COLLECTING 229 
I recommend the Dog Mercury. No one would notice 
the difference if every youthful botanist in England 
commandeered a supply of twenty. 
On the other hand, unless you make a systematic 
business of your plant-hunting, you will not get half 
the possible pleasure out of it, and one plan which has 
both interest and use is to make a yearly list of the 
plants you can find in any given district. If you are 
at home all the year the thing is simple enough, but if 
you are at a boarding-school it is quite worth the trouble 
of making a double list, for the Flora of the two places 
will probably be quite different. If you keep it from 
year to year you will find an added interest in the way 
in which flowers disappear from a neighbourhood and 
fresh flowers come in. More curious still, you will notice 
how certain flowers appear in great abundance one year, 
and the next task all your powers to find a specimen. If 
you start, say, on January Ist, one of your earliest dis- 
coveries may be, perhaps, the Whitlow Grass, on some 
sheltered wall or bank. Its four small separated petals 
and sepals warn you to look for it in the Cruciferae. 
Then, in a previously ruled book, you mark it down. 
Order. 
Crucifercee 
Place. Date. 
Shotover | 10/1/99 
Latin Name. 
Draba verna 
English Name. 
Whitlow Grass (Vernal) 
Do not mind putting down the Latin names. They 
will be useful afterwards, and in time you will remember 
them. For complete equipment all that is wanted is an 
ordinary botanical tin, a stout pair of boots, and a whole- 
some liking for mud. 
But we have perhaps been a little premature in starting 
at the making of the list, for we have first to capture our 
