Professor seeking to 

 advance the cause of Science and at the same time his individual rep- 

 utation "in the direction of least resistance 11 by working in fields 

 that have only been left unexplored because they are comparatively 

 uninviting. 



But I must have said something very naughty to stir up the 

 Botanical editor of the Naturalist to a notice covering just nine 

 lines, but so crowded with apparently unconscious perversions, 

 misquotation?, and unwarranted inferences that I stand amazed! I 

 am charged with placing too high a value on the "identification of 

 &few plants (when I distinctly urged the very reverse) or the "find- 

 ing of a new species 11 — when I never said a word about new species, 

 and in point of fact consider "new species 11 a chance game, the 

 "finding 11 of which may just as well fall to the lot of a fool as a 

 philosopher. The eliminating of Mr. Watson's species to which 

 I incidentally referred, directly resulting from a thorough revision 

 of the genera to which they respectively belong, is quite another 

 matter. 



What I did say is this: that a large proportion "of amateurs 

 are interested 11 in plants themselves, in their structural affinities as 

 expressed in a methodical arrangement "which involves organo- 

 graphy — comparative morphology — and systematic botany 11 and "in 

 their geographical distribution and antecedents. 11 Under this last 

 head may I quote from an address given by Charles Kingsley to the 

 Scientific Society of Winchester. He says: "I ask you to consider 

 for a time, a subject which is growing more and more important 

 and interesting, a subject the study of which will do much toward 

 raising the field naturalist from a mere collector of specimens — as 

 he was twenty years ago — to a philosopher elucidating some of the 

 grandest problems. I mean the infant science which treats of the 

 distribution of plants and animals over the globe and the causes of 

 that distribution. 11 "It begins with asking every plant or animal 

 you meet, large or small, not merely what is your name? That is 

 the collector and classifieds duty, and a most necessar} 7 duty it is, 

 and one to be performed with the most conscientious patience and 

 accuracy so that a sound foundation may be built for future specu- 



