Proceedings rf learned Societies. 181 



President. 

 Robert Jameson, Esq. 

 Vke Presidents. 

 Dr Robert Knox. Henry Withani, Esq. 



G. A. W. Arnott, Esq. Dr Walter Adani. 



Secretary, Pat. NeilJ, Esq. Librarian^ James Wilson, Es<[. 



Assistant^ Mr W. Macgillivray. 

 Treasurer, A. G, Ellis, Esq. Painter, P. Syme, Esq. 



Council. 

 E. W. A. Druminond Hay, Esq. John Stark, Esq. 

 Dr Andrew Coventry. Dr John Aitken. 



Dr John Boggle. Sir Arthur Nicolson, Bart. 



Rev. Dr Brunion. Dr John Gillies. 



At the same meeting, Thomas Jameson Torrie, Esq. and 

 Alexander TurnbuU Christie, M. D., were elected Resident 

 Members of the Society. 



3. Linnean Society. 



Nov. 4. 1828. — Mr Bicheno read a paper on the advantages 

 attending the use of the English language in Natural History. 



The author insists, that the use of Latin and other foreign 

 languages, in the classification of natural history, has retarded 

 its progress; and that an acquaintance with the productions of 

 nature was more extensively diffused before the Latin became 

 the vehicle of communication. Gerard has recorded some thou- 

 sands of English names of plants, derived from an English 

 stock, which. are no longer in use; while every indigenous 

 species known to our ancestors, seems to have had a familiar 

 name in English, Welsh and Erse. Ask a farmer now, how 

 many plants he is acquainted with ; and he will betray an incre- 

 dibly scanty stock of knowledge, for one who is traversing the 

 carpet of the earth many hours of every day of his life ; he will 

 confound under the name of Charlock more than half a dozen 

 species ; and out of a hundred kinds of grass, he \vi\\ be ac- 

 quainted with a most insignificant number. 



Professor Michaelis remarks, that the eastern nations must 

 have been better acquainted with the vegetable kingdom than 

 ourselves ; since we find more than 250 plants named in the 

 Old Testament, by writers who have made use of their names, 

 in prose and metre, only incidentally, and not as botanists ; and 



