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of dried plants alone, but the collections of Gaspard Bauhin and Felix Platter are exceptions in including figures as well as actual specimens. In the Platter herbarium there are 650 woodcuts; most of them are from well known herbals of the period, but there is also a rough but specially interesting set of pictures, which appear to be proofs taken from the blocks prepared by Leonhard Fuchs for a new edition of his herbal, which was destined to remain unpublished.

Felix Platter did not confine himself to botany: he was an enthusiastic collector of natural and artistic treasures of all kinds, and foreigners were accustomed to visit his "cabinet" for instruction and entertainment. Those in whose lives Michel, Sieur de Montaigne, plays a part, must feel a glow of pleasure in realising that it was Platter's herbarium which was examined with admiration by Montaigne when he passed through Basle in 1580 on his way to Italy. An herbarium was evidently a new toy to him. He writes of "un livre de simples... au lieu que les autres font peindre les herbes selon leurs couleurs, lui a trouvé l'art de les coller toutes naturelles et proprement sur le papier." He notes with surprise that the pages could be turned over without the plants dropping out, and that some of them were actually more than twenty years old.

The ninth folio, which contains illustrations alone, seems to be the last survivor out of a set of similar volumes, of which no less than twenty-three have been lost. Perhaps this rare treasure trove will reward future search. The surviving volume includes 667 woodcuts, mostly derived from printed herbals, and a few copperplate etchings. There are also watercolour drawings, which are of peculiar interest, since they include a number which Dr. Rytz recognised at once as corresponding closely to the woodcuts by Hans Weiditz in the great Herbarum Vivae Icones of Otto Brunfels (1530) - a book which marks the beginning of a new era in plant illustration, and which has been elected for its handstand position by the authoritative work of D.T. A. Prague of the New Herbarium (Jour. Bot., Bot. Soc., Bot.), vol. 40, 1926. Could it be that these watercolour drawings are in actual myriads of their own, to be found in the herbarium?