DR DOUGLAS'S ADDRESS. 249 



at Cheek-Law, near Dunso, who has drawn from its lurking place in 

 Dulaw Dean the Herniaria glabra, a small procumbent plant, not 

 only new to Berwickshire, but to the Scottish Flora, and equally re- 

 markable for its occurrence in one solitary spot in England. The 

 fact that two very interesting additions to the phenogamic Flora of the 

 district have been made during the last year, is an additional incen- 

 tive, were any such wanting, for continued exertion, which will doubt- 

 less not go unrewarded. 



That, as a branch of education, Natural History should not be more 

 taught in our Schools and Academies, is a subject of great regret. 

 Teachers would find it highly useful in the moral and intellectual train- 

 ing of children to call their observant faculties into action, and to point 

 out to their opening minds the beautiful and wonderful adaptation of 

 means to particular ends, which are constantly to be observed in the 

 works of creation. It cannot surely be undeserving the attention of 

 man to investigate and enquire into the nature, and uses of objects, 

 which the Almighty has in his infinite wisdom thought fit to call into 

 existence. Habits of observation and discrimination are those which 

 teachers so constantly labour to instil into their pupils, and from no 

 study would they derive more assistance in forming their minds than 

 from Natural History, a science wholly dependent on accuracy of ob- 

 servation and correctness of discrimination. To many men it has 

 through life been matter of deep regret, that less attention had been 

 paid to their early education in this respect. Men are often placed in 

 circumstances in which such knowledge would not only prove agreeable 

 but highly advantageous to them ; and had Natural History no other 

 charm, it tends to raise the thoughts and exalt the mind of man from 

 grovelling pursuits to a contemplation of the Author, not only of his 

 own existence, but of the whole material universe. 



NOTE The naked nudibraachial mollusk alluded to in p. 244, i described 

 in Dr Johnston's MSS. under the name of Polycera Landis/antice, but it is pro- 

 bably a variety of the Polycera cristata of Alder in the Annals of Natural His- 

 tory, vol. vi. p. 340, pi. he. fig. 10, 11 ; the description of which was not pub- 

 lished at the date of the Club's meeting. 



