The Scottish Naturalist. 41 



out, and have almost, if not quite, eradicated it. In addition to the common 

 Lastreas and Athyrium, which abound elsewhere in the neighbourhood, Poly- 

 podium Dryopteris, Asplenium Tnchomanes, and Cystopteris fragilis, are con- 

 fined to the railway. Naturally enough they occur only in the cuttings, of 

 which there are three, the longest of them, where the ferns are found in greatest 

 abundance, being about midway between Cargill and Woodside Stations. The 

 ditches in these cuttings are all more or less wet, and the ferns grow in the 

 retaining walls, which are built of sandstone from a quarry in the district. I 

 am not so much surprised at the "Maiden-hair" and the Bladder- fern being 

 found in such places, for they are in a manner ubiquitous, though Mr. Hopkirk 

 assures me they are not found within miles of the railway, but where did the 

 "Oak-leaf" and the "Harts-tongue" come from? I cannot think that 

 "ballast," that capricious distributor of phanerogamous plants has had any- 

 thing to do with the matter. 



A. Sturrock. 

 Rattray, 27/^ November, 1882. 



OBITUARY. 



TOURING the year 1882 several Scottish biologists died. They 

 r^ were : — Andrew Leith Adams, Professor of Natural His- 

 tory in the University of Cork ; George Dickie, ex-Professor of 

 Botany in the University of Aberdeen ; Richard Parnell, M.D. ; 

 John Sadler, Curator of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden ; and 

 Sir C. Wyville Thomson, Professor of Natural History in the 

 University of Edinburgh. 



On 14th January, 1883, died William A. Forbes, who, though 

 less closely connected with Scotland, may yet be included in this 

 obituary. An account of the life and labours of f Dr. Dickie will 

 be found in the beginning of this volume ; a brief sketch of each 

 of the others named follows below. 



Andrew Leith Adams, A.M., M.D., was a graduate of the 

 University of Aberdeen. His father was a medical practitioner in 

 the valley of the Dee, at Banchory Ternan, not far from Aberdeen. 

 Dr. Adams, senior, was himself an accomplished botanist, though 

 he confined his published writings on that science to additions to 

 the works of others, e.g., in Murray's Northern Flora. His name 

 is also frequently quoted in Dickie's Botanist's Guide, as the autho- 

 rity for localities of many of the rarer plants of the north-east of 

 Scotland. Doubtless from him his son derived in great part his 

 strong love for Natural Science. 



Dr. A. L. Adams, on the completion of his medical studies, 



