ROOK RECORDS. 605 



combined with editorial unfitness, made the second series of the 

 Phytologist a journal beneath quotation, and brought it to 

 dissolution. 



Better is it, over and over again I would repeat, far better 

 is it to overlook and ignore a hundred alleged facts, if only five 

 or ten of them are likely to be bad, to be false and misleading, 

 although the other ninety may perchance be sound and valuable. 

 If the vitiating grains cannot be winnowed out, must remain for 

 a time undistinguishable, let the whole be rejected. The Author 

 of a Local Flora, the reporting Secretary of a Provincial Society, 

 the Editor of a fact-recording Journal, who allows his work to 

 be adulterated by the errors of incompetent contributors, is so 

 far giving the stamp of his own authority to what is worse than 

 valueless. 



Let us look back to the starting ground of modern compila- 

 tions ; back only to the date of the original Botanist's Guide in 

 1805. To how many false records did Turner and Dillwyn give 

 a currency and importance which have compelled subsequent 

 compilers to repeat them, either actually accepted on faith or 

 only doubtfully queried ; and so repeated, simply because they 

 had been allowed printed place unquestioned on the pages of 

 that celebrated Guide, the base coins there made current along 

 with the truer metal. 



In the original Botanist's Guide, a work dated early in the 

 present century, we find abundant evidence to shew the unin- 

 quiring manner in which the localities of plants were accepted 

 for record, even down to that comparatively modern date. In 

 the New Guide, of thirty years later, this was illustrated by the 

 frequent use of the signs " ? * f " affixed to the names of plants ; 

 indicating its Compiler's doubts as to the existence of the plant 

 in the county at all, or as to its real wildness there. A large 

 proportion of those marked with the sign of incredulity (?) in 

 the second Guide, were simply repetitions from the earlier 

 Guide. 



A false record, whether of plant or place, once made current 



