CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. .315 



Several attempts have already been made to organise such a system. H. C. 

 Watson, in the ' Cybele Britannica,' inaugurated the ' county and vice-county 

 system,' recording the distribution of plants according to their occurrence in the 

 various comities of England and .Scotland, but the larger counties he divided up 

 into two or more vice-counties, with the object of making all his areas more or 

 less equal. He also gave a number to each division. 



C. C. Babington applied the same system to Ireland, continuing Watson's 

 numbering, so that he commenced with 113 and made altogether 37 divisions. 

 McNab slightly modified Babington's divisions, and renumbered them, com- 

 mencing with 1. The Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland has 

 officially adopted the county and vice-county system, accepting Watson's divisions 

 (and numbering ?) for England and Scotland, but taking McNab's modifications 

 for Ireland, and renumbering the Irish divisions, commencing with 113 but not 

 adopting the numbering of Babington. 



Praeger in 1896 reviewed the Irish subdivisions and again made some altera- 

 tions, and once more renumbered them, and his emendations have been almost 

 universally accepted by the younger generation of Irish naturalists. In Scotland 

 there appear to be two factions, one of which adopts Watson's system, while the 

 other divides the country up into ' faunal areas,' the boundaries of which are 

 those of the main drainage areas. 



There are, therefore, several systems at present in use, and Mr. Balfour Browne 

 said that it was with a view to bringing them into line that he suggested that a 

 strong committee of biologists should be formed to recommend a definite system, 

 after consulting those who have adopted any of the methods at present in vogue. 

 Such a committee would carry weight with all the local societies, and no doubt 

 the editors of the numerous natural history publications would also pay regard to 

 any recommendation the Committee might make. 



Mr. P. Ewing (Glasgow Natural History Society) said that the subject was 

 a large and complicated one, of the peculiarities of which he had gained gome 

 experience while v/orking on the Glasgow catalogue of native plants, into which 

 the result of fifteen years' personal work had been incorporated, the area covered 

 being the Watsonian vice-counties forming the West of Scotland. Speaking for 

 that district many divisional systems had been in use and had been discarded 

 for various reasons. Harvie-Brown's naturalists' map, while satisfactory doubt- 

 less for avifaunal requirements, was not so well adapted for working the flora, 

 the divisions being too large. Division by squares was also open to objections, 

 as in that case you were dealing with imaginary lines, and one could never tell 

 on which side of the line he was working in mountainous country. Since the last 

 visit of the British Association to Glasgow in 1901 a great stimulus had been given 

 to the work of recording species. The plan followed had been to take the Clyde 

 drainage area as a basis and to note localities, plant associations, &c. This had 

 stood the test of time much better than many of the more artificial systems. At 

 least one can always tell on which side of a stream or watershed one is, and the 

 localisation is definite enough for scientific purposes and not sufficiently clear to 

 aid the extermination of our rarer species. ' In my own work I always saw the 

 plant myself, and when in doubt had the opinion of an expert on the plant before 

 passing it. and from what I have seen I am convinced that nothing short of this is 

 of any value. No doubt this method involves an enormous amount of work which 

 cannot well be subdivided, but correlation from scientific magazines, the trans- 

 actions of scientific societies, &c, I found could not in all cases be trusted. So 

 far as Scotland is concerned, flowering plants, mosses, hepatics, and fungi have 

 been well recorded, and many doubtful species re-recorded in recent years, so that 

 there is a large body of trustworthy information ready at hand to begin operations 

 upon.' 



Mr. T. Sheppard (Yorkshire Naturalists' Union) said that in his opinion the 

 present Watsonian division into vice-counties seemed to meet most requirement*, 

 and as it was already in use pretty generally it seemed to be hardly worth while 

 to alter it, particularly as any alteration would in the future cause confusion. 

 With regard to editors of publications it was, of course, possible to publish lists 

 of daisies and buttercups or anything else sent in, but he thought that nowadays a 

 fair amount of discretion was used in publishing lists, and so far as possible the 

 necessary information relating to contributions, &c, is given. 



