XVI MEMOIK OP THE AUTHOE. 



' Oybele ' is incorporated, and the distribution of the species 

 beyond the bounds of Britain worked out. And finally, m 

 ' Topographical Botany,' 2 volumes, 1873-1874, the horizontal 

 distribution of the species is traced through the 112 vice- 

 counties. Altogether the earlier small octavos run on to about 

 sixteen hundred pages, and the later volumes of larger size to 

 four thousand pages ; these were printed entirely at his own 

 expense and in most cases never offered for sale at all, but given 

 away to the public scientific Hbraries and those correspondents 

 who had helped him by sending catalogues or specimens, or who 

 were known to him as being interested in the subject. 



Cautious and unspeculative as he was to an extreme degree in 

 his theoretical conclusions in scientific matters, there was one 

 point bearing upon the evolution theory which attracted his 

 attention from an early date, and on which he strongly advocated 

 the views which are now generally current long before Darwin 

 made them popular. At a time when all our leading systematists 

 were dealing with species as if they possessed a clearly-marked 

 and definitely separable individuality, their uncertainty and 

 their inequality formed one of his favourite theses. An article 

 on the subject, which he wrote in the ' Phytologist ' for 1845, 

 will be found reprinted in ' Cybele,' vol. iv., p. 59, and a fuU 

 statement of his views on this subject in ' Cybele,' vol. iv., 

 pp. 35 to 52. At one time he was a copious contributor to the 

 periodical journals which take Botany as a subject partially or 

 wholly. His principal papers are to be found in Loudon's 

 ' Magazine of Natural History,' in Sir WiUiam Hooker's 'London 

 Journal of Botany,' in the old series of the ' Phytologist,' which 

 dates from 1841 to 1854, and in the earlier volumes of this 

 Journal. In the 'Phytologist' he wrote not unfrequently 

 reviews and anonymous notices, but in his case anonymity is a 

 very thin veil. His last word in print was the letter to Mr. 

 Newbould on the subject of the authorship of third edition 

 of ' English Botany,' which appeared at page 80 of this Journal 

 for March of the present year. 



