It has interested me greatly.

I have sometimes loosely speculated on what nomenclature would come to, and concluded that it would be trinomial.

What a name a plant will formally bear with the author's name after genus (as some recommend), and after species and subspecies! It really seems one of the greatest questions which can be discussed for systematic Natural History.

How impartially Thomson adjusts the claims of "hair-splitters" and "lumpers"! I sincerely hope he will pretty often write reviews or essays.

It is an old subject of grief to me, formerly in Geology and of late in Zoology and Botany, that the very best men (excepting those who have to write principles and elements, etc.) read so little, and give up nearly their whole time to original work.