WILLIAM HENRY HARVEY. 1 



William Henry Harvey was born at Summerville, near 

 Limerick, Ireland, on the 5th of February, 1811. His father, 

 Joseph M. Harvey, was a highly respected merchant in that 

 city and a member of the Society of Friends. William Henry 

 was, we believe, the youngest of several children. He received 

 a good education at Ballitore school, — an institution of the 

 Friends, — and on leaving it was engaged for a time in his fa- 

 ther's counting-room, devoting, however, all his spare time to 

 natural history, his favorite pursuit even from boyhood. He 

 made considerable attainments in entomology and conchology, 

 and in botany he early turned his attention to Mosses and 

 Algce. To the study of the latter, in which he became pre- 

 eminent, he was attracted from the first by the opportunities 

 which he enjoyed on the productive western coast of Ireland, 

 the family usually spending a good part of the summer at the 

 seaside, mostly on the bold and picturesque shore of Clare. 

 As the late Sir William Hooker's bent for botany was fixed 

 by his accidental discovery of a rare moss, which he took to 

 Sir J. E. Smith, so in turn was Harvey's, by his discovery of 

 two new habitats of another rare moss, the Hbokeria Icete- 

 virens, which led to a correspondence with Hooker, and to 

 a life-long mutual attachment of these most excellent men. 

 Encouraged by his illustrious friend and patron, Harvey 

 sought some position in which he might devote himself to sci- 

 ence ; and it would appear was selected by Mr. Spring Kice 

 (the late Lord Monteagle) for the post of colonial treasurer 

 at the Cape of Good Hope ; that by some accident the 

 appointment was made out in the name of an elder brother, 

 and an inopportune change of ministry frustrated all attempts 

 at rectification. There was no other way but for the brother 

 1 American Journal of Science and Arts, 2 ser., xlii. 273. (18G0.) 



