1085 



Observations on the Notice of the ' Tourist's Flora? [Phytol. iii. 1042). 

 By Joseph Woods, Esq., F.L.S. 



Perhaps I ought to be contented with the portion of praise assigned 

 to me by your reviewer " C," in spite of the somewhat sneering tone 

 in which it is given, and of the cant about progress ; but I think that 

 I have some reason to complain that he passes the bounds of fair, or 

 at least of civil, criticism when he accuses the work of being false or 

 faithless. A book may be censured in many points without impli- 

 cating the author's moral character, but it is not possible that a sci- 

 entific book should be justly stigmatized as false or faithless while 

 the author is altogether honest and upright, and whether intended or 

 not, ninety-nine out of a hundred readers will feel that the expression 

 implies some dishonesty on the part of the writer. I was anxious to 

 examine what the reviewer could find in the book deserving so bitter 

 a censure, and was not a little surprised when I found that the whole 

 charge against me was, that I had not given certain habitats of plants, 

 when I knew them, or ought to have known them, since they had 

 been published in the works of Mr. H. C. Watson. I hardly knew 

 how to believe that any one should pass so harsh a judgment, avow- 

 edty on such slight grounds. I never pretended, or imagined, that 

 plants were necessarily absent wherever their presence was not ex- 

 pressly declared. Perhaps 1 have been rather less solicitous about the 

 British stations than about foreign ones, thinking that my readers 

 when in their own country were more likely to apply to works ex- 

 pressly devoted to British botany, and that little more was wanting 

 in that respect than to point out whether the plant before the student 

 was one that might be met with at home. The habitat of Lastrea 

 Fcenisecii was an error of the press, — " N. England " for " W. Eng- 

 land." In general, I conceive that in a work like the ' Tourist's Flora' 

 the habitats can only be considered as indications of the points on 

 which it would be desirable to seek local information, and perhaps to 

 give the young botanist some additional confidence in the result of 

 his investigation, when he finds the species at which he has arrived 

 a native of the district where he finds it, or of its neighbourhood. To 

 have given such habitats as would enable the botanist to find the pre- 

 cise locality, would have enlarged the work most inconveniently. I 

 have sometimes thought that, if a sufficient portion of life and health 

 were spared to me, I would publish a botanical guide, as a companion 

 to the ' Tourist's Flora,' but I could not hope to compress it in much 



