122 i 



THE JOURNAL OF BOTATs'Y 



little gool at fanning, so he was, sent to the York School of Art, where 

 he giined the national medal for the drawing of Howers from nature. 

 His first paper (on British Woodpeckers) appeared in the InteUectual 

 Obsercer for 1867 ; it was illustrated by a coloured plate, both plate 

 and paper being admirable work for a youth of seventeen. His 

 mother's cousin was Dr. Richard Spruce,* the botanist and traveller, 

 who encouraged him in the botanical studies which occupied his spare 

 time. Later he went into residence at Downing College, but he did 

 not stay long at Cambridge, possibly because Spruce was able to give 

 him the opportunity of going to the West Indies and South America 

 for the pur^Dose of orchid-hunting and botanizing generally. 



Before he was out of his teens Massee crossed to America on a 

 French boat, traversed the Panama isthmus and then sailed along the 

 coast to Quit(j. Here he struck inland and made his wa}^ up the 

 Naps, collecting orchids, fungi, and ferns — he sent home"^ in bulk 

 Oncidiiim macranthum and NanoiJea Ifffhisce. His only white com- 

 ])anion was a Dr. Brown, })icked uj) l)y chance on the way : the others 

 were Indians hired from the Catholic missionaries, who seemed to 

 have extraordinary power over the inhabitants of the scattered vil- 

 lages. On one occasion Massee was ill for three weeks in an Indian 



* Most of the plates in Spruce's Hepaticas of the Amazon (1885) were drawn 

 by Massee. 



