Sketch of the Life of the late Professor Edward Forbes. 39 



proper place at the convivial meetings, instituted a separate ordi- 

 nary. The first Natural History Section dinner happened to 

 take place in an inn of that town having the sign of the Red Lion ; 

 and ever afterwards the Natural History Club thus commenced 

 was designated the Red Lion Club. The Red Lions have had 

 their annual social reunions at every meeting of the Association 

 since that time ; and on these festive occasions, Forbes, who was 

 perpetual president, had always a scientific song of a playful and 

 humorous nature. Many of these songs were printed in the 

 ^ Literary Gazette.^ It is interesting to notice, that among his 

 papers was found an unfinished song, which he meant to have 

 given at the Liverpool Meeting, and which contains a clever 

 view of the geological dispute between Murchison and Sedgwick. 



During this year he seems to have taken up in an especial 

 manner the subject of fossil botany ; and we find, on the 10th 

 of May, that he proposed that the Botanical Society should print 

 a Catalogue of the Fossil Plants of Britain. The Society enter- 

 tained his proposal, and appointed him, along with his friends 

 Torrie and Cunningham, to prepare the list. 



He published this year ' Zoological Researches in Orkney 

 and Shetland,' and zoological papers in connexion with Goodsir. 

 In the ' Report of the Botanical Society's Proceedings' of the 

 12th of December 1839, and also on the 10th of December 1840, 

 he is entered still as Foreign Secretary, as Member of the Wer- 

 nerian Society, and as Lecturer on Natural History. 



In 1840 he pubUshed in the ^Edinburgh Student's Annual,' 

 a paper on the Distribution of the Mollusca of Britain, more 

 especially with reference to the Pleistocene Geology. 



In 1841 he published his beautiful Monograph on the British 

 Star-Fishes, and other Echinoderms. The accurate drawings of 

 the animals, and the exquisite tail-pieces and vignettes, were 

 drawn by himself on wood, so as to be ready for the woodcutter. 

 During my morning visits to him at this time, I found him 

 always busy with his pencil. 



On the 11th of March of this year he read to the Botanical 

 Society a paper on the Specific Value of the Antherine Appen- 

 dages of the genus Viola, in which he developed philosophical 

 views in regard to what he calls the law of undulation of cha- 

 racter in plants and animals. This law, he says, " has not been 

 properly studied by naturalists, nor its value rightly appreciated ; 

 otherwise we should not have that common scientific phenome- 

 non of imperfect descriptions presented as specific characters." 

 The paper embraced not merely a description of the characters 

 of the genus Viola, but an illustration of this law in the arrange- 

 ment of the species, and their geographical distribution. It con- 

 tains the germ of those views which he afterwards so fully enun- 

 ciated, relative to types and representations. 



