586 Extracts from the Minute-Book of the Society. 



kins, nearly half the flowers in the upper part of the cat- 

 kin being male, and the rest female. It was found by 

 himself at Duckinfield near Stockport, in Cheshire. 

 April 7- Read a Letter addressed to the Secretary by the Rev. 

 Patrick Keith, F.L.S., of which the following is a copy : 



Dear Sir, Bethersden, Ashford, Kent, MarchSO, ISIS. 



In my Paper on the subject of the Developement of 

 the Seminal Germ, published in the last volume* of the 

 Society's Transactions, I find that I have unhappily 

 exhibited an incorrect and imperfect representation of 

 Mr. T. A. Knight's hypothesis on the same subject. I 

 have said that " the grand defect of Mr. Knight's hypo- 

 thesis is, that it does not at all account for the ascent of 

 the plumelet ;" a statement that proves to be erroneous ; 

 since the fact is, that Mr. Knight's hypothesis does ac- 

 count for the ascent of the plumelet as well as for the 

 descent of the radicle, though the circumstance (I am 

 sorry to say) had completely escaped my recollection at 

 the time I wrote my Paper: not that I had merely 

 glanced at Mr. Knight's hypothesis, and then, after a 

 long interval, undertaken a refutation of it from memory; 

 but that the notes which I did take from Mr. Knight's 

 Paper at the time 1 read and perused it, contained, by 

 some unaccountable oversight, nothing whatever on the 

 subject of the ascent of the plumelet: I am desirous, 

 therefore, that this declaration and admission of error on 

 my part should appear in the next volume of the Soci- 

 ety's Transactions, that the reparation which I now offer 

 to Mr. Knight may be commensurate, as much as pos- 

 sible, with the injury he has sustained. I am, &c. 



To A. MacLeay, Esq. P. KeiTH. 



* Page 252. 



May 25. 



