PROFESSOR JOHN HUTTON BALFOUR. 23 
Edinburgh. Incidental private matters which are here and there 
inserted in the Diary have been omitted, but the wording of the 
extracts is, as a whole, that of the original. 
The names of plants in the lists as they occur in the 
Diary are not arranged in any scientific order. The method in 
which the Diary was written did not lend itself to this. It was 
no more than a mere jotting down in the evening. after the 
excursion, or perhaps on a following day, of the names of the 
chief plants that occurred to the writer as having been seen during 
the excursion. As the names of flowering plants and ferns are 
printed here they are, to facilitate reference, arranged in the 
order of the London Catalogue, 9th edition, but the old nomen- 
clature is retained. 
It has been a question with me whether these records should be 
published or no. Some botanists to whom I have spoken on the 
subject have suggested a danger that by giving localities of rare 
plants these might be exterminated. But in these days of free 
communication between field-botanists and of publication of 
local floras, the general distribution of plants in Scotland is so 
well known that I do not think that any stations are likely to 
suffer from what appears in the following pages. In a few cases, 
where directions indicating the exact station ofa rare species are 
set forth in the Diary, they have been omitted.* 13;:B.K. 
EXCURSIONS IN 1846. 
Granton, Cramond Bridge, Craigcrook, Ravelston. 
Saturday, 16th May 1846. 
About 10 a.m. walked to Granton, thence by shore to Cramond 
Bridge, and returned by Craigcrook and Ravelston, Home about 
6 p.m. Accompanied by 70 pupils. 
Picked :-— 
Viola odorata Neottia Nidus-avis 
Symphytum officinale : 
* An Index to the Excursions will be found at the end. 
