Norwich and Halesworth , 1785-1820. xi 
could not look on blood without a feeling of faintness, or on 
a wax model of the human face with equanimity. 
That his entomological pursuits were, when still in his teens, 
appreciated by the veteran Kirby is evidenced by the latter 
having in 1805 dedicated to him and his brother a species of 
Apion with these words : ‘ I am indebted to an excellent 
naturalist, Mr. W. J. Hooker, of Norwich, who first discovered 
it, for this species. Many other nondescripts have been taken 
by him and his brother, Mr. J. Hooker, and I name this insect 
after them, as a memorial of my sense of their ability and 
exertions in the service of my favourite department of natural 
history V 
I do not know the age at which my father took up botany. 
The first evidence of his having done so is the fact, that he 
was the discoverer in Britain in 1805 of a very curious moss, 
Buxbaumia aphylla ; but it may be inferred from this and 
from his correspondence with Mr. Turner (which I possess) 
that he had at the age of twenty-one thoroughly studied not 
only the flowering plants, but the mosses, Hepaticae, lichens 1 2 , 
and fresh-water Algae of Norfolk. The Buxbaumia he took 
to his friend Dr. (afterwards Sir James) Smith 3 , of Norwich, 
the possessor of the Linnean herbarium, who advised him to 
send specimens to Mr. Dawson Turner, F.R.S. 4 , of Great 
1 Transactions of the Linnean Society, vol. ix (1808), p. 70. 
2 In a letter dated March, 1806, he mentions having a cabinet made for his 
collection of lichens with twenty-eight or thirty drawers, each two inches deep 
with thirty-six partitions, in which to place cards with mounted specimens. 
3 In 1808 Sir James Smith dedicated a genus of mosses to him in the following 
words : ‘ I have great pleasure in dedicating this genus ( Hookeria ) to my young 
friend, William Jackson Hooker, F.L.S., a most assiduous and intelligent botanist, 
already well known by his interesting discovery of Buxbaumia aphylla , as well as 
by his scientific drawings of Fuci for Mr. Turner s work ; and likely to be far 
more distinguished by his illustrations of the difficult genus Jungermannia , to 
which he has given particular attention’ (Trans. Linn. Soc. ix. 1808, 275). The 
plate accompanying Sir James Smith’s paper is of four species of the genus, signed 
‘ W. J. Hook, delink 
4 Mr. Turner was a partner in Gurney’s Bank, Great Yarmouth, of which his 
father was one of the founders. He was eminent as a scholar, botanist, antiquarian, 
and bibliophile. His collection of royal autographs and his illustrated copy of 
Blomfield’s Norfolk are in the British Museum. 
b 2 
