DR JOHNSTON'S ADDRESS. 9 



figured in the Magazine of Natural History for the present year [1832] 

 may perhaps be excused, since the subjects of them were procured in 

 Berwick Bay. The Praniza fuscata is a minute crustaceous insect, and 

 the Eolis rufibranchialis a molluscum new to naturalists ; and the Pla- 

 naria cornuta appears to be likewise an acquisition to the list of British 

 worms. They afford a small sample of the many remarkable inverte- 

 brates that inhabit our shores, and which have found, to this day, no one 

 willing to make known their singular forms and structure, that, through 

 the medium of his intelligent creature, they may praise their Creator* 

 and evidence still farther the endless variety in his works and wisdom 

 " Let the heaven and earth praise Him," says the Psalmist, " the seas, 

 and every thing that moveth therein." 



Plants. I turn now with pleasure to the vegetable kingdom ; for 

 here I have to speak of others' discoveries, and not of my own. It 

 might, perhaps, be presumed that, because a flora of the district had been 

 so recently published, there was little here to reward the student ; but 

 the fact is greatly otherwise : and I esteem the numerous discoveries 

 which have been made of species, and of new stations for the rarer ones, 

 as a proof of the utility of our Club ; for the zeal which led you on was 

 surely kept alive by the knowledge that there were around you "some who 

 interested themselves in your researches, and were ready to give you 

 their meed of approbation and applause. The sternest stoic of us all, 

 it has been observed, wishes at least for some one to enter into his views 

 and feelings, and confirm him in the opinion which he entertains of his 

 favourite pursuits. 



Since the publication of my Flora of Berwick, there has been added, 

 exclusive of some naturalized or recently imported species, to the wild 

 plants of Berwickshire, 20 dicotyledonous, 8 monocotyledonous, and 1 8 

 cryptogamic species, the names, stations, and discoverers of which are 

 inserted in your minutes. By much the most interesting of these, whe- 

 ther we consider it in reference to its beauty or rarity, is the Saxifraga 

 Hirculus l discovered in the parish of Langton, by our ingenious col- 

 league, Mr Thomas Brown. Only two stations for this saxifrage have 

 been recorded in our British floras, and both are in the south of Eng- 

 land ; so that Mr Brown has had the good fortune and good fortune 

 never waits but on the industrious and intelligent to make one of the 

 most interesting additions to the Flora Scotica that has been made of late 

 years. Another addition to that flora is due to Misses Bell and Miss 

 Hunter, who have found, for the first time in Scotland, the Sison Amo- 

 mum growing at the Hirsel Lough, near Coldstream ; and these ladies 

 deserve our best thanks for their contributions, and still more for their 

 devotion to botany ; as their example and success cannot fail to recom- 



1 " Hirculus, a diminutive from hircus, a goat. Now look at the hair which beard* 

 our plant, and you will see why Linnaeus calls it a ' little goat.' It is jut like that happy 

 playful fancy which he possessed so remarkably." ,Vr BrotcM, in lift. 



