XXX NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
be considered a rich one by others, I do not think many more 
mosses remain to be found in the Pyrenees ; some there are 
undoubtedly, for there are many locaUties I had not time to 
examine, but it will perhaps be difficult to find a person who will 
search for them so carefully and patiently as I have done." 
In a later letter to Mr. Borrer (dated January 5, 1846), after 
four pages about mosses and the difficulty and cost of sending 
home his large boxes full of plants, he adds a postscript, which, 
as an echo of a now almost forgotten mania, it may be inter- 
esting to quote. "j^.-S. — I am afraid I shall find no one but 
yourself when I return to England who will deign to look at 
Pyrenean plants — you appear to be all going mad about 
Railways. I get hold sometimes of a Times or Morning 
Chrofiicle^ with Supplement on Supplement of Railway advertise- 
ments, and I turn over page after page until I am quite in 
despair of arriving at any nezvs. And when at last I come to 
something that looks readable, I still find it to consist almost 
entirely of accounts of Railway meetings, etc. You appear also 
to have undergone such strange metamorphoses ! pour exemple, 
when I read ' the Railway King is determined to have a narrow 
gauge into Cornwall,' it is scarcely credible that his said majesty 
is no other than my old acquaintance George Hudson, quondam 
Linen-draper of York ! Alack ! alack ! what will this world 
come to ! ! " 
He returned to England in April 1846, and at once made 
his long promised visit to Mr. W. Borrer at Henfield, Sussex. 
They explored together all the best collecting grounds in the 
district, after which Mr. Borrer took him to Tunbridge Wells and 
St. Leonard's Forest ; and, after a three weeks' delightful 
excursion, accompanied him to London, where Spruce had to 
make some arrangements as to the disposal of his Pyrenean 
collections. He had obtained in considerable quantities 
between 300 and 400 species of the choicer alpine plants, 
and these all had to be named, arranged into sets, and sent to 
the various purchasers in Great Britain and the Continent, a 
work which fully occupied him for the remainder of the year. 
In his favourite groups the Mosses and Hepaticse he had done 
for the Pyrenees what he had previously done for Teesdale — 
shown them to be exceptionally rich in these plants. Alist published 
by Leon Dufour in 1848 contained only 156 mosses and 13 
hepaticse, though of course many more may have been gathered 
by botanical collectors from other parts of Europe. Spruce at 
once raised the number to 386 mosses and 92 hepaticae. My 
friend Mr. M. B. Slater informs me, from an examination of the 
