kins, nearly half the flowers in the upper part of the catkin being male, and the rest female. It was found by himself at Duckinfield near Stockport, in Cheshire.
April 7.
Read a Letter addressed to the Secretary by the Rev. Patrick Keith, F.L.S., of which the following is a copy:
Dear Sir, Bethersden, Ashford, Kent, March 30, 1818.
In my Paper on the subject of the Developement of the Seminal Germ, published in the last volume[1] of the Society's Transactions, I find that I have unhappily exhibited an incorrect and imperfect representation of Mr. T. A. Knight's hypothesis on the same subject. I have said that "the grand defect of Mr. Knight's hypothesis is, that it does not at all account for the ascent of the plumelet;" a statement that proves to be erroneous; since the fact is, that Mr. Knight's hypothesis does account for the ascent of the plumelet as well as for the descent of the radicle, though the circumstance (I am sorry to say) had completely escaped my recollection at the time I wrote my Paper: not that I had merely glanced at Mr. Knight's hypothesis, and then, after a long interval, undertaken a refutation of it from memory; but that the notes which I did take from Mr. Knight's Paper at the time I read and perused it, contained, by some unaccountable oversight, nothing whatever on the subject of the ascent of the plumelet: I am desirous, therefore, that this declaration and admission of error on my part should appear in the next volume of the Society's Transactions, that the reparation which I now offer to Mr. Knight may be commensurate, as much as possible, with the injury he has sustained. I am, &c.
To A. MacLeay, Esq. P. Keith.
- ↑ Page 252.
