170 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



opened to me in the investigation of doubtful species, and the 

 many obhgations I owe to this source." Seaforth had by this 

 time (1807) returned to London from Barbadoes, where he had 

 been Governor from 1801 to 1806,* and it seems probable that 

 among these " obligations " was that of superintending (and 

 possibly of subsidizing) the Berwick Flora, which was printed and 

 published in London in that year. In the same year Seaforth 

 communicated to the Linnean Society, of whose council he was 

 then a member, an account of some West Indian species of Pi^er, 

 prepared by Thompson, who had proposed to make a complete 

 study of the genus but had been hindered by his " professional 

 occupations." Two new species are described and figured as new, 

 one — Pi^er quadrangulare — being still maintained, although now 

 transferred to Peiieromia — a genus which Thompson refused to 

 accept : the paper appeared in Trans. Linn. Soc. Ix. 200. f It was 

 in this year that Thompson became an Associate of the Linnean 

 Society, proceeding to Fellowship in 1810. 



In 1812 Thompson w-ent to Madagascar and Mauritius, where 

 he remained for some years. During this period he sent dried 

 plants to Eobert Brown, which are in the National Herbarium. 

 Among these is the interesting passifloraceous plant which Brown 

 named in compliment to him Thompsonia (Trans. Linn. Soc. xiii. 

 221, 182). Brown merely indicated the character which he 

 thought distinguished this generically from Deidamta, to which it 

 is now generally referred (as D. Thompsoniana DC.) ; but it was 

 not until 1875 that Masters pubhshed in this Journal (xiii. 161) a 

 full description and figure of the plant, based upon Thompson's 

 original specimen. Thompson himself had sent specimens to 

 Lambert, but these cannot be traced. A note on Acacia Lebbek 

 by Grandidier in Hist. Nat. PI. Madagascar, i. 65, runs : " Get 

 arbre semble avoir ete introduit a Madagascar par S. [sic] V. 

 Thompson, envoye en 1811 aupres de Eadama I^'' par Sir Eobert 

 Farquhar avec des cadeaux, au nombre desquels figurait un sac 

 des graines de Bois noir destinees a etre semees dans les prairies 

 de Madagascar ou il n'existait point d'arbres." 



In 1813 Thompson was at Gibraltar, as we learn from a refer- 

 ence to him by Salisbury in Liriogamce, who, speaking of Narcissus 

 viridifloncs, says : " This curious plant was introduced in the time 

 of Parkinson, and again in 1813 by Dr. J. Y. Thompson, who, being 

 told by me that Schousboe had seen it in the neutral ground 

 between St. Eocque and Gibraltar, brought several hundred bulbs 

 here from thence " (p. 107). 



" After his return in 1816 Thompson settled at Cork as district 

 medical inspector, and completed those wonderful discoveries of 

 the life-histories of the marine invertebrata of the Cove of Cork, 

 which made his name famous " (Diet. Nat. Biogr.). Any dis- 



* Thomas Williams Simmonds was in Seaforth's suite as naturalist : he 

 died of fever in Trinidad in 1804. 



t The paper on Briiish birds in the same volume, attributed to Thompson 

 in Diet. Nat. Biogr. on the faith of a false entry in R. S. C. v. 958, is by George 

 Montagu. 



