51 



The occurrence of Achillea tanacetifolia near Matlock and Sheffield 

 has been recorded in the ' Phy tologist ' (Phytol. ii. 674); and the 

 paper of M. Decaisne has also been placed before our readers (Phy- 

 tol. ii. 1025). None of the other scientific articles seem to call for 

 any special notice here. The account of the "monstrous roses" may 

 have an interest for botanists who look for the facts of morphology 

 second or third-hand in the study ; but the same or very similar mon- 

 strosities may be seen any season in our gardens. 



The borrowed paper, intituled " Enemies to Science among the 

 Nobles," refers to a matter of considerable interest to botanical col- 

 lectors in the Highlands. We could wish the subject had fallen into 

 better hands than those of that case-making vituperator of the High- 

 land proprietors, who penned the article so little worthy of being re- 

 printed in the Annals. We must certainly regret that the conversion 

 of the wild wastes of the Grampians into deer-forests, to its other dis- 

 advantages should also add that of excluding botanists from some of 

 their favourite haunts. But it is simply a question of law and right 

 between the proprietors and the public; for the pursuit of Botany can 

 give no peculiar right of way over the grounds of another man, either 

 to professor or to student, over and above the rights which may ap- 

 pertain to them as individual members of the general public. It is 

 mere calumny to designate our "Nobles" as "Enemies to Science," 

 simply because they strive to preserve their own deer-forests undis- 

 turbed by the presence of strangers, and do not make a special ex- 

 ception in favour of students who go thither to collect plants. If such 

 an exception were made in favour of those parties whose object is the 

 pursuit of science, in any of its branches, the concession might be 

 called liberal and graceful ; but the withholding of it is at worst no 

 proof of aught beyond simple indifference thereto. The author of 

 the article contrasts the exclusions of the Highland proprietors against 

 Prince Albert's two visits, in 1846 and 1847, to the meetings of the 

 British Association : he would have done better to ascertain first whe- 

 ther the Prince's game preserves are open to the feet of botanists. 

 The writer of this page is writing almost within sight of some of those 

 preserves, and has found them quite as much closed as the Grampians 

 are asserted to be ; and very inconveniently to himself, by obliging 

 him to make wide circuits for avoidance of them in his herborizing 

 excursions. But who could be so stultified or so false as to call 

 Prince Albert an " Enemy to Science " because he cares more for 

 pheasants than for the amusement of botanists ? C. 



