744 



when the opportunity shall occur of his being so), that chair being 

 most ably filled at present by Doctor Samuel Litton, a gentleman so 

 imiversally known for his profound acquirements in the varied 

 branches of science that he obtained the name of " the scholar'''' from 

 the late Dr. Magee, Archbishop of Dublin (no mean authority on such 

 a subject), and whose lectures impart such a grace and dignity to the 

 science of Botany. 1 think if his (the Professor's) opinion was re- 

 quired as to Erica Mackaii being a mere form of the more common 

 species, what species is that .^ that his reply would be, that if so 

 Menziesia polifolia was only a mere form of Calluna vulgaris, a most 

 unphilosophic and imbotanic induction. As to Professor Dr. Litton 

 being an indigenous botanist, I have been much puzzled in endeavour- 

 ing to decipher the meaning of this expression. If it means that Dr. 

 Litton is a native of this country, Mr. Carter is correct, Ireland is the 

 country of his nativity, and I feel assured that no person is better ac- 

 quainted with the Botany of it. But if, in carrying out the mistake', 

 Mr. Carter makes Mr. Moore indigenous to the soil of Ireland, he is 

 very inaccurate, Mr. Moore being a Scotchman, and one who has 

 earned, since his sojourn in the land, the reputation of being a sound 

 botanist, but no more indigenous to the soil of Ireland than I am to 

 that of Kamskatka. 



I trust I have put this correction into a clear and intelligible form ; 

 but I feel that I should not be doing justice either to Mr. Ogilby or 

 to Mr. M'Alla if I withheld what in my own opinion is the probable 

 origin of Mr. Carter's mistakes. Mr. Ogilby, some years since, visit- 

 ed Connemara, and during his botanical investigations had the good 

 fortune to discover the Adiantum Capillus-Veneris, growing in a cal- 

 careous seam which occurs in the hornblende rock (of which Urris- 

 beg is composed, based on granite), certainly a most unlikely habitat 

 for this interesting fern, and displays, in a most favourable manner, 

 Mr. Ogilby's power of research as a botanist. Now from the fact of 

 Mr. M'Alla residing in the neighbourhood, and from his being able, 

 from Mr. Ogilby showing him the locality, to send specimens of the 

 fern to a number of botanists, it was supposed that he had discovered 

 it. Even Mr. Newman, the author of the work on the British Ferns, 

 falls into this mistake when describing the localities of the Adiantum 

 in Ireland ; for he says, " and Mr. J. M'Calla (it should be William), 

 a most industrious and praiseworthy young botanist, residing in 

 Roundstone, in Connemara, found a few plants at the foot of a rock 

 facing south-west, on the banks of Lough Bulard, near Urrisbeg." 

 But this erroneous opinion was rectified the very first opportunity, at 



