32 



thus tracing back the genealogy of some existing classes of birds 

 to some of the primary groups, it must not for a moment be 

 imagined that those ancient carinate and cursorial forms resembled 

 the present representives of their race. That, indeed, as Professor 

 Huxley has tersely expressed it, " would be as absurd as to 

 suppose that the fact that a given nobleman is directly 

 descended from a Norman baron, compels us to believe that a 

 photograph of the one would serve for a portrait of the other." 

 In other words, the existing forms doubtless differ as widely from 

 their ancestral representatives, as they in turn differ from the 

 varied forms of bird-like creatures which evolutionists regard as 

 the remote reptilian ancestors of the whole avian race ; while the 

 ultimate source alike of living mammals, birds, and reptiles, must 

 be sought in the amphibia, the lowest forms of which can scarcely 

 be distinguished from the true fishes. 



WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13th 

 (Ordinary Meeting). 



SOME STEPS IN THE HISTORY OF 

 BOTANY AS SHEWN BY ITS 

 HERBALS. 



Following the preliminary remarks and allusions to the 

 Botany of the Ancients, the Invention of Printing in the middle 

 of the 15th century was mentioned as bearing equally in its 

 importance to Botanical as to other Sciences, the quaint old 

 Herbal being practically one of the fruits of that discovery. 

 At first they were published quite as Medical handbooks, 

 but gradually more attention was given to the structural detail, 

 cultivation, &c., of the plants enumerated, and they undoubtedly 

 helped develop Botanical Science as it exists in modern times. 



Probably the first Herbal printed was one published at 

 Vicenza, in the year 1491, taken from the writings of Arnold 

 de Nova Villa and Avicenna. It is a small quarto, written in Latin, 

 contains 150 chapters, each devoted to one plant, and prefaced by 

 a woodcut of the same, which with few exceptions is the only 

 guide to the recognition of the plant, the letterpress being 

 descriptive of its medicinal properties. 



