894 



knowledge that such deficiencies existed ; and, in short, the pub- 

 lished local lists and localities have usually been drawn up at random, 

 with reference to no higher or more general object than the aunounce- 

 mentof so many isolated facts, valuable or valueless, as chance might 

 turn out. 



And yet all this time, there were probably few of those botanists 

 who did not enjoy some opportunities for observing and recording 

 facts which would have proved really and importantly conducive to 

 the progress of science, if they would have only taken the jjains to 

 make those preliminary inquiries which qualify scientific observers to 

 discriminate between the important and the unimportant, the useful 

 and the useless, in science. It must be allowed, however, that some 

 of the necessary data for this sort of preparatory or preliminary know- 

 ledge have hitherto been so scattered aud imperfect, that much time 

 and patience might be requisite in order to acquire it. But in other 

 instances no such difficulty stood in the way ; the data having been 

 readily accessible and sufficient — but neglected. 



The Botanist's Guides will illustrate this. The original Guide, by 

 Turner and Dillwyn, has been forty years before the public ; and it 

 is now a dozen years since the ' New G uide ' was published. Never- 

 theless, we still find botanists recording over again, as if novelties, 

 the very same localities which were entered in the older Guide, on 

 competent authority, and again confirmed in the ' New Guide,' on the 

 additional evidence of other observers. It would be too much to ex- 

 pect that every botanist, fancying himself the discoverer of a locality 

 new and worth recording, should make certain that the same locality 

 is not anywhere in print, before he sends his own announcement 

 thereof to a periodical. But it might very reasonably be expected 

 from those who are pretending thus to instruct others, that they 

 should at least take the trouble of consulting such general works as 

 are most likely to show whether the fact has been already recorded on 

 sufficient authority. A refusal or neglect to do this approximatees 

 so closely upon injustice to their predecessors, that the separation is 

 imperceptible, if existent at all. 



The meanest botanist would see the inutility of now sending a let- 

 ter to the ' Phytologist,' in order to announce the discovery of Erica 

 ciliaris in Cornwall. Why so ? Simply because that fact is already 

 sufficiently established and recorded. And yet we constantly see 

 announcements that a certain species occurs in a certain county, or 

 parish, or other more local habitat, although the same fact has been 

 previously recorded on superior authority. I do not hesitate to write 



