CHAPTER XLIX 



PERSONALIA! 1898-1906 



In 1898 the completion of ' a monumental work in botany, 

 the " Mora of British India," ' was chosen by the Linnean 

 Society as a fit occasion for commemorating Hooker's eminent 

 services to biological science. A gold medal was specially 

 struck, and presented to him on May 24 at the Anniversary 

 Meeting of the Society, with which he and his father and his 

 grandfather before him had been so closely connected. 



In his reply, Hooker recalled the fact that the Linnean was 

 the first scientific society in which he was enrolled* fifty-six years 

 before. It was perhaps due to his family record that he was 

 elected as the youngest Fellow on the list with no more solid 

 scientific claims than that he was serving as naturalist in the 

 Antarctic under Captain Ross, who was himself a Fellow, and 

 had a copy of the Transactions in his cabin, which proved 

 a godsend to the young naturalist. The ships were at the 

 Falkland Islands when the election took place, and nearly a 

 year and a half elapsed before Captain and Naturalist knew that 

 they were fellow-Linneans. Now he was the only Fellow who 

 personally knew four of the 169 naturalists who, 110 years 

 before, formed the nucleus of the Society. 1 He concluded 

 with these words : 



1 * Of these four, I knew two in my later teens ; they were the Kev. W. 

 Kirby, the author, with Spence, of the immortal Introduction to Entomology ; 

 and Dr. Heysham, of Carlisle, an excellent entomologist and ornithologist. 

 The others were Aylmer Bourke Lambert, a former President, and the last, as 

 I have been informed, who wore in the chair the presidential three-cornered 

 hat ; and Archibald Menzies, who as naturalist accompanied Vancouver in his 

 voyage in the Pacific, and who introduced the Araucaria imbricata into England. 

 These all died very near the year of my election.' 



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