WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKEE 9 
The Vincent strain is responsible for Joseph Hooker's 
great feehng for art. The power of draughtsmanship came 
also from the Cotmans through his mother, Maria Turner, for 
her grandmother (Dawson Turner's mother) was Ehzabeth 
Cotman, but the faculty thus transmitted was that of the 
copyist rather than the art-lover. 
William Jackson Hooker, inheriting love of the garden 
and books from his father, of art from his mother, was one of 
those who came into the world with the true spirit of the 
naturahst, a characteristic he transmitted in full measure to 
his son. Like all such, his love for the outdoor world took 
him into field and wood and intimacy with the life of nature ; 
in his school-days he collected insects and flowers and read 
books on natural history, and early got to know the flowers 
and mosses, the liverworts and Kchens and freshwater algse 
round his home in the heart of that county which possesses 
two-thirds of the species of British plants. No sordid cares, 
such as often overshadow a young man's future, prevented 
him from indulging his bent ; for at the age of four he 
inherited a competency from his cousin-godfather, WilHam 
Jackson of Canterbury, and as he grew up, he resolved to 
devote himself to travel and natural history. A keen sports- 
man, he made a fine collection of the birds of Norfolk ; close 
relations with Kirby and Spence ^ and Alexander Macleay ^ 
spurred his pursuit of entomology. 
His science and his scientific drawing both won early notice. 
When he was twenty he discovered, near Norwich, a species 
of moss (Buxbaumia ajphylla) previously unknown in Britain ; 
and three years later Sir J. E. Smith, in dedicating to him the 
genus Hookeria, made special mention of his illustrations of 
Dawson Turner's Fuci and of the difficult genus Jungermannia. 
The latter genus, be it noted, was an especial favourite of his. 
He pubHshed a monograph on the British Jungermannise 
1 William Kirby (1759-1850), entomologist, nephew of J. J. Kirby : edu- 
cated at Caius Coll., Cambridge, was an original Fellow of the Linnean Society 
1788. He published a famous Introduction to Entomology (1815-26) with 
William Spence (1783-1860), F.R.S. 1818, Hon. President of the Entomological 
Society, to which he bequeathed his collection of insects. 
* Alexander Macleay (1767-1848), F.R.S. 1809, entomologist and Colonial 
Statesman; was Colonial Secretary foi I^tw South Wales 1825-37. 
