226 
The Irish Naturalist, 
Octobef, 
familiar names of the localities, but if so, it is a " difBculty" 
known only in the British Islands, for in no other country has 
such a plan been adopted. 
Somebody, who is an advocate for the numbers, refers me to 
the numbering of the avenues and streets in New York and 
other great cities of the United States of America ; but that is 
quite different, and is moreover carried out after a system 
which is impossible with the wildly irregular contours of Great 
Britain and Ireland. I grant that in an enormous and re- 
gularly built city, the numbering instead of naming the streets 
and cross-avenues is an aid for quickly finding the vSpot one 
desires to arrive at, but in that case the numbers are not arbi- 
trarily assigned, they follow in regular succession. The dis- 
mal prospect of the complete disuse of the names of counties 
reminds me of the mathematical master of a pack of hounds 
of whom I have heard, who would have none of your **Jowlers," 
or " Keepers," or " Fireflies," or " Dairymaids," but severely 
with scientific accuracy called to his poor dogs instead as 
"2," "3," "4," &c. 
I do not enter a plea for the retention of the county names 
instead of the numbers without having had a practical trial of 
Watson's numbers. In a little handbook of the British 
Hepatics that I printed a few years ago, I took the distribution 
of the Hepatics in Great Britain from Mr. W. H. Pearson's 
magnificent work, and inserted the numbers without the 
county-names as he had done. And I regret having done so. 
I constantly use my own book, and I have always to turn up 
the explanation of the numbers when I want to see in what 
county a certain plant has been found. 
The sample of beautiful and ingenious maps recently pub- 
lished by Mr. Praeger convinces me that it is well it is too 
late to map out all the British Islands into rectangles, each 
designated by a number. The mere idea of trying to study 
the botany of our own country with such guides fairly takes 
one's breath away. Would it not be better worth while to 
work out something more attractive and less costly. One 
cannot be too thankful for the names of the county-divisions, 
they are quite sufficient, and whether poetical or historical, 
there is no danger of their being lost sight of, at least, so long 
as Messrs. Watson's and Praeger's Topographical Botanies 
exist in their present forms. 
