466 ON SPECIES 
were species that it could be cynically said by one of the older 
school that a species was anything that had received a specific 
name. Hence; in the botanist's phrase, it was better to reduce 
one bad species than to make a score of new ones. 
The sense of this was strong upon Hooker even in his 
student days, the days of botanical tramps through the British 
Isles ; as he writes to Harvey in 1845 about a much disputed 
variety of heath found in Ireland and in Spain : 
Erica McKayi I never thought distinct from tetralix 
and have many dried intermediate states. Many a battle 
I had with Balfour in Connemara on the subject ; he would 
never own it a variety, even when I showed him living 
specimens. I did not and do not give in to Bentham's 
verdict, as he knows well, who retains the species in con- 
sideration of the glabrous ovarium. 
This view of species was only accentuated with time. The 
more material he worked over, the greater the amount of 
variability found. Conversely, to establish the limits of a 
species properly, required the examination of a vast amount 
of material. As he begins the Indian Flora with T. Thomson, 
where his aim is ' to introduce some order into the confused 
mass of bad genera,' he tells Bentham (October 15, 1852) : 
Except for an enormous mass of species and specimens 
it would be impossible to come to a right conclusion as to 
their limits, yet the species are very distinct indeed when 
species, however close they run to one another ; it is very 
pretty to see different species running into analogous varieties 
and yet holding their characters. 
So he gets read}- for Col. Munro, the authority on grasses, 
* a huge collection of duplicates, which will be absolutely 
essential in working up such genera as Arundinella:'' (1853.) 
It is the same with the Laurels : 
Nees has certainly overdone the species greatly, but that 
is not to be wondered at, or visited severely, as it is impossible 
to do them satisfactorily without flowers, fruits, and leaves, 
and a host of specimens. (To Bentham, September 3, 1854.) 
