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to citizenship. Surely it would be better to drop in future all mention 

 of certainly extinct or non-naturalized species, than to continue giving 

 to them "a local habitation and a name," by referring, however slightly, 

 to the pages of ' English Botany,' and those earlier works in which they 

 first appeared on the list of natives. The former of these books will 

 ever remain a standard for reference to its pictorial illustrations ; we 

 should only have to regard such amongst its plates and pages as relate 

 to the species in question as virtually so many blanks to be passed 

 over unnoticed, and they would soon come to be looked upon in that 

 light, and be neglected and forgotten. It seems to me an injudicious 

 waste of time and space to rake up the ashes of a palpable and fully 

 acknowledged error when further warning against it is needless; it is 

 high time to clear our British flora from the mass of false natives, false 

 species, and other blunders of the early days of botanical science, but 

 the bracketing of often and again exposed and refuted mistakes tends 

 rather to keep alive error than to suppress it; a dignified silence 

 would be the most effective extinguisher to the last lingering claims 

 of the species we have just alluded to. 



A word or two on the Channel Islands. It would seem as if length 

 of possession and incorporation with the rest of the kingdom by insti- 

 tutions, civil and ecclesiastical, had some how or other the power to 

 overrule the decrees of Nature, and effect the juxtaposition of that 

 group with our own shores rather than with the opposite coasts of 

 France. Yet it is not clear to me that the recognition of the Queen's 

 authority in Guernsey and Jersey, or the periodical visitations of the 

 Bishop of Winchester to that transmarine part of his diocese, has ef- 

 fected the slightest change in the relative position of these islands 

 with respect to our own since the conquest, or brought them one inch 

 nearer to us than they were at that remote period ; and unless it can 

 be incontestably shown that the distance betwixt England and Jersey 

 has diminished and is diminishing as the square of the times, or in 

 some other satisfactory ratio, I humbly venture to suggest, that whilst 

 we are proud to acknowledge the brave and loyal people of Sarnia 

 and Caesarea as fellow liegemen, and will stand by them against 

 France and all the world, as they assuredly would stand by us in the 

 day of trial, we should, nevertheless, henceforth and for ever (botani- 

 cally speaking) cede, assign, and make over the soil of their beautiful 

 islands and its native productions to that Gallic territory of which Na- 

 ture insists on its still forming a part. 



There is an old and trite proverb that " a miss is as good as a 

 mile ;" we may invert it, and say " a mile is as good as a miss ;" for 

 Vol. hi. 3 c 



