544 



my friends were ignorant, he certainly must have [seen] that I had no 

 means of becoming acquainted with it when he received the letter 

 which contains the above-quoted extract. 



C. C. Babington. 



St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 May 4, 1849. 



P.S. — It may be as well to state, that I had no reason to suspect 

 that my generalisation, and " apparently curious discovery," was " too 

 hasty," as I had employed the intervals between July 7 and July 24, 

 in the year 1841, and between August 29 and September 15, in the 

 year 1843, in the county of Kerry, on both occasions making the 

 study of the Robertsonian Saxifrages my primary object. Before 

 generalising, I had examined thousands of living specimens, and not 

 " trusted to the characters of an insufficient series." I still believe 

 that the plants with dentate leaves are by far the more common in 

 Ireland, and those with them crenate in the Pyrenees. 



A feiv Words in explanation of my " odd mistake" as mentioned 

 by " C." By James Backhouse, Jdn., Esq. 



Whilst entirely accepting the charge of misunderstanding " the 

 subject at issue," and not wishing in any way to prove discretion 

 where there is indiscretion, I wish to inform "C." that his remarks 

 in the ' Phytologist,' at page 451, were liable, and indeed almost cer- 

 tain, to be misunderstood. 



Had I not been accused of "inattention, sheer carelessness, irrele- 

 vance," &c, in rather a hasty way, I should not have thought "C."'s 

 last paper worth answering, or now ventured to trespass upon the 

 pages of the ' Phytologist.' 



In "C."'s quotation from Andrews, two main points are touched 

 upon ; viz., the identity of the forms of S. Geum and umbrosa in 

 Ireland and the Pyrenees; and "further" the transition of these 

 forms into each other being so complete, as to set aside any pretension 

 to specific difference between hirsuta, elegans, and serratifolia. " This 

 view of the subject" (says Andrews) "has since been confirmed by 

 Mr. Spruce but Mr. Babington has not yet found time to cor- 

 rect any of the statements where they have been so positively asserted 

 by him'." 



" C." confirms the statements of Andrews respecting the variable- 



