374 Alexander Goodman More. [i892 



a search to which they had been, in Mr. Hart's words, 

 " strongly impelled by our accurate friend Mr. A. G. More, 

 who has always maintained that, although no specimen 

 existed, so careful an observer as Admiral Jones could not 

 have been mistaken, and that the plant would yet be 

 found." 



Indeed his accuracy in such matters, where geographical 

 distribution was concerned, seemed almost instinctive. In 

 the case of Rubus chamaemorus, some of the best botanists 

 in Ireland had been perfectly convinced that Admiral 

 Jones was wrong. And even in branches of natural history 

 which he did not profess to study, he often saved friends 

 and correspondents from extraordinary blunders. An in- 

 stance had occurred a few months before his illness. A 

 London specialist to whom a fly taken in Ireland had been 

 sent for identification, looking at it somewhat too hastily, 

 had misidentified it with a species having a limited range 

 in the south of England, and which had not been recorded 

 for Ireland. The fact of the identification was mentioned 

 to Mr. More, who, though he had never studied diptera, at 

 once expressed the utmost astonishment at such an insect 

 having occurred in Ireland. " But the more I think of it," 

 he added, "the more impossible it seems ! You must get 

 it examined again, compare specimens, and you will find 

 that it is a mistake." And, as usual, he was right. 



The autumn of the year was a time of convalescence 

 and rest. He went out daily in his chair, which had now 

 become a familiar feature at football-matches, for his in- 

 terest in that game was as keen as when he played it at 

 Rugby; and perhaps the first shot he had fired since his 

 expedition with Mr. Howard Saunders to Roundstone was 

 taken this winter, when during an afternoon drive he was 

 guilty of the enormity of shooting a Redwing. His corre- 

 spondence was almost absolutely in abeyance ; but it was 

 far otherwise with his reading, and some recent book or 

 article on natural history was sure to be among the first 

 topics started when a friend dropped in for a chat. Hudson's 

 " Naturalist in La Plata" yielded him the greatest enjoy- 

 ment. Every now and then a bird, or other specimen, was 

 sent him for examination, and a few weeks before Christmas 



