On the Advancement of Local Botany near London. 163 



we shall find the sound increasing upon us. Upon walking- on in the 

 same direction it will soon cease, and after an interval of silence will 

 be heard again at a distance ; for the eye of the night-jar is so beauti- 

 fully adapted for nocturnal or crepuscular vision, that it observes the 

 approach of an object, although a person is incapable of distin- 

 guishing his companion, or a body the size of himself at the distance 

 of a few feet only. They will wander over a considerable tract of 

 ground in the course of an evening in search of prey, beginning by 

 flitting over the spot near which they have taken up their diurnal 

 abode, and afterwards continuing to fly over some heath or moor at 

 a considerable distance from the place where they were first seen. 

 This bird is by no means common in the neighbourhood of Ipswich, 

 but there are places not very distant from the town where a pair or 

 two of them may be generally found every year. 



VII. — On the advancement of Local Botany in the environs of Lon- 

 don, ivith remarks relative to the Dispersion of Plants in that 

 vicinity, and the formation of plans exhibiting the Distribution of 

 Species over localities. By Daniel Cooper, Curator to the 

 Botanical Society of London, &c. 



The formation of the Botanical Society of London, and the 

 publication of the Flora Metropolitana, or Botanical Rambles within 

 thirty miles of London, have been the means of bringing forward nu- 

 merous papers and plans, exhibiting the distribution of the localities 

 of species in the directions frequented by the metropolitan botanist, 

 and of advancing the objects of local Floras generally. No local 

 Flora of the environs of so extensive a city, and, as will be presently 

 shewn, producing species of so rare occurrence, having been published 

 in a cheap and portable form,* induced me to attempt to arouse the 

 minds of practical men towards the furtherance of this object. In 

 directing their attention to this subject, I had two objects in view : 

 the first, to solicit their aid for the purpose of endeavouring to arrive 

 at a more accurate and actual Flora of the environs of so great a city — 

 the latter, to obtain correspondents who might be willing to join in 

 the establishment of a society for mutual intercourse and benefit. In 



* About sixty years since " Curtis's Flora Londinensis" was published. This 

 work contains plates of all the species that had been found round London. 

 3 large folio volumes. Mr Warner published a Local Flora on the plants of 

 Woodford, Essex ; and Mr Blackstone of Harefield, Middlesex. The localities 

 in these works cannot be relied on, having both been brought forward upwards 

 of sixty years since. 



