( Ixxxiv ) 



as the care and arrangement of the vast national collections 

 is entrusted to six regular workers only, with one temporary 

 extra hand, while the number of workers in other branches, 

 certainly rather below than above their requirements, are : — 

 for Zoology, 7 ; for Botany, 6 ; including the keepers of the 

 departments, — a very different proportion to that which has 

 been found necessary by Godman and Salvin. 



I have so far abstained from attempting any comparison as 

 between the extent of entomological and botanical studies. 

 It is difficult to arrive at any just comparison by the methods 

 so far adopted. We have no publication exactly equivalent 

 to the * Zoological Eecord,' from which the annual amount of 

 botanical literature can be estimated, but I am indebted to 

 Mr. Carruthers for some valuable information, from which I 

 will endeavour to estimate approximately the comparative 

 position of the two studies. 



Looking merely at the great mass of current literature 

 devoted to Botany in any one year, we must guard ourselves 

 against basing our comparison upon its amount. It is almost 

 impossible to ehminate for this purpose, an enormous pro- 

 portion of published matter which treats rather of economic 

 than of systematic Botany. The cultivation of horticultural 

 varieties and the commercial uses of plants and drugs, which 

 occupy the main part of numerous periodicals and works on 

 botanical subjects, have but little counterpart in Entomology, 

 and we shall therefore more safely base our calculation upon 

 the ascertained extent of systematic Botany, and upon the 

 proportion which it bears to zoological and entomological 

 science so far as we are in possession of the necessary data. 

 Mr. Carruthers, basing his figures upon ' Durand's Index to 

 Bentham and Hooker's Genera of Phanerogamous Plants,' 

 which reach 8349, and upon the numbers given by Baker 

 and others for cryptogams, places the approximate numbers 

 of known and described species as follows : — 



Phanerogams (1888) 100,220 



Cryptogams. 



Vascular (1889) . . . 4,177 



Hepatics (1844) . . . 2,500 



Mosses (1875) . . . 7,700 



