Page:Makers of British botany.djvu/276

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MILES JOSEPH BERKELEY

collection. This tendency was to some extent fostered at Rugby, but the influence exercised by Professor Henslow during Berkeley's time at Cambridge, and the opportunities of studying the progress of research made in the various branches of Natural History, were the chief factors that determined Berkeley to enter seriously on the study of what at the time was styled Natural History.

His first published paper was "On new species of Modiola and Serpula" (Zoological Journal, 1828). It was followed by "On the internal structure of Helicolimax Lamarckii"; "On Dentalium subulatum"; "On the animals of Voluta and Assiminia" (idem 1832-34); and "On British Serpulae" and "Dreissenia polymorpha" (Magazine of Natural History, 1834–36).

A series of beautifully executed coloured drawings and dissections, illustrating Berkeley's zoological studies, may be seen at the Herbarium, Kew. Although all Berkeley's publications up to this time dealt with zoological subjects, yet the study of Botany had been by no means neglected, and about this time having made the acquaintance of Dr Harvey of Dublin, Dr Greville of Edinburgh, the author of Scottish Cryptogamic Flora, and of Captain Carmichael of Appin, N.B., a trio of the most celebrated cryptogamists of the age, Berkeley forsook the serious study of zoological subjects, and devoted the whole of his leisure time to the lower forms of plant life. Living at Margate, the marine algae naturally attracted Berkeley's attention, and in 1833 he published his Gleanings of British Algae, consisting of a series of detailed investigations on the structure of the minute and obscure forms of marine and freshwater species. This work, illustrated by twenty coloured plates, was originally intended to be included in the supplement to Dr Greville's Scottish Cryptogamic Flora, but in consequence of the discontinuance of that most excellent work, was issued as an independent booklet.

From the first Berkeley was deeply interested in the fungi, and practically all his subsequent work was devoted to this group of plants, and although well versed in general Cryptogamic Botany, it was in the field of Mycology that his laurels were