64 BOTANICAL NEWS. 



feeble condition, successfully investigated the plants and animals of 

 the district. His " Contributions to the Flora of Mentone " consists 

 of plates, well and accurately drawn and coloured by himself, with 

 accompanying; text, which contains often interesting details of the 

 life-history of the plants. Four parts of this, each with twenty-five 

 plates, have been published. He was also the author of a work of 

 original research on "Harvesting Ants and Trapdoor Spiders," beau- 

 tifully illustrated, a supplement to which has quite recently appeared. 



John Tatham, of Settle, died on the 12th January, at the age of 

 eighty-one. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and during 

 a couple of generations conducted one of the principal businesses of 

 the town (which lies just upon the very edge of the manufacturing 

 district of West Yorkshire), and took a leading part in the manage- 

 ment of its savings bank, and other public institutions. He had ex- 

 plored most thoroughly the rich botany of the picturesque limestone 

 hill and dale country which stretches from Ingleborough to Gordale, 

 and was a liberal contributor through many years to the distributions 

 of the London and Edinburgh Botanical Societies, and was most kind 

 in helping and entertaining all who were interested in his favourite 

 science who visited him, and in sending plants and giving information 

 to private correspondents. 



We have just received the intelligence of the death of Lieutenant- 

 General von Jacobi, the monographer of, and great authority on, the 

 Agaves. He has resided lately at Berlin, and has been more than 

 once in England to make the round of the gardens where his favourite 

 plants were grown, in company with Baron von Ellemeet. His prin- 

 cipal writings have been a monograph of Agave and the allied genera, 

 which came out in Otto's " Hamburger Gartenzeitung," from 1864 to 

 1867, and was issued in a separate form as an octavo of above 300 

 pages, and a supplement called "Nachtrag zu dem bersuch einer sys- 

 tematischen ordnung der Agaven," published at Breslau. The 

 number of species he has described altogether is about 200, few of 

 which are known in flower. 



Our obituary also contains the well-known name of Charles Kings- 

 lev Eector of Eversley and Canon of! Westminster. He died after a 

 painful illness at Eversley, on January 23rd, in his fifty sixth year. 

 He was born on the borders of Dartmoor in 1819, and was all his life a 

 genuine naturalist, and though he has not, so far as we know, con- 

 tributed any technical papers to the scientific journals, his numerous 

 popular writings contain much accurate information on natural history. 

 A good example of his style when writing on scientific subjects will 

 be found in his address to the Winchester Nat. Hist. Soc, a portion of 

 which was printed in our volume for 1872, p. 53. He was a Fellow 

 of the Linnean and Geological Societies. 



We note the formation of a Natural History Society and Field 

 Club for Watford and its neighbourhood. The active' promoters are 

 Dr. Brett, Mr. A. Cottam, and Mr. John Hopkinson,junr., the last of 

 whom will act as Hon. Secretary. A good Field Club within a few 

 miles of London ought to succeed and attract a good many metropo- 

 litan botanists; attempts hitherto made in London itself have, how- 

 ever, not been remarkably successful, if compared with the flourishing 

 clubs of the North and West of England. 



