1912-13.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 169 



encouragement and help he looked for, and in May 1833 he 

 intimated the project had been dropped for the present. 

 From his own contributions to his magazines one can 

 gather much information as to the fauna and flora of the 

 district. He was quick to note, and careful to record, 

 the plants in flower or fruit ; the birds, with their nests 

 and young ; the insects, with their different food plants, and 

 the stages of their transformations. Although a botanist 

 in the first place, all aspects of open-air life interested him. 

 His early taste for " kailies " never left him, and it was 

 one of his special delights to carry home the insect larvae 

 he came across, keep them in his live-boxes, feed them 

 with leaves from the plants on which they had been 

 deposited as eggs, and watch the wonderful sight as the 

 perfect insects were evolved. He relates with great glee 

 the story of a white butterfly, thus reared, which would 

 perch upon his finger and suck sugar from his mouth. 

 And not only does he record his " finds " : he gives also the 

 impressions made upon his mind and heart by the scenes 

 among which he obtained them. In one of many contri- 

 butions which he made to " Loudon's Magazine of Natural 

 History " (1831-35) this emotional experience is related in 

 language which rises into poetry. In this same magazine 

 also appeared an account of a " tour " he made along the 

 coast of Forfarshire in 1831. This, given more fully in 

 his " Botanical Repository," is very interesting reading, 

 although some remarks he heard from the innkeeper at 

 xVuchmithie with reference to George Don do not give one 

 such a high estimate of the Forfar botanist as Dr. Claridge 

 Druce expresses in the British Association Dundee Hand- 

 book (1912). 1 



1 The passage is as follows : " ' Mine hostess of the great room ' 

 informed me that Mr. Drummond of Forfar (Don's successor at Doo 

 Hillock) used to lodge sometimes whole weeks in her house for the 

 purpose of botanising the adjacent rocks and braes, and would rise and 

 walk out every morning by three or four o'clock in pursuit of plants. 

 On my mentioning Mr. Don, ' out spoke mine host ; and pronounced a 

 warm invective against that gentleman, who, he observed, had ruined 

 these braes, for, since he had been prowling about there, not a plant 

 worthy of notice was to be seen. I had no reason to doubt the veracity 

 of mine host's assertion, for I have frequently searched Mr. Don's 

 habitats in vain. I verily believe his plan respecting rare plants was 

 — first to dig up all the specimens he could see, and then note the 

 localitv." 



