78 THE LATE LORD DE TABLEY. 



method of work. But long before this he had been investigating 

 the flora of his native county. In the first paper mentioned he 

 speaks of " trying some years ago to make a list of Cheshire 

 plants,"* and of having "left brambles to the last"; and Mr. 

 Watson, in the ' Compendium ' of the 'Cybele,' mentions a " care- 

 fully drawn up MS. Flora of Cheshire, lent to me by Mr. Warren 

 in 1867 " : this, iiuforfcunately, was never published, although a 

 list of queries connected with it was issued in 1873, with an inti- 

 mation that the Flora was likely to appear shortly. He helped 

 considerably in the preparation of the Flora of Middlesex (published 

 in 1869), Mr. NeAvbould being frequently his companion in collecting. 

 After 1877, although his general interest in British plants con- 

 tinued, it had ceased to be absorbing, and he published nothing. 

 In 18G4 he became a Fellow of the Linnean Society, but withdrew 

 after a few years. 



Of his enthusiasm for botany during the period indicated, Sir 

 M. E. Grant Duff gives an amusing instance. I remember, too, 

 how, when standing for Mid Cheshire in the Liberal interest in 1868, 

 he combined his canvassing with plant collecting. Mr. Robert 

 Holland, with whom I was staying at that time, was one of his 

 electioneering agents, and the two found at least as much common 

 ground in botany as in politics, in which, to say the truth, Holland 

 took but little interest. Sir Grant Duff says : — 



" The same remarkable powers of observation which enabled 

 him to become a good Greek numismatist, made him one of the 

 most accurate of amateur English botanists. I use the word 

 ' amateur,' because he never published the Flora of Cheshire, at which 

 he worked for a very considerable time ; but I am quite aware that 

 his attainments in his favourite science were such that I might, 

 with the approval of many, have claimed for him a higher place. 

 He never ceased to jest about the want of appreciation with which 

 his botanical studies were looked upon by most of those with whom 

 he came in contact. He used to relate, for example, with great 

 glee, that, while he was compiling the Flora of his county, he one 

 day observed that he had just time, after coming off duty with his 

 yeomanry, to find a particular plant of which he was in search. 

 Fully accoutred as he was, he hailed a street-carriage, jumped into 

 it, and told the driver to go to a point in the immediate environs 

 of Chester. Arrived at the spot indicated, he got out, searched 

 along a ditch, found his plant, and directed the mnn to return. 

 He did so ; but, stopping in front of a large building, turned to his 

 fare, and said, ' That, sir, is the asylum.' The soul of kindness, 

 he never laughed at any one save himself ; but that he did very 

 frequently. I take the following from a letter written to me, just 

 before I left Madras : — 



" ' I have opened the slip containing Ficus Trimeni with awe and reverence. 

 I did not actually go down on my knees, as Linnfeus did on seeing the furze in 

 full bloom, but I had some difficulty in preserving that upright position which 

 is the privilege and distinctive mark of the primates. I did not expect a new 



* " During a former residence in Cheshire, I made a careful list, through 

 many years, of every species found within a mile radius of my dwelling-place." 

 Journ. Bot. 1871, 228. 



