Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 9 (1871).djvu/76

 64 BOTANICAL NE'WS.

pose that any statement in it was eiToneous. I greatly regret that I have attributed to you words that you have not published.

2nd. The " charge of neglect." The notice of Callitriclte truncata ap- peared in the number of the 'Journal of Botany' for May, 1870. At p. 505 of the third part of your ' Compendium' — and I beg you to notice that my review is of that part alone, and not as you imply (' Letter,' pp. 1, 4), of the whole book — under Rnbiis obliqwts you quote from that Jour- nal for "April 1870;" at p. 577, under Pinus Pinaster, you mention "June 1870;" and at p. 587, you record Sc'u-pns parvidus, from Dorset, where it was not discovered till July 1870. As the " Notes and Correc- tions" occupy pp. 606-615, they must have been printed after the date last mentioned, July 1870, and the non-insertion of CaUitriche truncata in those " notes and corrections," may f;iirly be held an " omission."

3rd. The "implied charge of piracy or plagiarism." The paragraph you quote from my review will not fairly bear any such interpretation. I used the word " requisition " — without a thought of the Franco- Prussian war— to imply that you had quoted, made use of, drawn upon the pages of the ' Journal of Botany ' in a legitimate and necessary manner. By " insufficiently quoted," I meant that, instead of giving volume and page, you had been often satisfied with such references as the following: — "Jour. Bot. no. 34" (instead of vol. iii. p. 328), "Journal of Botany, no. 69 " (instead of vol. vi. p. 263), " Journal of Botany, 1867 " (omitting references to pages 76 and 279), "Journal of Botany, no. 70" (instead of vol. vi.), occurring on pages 475, 530, 549, 609 of this part of the ' Compendium,' and noted down in rapidly going through it.

4th. A wider issue is here raised. Everybody knows that it is no part of the duties of a reviewer to completely elucidate all the doubts and difficulties of the author of the book under notice. The passage which you quote (' Letter,' p. 6) from my review was given by me as an example of your habitual neglect in this part of the ' Compendium ' to use all the means at your command for the clearing up of doubtful points. Your 'Letter 'makes this want of thoroughness still more evident; indeed, it would seem that, so far as the ultimate data, that is, the plants themselves, are concerned, this part of the ' Compendium ' is little or nothing more than a digest of or index to your own herbarium. There was a moral obligation on an author on British geographical botany to, as far as possible, get to the bottom of such a case as the alleged occun-ence of Hieracium prcncox in Britain, and my criticism was, and is, that you neglected to take the absolutely necessary step towards a solution of your difficulty. The existence in your herbarium of twenty-one specimens labelled by Schultz Hieracium jjr^scox, and one specimen of a lUeraclnm, collected by Mr. J. E. Bowman, at Dinas Bran, is entirely beside the question, which can be decided only by an examination of the specimen at the British ]\Iuseura, named by Schultz Hm-acium prrecox, and published by him in the ' Journal of Botany.' I must still hold to my opinion that such neglect has caused a real defect in the third part of the ' Compendium,' and ren- dered it less useful than it might have been.

Into the region of mere personalities I must decline to follow you. Of course I shall publish this letter.

Believe me, dear Mr. Watson,

Yours faithfully,

Henry Trim en.]

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