1904] Meetings of Botanical Branch. 21 







Colds, absence from the town, prior engagements, etc., made 

 the attendance very slim at the meeting of the Botanical section 

 of the Field-Naturalists' Club held at Mr. Guillet's house, 8 First 

 avenue, on the 28th January. Only the following attended : Dr. 

 Blackadar and Messrs. Whyte, Campbell, Attwood and St. 

 Jacques. Mr. Whyte brought a great package of beautifully 

 illustrated works on plants and gardening. From these and a 

 few others Mr. Attwood made a bibliography which will be pub- 

 lished in The Naturalist. The opinion was expressed that popu- 

 lar works on botany are of little use to any earnest student, as they 

 take him but a little way and then leave him to grope as blindly as 

 at the beginning, simply because they are not systematic or com- 

 prehensive, but give mere scraps of information. The proper 

 way to learn plants is to get a systematic work on classification, 

 a good handbook such as Gray's or Britton's, and then begin at 

 once to make a herbarium, pressing and classifying one's plants 

 as one learns them. Ten plants clearly mastered in this way are 

 worth a hundred hazily named with the aid of Mrs. Dana's pic- 

 tures of flowers or Mr. Matthew's pictures of leaves. 



Mr. Guillet showed the members two charming works on the 

 natural history of two regions of South America, namely, H. W. 

 Bates' " The Naturalist on the River Amazons," 1863, and W. 

 H. Hudson's "The Naturalist in La Plata," 1895. There are 

 several other excellent works similarly named, viz., Belt's " The 

 Naturalist in Nicaragua," 1874, and W, Saville-Kent's "The 

 Naturalist in Australia," 1897. Darwin's "A Naturalist's Voyage 

 Around the World," 1845, might also be mentioned, as well as 

 Wallace's "The Malay Archipelago," 1868. Who will write a book 

 worthy 10 rank with these and entitle it " The Naturalist in 

 Canada " ? Seton-Thompson might have done it, had he not, like 

 Grant Allan, turned aside to work doubtless more remunerative, 

 but certainly less solid, worthy and permanently interesting. 



Before reading his paper, the convener made a few remarks 

 concerning iho conduct of such a little club within a club as is the 

 Botanical section. He thought that as far as possible the topics 

 of eacli meeting should be announced beforehand for the sake 

 especially of the more inexperienced members, who would have 

 a chance to prepare to discuss or at least to listen the more in- 



