964 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
Hathornden Farm, Swan River, 
February 21st, 1844. 
‘7 HAVE just returned, after a three months’ expedition, in which 
I have examined part of the country about the Beaufort and 
Gordon Rivers and the district south and east of King George’s 
Sound, as far as the Prorongarup range of hills and Mount Mary 
Peak. On my return I received your letter by the “Ganges,” 
and I beg to offer my best thanks for your remarks upon my 
collections of dried plants. I am sensible that they are not so 
well preserved as I could wish ; but the fact is, that I have been 
cultivator for many years ere i gave my attention to the process 
of preparing specimens for an herbarium ; and had it not been 
for the encouragement you obligingly held out I should never 
have made the attempt, &c.” 
The introductory remarks of the editor show that some letters 
of Drummond had been published prior to 1849, and as this note 
appears in the first vol. of the Journal of Botany the same editor 
must have supervised a publication preceding it, of which that 
publication is a sequence; and from the correspondent’s words it 
may be gathered that he had sent some collections of dried plants 
before 1844. Consequently the second collection referred to by 
Bentham as containing /. australis was probably sent a long time 
previous to the date of the letter quoted from, because in those 
days the sailing vessels often spent six months and more on the 
voyage between Europe and Western Australia, and a longer time 
still on their homeward passage, as this was never direct. More- 
over, but few vessels were then engaged in the Western Australian 
trade. Atallevents it is safe to surmise that his second collection 
was despatched by Drummond before 1842. 
Mr. James Drummond arrived in Western Australia on the 
6th June, 1829, by the “ Parmelia,” the first vessel despatched 
from England with emigrants to form the new settlement at the 
Swan River. In the official list he is quoted as “agriculturist,” 
and under Captain Stirling, the Lieutenant-Governor, who arrived 
in the same ship, he laid out the gardens about Government 
House. How long he remained in the position of head gardener 
Ihave not been able to ascertain, but probably not more than six 
or seven years, when he settled on some land, as is shown by the 
address of his letter. 
Drummond, without doubt, possessed a good knowledge of 
plants, and that he largely contributed towards the elucidation 
of the Western Australian flora is proved by a glance through 
Bentham’s work. When referring in his letters to indigenous 
plants, he frequently discusses their peculiarities, and their toxic 
or other qualities, and proves himself a keen observer; and it 
is strange, therefore, that he should have omitted to mention 
