224 MUSEUM NOTES
I trust that if not by any means a model collection, it will at
any rate form a portion of the Essex Herbarium in the new
"Essex County Museum of Natural History," which we hope
will very soon be, if the last, not the least of our Essex
Institutions.
J. C. Shenstone.
Colchester, February, 1899.
III.—NOTES ON A SMALL ESSEX HERBARIUM.
By a series of happy circumstances the collection of dried
plants made by the late Miss Doubleday, of Halstead, in this
county, recently fell into my hands. An interesting feature of
these well-cared for specimens is that many of them are of local
origin, and a number of those from Epping are from the Her-
barium of, or procured by, the late John Ray, of Epping—not the
celebrated Essex naturalist of that name, but a collector of whom
little is known, but that he lived a century and a half later.1
Professor Boulger and I went most carefully through the
collection, and picked out all the Essex specimens (in number
200, of which 151 are marked as having been collected by
"J. Ray," nearly all in the Epping Forest district). I have had
pleasure in putting them at Mr. Cole's disposal.
One is tempted to mention a peculiarity about the sheets
upon which the plants, including those collected by J. Ray, are
mounted. They have originally been most carefully inscribed
with the name, locality, and date, down to the day of the month,
upon which they were collected. On looking at them, however,
it will be noticed that in every case the year has been scratched
out most neatly, but yet effectually, and even when John Ray's
label had been stuck on the paper, this has been treated in the
same way. Only two dates (1841 and 1842), on loose labels of
the latter kind have not shared the fate that befell the many
hundreds of their fellows. I forbear from any comment upon
the subject. Until these survivors among the numbers were
found, we could only roughly judge of the date of the collection
by the water-marks on the paper that indicated 1840.
Wilfred Mark Webb.
Hammersmith, October, 1899.
1 We have been unable to obtain any particulars of J. Ray, of Epping, beyond the reference
in Gibson's Flora, to the following effect :—"J. R...Ray, John, formerly of Epping—List of
Plants near Epping, mostly included in H. Doubleday's list." We shall be glad to have any
further information—Ed.