The Scottish Naturalist. 43 



History of Eastern Canada" (1873). He does not seem to have 

 worked at the fauna or flora of Scotland. 



Richard Parnell, M.D., died at Edinburgh towards the end 

 of the year 1882 ; but for many years previous to his death he had 

 so completely abandoned the field of Science that probably few, 

 save his personal friends, of the present generation of botanists 

 and ichthyologists, knew that he still lived in Edinburgh, or thought 

 of him but as of one of a bye-gone time. 



In early life he was an assiduous student of the fishes and of 

 the grasses of the district around the Firth of Forth ; and between 

 1832 and 1844 a number of articles from his pen were published 

 on the fishes, and two on the grasses of that district. These 

 papers appeared in the Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, and in 

 the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ; in Jar -dine 's 

 Magazine of Zoology and Botany ; in the Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History ; and in the Reports of the British Association. 



In them numerous species of fishes are recorded as new to the 

 British fauna ; and he enters more or less exhaustively into the 

 natural history and economical value of the species of most value 

 to man. 



He made a special study of Grasses, not only throughout Bri- 

 tain, " but also in the West Indies and the southern parts of North 

 America ; " and, besides the two articles already mentioned, he 

 wrote a valuable work on the " Grasses of Scotland," published in 

 1842. To this he added a second volume in 1845, and changed 

 the title of the whole work to " The Grasses of Britain." In this 

 work are carefully described the species and varieties of British 

 grasses, with figures of each and of dissections of the more im- 

 portant parts, drawn and engraved by himself. In it he proposed 

 a genus Bucetum, to include certain species of Festuca and names, 

 and describes as new several forms of Poa ; but his conclusions 

 have been regarded by later botanists as founded on characters of 

 too minute a kind to be followed. To prevent uncertainty in 

 regard to the forms described by him, he placed in the herbarium 

 of the Linnean Society in London " specimens of the original 

 grass plants employed in the descriptions and figures throughout 

 the entire work." Since 1845 he has not published anything, so 

 far as can be ascertained, in any branch of Natural Science. 



John Sadler, born on 3rd February, 1837, at Gibbleston, 

 Fifeshire; died on 9th December, 1882, in Edinburgh. For 



