140 
NATURE NOTES 
but after such a day the night flies ! If any one of your friends 
is suffering from dyspepsia, from insomnia, from low spirits, 
or any nervous affection, recommend him or her to take up 
Nature Study and join the Selborne Society.” 
Professor Boulger, in asking the audience to accord their 
thanks to the President for his address, observed that they must 
all have enjoyed it very much, and that although it began, per- 
haps, in a somewhat alarming manner it contained a great deal 
that was consoling. According to the standard which he 
quoted from Professor Link, it was quite certain that there 
were very few botanists. They might remember that Darwin 
expressly denied to himself the title of a botanist. The author 
of the “ Fertilisation of Orchids ” and “ Insectivorous Plants ” 
was not a botanist, and, according to Professor Link’s decision, 
the author of “Contributions to the Knowledge of Seedlings” 
could not claim to be one. He remembered speaking some years 
ago to Sir Joseph Hooker as to the number of plants that a 
botanist might know, and he said — and he (Professor Boulger) 
was not surprised at his statement, although he (Sir Joseph 
Hooker) was still hard at work at 87 — that, as the years went 
on, as he got to know one new plant he forgot others. Robert 
Brown, who everyone would admit was a botanist, refused to 
examine plants that were not dried, preferring to shake them 
up with hot water in a test tube. The President of the Linnaean 
Society, in his Address on the previous Tuesday, dwelt on 
the limitations of Linnaeus in this very respect of an incomplete 
study of the plant. Linnaeus knew plants in their mature con- 
dition and paid no attention to their development. They 
might remember that Gilbert White rebuked one of his nephews 
for making use of a microscope, and pointed out that Linnaeus 
completed all his work without such an instrument. The whole 
point as to what constituted a botanist had altered, and a ques- 
tion their President had so frequently asked, as to why a thing 
was so, was one the botanist of the past never asked at all. 
The botanist of the past was quite satisfied with the facts of 
anatomy, and mature anatomy at that. But perhaps it was 
well that the great botanists, whom they recognised for their 
vast knowledge of plants, did not ask this question, because 
they devoted themselves to very useful knowledge in the early 
days of science. No one would question for a moment what 
their President had said, that there was not a single plant which 
they could say they knew. If there was one plant which might 
be supposed to have been studied since Darwin’s work it would 
be the primrose, and he was glad to say that in the forthcoming 
number of Nature Notes there would be another article on this 
object by Professor Weiss, of Manchester, who was in corres- 
pondence with Mr. Edward Bell, before his deatli, upon this ques- 
tion. It was certain that there were a great many points in the 
life- history of a common primrose that we did not know. As 
another instance, only a little while ago some one sent him a 
