470 NOTE ON THE FLORAS OF MR. FORBES. 



have more the effect of slurring over his own obligations 

 to that work, than of admitting it to have been the source 

 whence he took the idea of his ' floras ; ' and from the ap- 

 pendix to which he ascertained their comparative " magni- 

 tude as to species." 



Contrary, however, to the very significant peculiarity of 

 the earlier publication from Cambridge, the second treatise 

 is devoted chiefly to zoological considerations. But having 

 at first proposed his hypothesis as being one founded upon 

 the distribution of plants, he was of course obliged to ad- 

 duce some sort of botanical evidence in seeming con- 

 firmation. Accordingly, a few lists of species are given, 

 evidently made up from the slight notices of habitats in- 

 troduced into ' Babington's Manual of British Botany.' 

 Though Mr. Forbes has not acknowledged the special 

 manner in which he was indebted to that useful work, in 

 making up his meagre lists, they yet afford ample internal 

 evidence of their origin from its pages, much more than 

 from any knowledge of vegetable distribution proper to Mr. 

 Forbes himself, or ascertained through his own investiga- 

 tions. Indeed, he has copied so blindly therefrom as to 

 follow its imperfections uncorrected ; including a tell-tale 

 eiTor of the press, precisely of a kind to mislead and betray 

 the copy-wright fi-om home : while he has also, in other 

 cases, substituted his own erroneous interpretations in- 

 stead of the facts rightly, though not precisely, stated by 

 the author of the Manual; through attempting to specialize 

 and apply the general indications of the Manual, without 

 first caring to make himself acquainted with the facts truly 

 intended thereby. 



Easily may the result be guessed. Borrowed facts, mis- 

 understood, and applied by a forgetive imagination, make 

 up the botanical illustrations in favour of the hypothesis. 

 And thus, so far from really establishing that hypothesis 



