the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club. 1 7 



since described at length in the Transactions of the Natural 

 History Society of Newcastle* ; and I flatter myself that no 

 department of the natural history of Berwickshire is now so 

 well known as this, in reference to species : their habits and 

 economy require for illustration a person of more uninter- 

 rupted leisure. Our Actiniae, or animal flowers, on which I 

 read a separate paper, are remarkably interesting. I know 

 no marine worm that, for beauty and elegance, can be com- 

 pared with the Actinia plumosa ; and such of you as had the 

 opportunity of seeing the specimen that 1 preserved for some 

 time alive, will recall with pleasure the splendid spectacle. 

 Actinia Tuediaef was still more interesting, to me at least, for 

 the species was new to naturalists, and, fortunately, possessed 

 characters that distinguished it decidedly from every other. 

 The Actinia coccmea and viduata of Muller are also denizens 

 of our shores ; but the first was considered as a smooth variety 

 of the senilis, and the other a small streaked variety of the 

 equina. 



A passing notice of some invertebrates which I have de- 

 scribed and figured in the Magazine of Natural History for 

 the present year [1832] may perhaps be excused, since the 

 subjects of them were procured in Berwick Bay. The 

 Praniza fuscata [Vol. V. p. 521.] is a minute crustaceous 

 insect, and the E'olis rufibranchialis [Vol. V. p. 428.], a mol- 

 luscum new to naturalists ; and the Planaria cornuta [Vol. V. 

 p. 344.] appears to be likewise an acquisition to the list of 

 British worms. They afford a small sample of the many 

 remarkable invertebrates that inhabit our shores, and which 

 have found, to this day, no one willing to make known their 

 singular forms and structure, that, through the medium of 

 his intelligent creature, they may praise their Creator, and 

 evidence still farther the endless variety in his works and 

 wisdom. " Let the heaven and earth praise Him," says the 

 Psalmist, " the seas, and every thing that movelh therein" 



[Plants.'] — I turn now with pleasure to the vegetable 

 kingdom ; for here I have to speak of others' discoveries, and 

 not of my own. It might, perhaps, be presumed that, because 

 a flora of the district had been so recently published, there 

 was little here to reward the student; but the fact is greatly 

 otherwise: and I esteem the numerous discoveries which 

 have been made of species, and of new stations for the rarer 

 ones, as a proof of the utility of our club ; for the zeal which 

 led you on was surely kept alive by the knowledge that there 



* This valuable paper is noticed in our Vol. V. p. 702. — J. D. 

 f Figured and described, Vol. V. p. 163. 

 Vol. VI. — No. 31. c 



