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IN DEFENCE OF JAMES BOLTON, THE FUNQOLOQIST. 



F. ARNOLD LEES, M.R.C.S., 

 Leeds; Author of ' The Flora of West Yorkshire.' 



It is somewhat of a shame to depreciate the genius of this 

 pioneer in field-study, because a few dozen species recorded by 

 him for the Halifax district in Watson's 'History' of 1775 seem 

 very ' unlikely ' and are not now to be found within that hilly 

 area. One or two mistakes he is known to have made, but 

 these do not extinguish the presumption of general truth in the 

 plantscape his ' Catalogue ' preserves for us. 



There are many indirect proofs — too strong, combined, to 

 leave us in any doubt — that he was the author of that catalogue, 

 which was full of graphicalities in that quaint style afterwards 

 elaborated in the 'Filices Britannieae' of 1785 and the 'History 

 of Halifax Fungusses' of 1788-91. Watson the historian was 

 not a botanist at all, to begin with; Bolton lived at Halifax in 

 the years preceding and following, and there were only three or 

 four notable men of like scientific attainments in the N. of 

 England, these being well known to one another, and one of 

 whom is said to have pointed out Bolton's error in the matter of 

 Colchicum. 



As witness at once of how species disappear, and how 

 fallacious are arguments alleging error in designation because 

 of disappearance; I may here quote what Robert Teesdale says 

 in Vol. 2 of 'Linnean Transactions' (1792) of Viscum album, 

 the Mistletoe — ' It is very common in the West Riding of 

 Yorkshire, but is hardly to be met with in "the North and East 

 Ridings.' Very common ! Does anyone fancy Teesdale was 

 flagrantly exaggerating a frequency or an infrequency ? Is it 

 common now? No — essentially it is one of the lost species, 

 which were widespread and in. some plenty a hundred years 

 ago : which have been as certainly driven from the fort they 

 held by the slow breach of hardening climatic conditions ; one 

 of the changes, insidious and avert from our vision, which w ore 

 and are altering for us the face of Nature. 



But does the categorical amplitude of detail, the fioriture 

 with which he describes plants and their stations, prove 

 nothing? Surely he cannot have invented that wealth of 

 description? Vet either that — in which case he was a botanic 

 fomancist — or lie wrote of what he saw. Any errors to be 

 explained by the mislead of the Text-Books he used, I would 

 admit: nothing beyond. He did too much exact work later ; and 

 let me add that not one half oi the Fungi he found at Halifax and 

 1000 August 1. p 



