Sune 8, 1871) 

typical series are now respectively deposited. In herbaria a few 
changes have recently taken place which it may be useful to 
record. Paris, [ mean of course the brilliant Paris of a twelve- 
month back, had Jost considerably. Of the many important 
private herbaria I had been familiar with in earlier days, two 
only, those of Jussieu and of A. de St. Hilaire, had been 
secured for the national collection, Webb's had gone to Florence, 
J. Gay’s, which would have been of special value at the Jardin, 
was allowed to be purchased by Hooker and presented by him 
to Kew. The celebrated herbarium of Delessert is removed to 
Geneva, whilst his botanical library, one of the richest in 
existence, is locked up within the walls of the Institut. These 
are but partially replaced by M. Cosson’s herbarium, which has 
much increased of late years, and to which he added last spring 
the late Schultz Bipontinus’s collection rich in Composite. The 
national herbarium of the Jardin des Plantes is still one of the 
richest, but no longer ¢/e richest of all. The limited funds at 
the disposal of the Administration have allowed of their making 
but few acquisitions ; their staff is so small and so limited in the 
hours of attendance, that the increase of the last twen'y years 
remains for the most part unarranged, and their library is most 
scanty. Science has been out of favour with their governments 
of display. It would be out of place for me here to dwell upon 
the painful feelings excited im my mind by the dreadful ordeal 
through which a country I have been so intimately associated 
with for more than half a century is now passing, feelings ren- 
dered so acute by the remembrance of the uniform kindness I 
have received from private friends as well as from men of science, 
from Antoine Laurent de Jussieu and his colleagues to the 
eminent protessors of the Jardin, who have now passed through 
the siege ; but I may be allowed to express an anxious hope that 
when the crisis is passed, and the elasticity of French resources will 
have restored the wonted prosperity, the new Government may at 
length perceive that, even politically speaking, the demands of 
science require as much attention as popular clamour. 
The Delesserian herbarium has been well received at Geneva, 
where it has been adequately deposited in a building in the 
Botanic Garden, very near to the Natural History Museum now 
erecting. At Paris it had been for some time comparatively use- 
less, owing to the attempt to class it according to Sprengel’s 
Linneeus, but now an active amateur committee, Messrs. J. 
Mueller, Reuter, Rapin, and others, under the presidency of 
Dr. Fauconnet, have already made great progress in distributing 
the specimens under their natural orders ; and Geneva, already 
containing the important typical collection of De Candolle, and 
Boissier’s stores rich especially in Mediteranean and Oriental 
plants, has become one of the great centres where real botani- 
cal work can be satisfactorily carried on ; and as she has had the 
good sense to level her fortifications, she may accumulate national 
treasures with more confidence in the future. Munich has lost 
much of the prospect she had ; the Bavarian Government failed 
to come to terms with the family of the late von Martius, his 
botanical library has been dispersed, and his herbarium removed 
to Brussels, where it is to form the nucleus of a national Belgian 
collection. At Vienna the Imperial herbarium is now admirably 
housed in the Botanical Garden, and is in good order, with the ad- 
vantage of a rich botanical library in the same rooms. At Berlin, 
where the Royal Herbarium, like the Zoological Museum, has 
always been kept in excellent order, want of space is greatly 
complained of since it has been transported to the buildings of 
the University. At Florence, as we learn from the Giornale 
Botanico Ftaliano, the difficulties with regard to the funds left by 
Mr. Webb for the maintenance of his herbarium have been over- 
come, and it is to be hoped that the liberal intentions of the 
testator who made this splendid bequest for the benefit of science 
will no longer remain so shamefully unfulfilled. To the above 
six may be added Leyden, Petersburgh, Stockholm, Upsala, and 
Copenhagen, as towns possessing national herbaria sufficiently 
important for the pursuit of systematic botany; but when [ 
visited them, now many years since, they were all, more or less, 
in arrear in arrangement. I know not how far they may have 
since improved. In the United States of America, the herbarium 
of Asa Gray, recently secured to the Ilarvard University, now 
occupies a first rank. That of Melbourne in Australia, founded 
by Ferdinand Mueller, has, through his indefatigable exertions, 
attained very large proportions ; and that of the Botanical Gar- 
den of Calcutta, under the successive administration of Dr. 
Thomson and the late Dr. T. Anderson, had recovered ina great 
measure its proper position, which, I trust, it will henceforth 
maintain, Our own great national herbarium and library at 

NATURE 



Ik 

Kew is now far ahead of all others in extent, value, and practi- 
cal utility ; originally created, maintained, and extended by the 
two Hookers, father and son, their unremitting and disinterested 
exertions have succeeded in obtaining for it that Government 
support without which no such establishment can be really 
efficient, whilst their lberal and judicious management has 
secured for it the countenance and approbation of the numerous 
scientific foreigners who have visited or corresponded with it. 
Of the valuable botanical materials accumulated in the British 
Museum during the last century I say nothing now, for the Natural 
History portion of that establishment is in a state of transition, 
and my own views as regards Botany have been elsewhere ex- 
pressed. I have only to add that we have also herbaria of con- 
siderable extent at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and 
Edinburgh, and at Trinity College, Dublin, and to express a hope 
that the necessity of maintaining and extending them will be duly 
felt by these great educational bodies, if they desire to secure for 
their professorial chairs botanists of eminence. 
3. Pictorial representations or drawings have the advantage 
over museum specimens, that they can be in many respects more 
complete, they can represent objects and portions of objects 
which it has been impossible to preserve, they can give colour 
and other characters lost in the course of desiccation, they pre- 
serve anatomical and microscopical details in a form in which the 
observer can have recourse to them again and again without 
repeating his dissections, and although, like a museum specimen, 
each drawing represents usually an individual, not a species, yet 
that individual can by exact copies be multiplied to any extent 
for the simultaneous use of any number of naturalists, whilst 
specimens of the same species in different museums are corre- 
sponding only, not identical, and imperfect comparison and 
determination of specimens supposed to be authentic (¢.¢., exactly 
corresponding to the one originally described) have led into 
numerous errors. Drawings, moreover, of diagrams and other 
devices can represent more or less perfectly the abstract ideas of 
genera and species, they can exhibit the generic or specific 
character more or less divested of specific or individual peculiari- 
ties. 
Drawings on the other hand are, much more than specimens, 
liable to imperfections and falsifications arising from defective 
observation of the model and want of skill in the artist, and 
errors thus once established are much more difficult of correction 
than even those conveyed by writing. A pictorial representation 
conveys an idea much more rapidly, and impresses it much more 
strongly on the mind, than any detailed accompanying description 
by which it may be modified or corrected, and is but too fre- 
quently the only evidence looked into by the more theoretical 
naturalist. ‘lhis is especially the case with microscopical and 
anatomical details of the smaller animals and plants, the repre- 
sentations of which, if very elaborate and difficult to verily, 
usually inspire absolute confidence. Drawings are also costly, 
often beyond the means of unaided science, who here again, as 
in the case of gardens and museums, is obliged to have recourse 
to the paying public ; the public in return require to have their 
tastes gratified, artistic effect is necessarily considered, thus in- 
creasing the cost and removing the pictures still further from the 
reach of the working biologist. It appears to me, however, that 
collections of drawings systematically arranged have not gener- 
ally met with that attention which they require from directors of 
museums, and that their multiplication in an effective and cheap 
form ought to bea great object on the part of Governments, Scien- 
tific Associations, and others who contribute pecuniarily to the 
advancement of science. 
To be effective, the first requisites in a zoological or botanical 
drawing are accuracy and completeness ; it is a faithful repre- 
sentation not a picture that is wanted. Many a splendid portrait 
of an animal or plant, especially if grouped with others in one 
picture, has been rendered almost useless to science by a grace- 
ful attitude or an elegant curve which the artist has sought to 
give to a limb or to a branch, and those analytical details which 
are of paramount importance to the biologist are neglected, be- 
cause they spoil the general effect. We next require from an 
illustration, as from a description, that it should be representa- 
tive, or toa certain degree abstract, and this requires that the 
artist, if not himself the naturalist, should work under the 
naturalist’s eye, so as to understand what he delineates. Great 
care should be taken, in the selection for the model of an indi- 
vidual in a normal state, as to health, size, &c , and in the se- 
lection and arrangement of the anatomical details, so as to repre- 
sent the race rather than the individual, all of which requires a 
