236 



The Scottish Naturalist. 



Dundee Naturalists' Society: Fiftli and Sixth Annual Reports, being for 

 tlie years 1877-79. Dundee. 1879. 8vo, pp. 20. 



We are glad to be able to congratulate this Society on its flourishing con- 

 dition, as evidenced by these rather brief reports. In regard to the Society's 

 museum, the Council "would like to urge upon members the claims of the 

 museum for a share of their attention and help. The desire is to make it 

 thoroughly local and educational in character ; to contain, not a heterogeneous 

 collection gathered from all parts of the earth, but rather a number of repre- 

 sentative specimens of the natural products of the district." 



This sentence assures us that the Dundee Naturalists understand what a 

 local museum should be, — a subject regarding which much ignorance exists, 

 even amongst those who should know better. We observe that the Council 

 has also brought before the Society the desirability of having premises of its 

 own. This is also a good suggestion, and ought to be quite feasible in such 

 a wealthy town as Dundee. 



History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, 1876-78. 8vo, Alnwick : 



1879. 



The concluding part of the volume for 1876-78 of the proceedings of this 

 long-established club has come to hand, and contains the usual number of in- 

 teresting papers and notes on the various branches of natural science, as well 

 as archaeological communications and reports of the excursions. Sir Walter 

 Elliot's ' Account of the Plague of Field-mice, in the Border Farms, in 1876- 

 77,' is specially worth noting. 



VAEIOUS NOTES. 



The Fifih Annual Conference of the Cryptogamic Society of Scotland was 

 held at Forres in September last, and was in every way successful. In another 

 place will be found a note of some of the rarer species of fungi found during 

 the excursions. The next Conference is to be held in Glasgow towards the 

 end of next September, under the presidency of the well-known lichenologist, 

 Dr James Stirton, and promises to be highly interesting. There will be a 

 show of fungi and other cryptogamic plants. 



The announcement of the death of Mr Thomas Chapman will have caused 

 much regret to his numerous friends in Scotland and England. An English- 

 man by birth, he was yet so long settled in Glasgow, that he was to all pur- 

 poses a Scottish Naturalist, and long and deservedly occupied a prominent 

 position as such. No one, we believe, had a more intimate acquaintance 

 with the lepidoptera of Clydesdale, and other districts of the west of Scot- 

 land ; and to him is due much of the information relating to these districts, 

 incorporated in "The Lepidoptera of Scotland," at present being published in 

 this magazine. Of late years Mr Chapman had turned his attention more to 

 exotic insects, especially African and Australian lepidoptera, and with equal 

 success. In other ways Mr Chapman did much to promote the study of 

 natural science in the west of Scotland. He died on August 27tli, in his sixty- 

 third year. 



