644 



volume would of course be founded upon the facts detailed in the 

 three earlier volumes ; indeed, such a volume might now be made by 

 a connected and comparative re-arrangement of the same details. 

 But there is still much that bears upon the subject, remaining unpub- 

 lished and unarranged among the Author's notes in manuscript, or 

 even confined to the still more precarious keeping of his own personal 

 recollections. He therefore wishes and hopes to be enabled to write 

 a fourth volume, to complete a work on which he has bestowed no 

 small share of his time and attention ; while fully aware that the com- 

 pleted work would still be far from exhausting the subject. 



" But in case any circumstance should prevent that contemplated 

 fourth volume from ever being written, the three earlier volumes of ' Cy- 

 bele Britannica' may even then be considered in the character of a com- 

 pleted (though much narrowed) treatise on the distribution of plants in 

 Britain. It would still constitute an advanced ground or foundation, 

 upon which a more perfect construction might be raised at some 

 future time, and by some other hand. The chief difference in the 

 present work would be, that the facts remained only in arranged de- 

 tails, instead of having been first investigated and shown in detail, 

 and then grouped together connectedly, to illustrate their geographi- 

 cal relations to each other. 



" The ' London Catalogue of British Plants,' published for the Bo- 

 tanical Society of London, is still used as an Index to the series of 

 species in the ' Cybele Britannica.' It will not be difficult to keep 

 in recollection, that the names and numbers of the species, in each 

 successive volume of this work, will be found to correspond with those 

 of the three successive editions of the ' London Catalogue;' — the first 

 volume, with the first edition, — the second volume, with the second 

 edition, — the third volume, with the third edition. Though the names 

 and numbers of the species are nearly uniform in the three editions, 

 pi'ogressive knowledge and altered views led to some few changes 

 therein, and additional species unavoidably caused the insertion of 

 several duplicate Nos. Hence, too, some duplicate Nos. and other 

 corresponding changes in the ' Cybele Britannica ' also. 



" Another coincidence may be found elsewhere, which it is worth 

 while to point out, because geographical botany has very close depen- 

 dence on the department of descriptive botany. The three successive 

 editions of Mr. C. C. Babington's 'Manual of British Botany' bear 

 the dates of 1843, 1847, and 1851. The three volumes of * Cybele 

 Britannica' are dated in 1847, 1849, and 1852, having been written 

 or partially printed in the years preceding their })ublication. In each 



