$6 The Scottish Naturalist. 



and, indeed, English was hardly taught, our time-table being 

 mainly monopolised by Latin. We collected birds, plants, shells, 

 insects, and minerals. We got a small dredge made, which I still 

 possess ; and we explored the Firth of Forth ; and it may not be 

 uninteresting to you to know that out of our six boy members, two 

 afterwards became professors of science, the one being Foster 

 Heddle, Professor of Chemistry at St. Andrews, the other Wyville 

 Thomson, late Professor of Natural History in the University of 

 Edinburgh ; better known as Sir Wyville Thomson, the Director 

 of the Challenger Expedition. In our correspondence we avoided 

 familiarities, and maintained a style of language at once decorous 

 and official. 



For good work done by field clubs, I might refer you to the 

 Transactions of the Berwickshire Naturalist Field Club, or the 

 Tyneside Club, and many other active local Societies in Scotland 

 and England. 



I know no place which affords better scope for a field club than 

 Montrose. You have much to interest you in civil and natural 

 history ; you have the Grampians not far off, whence flow numerous 

 streams, which display in their beds most instructive sections of 

 rocks ; you have forests, meadows, hills, and plains ; you have the 

 basin of the South Esk, which itself is a mine of wealth ; and you 

 have not only the sea-shore, but you have the deep sea brought as 

 it were to your very door by the steam trawlers. 



It may not be amiss to point out what has been done, and what 

 has yet to be done, in the way of local natural history. Mr. 

 Alexander Croall, now of the Smith Institute, Stirling, worked up 

 the botany, and especially the Marine Algae of the district, in a 

 very exhaustive manner, and has shown what may be done by a 

 hard-working and far from robust man, in his unbusiness — I can- 

 not call them leisure — hours. The fossils of the old red sandstone 

 again have gained laurels for the Rev. Dr. Mitchell and Mr. Powrie 

 of Reswallie. With these exceptions, I am not aware of any 

 systematic investigations ; and it must be remembered that even 

 in these departments much may yet be done. Strange it is that 

 with such opportunities as Montrose presents, we have no collec- 

 tion worth mentioning of the fishes found in our seas ; the birds, 

 mammals, and reptiles have not been systematically studied ; 

 while insects, marine invertebrates, and a host of the lower fojms 

 of animal and vegetable life, are almost unexplored. 



