204 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
intervals, occasionally giving the work of a whole 
month in a single short paragraph. Each move- 
ment from one place to another is regularly 
entered under its proper date, and the little book 
is thus a diary of great value in fixing his locality 
at any given time. 
Besides these scanty materials, he carefully 
recorded every species of plant which he collected, 
its genus and natural order, and very frequently its 
specific name also ; and always with a more or less 
detailed botanical description of it, made, when 
possible, from the freshly gathered specimens. 
But what is of more use for our present purpose 
are the numerous letters written to Sir William 
Hooker, the Director of Kew Gardens ; to Mr. 
George Bentham, the eminent botanist who had so 
kindly undertaken to receive his plants, and who 
also named them and distributed them to the 
various subscribers ; and lastly, to his Yorkshire 
friend and neighbour, the late Mr. John Teasdale. 
These letters give us a vivid picture both of his 
botanical work and of his daily life, as well as of 
the more notable incidents and dangers of his 
various journeys. From these various sources I 
have endeavoured to construct a connected account 
of his travels and his work, though it is necessarily 
more or less imperfect, while occasionally it has 
been difficult to avoid partial repetitions. 
An examination of the small diary shows how 
systematically and continuously Spruce explored 
the country round the city of Manaos. On the 
average he went out collecting every other day, 
the intervening day being occupied in preparing 
and drying, describing and cataloguing the speci- 
