Correspondence — Belgium 129 



Lugduno Batavi,' Ed. : F. A. G. Miquel. This Herbarium, or as Professor 

 Miquel calls it, Museum Botanicum Lugduno Batavorum, was formerly placed 

 at Brussels under the direction of Professor C. L. Blume, a name well known 

 over the whole world by the large collection of plants made in Java and other 

 parts of the Dutch Colonies in East India, by the edition of his 'Flora Javje' and 

 of the 'Splendid Rumphia,' etc. After the separation of Belgium from the king- 

 dom of the Netherlands the Herbarium was removed to Leyden, and Blume (not 

 attached to the Leyden University, but invested with the title of Professor) re- 

 mained its director at Leyden till his death. Since that time the distinguished 

 Professor of botany at the Utrecht University, F. A. G. Miquel, was appointed 

 director, but he retains his Professorship at Utrecht, and comes only some 

 hours every week to visit the Herbarium. Those particulars, not of a true 

 scientific character indeed, may be perhaps interesting to your English readers, 

 strangers having in general a very imperfect notion of foreigi^ institutions. Of 

 the Annales, a work in large folio, two volumes are already completed. In 

 1868 four parts were issued of the third volume (Fascic. H.-V.), all relating to 

 the Flora Japonica (Prolusio Floi^re Japonicce). The fifth number (Fascic. V., 

 was published in the last six months. It contains an enumeration of the 

 species represented by specimens in the Herbarium of no less than 28 different 

 natural families. To this number a plain lithographic plate is added, represent- 

 ing Meldea gibbosa, Miq. , and Parinarium macrophyllum. Professor Miquel 

 has also given a short paper, De Piperaceis Novae HollandicE (Verslagen en 

 Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akadamie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling 

 Natuurkunde. Tweede Reeks, Tweede Deel, p. 53-64). This paper of the 

 author is interesting as containing a new revision of the whole system of the 

 Piperacere after new discoveries. It is well known to botanists that Professor 

 Miquel, 23 years ago, has given an elaborate monograph on that gi'oup of the 

 vegetable kingdom. J. V. der Hoevkn. " 



2. BELGIUM. — Letter from Dr Candcze, Glaiiu 



" Liege, 20th January 1868. 



" The Belgian Contingent of Zoological Works is null for the second part of 

 1867. My task for this time is thus easy. In fact the last works which appeared 

 bear the date of 1866, such as the 'Revision Generale des Clivinides,' by M. 

 Putzeys (Ann. de la Soc. Entornol. de Belgique), that of the Amara, by the 

 same (Mem. de la Soc. Roy. des Sciences a Liege), and some memoirs published 

 in the Bulletins de 1' Academic de Bruxelles. 



" It is true that a very important work by M. Van Beneden, on the ' Polypes 

 du Littoral Beige,' has indeed appeared in the 34th volume of the Memoires 

 de PAcademie Beige, but the separate copies of this remarkable work bear 

 the date of 1866, belonging in reality to that year. The year 1868 will be more 

 fruitful, for some works are in the press. E. Candeze." 



II.— LETTERS FROM TRAVELLERS AND 

 NATURALISTS ABROAD. 



I. NEW HEBRIDES.— Letter to Dr Hooker from the Rev. J. Atkins. 



"Norfolk Island, 29/// October 1867. 

 " I returned in August from a short craise amongst the New Hebrides, Banks, 

 Santa Cruz, and Solomon gi-oups. I had no opportunities for collecting speci- 

 mens, except a very few ferns and grasses, but I hope to be able before very 

 long to give accurate accounts, on some points, of some of these islands. Their 

 endless variety of languages in process of formation are, I think, a most im- 

 portant and curious study ; their natural history and botany scarcely less so. 

 The vegetation of all the groups is similar, allowing for differences of climate, 

 and in its '^general character differs altogether from that of Australia, and pro- 



