A^Bit Linjicean Society, 



gland at the present time, are very agreeable, but the'whole of 

 which contribute very little to its advancement." He then 

 notices Mr. Rainey's first paper (vol. ix. p. 72), stating that 

 the remarkable fact which it describes had before been ob- 

 served in America by Henry and Ten Eyck*, and had recently 

 been placed in a clearer light by Prof. G. Magnus, in Pogg. 

 Ann., vol. xxxviii. p. 436. The subsequent discussion by Dr. 

 Ritchie and Mr. Rainey is then noticed, and also Mr. Mullins*s 

 paper (vol. ix. p. 120) and Dr. Ritchie's comment upon it 

 {ib, p. 222). (PoggendorfF's Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 

 vol. xxxix. p. 410.) 



In the course of his abstract of Prof Callan's paper, M, 

 PoggendorfF inquires what Prof C. means by " attraction," 

 in vol. ix. p. 477. (Ib.) He also notices Mr. Sax ton's account 

 of his instrument. 



L XXXVI 1 1. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



LINN^AN SOCIETY. 



May 24, HPHIS day, being the Anniversary of the Linnaean So- 



1837. ^ ciety, Edward Forster, Esq., V.P. and Treasurer, 

 took the Chair, in the absence of His Grace the Duke of Somerset. 

 Dr. Boott, the Secretary, having stated that the Society had lost, 

 by death, fourteen Fellows and four Foreign Members, proceeded to 

 particularize them as follows : 



Reo. Sackville Bale, of Withyham, Sussex. — This venerable man 

 had been a Fellow of the Society for forty-five years, and his life was 

 passed amid the charities of religion and the peaceful pursuits of na- 

 tural history. Edward Forster, Esq., one of the Vice-Presidents, and 

 the Treasurer of our Society, in a letter to me speaks of him in the 

 following terms : *' My old friend was a very respectable Sussex clergy- 

 man, the associate of all the botanists of our younger days, and among 

 them the venerable James Dickson. He was a zealous promoter of the 

 study of natural history, though it is to be lamented he never pub- 

 lished on the subject. His parsonage, close to Withyham church, 

 was most beautifully situated, with a large piece of water in front 

 about a furlong below, on which it was delightful to see many of the 

 more rare species of birds sporting at liberty as if in their na- 

 tive haunts ; while others, still more domesticated, were strutting up 

 the house-steps and entering without fear to share with their kind 

 master the family repast. Behind rose an excellent garden, well 

 stocked with the scarcest plants, British and foreign, for botany was 

 his favourite pursuit." 



The Very Rev. Henry Beeke, D.D., Dean of Bristol — A zealous 

 English botanist, and frequently quoted in the pages of " English 

 Botany." 



Thomas Marquis of Bath, K.G., S^c.—k nobleman liberally dis- 

 posed to patronize the science of botany and to advance the interests 



♦ See also Phil. Mag. and Annals, vol. x. p. 314. 



