Mottram, Glossop, Tintwistle, &c., and has both monthly meetings and "bye-meetings;" the Rochdale district comprises Rochdale, Middleton, Milnrow, Todmorden, Harpurhey, &c.; the Bredbury district includes Stockport, Disley, Hatherlow, &c.; and so with the others. The Prestwich local society, the nearest, and in many respects the most interesting to Manchester, has been in existence thirty-eight years, having been established September 11th, 1820. (Now, of course, extended to sixty-two.) Gradually, after this fresh start, the whole of the country lying north-west, north, and north-east of Manchester became animated with the love of botany; as far even as from Disley and Todmorden came the echo of the new music; and under the successive presidentships (after John Dewhurst's) of Edward Hobson, the great bryologist, then of John Horsefield, and subsequently of James Percival, a man of extraordinary information, both in accuracy and amount, the meetings have gone on uninterruptedly and happily, and never were they more satisfactory than at the present moment. The list for 1858, printed along with the rules, announces twenty-six of the grand general gatherings, or a meeting every fortnight, and fifteen different places of assembly. The most successful meetings have been at Prestwich, Ashton-under-Lyne, Blackley, Bury, Rochdale, Middleton, Oldham, Whitefield, Eccles, Ringley, Radcliffe, and Harpurhey; and the best attended, the last year or two, those held at Prestwich, Whitefield, and Bury. The meetings, as at the beginning, are held upon the Sunday afternoon, at some respectable tavern, such being the only place where working men can assemble inexpensively; and though this may seem to some persons detrimental to good order and sobriety, no religious service was ever more decorously conducted. Working men can assemble at a tavern, and not abuse it, quite as well as gentlemen; in either case, all depends on the ideas they carry in with them. It is the peculiar characteristic of intelligent delight in the objects of nature, that, with very rare exceptions, it brings with it a moral and harmonising influence on the heart, so that men who gather together as our Lancashire botanists do, albeit in a public-house and on a Sunday, are the most likely of all in their station of life, to conduct themselves in a manner becoming intelligent beings. When the churchwardens or other peace-officers think proper to walk in, as sometimes happens, they always express themselves satisfied. Twice only, during upwards of seventy years, have the meetings been interfered with by the authorities, and in neither case has it been from disapproval of them, or because of misconduct on the part of the members. The second occasion, which alone had notoriety, fell in November, 1850, when the men had assembled, as often before, at the "Ostrich," in Rooden Lane. The landlord of the house had made himself obnoxious to the law, but in such a way, whatever it