1008 



if the chances of the year's receipts should afford the species desired. 

 This simple and easily managed system was too much of a lottery and 

 chance-method; for a member might obtain much that he did not 

 want, with little or nothing that he did want, in return for his contri- 

 bution. It was a system which might work passably well among mere 

 beginners in botany, and was thus not badly adapted to those of 

 whom the association then chiefly consisted. But the circumstance 

 of contributors and distributors being both mostly beginners, unavoid- 

 ably led to serious mischief by the circulation of numerous misnamed 

 specimens, the labels of which bore the " pompous sanction of 

 scientific authority," implied in the pretending title imprinted thereon, 

 namely, " Botanical Society of London," or some supposed equivalent 

 in the latin language. 



I think it was in the winter of 1840-1841 that I was asked to look 

 over a large batch of these accumulated specimens, after they had been 

 labelled, and also sorted into order for distribution, by the Committee 

 appointed for the purpose. At that time I was not well prepared for 

 examining nomenclature, my attention having been diverted to other 

 subjects than botany during the preceding few years. However, the 

 re-examination was so evidently needed that I consented to look 

 through the lot, including probably a thousand species, and five or ten 

 times as many specimens, the greater portion being examples of com- 

 mon English plants. Among the lot I found upwards of eighty spe- 

 cies misnamed ; and as the misnomers of course were multiplied by 

 the duplicate specimens, they really included several hundreds of false 

 labels. Besides this, I had too much reason to suspect that, in many 

 instances, the localities indicated on the labels deserved as little re- 

 liance as the names. 



Such being the character of the Society's nomenclature in the fifth 

 year of its experience, w^e may fairly presume that the distributions of 

 former years could not have been more accurate and trustworthy in 

 that respect ; and, indeed, the labels of specimens preserved in the 

 herbarium, with other visible evidences, left me no room for doubt of 

 such being the fact during previous years. The late Mr. Daniel 

 Cooper had been much relied upon for nomenclature and general 

 management. He was certainly an intelligent and active-minded 

 young man ; but he had unfortunately imagined himself already com- 

 petent to guide and instruct others before he had sufficiently acquired 

 knowledge as a learner. 



It was thus made very obvious to me, that the labels of the London 

 Society would obtain no trust or credit in the botanical world, and 



