160 The Scottish Naturalist. 



acters, as well as characters that properly belong either to sub- 

 ordinate or superordinate grades. These things have not been 

 hitherto sufficiently attended to by systematists ; on the contrary 

 they have been wofully neglected. Hence the worse than unsatis- 

 factory condition of even the best systematic works in these 

 Sciences in respect of Method. 



ADDITIONS TO THE LIST OP SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



IN SCOTLAND. 



Edinburgh Practical Naturalists' Society. 

 Edinburgh Royal Physical Society. 

 St. Andrews Philosophical Society. 

 Dundee Naturalists' Field Club. 

 Montrose Scientific and Field Club. 

 Brechin Literary and Scientific Institution. 



Dr. Bayley Balfour, for some years Professor of Botany in the 

 University of Glasgow, has been appointed to the Sherardean 

 Professorship of Botany in the University of Oxford. Dr. Balfour's 

 work in the positions he has already held has been such that the 

 University to which he now goes is to be congratulated on securing 

 his services. 



OBITUAKY. 



JOHN HUTTON BALFOUR, M.D., F.R.S. 



ON the nth February, 1884, there died one of the last sur- 

 vivors of the scientific worthies to whom Edinburgh 

 University owes much of the prosperity and renown as a medical 

 school that it now so worthily enjoys. He may be said to be 

 almost the last of the former generation of botanists, whose names 

 to us are as household words, and who worked well in their day 

 and generation in spreading the love of scientific pursuits through 

 the land. 



Born on 15th September, 1808, in Edinburgh, he was educated 

 as a boy in the High School. His studies were afterwards con- 

 tinued in the Universities of Edinburgh and of St. Andrews ; and 

 he took the degrees of A.M. and M.D. in the former of these 

 Universities. For a time he seems to have studied with the in- 

 tention of becoming a clergyman ; but he after a time commenced 

 medical practice in Edinburgh, having previously pursued his 

 education in medicine for some time on the Continent. While in 

 practice he continued to prosecute his botanical studies also, to 



