196 The Scottish Naturalist. 



plants in elegant Latin. Another minister of the same kind was 

 Dr. Burgess of Kirkmichael, in Dumfriesshire, who at the begin- 

 ning of this century was a zealous correspondent of Professor Hope 

 of Edinburgh, and did much to put the lichen flora of Scotland in 

 a more satisfactory condition. In one of his letters, which I 

 happen to possess, he says to Professor Hope that if some kind 

 patron should appoint him to a parish in another part of the 

 country, where he could have an opportunity of further pursuing 

 his researches among flowerless plants, he would have nothing 

 more to desire in this world. Nor must the name of Dr. Colin 

 Smith of Inverary be omitted from the list of clerical pioneers o; 

 Scottish Cryptogamic Botany. This accomplished minister, who 

 was at the head of the Celtic scholars of his day, and contributed 

 extensively to Celtic literature, was an ardent and successful 

 collector of mosses, and added many rare species to the list of 

 these interesting plants in Scotland. We have still surviving at 

 very advanced ages, showing the extreme healthiness of such 

 pursuits, two clergymen of the Church of England, whose names 

 occupy the foremost place in their respective departments. I have 

 only to mention Mr. Berkeley and Mr. Leighton, veterans of 

 science, who were famous when most of us were in long clothes, 

 to call up before your imagination a long list of services rendered 

 by these clergymen in the special branches of fungi and lichens, 

 which cannot be overestimated. And in our own country we are 

 proud to number among the members of our society three clergy- 

 men of the Church of Scotland who have given invaluable help in 

 extending the knowledge of this subject. To the Rev. John 

 Stevenson of Glamis, our honorary secretary, we are indebted for 

 the most learned, accurate, and comprehensive work on Scottish 

 fungi that has yet appeared ; while his work on the Hymen- 

 omycetes is a perfect model of what such monographs should be. 

 Clergymen therefore, whatever they may have been in other 

 departments of science, have not been obstructive and obscur- 

 antist in regard to this particular department ; and I feel highly 

 honoured to be permitted to walk in the footsteps of such men. 



Your election of me as your president is also significant of the 

 fact that no class of men need so much the help of a scientific 

 study that will bring them into contact with material and concrete 

 things as those who are principally engaged amongst spiritual 

 and abstract things. Theologians are now beginning to realise, 



