FORTUNE, ROBERT, a distinguished botanist and traveler, was b. in the co. of Berwick in 1813. After completing his education at a Scotch parish school, he served .an apprenticeship as a gardener, and obtained employment in the royal botanic garden at Edinburgh. There he had good opportunities of obtaining a sound knowledge of botany and the higher departments of his own profession, so far as they relate to the cultivation of subtropical and tropical plants under glass in a temperate climate, and these opportunities he turned to good account. He afterwards obtained a situation in the gardens at Chiswick, where his abilities and acquirements attracted the attention of London naturalists. He was, in 1842, sent by the botanical society of London to north ern China to make a botanical exploration of the country. His journey was most suc cessful, and he sent home a very large number of new and valuable plants. He gave an account of his adventures in his Three Years' Wanderings-in _Northern China, a work which places 'its author in the foremost rank of contemporary explorers. F., on his
return to England, acted for a time as curator of the physic garden at Chelsea. In 1842, he was appointed by the East India company to proceed to China to make investiga tions relative to the cultivation of the tea-plant; and on his return to England he pub lished a work entitled Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China. lie was afterwards employed by the American government to collect for them seeds, chiefly those of the tea-plant, in the east. The latest important work by F. was published in 1863. It is entitled redo and Pekin, a Narrative of a Journey to the Capitals of Japan and China. It devotes special. attention to the natural productions and agriculture of the districts visited.
Under the designation vagabonds, in the Scottish act 1579 c. 74, are included all who go about pretending to forZell fortunes. The punishment inflicted on them by the statute is scourging and burning on the ear.