6 2 Lincolnshire Notes & Queries. 



botanical science, and scanty though their numbers have been, 

 yet their unobtrusive and careful investigations have yielded, 

 and still are yielding, excellent results. Prominent among the 

 local botanists of 40 years ago were the two brothers Thomas 

 Wemyss Bogg and Edward B. Bogg, who not only collected, 

 preserved and named their specimens, but also recorded the 

 localities where, and the dates when, the said specimens were 

 found. Their valuable collections have been recently handed 

 over to the Rev. E. Adrian Woodruffe-Peacock, who is the 

 custodian of the herbarium which is being formed to represent 

 the botany of the entire county. Contemporary with the 

 Boggs, and with enthusiasm akin to theirs, was the Rev. John 

 Theodore Barker, a man of enlightened mind and attractive 

 personality, who was the author of a pleasant little book 

 entitled "The Beauty of Flowers in Field and Wood," and 

 who was for a number of years the esteemed President of the 

 Louth Mechanics' Institution. Mr. Barker's tenure of the 

 office is memorable by reason of the fact that during it he 

 furthered the interests of the branch of science to which he 

 was devoted by conducting classes for botanical study ; and his 

 efforts were so far successful that he communicated some of his 

 own enthusiasm to men like Mr. T. W. Wallis and Mr. B. 

 Crow, the former of whom thoroughly explored the district 

 and formed a herbarium which contains some seven or eight 

 hundred specimens, while the latter still continues his 

 researches with undiminished ardour and activity. Except, 

 however, in these and a few other isolated instances, interest in 

 local botany seemed steadily to decline after Mr. Barker's 

 removal from Louth. But in process of time Mr. Harry Kew 

 arose, and he stirred up his friends and by and by persuaded 

 four of them to join him in forming the Louth Naturalists' 

 Society (the first society of its kind in Lincolnshire), and the 

 somewhat flagging zeal of the elder generation received a fresh 

 impetus. This was in 1884; some four years later the 

 members deemed it advisable to enlarge their borders, and the 

 society was re-organised as the Louth Antiquarian and 

 Naturalists' Society. They have, from time to time, by means 

 of lectures, excursions and exhibitions of specimens, taken 

 many opportunities of endeavouring to advance the objects for 

 the promotion of which they were constituted ; and, so far as 

 botany is concerned, they hope that they are doing some really 

 useful educational work. During the summer months their 

 museum is open on Monday evenings, and flowering plants are 



