APPENDIX A,.—REPUTED DISCOVERIES. 93 
{t will be well to quote the opinion given by Mr. H. C. Watson 
in his “Cybele Britannica,” since he was our best phyto-geographer, 
who had exceptional opportunity to form a matured judgment, and 
Don’s life and work by Mr. John Knox, of Forfar, and Mr. Druce are buried in 
the somewhat inaccessible pages of the ‘‘Scottish Naturalist,” and it is a grea 
convenience to have the report in your pages. Don’s connection with Dundee is 
not sufficiently brought out, however. The pa: ‘ah “ef Muirhead ee 
a mistake for Menmuir], I presume, is Muirhead - Liff; but the general 
impression here is that Don was born in this y, Where, as ek te 
xeorge Lawson wrote in ‘‘Hogg’s eared in ae his father followed 
the trade of a currier, afterwards removing to Forfar. Don himself had 
su friends in Dundee; William Ceediae s father and uncle botanised 
him occasionally, and the ‘‘Dundee Advertiser,” in its notice of Don 
ak in 1814, says he was ‘“‘an honorary member of the Dundee Rational 
Institution,” a society which did much towards agli op taste for literature 
and natural science in the first: decades of last century (‘‘Scots Magazine,” 1816, 
page 169). Don has certainly suffered in the setae of botanists from the 
fact that so many of his ‘‘finds” have not been verified. Dr. Walker Arnott, of 
Glasgow, was probably the strongest objector. Hewett C. Watson, while inclined 
to put a fair amount of credence in Don’s statements, points out that so careful a 
botanist as William Gardiner has been unable to find the stations of plants 
indicated by Don. Mr. Druce’s examination of Don’s actual specimens must add 
to the weight of his testimony in Don’s favour. But the feeling of suspicion has 
long been abroad, although now and then we are gratified to see some of Don’s 
“reputed finds ” actually found in the places where he said he discovered them 
The following quotation from a MS. by William Gardiner, the t, 
may well see the light now, and may throw some light on the question. In June 
1831, Gardiner spent a week in botanising on the eastern of arshire, 
refers to Auchmithie:—‘‘ ‘Mine hostess of the great room’ informed me that Mr. 
Drummond, of Forfar (Don’s successor at Dove Hillock), used to lodge sometimes 
whole weeks in her house for the purpose of botanising the adjacent rocks and 
braes, and would rise and walk out every morning by three or four o’clock in 
pursuit of plants. On my mentioning Mr. Don, ‘out spoke mine host,’ and 
-Pronounced a warm invective against that gentleman, who, he observed, had ruined 
these braes, for epics = had been prowling about there, not a plant worthy of 
notice was to be s I had no reason to doubt the veracity of mine host’s 
assertion, for I oe hala searched Mr. Don’s habitats in vain. I verily 
believe his plan respecting rare plants, was, first to dig up all the specimens he 
could see, ea. then note the locality. I highly revere the memory of my 
distinguish untryman, and gratefully remember how richly he contributed to 
my ieveaiav as science ; but the above-mentioned practice is, I should think, justly 
deserving of censure.” 
In a pencil note soe many years after, Mr. Gardiner says—‘‘ If true—but I 
now remove the censure as premature.” But the — rr and is worth 
something towards the ca of some of Don’s ‘‘finds.”—I am, &c., 
ALEX. P, STEVENSON. 
