REMINISCENCES. Ixxiii 



the place of Henslow's Friday evening parties : in this Babington 

 took a leading part, and he was the last survivor of its founders. In 

 1844 the Ray Society was established ; Babington was on the 

 council, and many of the publications, such as the Memorials of 

 Ray and the volume of his Cmrespondence, owe much to his help : 

 the preface to the latter says that he had "looked over the proof 

 sheets, given the modern names of the plants referred to, and added 

 many valuable notes." In or about 1862, a Committee of the 

 British Association, consisting of Babington, Newbould, and J. E. 

 Gray, was appointed to prepare a report on the plants of Ray's 

 Synopsis Stirpium, but this, unfortunately, was never presented. 



The list of papers under Babington's name in the Royal Society's 

 Catalogue, which extends down to 1883, is 131, and several have 

 appeared since then in this Journal. His first paper, however, was 

 not botanical, but entomological ; it appeared in the Magazine of 

 Natural History for 1832, and enumerated certain "Additions to 

 the List of British Insects," among which are some beetles new to 

 science. He was an ardent student of insects, and at first his work 

 seems to have lain in that direction, as out of the first twelve papers 

 which he published, seven were entomological. But bis last contri- 

 bution to entomology was the "Dytiscidae Darwinianae," published 

 in the Entomological Society's Transactions for 1841 — 43, since which 

 time his published papers have been almost entirely botanical. A 

 large number of these appeared in the short-lived Botanical Gazette 

 (1849 — 51) and in the pages of this Journal, of which he has always 

 been a friend and supporter : the first article in our first volume 

 is from his pen, and his name appeared in our list of contributors 

 for 1891. Among papers calling for more especial mention may 

 be noted the "Revision of the Flora of Iceland,"* in which he 

 brought together with much care the results of previous investi- 

 gators, embodying with these his own observations made during 

 a brief visit in 1846. This and his visit to the Channel Islands were 

 the only occasions on which Babington left England. 



Besides the papers which stand in his name in the above- 

 mentioned Catalogue, Babington described several plants for the 

 Supplement to English Botany (Glyceria Borreri Bab., t. 2797), 

 the first and last plates of which were accompanied by text from 

 his pen. The first Glyceria Borreri (t. 2727, issued 1837), had 

 been previously detected by Borrer, and Babington named it "after 

 its discoverer, as a slight acknowledgment of the many favours 

 received from him." The figure had been drawn by Sowerby as far 

 back as 1829, and is marked by him "Glyceria species nova(?)": 

 Hooker, however, notes on the drawing, " I cannot make this a new 

 species " : there are also notes in Borrer's and Babington's writing. 

 The last Anacharis Alsinastrum (t. 2993), was not published until 

 1865. This plant, as it is well known, shortly after its introduction 



* Journ. Linn. Soc. xi. 282—348. 



