MAKERS OF BRITISH BOTANY 65 



structure of fossil plants." These incidental subjects are made 

 accessible by the excellent index, which serves also to call atten- 

 tion to the omission, to which we have already referred, of any 

 reference to most of those to whom we are accustomed to apply 

 the term " British botanists." 



From a literary standpoint the value of the biographies varies 

 considerably, but it usually attains a high level. Mr. T. G. Hill's 

 account of his namesake contains much that has not hitherto 

 been brought together, and the versatility of the " Knight of the 

 Polar Star " renders the sketch interesting and even amusing. 

 The estimate of John Hill published by Mr. Druce in this Journal 

 for 1908 (p. 8), and arrived at independently by those who have 

 made themselves acquainted with Hill's work, is on the whole 

 maintained. In this biography, however, we find examples of the 

 carelessness in proof-reading which unfortunately disfigures the 

 book, and greatly detracts from the pleasure of reading it. Thus 

 on p. 104 we read of "recent editions of British Flora " — the two 

 last words printed in italics, thus indicating the title of a book, 

 though the footnote shows that the last edition of Babington's 

 Manual and Hayward's Botanist's Pocket Booh are intended. 

 "Neudramini" (p. 107) should of course be Vendramini ; "Lucinu" 

 (p. 89) Lucina; " Theophilous " and "Lord Petn'e" (for Petre) 

 are on pp. 84, 85. " Sir Eobert Kaue" (p. 169), " Sloan, Pet^iver " 

 (together, p. 283), "Hewitt C. Watson" (p. 293), "Magnum 

 Opus " (p. 312), should not occur in a volume printed by the 

 Cambridge University Press and edited by one of our foremost 

 botanists. The name of Mr. " Solby," to whom Griffith " always 

 sent his papers for submission to the Linnean Society " is un- 

 familiar to us, although he belonged to " the distinguished circle 

 of English botanists of his [Griffith's] time.'' Even more serious 

 slips are not absent : who could suppose that by Brown's " Kew 

 lists, which were published under Aiton's name," Prof. Farmer 

 was referring, as we imagine must have been the case, to Aiton's 

 Hortus Kewensis — " well known," indeed, as we are told, " to 

 students of systematic botany," but, one would imagine, un- 

 known even by sight to the writer who thus describes it. 

 If he will consult the Supplement issued with this Journal 

 last December, Prof. Farmer will be able to understand the 

 surprise with which we read his airy reference to a work which 

 embodied the labours of the best British systematists of the time. 

 It is only right to add that Prof. Farmer's account of Brown 

 is by far the best that has appeared — that in the Dictionary 

 of National Biography being, as pointed out in this Journal for 

 1888, p. 285 (which contains information additional to that given 

 by Prof. Farmer), "little more than a clumsy paraphrase with 

 some added errors" of J. J. Bennett's obituary notice; but we 

 think his references to the National Herbarium, where are pre- 

 served Brown's MSS. and collections, as well as the diary from 

 which he quotes, might have been more definite. 



Among the notices of more recent botanists that of Marshall 

 Ward, by Sir W. Thiselton-Dyer, reprinted from the Proceedings 

 Journal of Botany. — Vol. 51. [February, 1913.] f 



