70 
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OP THE HERBARIUM. 
Giles Munby was born in 1813 at York, and was the youngest 
of the three sons of Joseph Munby, of St. Andrewgate House, 
York. Joseph Munby belonged to a family which had been settled 
at Sutton St. James, in Holderness, since the time of Elizabeth. 
He, however, after being articled to the Town Clerk of Hull, 
removed to York, and practised there successfully as a lawyer ; 
holding also certain local offices, as, for instance, that of Under 
Sheriff of the County. He was a man of some literary talent. 
Portions of an unpublished poem of his on York were printed a 
few years ago in “ Notes and Queries.” His son Giles was 
educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he obtained 
amongst other things the gold medal for botanical research, and 
where he attended the clinical lectures of the University, with a 
view of becoming a physician. From there he went to Paris, 
and studied there for three years (1834-36) under various medical 
professors, obtaining experience and practice in surgery at the 
Hospital of La Pitie. Meanwhile his reputation as a botanist had 
been growing, insomuch that in December, 1836, at the age of 
twenty-three, he was appointed apparently without any effort of 
his own, to be Professeur de Botanique au Musee Pyreneen de St. 
Bertrand de Comminges in the Haute Garonne. He went to reside 
there accordingly, and held his appointment for three or four 
years, making himself popular at St. Bertrand and exploring the 
country for botanical purposes from Pau and Tarbes to Prades 
and Perpignan, in company with Frenchmen and Englishmen of 
like tastes with himself. He still, however, desired to qualify as 
M.D., and to that end he removed (after a farewell dinner given 
to him by the Municipality of St. Bertrand) to Montpellier, then 
one of the best medical schools on the continent, but his love of 
botany and adventure again led him away from medicine. He 
crossed over to Algeria on a shooting excursion, and liked that 
country so well that he eventually settled there. At Oran he 
married a daughter of the British Consul, Mr. Welsford. For 
many years he resided near Oran, at his own country house 
La Senia, acting as British Vice-Consul after Mr. Welsford's death, 
but occupying himself chiefly in studying the native flora, and in 
shooting and botanizing in the interior. 
He spoke Arabic as well as French and Spanish, and this, 
together with his medical skill, gave him much influence over the 
Arabs, who came to him for gratuitous advice, and looked upon 
him as an Hakim. Such an influence was of great use to a 
