III. INTRODUCED SPECIES. 85 



conclusions of M. De Candolle in many instances. Not 

 only is there much difference in the fidelity and accuracy 

 with which botanists record their facts, real or supi^osed, 

 but there are perhaps still more important differences in 

 their capacities for rightly understanding what tliey do 

 see, and of deducing correct conclusions therefrom. When 

 a botanist records the finding of a suspected species " on 

 ruins," and forthwith adds also that the locality was " far 

 from any house," — under the apparent wish of leading his 

 readers to concur with him, in supposing the plant a true 

 native there, — in such an instance, the blunder or false 

 inference is so obvious as to become harmless. But there 

 are many hundreds of records in English books, which 

 are either logically unsound or actually untrue, though 

 less obviously so ; and many of which could be detected 

 by no foreigner, and even by few English botanists. 



An Englishman who has specially attended to this sub- 

 ject through a series of years, and who has thus obtained 

 opportunities for seeing many thousands of specimens 

 labelled by British botanists, — who has examined and 

 collated tens of thousands of recorded localities for plants, 

 — and who has in divers instaaices compared the actual 

 localities with the printed records of them, — must judge 

 under advantages to which it is quite impossible for any 

 foreigner to attain. He ought to be in a much better 

 position for judging how far the individual botanists 

 A, B, C, D, &c. are to be relied upon ; — relied upon, not 

 only for stating their facts clearly and correctly, but also 

 for doing this completely, by the non-omission of circum- 

 stances which may bear importantly upon the proper con- 

 clusions to be deduced from the facts. 



It is on this account objected to some of M. De Can- 

 doUe's views, in regard to the nativity or non- nativity of 

 certain species, that the facts themselves do not warrant 



