52 ARENARiA RALEARiCA. [February, 



in a hurry, and, like the choleric Welshman, he is weak in the 

 ratioeinative faculty. He inferred that as there is a Bromptou 

 in Middlesex and a Brompton in Kent, " a river in Wales and a 

 river in Macedonia; the name of the Welsh river is Wye, but the 

 name of the other is out of his prains : but it is so like as his 

 fingers to his fingers : there is salmons in both." Mr. Watson's 

 reasoning is as amusing as the Welsh captain's. As " there is 

 salmons in both rivers," so there is the plant Geranium pyre- 

 naicum at both the places called Brompton. Possibly there is; 

 but Sir James E. Smith, who is quoted as the authority for the 

 Kentish locality, does not bear out the assertion, for he limits it 

 to the Middlesex Brompton. 



Again, the learned author of the ' Cybele,' in his remarks on 

 the altitude of Hypericum Elodes, states, vol. i. p. 253, " Mr. 

 Bowman observed it {H. Elodes) at one thousand yards of altitude 

 in North Wales, and I think it was seen by myself rather higher 

 on Dartmoor, in Devon." That is, as one of our correspondents 

 expressed it, the accurate geographer saw the plant not on terra 

 firma but in nubibus. No part of Devonshire is within one 

 thousand feet of the elevation where it was seen, by our accurate 

 phyto-geographer. 



If any sharp-witted reader say, this is after all but a lame 

 excuse for the somnolency of the Editor, it may be retorted that 

 the accuser should enter into court with clean hands. This Mr. 

 Watson cannot do, for his blunders are egregious and innu- 

 merable. But there is more to be said" in justification of the 

 Editor, if the court, both judge and jury, will have patience to 

 hear it. 



But, abstaining from all banter and badinage, we mean to 

 assert that this discovery is a real and not a pretended one. 

 Mr. W. himself saw the plant, and other botanists examined it 

 and identified it as the plant bearing the name set at the head 

 of this article. It was never observed there before, or rather, it 

 was not recorded before ; therefore it was legitimately entitled 

 to a notice as a discovery new to Scotland. The author, Mr. W., 

 is disposed to chuckle over the good effects of his timely warning, 

 like the fowls — anseres ornithologists call them — which by their 

 cackling awoke the sleeping Rom.an sentinels, and thus preserved 

 the Capitol from the nocturnal surprise of the Gauls. The plant 

 has already obtained no little notoriety as a plant new to Britain ; 



