THE ANNALS 
AND 
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
I.—On early Contributions to the Flora of Ireland; with Re- 
marks on Mr. Mackay’s Flora Hibernica. By the Rev. T. 
D. Hinexs, LL.D., M.R.LA. 
To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 
GENTLEMEN, 
HAvine met with various remarks which seem to imply a 
peculiar negligence on the part of the Irish in respect of the 
Natural History of their country, and these remarks having 
been repeated without any effort to correct them, may I beg 
permission through your valuable work to make some state- 
ments on the subject? As I have for nearly fifty years taken 
an interest in the botany of Ireland, and as I have had op- 
portunities of knowing many persons who interested them- 
selves about it, I hope I may not be deemed unreasonable, 
especially as I have no claim of my own to bring forward or 
any wish to speak lightly of the exertions of late botanists, 
who I believe would not knowingly claim more than they are 
fairly entitled to. As these remarks were chiefly suggested 
by Mr. Mackay’s Flora Hibernica, or the reviews of it, I beg 
to acknowledge my own obligation to him for that work, and 
to express the esteem and regard I have felt for him for more 
than thirty years that I have had the pleasure of being ac- 
quainted with him. 
Different opinions are entertained by botanists as to what 
a local Flora should be. Remarks on the subject have been 
made by Prof. Henslow*, attention to which might be of 
much use; but I cannot blame Mr. Mackay, in the Flora of 
such an extensive district as Ireland, for having inserted the 
generic and specific characters, even though he may not have 
added to those of Sirs J. E. Smith and W. J. Hooker. 
The Flora of a country should however do more, it should 
* Magazine of Zoology and Botany, vol. i. 
Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. Sept. 1840. B 
