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XII. 
ADDRESS. 
SOME HERTFORDSHIRE NATURALISTS AND THEIR WORK. 
By the President, B. Daydon Jackson, F.L.S., General Secretary 
of the Linnean Society. 
Delivered at the Anniversary Meeting at Watford, ls£ March , 1904. 
Ladies and Gentlemen,— 
You will not expect me to give you any summary of the work 
of the Society during the past year, as the reports of the Secretaries 
and of the Treasurer accomplish that most efficiently. I will 
therefore ask your attention for a short time this evening to an 
account of “Some Hertfordshire Naturalists and their Work,” by 
that meaning naturalists who have contributed to our knowledge 
of the flora or fauna of the county, and not necessarily those who 
have been born within its boundaries. 
The subject of my address to you is one which has had great 
fascination for me during more than thirty years, and if I should 
have the good fortune to convey to you any part of the charm 
which it has for me, I shall feel that my efforts have not been 
unrewarded. I propose to rapidly pass in review some of the bye- 
gone naturalists who have contributed to our present knowledge of 
the plants of our county, for I dare not attempt the unfamiliar 
ground of the zoology as well as the botany of Hertfordshire other 
than by a mere occasional reference. This will also enable me to 
add a few records which have still to be placed on the printed pages 
of our ‘ Transactions,’ having hitherto escaped modern recognition. 
We naturally begin with the “Father of English Botany,” 
William Turner. Born at Morpeth about 1510, he resided at 
Cambridge from about the year 1527 to 1538, filling several offices 
in his college, Pembroke Hall, and in the last-named year he 
published the first work of any botanical merit which appeared in 
this country, the 1 Libellus de re herbaria novus.’ Soon after this 
he went abroad, spent some time in Italy, came back through 
Switzerland, where he visited Conrad Gesner at Zurich, and in 
travelling through Germany stayed at Cologne. He then seems to 
have passed into the Netherlands and to have explored the islands 
lying off the Friesland coast. He had incurred the displeasure 
of Henry VIII by his writings on religious topics, and his books 
had been prohibited by that monarch, on whose death, and the 
subsequent accession of Edward VI, he came home again, and soon 
