entomology, but he attended Henslow's lectures on notary, and like 

 so many others, fell under his magnetic influence. He joined the 

 Linnean Society in 1830, and for a short time after the death of the 

 Rev. L. Jenyns, was its oldest Fellow. His first botanical book was 

 the ' Flora Bathoniensis,' published in 1834. He visited Ireland in 

 company with the late Mr. John Ball, in 1835, and gave an account 

 of his tour in the 9th volume of the ' Magazine of Natural History.' 

 His ' Primitia3 Floras Sarnicas ' was the result of excursions taken 

 during two long vacations, in one of which the Rev. W. W. New- 

 boald was his companion, and was published in 1839. In company 

 with Professor J. H. Balfour, he visited the Outer Hebrides, in 1841,. 

 and reported on their scanty vegetation. His work was almost 

 entirely confined to British Botany, but he published in the 18th 

 volume of the ' Transactions of the Linnean Society,' a monograph of 

 the Indian Polygonums, and in the 11th volume of the 'Journal 

 of the Linnean Society,' a paper on the " Flora of Iceland," giving a 

 complete list of the Phanerogamia of the island, which he had visited 

 during the year 1841. The first edition of his magnum opus, the 

 ' Manual of British Botany,' appeared in 1843. This work ran 

 through eight editions during his life-time and was for fifty years 

 almost universally used as a hand-book and standard of nomen- 

 clature by local botanists who made a study of critical British plants. 

 The special feature of the work was a careful study of the difficult 

 genera by means of the books and fasciculi of dried specimens pub- 

 lished by the critical botanists of the neighbouring* continental 

 countries. In the early editions he relied mainly upon Koch, Fries, 

 and Reichenbach, and in the later to these were added the writings 

 of Grenier, Godron, Boreau, Jordan, and Lange, and the Exsiccata of 

 Reichenbach, F. Schultz, and Billot. This book brought him into 

 frequent communication with nearly all the active collectors in diffe- 

 rent parts of Britain, and entailed upon him a mass of correspondence 

 as referee, which occupied a large proportion of his time. The writer 

 of the present notice remembers with feelings of gratitude the kind 

 and patient way in which the Professor helped him in his difficulties 

 when, between forty and fifty years ago he was beginning the study of 

 British botany, and was living in a small country town where there 

 were no herbaria or books of reference. Professor Babington 

 generally spent his long holidays in exploring some rich botanical 

 district at home, such as the Snowdon country, Braemar, and Tees- 

 clale, and in this way made acquaintance in a living state with most 

 of the plants with which he had to deal. Amongst the genera and 

 subgenera that he revised may be mentioned Atriplex, Arctium, 

 Fumaria, Batrachium, Cerastium, Dryas, Armeria, Saxifraga, 

 Hieracium, Potamogeton, and especially Rubus. He contributed 

 about 150 papers, mainly on critical British plants, to different 

 periodicals and societies. 



