NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 69 



Whale in two instances in the present century is beyond doubt, but 

 it may be said that in neither case were they proved to be B. bis- 

 cayensis. I cannot here enter into my reasons for assuming that 

 the Peterhead Whales were of this species but I have elsewhere* 

 gone fully into the subject, and I may add that Capt. Gray, although 

 very sceptical at first, seems fast arriving at the great improbability 

 of the Whales which he goes so far Xorth every season in search of, 

 — and which even there leave him to proceed to still higher latitudes 

 where he is unable to follow them — coming at the very season 

 when they ought to be lost in the polar solitudes, to bathe in the 

 summer-heated waters which surround our Island, and which would 

 be so repugnant to the ice-loving Greenland Whale. 



THE SOCIETY'S ROOMS, 207 BATH STREET, 



March 29th, 1881. 



Mr. John A. Harvie-Brown,F.R.S.E., Vice-President, in the Chair. 

 Messrs. John Baird, John Hunt, William Gemmell, and John H. 

 Fullarton, B.Sc, were elected ordinary members. 



Before proceeding with the ordinary business of the meeting the 

 Chairman adverted to the death of Mr. E. R, Alston, F.L.S., F.Z.S., 

 who, long a member of the Society, had always taken a deep interest 

 in its welfare and progress and had done much to promote its 

 interests. He was sure he had the sympathy of the members in 

 expressing deep regret at the loss the Society and science had 

 sustained by his removal, and he proposed that a notice of their 

 deceased friend should appear in the Proceeding*. The Meeting 

 cordially sympathised with the remarks of the Chairman, and the 

 Secretary was instructed to insert a notice in the Minutes and to 

 forward an extract from it to Mr. Alston's nearest relatives. 



IX MEMORIAM. — E. R. k.—obiit March 7, 1881. 



Edward Richard Alston, the subject of this notice, was born on 

 the 1st day of Dec, 1845, at Stockbriggs, Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, 



* 'Seals and Whales of the British Seas,' pp. 65-67. 



