398 



without impropriety, be admitted into the * Phytologist,' Being on a 

 visit in Wiltshire in September, I found many specimens of the Ado- 

 nis in a cultivated field, far avi^ay from house or garden, in the parish 

 of Durnford. The field, which, like the rest of the parish, is on the 

 chalk, had apparently been sown with rape, or some such crop, and 

 closely eaten down by sheep in the earlier part of the season. The 

 Adonis had either survived the depasturing of the sheep, or, perhaps, 

 might have sprung up after their removal. I only observed the plant 

 in this one field. Had it been introduced among agricultural seeds 

 — or is it to be considered a true native ? The plant is, at any rate, 

 an old inhabitant of our corn-fields. Parkinson (' Paradisus,' 293) 

 says " it groweth wilde in the corn-fields in many places of our own 

 country ;" and " where it groweth wilde, they call it red Maythes, as 

 they call the Mayweede white Maythes ; and some of our English 

 gentlewomen call it Rose rubie." 



W. T. Bree. 

 Allesley Rectory, Nov. 20, 1851. 



Note on Dr. DrummomS! s Reply to the Notice of ' Observations on 

 Natural Systems o/Botatiy' [PhytoL iv. 365). By H. F. Hance, 

 LL.D. 



Sir, — I have just read a reply, by Dr. Drummond, at page 365 of 

 the present volume of the ' Phytologist,' to a review of his ' Observations 

 on Natural Systems of Botany,' which appeared in a former number, 

 and which the Doctor unhesitatingly ascribes to the writer of a 

 critique on the same work in the ' Westminster Review ' for October, 

 1850, of which he declares it to be a modified edition. 



As author of the critique in question, with the exception of a few 

 notes and a concluding portion, all of which are distinguished by the 

 initial " L.," I feel I shall not appeal in vain to your impartiality and 

 sense of justice to be allowed, through your pages, to correct this 

 error, and to state that I am entirely ignorant to whose pen the 

 notice in the ' Phytologist,' of which Dr. Drummond complains, is 



due. 



Authors can, perhaps, hardly be expected to feel satisfied with un- 

 favourable judgments of their literary bantlings, and Dr. Drummond 

 expresses a belief that the leading arguments of his little book remain 

 untouched. Both it and the criticism in the ' Westminster Review ' 

 have been sufficiently long before the public to make the merits of 



