322 Alexander Goodman More. [i884 



thanks are tendered in several other papers of about the 

 same date. In looking through Mr. Hart's Donegal plants, 

 his eye had detected two Carices of special interest ; one, 

 an old friend indeed, but never before discovered in Ireland, 

 C. Boenninghauseniana ; the other, his very newest ac- 

 quaintance so lately the subject of correspondence with 

 Mr. Stewart, C. aquatilis. He mentions the latter in 

 writing again to that botanist (January 3ist, 1885). "All, 

 or nearly all, Mr. Hart's Carices are now in Bennett's 

 hands. Among them, a good set of C. rigida. Another I 

 make out to be C. aquatilis, though it had been returned, 

 as yours was, as acuta. C. aquatilis must descend quite low 

 in some of the Scottish localities. Hart's specimens are 

 not so tall as yours, nor are the spikes so long and slender. 

 The bracts are long, numerous, and crowded towards the 

 top." Mr. Bennett confirmed the identification of Carex 

 aquatilis. All his botanical friends' Reports to the Academy 

 this winter contained matter of exceptional interest : for 

 Messrs. Barrington and Vowell had brought back from 

 Ben Bulben a very handsome addition to the Irish Flora, 

 in Epilobium alsinifolium. 



He was not at the reading of those Essays in whose 

 preparation he had felt such interest. A new complaint, 

 the gout, attacked him early in 1885, and this, added to 

 lumbago and increasing need for general carefulness, kept 

 him from most of the formal Academy meetings, though 

 seldom from a business one at which he could possibly be 

 present. When grants for botanical exploration were to 

 be voted upon, he would always strain a point to be in his 

 place, saying, "There I am of use." His correspondence 

 in the early part of 1885, however, relates even more to 

 birds than to botany. A number of letters to Mr. Barrington 

 (undated, but evidently all written in the opening months of 

 the year) touch chiefly on the observations at light- 

 houses : 



Wednesday 

 \_JVo doubt January 21 st, 1885.'] 



DEAR BARRINGTON, I have been keeping the house these two days 

 with a bad cold and cough, so that I see I must give up all hope of 

 going out to the Essay Meeting next Tuesday The meeting for 



