TO DR. R. WIGHT. 



^am !. However I am ready to go any where, as it is all the same 

 to me. The Mishmee collections amount to 1200 sp. including 

 230 ferns, an imense proportion of the latter, with two new genera 

 among them. I am now going through the Bootan ones. 



Calcutta, Nov. loth 1838, 



Yours reached me to day, there must have been great neglect on 

 the part of my agents, otherwise the excessive delay in my letters 

 «ould not have occurred. Your deeds astonish me, you are an Apis 

 mellifera ! My head has not been examined, but 1 expect it wall 

 meet the fate of Yoricks, for the truth is, I become more impa- 

 tient than ever of any thing like quackery connected with science, 

 which should be pursued with disinterested, and open enthusiasm. 



I am getting on with the collections, and making one of Calcutta 

 suburbs, a very interesting flora it is, and not exhausted. The other 

 day I found a new species of Ruppia ! which took me the better part 

 of a week to understand, for its ovula are very odd, and the radicle 



does not point to the foramen ! I want to examine farther 



Ceratophyllum which is certainly a Naiad, and some other genera, 

 and then perhaps I may submit a paper on Aroidese etc. To tell you 

 the truth, I am diffident of publishing, wishing to keep every thing 

 until my prospectus has been considered in England. Besides I 

 am shy of the Asiatic Societj% now that Mr. James Prinsep is gone. 

 He was a check on all, every body respected him. I have got 

 abuudance of Roxburghs' Oryza coarctata, which is not a true 

 Oryza, but th^ hexandrous grasses are exceedingly difficult, and 

 shew^ell the unsatisfactoriness of our characters, Ericineee 40 

 from the Bootan trip, and about 40 Thibaudiaceae ; if I had time I 

 should take them up in a paper, I find that \ have about 1,700 sp. 

 from Moulmain coast, nearly 2,000 from the Khasya hills, 1,200 from 

 the Mishmees, and 1,600 from Bootan. I have today got as far as no. 

 650, in the arrangement of the Dicotyledons of Assam, and shall 

 have 1,500 certainly including all, and then comes the Ava collec- 

 tion, which contains say 1,200, I leave you to settle how many of 

 these are the same ; then again I have the Calcutta collections, of 

 which I will send you lists of the contents. What I should like 

 would be, to publish on the orders, with illustrations of as many 



b 



