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SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



ZOOLOGY. 



'T*^, Low, the Orknei/ Naturalist.— The Rev. George Low, 

 the author of the Fauna Orcadensis yyvas born in the parish of 

 Edzel, in August 1746. He lost his father at an early age, 

 and was brought up in the care of an excellent mother. He 

 studied one year at Aberdeen, but obtained the principal part 

 of his scientific and theological education at St Salvador College, 

 in St Andrews. He was there a student in 1766, as appears by one 

 of his pocket-books, in Dr Traill's possession. In the summer 

 of that year he went to the Orkneys, as private tutor in a gen- 

 tleman''s family, and soon began to investigate the natural history 

 of those islands with a zeal and intelligence that attracted the 

 notice and lasting regard of Sir Joseph Banks and Mr Pennant, 

 when they happened to touch at Strom ness, on their voyage 

 to Iceland. He was encouraged by them to make a tour 

 through the Orkney and Shetland group, in 1773-4, and a part 

 of 1778. The result of his labours was a complete Fauna 

 and Flora Orcadensis; and he had also prepared a general his- 

 tory of those islands. The Fauna has appeared, but the Flora 

 has been lost. Last year, however, Dr Traill recovered a MS. 

 of Mr Low, which contains both the Fauna and a Flora^ with 

 brief but careful descriptions in Latin, more full than the 

 publication edited by Dr Leach, in having a list of the inver- 

 tebrate animals which he had observed in Orkney ; besides 

 several other papers of this eminent but unfortunate man. 

 The principal of these were " Microscopical Observations, in 

 three parts, by G. L. ;■" written between 1771 and 1773, while 

 he was a private tutor. This work contains much original mat- 

 ter, and many corrections of the descriptions of Baker and Johlety 

 illustrated by beautiful china-ink drawings by the author's hand. 

 Dr Traill also has recovered the original notes of Mr Low's 

 Shetland Tour ; and the draught of a letter to Pennant, contain- 

 ing a list of the Fauna and Flora Orcadensis. Mr Low ob- 

 tained a church living in Orkney, in 1774. In 1775 he mar- 

 ried Miss Tyrie, the daughter of the clergyman of the parish 

 in which he had resided. But he had the misfortune to lose 



