BIOGRAPHY 
XXXI 
latest work on the Mosses of France, that 17 of the species 
discovered by Spruce were absolutely new to science, and that 
73 more had never previously been gathered in the Pyrenees. 
Of the Hepaticse he described four species as altogether new, 
while a still larger proportion than of the mosses were new to 
the Pyrenees, and of these a considerable number were only 
known elsewhere in our own islands, which are the richest part 
of Europe in this group. 
After the flowering plants had been distributed, he began 
his elaborate work — The Musci and HepaticcB of the Fyrefiees, 
which occupied all his spare time during the next two years, and 
was only published after his departure for South America. It 
occupies 114 pages of the Transactio?is of the Botanical Society 
of Edinburgh, and besides giving the names of all the species 
carefully identified, describes fully all that were new or doubtful, 
and gives particulars of the local and geographical distribution 
of each. He had already given a more general account of his 
whole excursion in two letters to Sir William Hooker, which 
were published in the Lo?ido?i Journal of Botany for 1846, 
under the title Notes on the Botany of the Pyrenees. These are 
very interesting reading for every lover of plants, besides giving 
an excellent idea of Pyrenean scenery and inhabitants. During 
this visit to France he made the acquaintance of several botanists, 
and from them and from Bruch, with whom he had been 
corresponding for some years, he received such a quantity of 
mosses that he was able to inform Mr. Borrer in 1846 that his 
European mosses were nearly complete, and he was thus 
enabled, by comparison with authentic specimens, to name all 
the known species in his Pyrenean collections. 
His thorough knowledge of the British species and his habits 
of carefully verifying every point in the descriptions of his pre- 
decessors, enabled him to detect errors which had been long 
overlooked. Mr. Borrer had sent him a copy of Bridel's later 
description of Hypnum catenulatu7n^ on which Spruce remarks : 
" I find his description to be concocted of Hooker and Taylor's, 
Schwaegrichen's, and his own in Muscol. Recent., combining the 
errors of all three ! I have before heard of this trick of 
Bridel's, and also of his drawing up descriptions from figures 
alone." And in a succeeding letter (October 20, 1846), he 
writes about some moss which had got mixed up with other 
species, and after tracing out the sources of the confusion 
between several eminent botanists, he adds : " Here is a pretty 
mess — there seems to have been a contest between Schwaegrichen, 
Bruch, e.a., which of them could most excel in getting the wrong 
