Notes and Comments. 249 
JOHN GRIMSHAW WILKINSON. 
John Grimshaw Wilkinson has made himself an acknow- 
ledged authority upon Systematic Botany. Triumphing by 
perseverance and enthusiasm over an early affliction of total 
blindness, he has obtained an extensive and exact knowledge 
of the general structure of plants, both British and foreign ; 
and he possesses a critical insight into the systematic classi- 
fication of British flowering plants and ferns, and their geo- 
graphical distribution. He has an intimate knowledge of the 
songs of birds, being able by his exquisite sense of hearing to 
distinguish may a subtle feature ordinarily unrecognised. For 
some time he was President of the Leeds Naturalists’ Club, and 
did much valuable work in connection with its botanical 
section. His services, we understand, have often been of 
assistance to the Leeds City Council in the selection of the trees 
which have been planted in and around Leeds, and it is largely 
due to him, we believe, that our public gardens and parks are 
adorned with so many interesting and beautiful trees and 
plants. In the autumn of his modest life, so nobly lived, may 
we not, with honour to our seat of learning, extend to him the 
hand of fellowship and sympathy, expressing to him, in the 
words of the poet of nature, the encouragement of spring ? 
3G oa3 GN While my hand exults 
Within the bloodless heart of lowly flowers 
To work old laws of love to fresh results, 
Thro’ manifold effect of simple powers— 
I too would teach the man 
Beyond the darker hour to see the bright, 
That his fresh life may close as it began, 
The still-fulfilling promise of a light 
Narrowing the bounds of night.’ 
THOMAS WILLIAM WOODHEAD. 
In Thomas William Woodhead we welcome a colleague in 
one of our affiliated institutions, the Technical College at 
Huddersfield. As a Biologist his investigations have covered 
a wide field, always fruitfully, while his numerous and im- 
portant memoirs in the department of Plant Ecology and Dis- 
tribution have given him an honourable position among British 
botanists. He has devoted special attention to the training 
of young teachers in the study of nature, incorporating original 
ideas with marked success, and spreading the spirit of scien- 
tific method into the study even of the simplest and most 
accessible phenomena. He has lately become an Honorary 
Secretary of the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union and a Joint 
Editor of The Naturalist, thus sacrificing, with characteristic 
generosity, the scanty leisure of a busy teacher to the service 
“of his fellow naturalists. 
1915 Aug. 1. 
