252 TlIK JOURNAL or BOTANT 



galleries and to the labelling of the specimens exhibited. In the 

 Herbarium Carruthers paid special attention to the Ferns, which he 

 elaborated for Seemann's Flora Vitiensis, describing several new 

 species ; the part containing these, though dated Oct. 30, 18139, was 

 not published until February, 1878. Ferns, both fossil and recent, 

 had always interested him : although his name nowhere appears in 

 connexion with it, he was mainly responsible for a folio volume on 

 The Ferns of Moffat, published in that place anonymously in 18G3. 

 This was the joint production of Carruthers and the lady — Miss Jeanie 

 Couch Moffat — who in 1865 became his wife ; her actual share in the 

 work, however, was confined to the preface (signed " "). Of his 

 two sons, Samuel William, to Avhose account of his father in the 

 K. A. S. Jom-nal for 1910 1 am indebted, graduated M.D. at Edin- 

 burgh and is in practice at Norwood ; the ^^ounger, John Bennett, 

 followed his father (whom he assisted in his work for the R. A. S.) in 

 taking up Botany as a profession, and became Government Botanist 

 in Trinidad, whero he died in 1910 (see Journ. Bjt. 1910, 217). 



Although of late years Carruthers's communications to this 

 Journal were infrequent, he was much interested in its establishment 

 in 1 868 by Seemann, whom he had greatly helped in Avorking up the 

 old material at the Museum in connexion with his Flora Vitiensis — 

 help which Seemann acknowledged in dedicating to him the genus 

 Garruthersia. Owing to Seemann's frequent absences abroad, the 

 editorship for the first seven volumes was largely in Carruthers's 

 hands, and he was a fairly frequent contributor : the first number 

 contains a paper from his pen on Trijhlionella^ a genus of Diatomacece 

 in which order he was then interested — he compiled the list of these for 

 J. E. Grsiy'sHaiidbook ofBrilish Watericeeds, published in the follow- 

 ing year; to vol. iii. (1865) he contributed a paper on " The Nomen- 

 clature of the British Hepaticod,''' in which he restored many names 

 of genera and species given by S. F. Gray, whose work — not, it would 

 seem, without deliberate intention (op. cit. p. 299) — had been entirely 

 ip-nored. In matters of nomenclature Carruthers afterwards took 

 great interest — his last contribution to the Journal (apart from 

 reviews) was *' On the Nomenclature of Platy cerium^'' (1900, 123). 

 He also contributed excellent biographies of J. J. Bennett (J. Bot. 

 1876, 97), John Miers (1880, 33), and W. C. Williamson (1895, 298), 

 with all of whom Carruthers was on terms of intnnate friendship — 

 tempered in the last case by somewhat acrimonious discussions on 

 points of pakeobotanical interest. 



It was indeed as a palaiobotanist that Carruthers especially 

 distinguished himself ; to the importance of his work in this direction 

 tribute is paid in an article in the Geological Magazine for 1912 

 (pp. 193-199), which, though unsigned, may be safeh' attributed to 

 his colleague in the Museum, the late Henry WocDdward : to this is 

 appended a list of Carruthers's papers, extending from 1858 to 1885. 

 When, in the year succeeding the publication of the first of these 

 (on Dumfriesshire Graptolites), Carruthers came to the Museum, 

 the extensive collection of fossil plants made by his predecessor 

 Kobert Brown, the first Keeper of the Department — at the unveil- 

 iner of whose memorial bust in his native town, Montrose, in 1895, 



