The Scottish Naturalist. 5 



with Christian fortitude and patience, he died on 15th July, 

 1882. 



In August, 1856, he married Miss Agnes Low, of Aberdeen, 

 and is survived by her and by six of a family. 



Of him it may be truly said that he was born a naturalist. At 

 an early period he began to examine for himself the flora and 

 fauna, both terrestrial and marine, of his native district ; and to 

 keen and unwearied powers of observation in the field, he added 

 a wide and accurate knowledge of the literature of not the biolo- 

 gical sciences alone, but of the other natural sciences also, as well 

 as of a still wider range. The love and pursuit of truth as truth 

 was a marked characteristic of his disposition, not alone in his 

 researches in science, but in all things that he entered on. An- 

 other characteristic of a true naturalist, displayed by him in an 

 eminent degree, was the pleasure that he felt and showed in assist- 

 ing to the utmost of his power the progress of any student of 

 science, whether with advice, information, or aid of a more material 

 kind. To his instruction and assistance not a few of his pupils 

 can trace much of their success in later years, while their success 

 seemed to give him as great pleasure as if it had been his own. 

 To him any advance in the knowledge of truth was always a source 

 of pleasure, and not less so when made by another than when the 

 result of his own labours. 



He studied botany as a medical student in 1830, and again in 

 1833, under Dr. Knight, who was professor of Natural Philosophy 

 in Marischal College, but also lectured on Botany ; to his zeal as a 

 botanist Dr. Dickie bears testimony in his Botanist's Guide, but in 

 this case the pupil soon excelled his teacher. During the earlier 

 years of his life, Dr. Dickie was assiduous and unwearied in his 

 study of the flora around Aberdeen, and of the Braemar High- 

 lands ; and he added several flowering plants to the British flora, 

 as well as largely extended the knowledge of the species found in 

 the districts examined by him. Among the cryptogams his labours 

 were still more successful, and peculiarly so among the Alga. The 

 value of his researches among these plants is evidenced, among 

 other proofs, by the assistance from him acknowledged in Harvey's 

 Phycologia Bi-ittanica, Ralfs British Desmidece, and Smith's British 

 Diatomacece, as also by the fact that several species were named 

 by these authors in his honour (Staurastrum Dickiei, 6°r.), and 

 one genus (Dickieid). 



But besides increasing the number of known species, he devoted 

 considerable attention to the morphology and physiology of various 



