OBSERVATIONS. 5 



that support and encouragement which they deserve, and may the Giver 

 of all good crown their efforts with great success : such is the prayer of 

 the writer, may such be the desire of the reader, and if so this new 

 periodical will be conducted with honour and credit to its proprietors, 

 and benefit to society at large. I close these remarks with the eulogium 

 of the French poet, as nature's vast army passed in review before the 

 mental vision of this pleasing writer. 



" Quelle magnificence dans le plan de la creation terrestre ! 



Quelle grandeur ! quelle profusion ! 

 Quelle complaisance a organiser la matiere, 



Et a multiplier les etres sentants ! 

 Nous voyons les animaux repandus 

 Sur toute la surface de la terre, 

 Dans toute I'entendue des eaux, 

 Et jusques dans les vastes contours de Patmosphere, 



La Mitte, comme I'Elephant; 

 Le Puceron, comme TAutruche ! 



Le Vibrione comme la Baleine, ne sont qu'un compose d'animaux; 

 Toutes leurs liquors en fournissent ! 

 Tous lears vaisseaux en sont semes ! " — Bonnet. 

 Bridge End, Perth, April, 1804. 



©irsn''bati0it^. 



Notes on British Mosses. 

 By C. p. Hobkirk. 

 I. — Tetrai^his pellitcida, Hedw. — 

 The subject at the head of the pre- 

 sent notice was gathered on 2nd 

 April, in Grimescar Wood, near 

 Huddersfield, and is I believe the 

 first time it has been found in this 

 neighbourhood, hence the prece- 

 dence given to it, as the first moss 

 in this intended series of " Notes." 

 One word by way of introduction. 

 It is my intention to supplement in 

 some measure, the short and terse 

 descriptions given in text books, 

 and to render the discrimination of 



the species more easy to young 

 bryologists, and at the same time, 

 I may perhaps be able, in some 

 instances, to contribute somewhat 

 towards the general mass of scien- 

 tific facts. 



The moss under consideration 

 was originally named by Linnaeus, 

 (who was followed by Dillenius), 

 Mnium pellucidum, but was re-chris- 

 tened by Hedwig, TetrapluspeUiicida, 

 under which name it now stands, 

 both in Smith's English Botany, 

 by Hooker, and in Wilson's Bryo- 

 logia Britannica. Its present gene- 

 ric name is derived from a Greek 

 word, tetraplios, "having four pro- 

 minences " — the specific name pellu' 



