150 The Scottish Naturalist. 



1809. He served his apprenticeship as a joiner, and, at a very 

 early age, displayed a love for books and natural history. When 

 young his health was delicate, and he probably abandoned his trade 

 on that account, [and studied for nearly two sessions at the Uni- 

 versity of Aberdeen.] The first school he taught was in Ferry 

 Street, Montrose, and the next was in a " clay biggin," at Loan- 

 head, 2\ miles from Montrose, to which he was appointed in 1839. 

 In September, 1841, he was appointed to the parish school of 

 ( kithrie. From that he went to Stratton's School in Montrose, 

 when I first knew him in 1857. About 1859 he was transferred 

 to the new Sessional Schoolhouse built at Loanhead, and it was 

 while there that he wrote most of ' The British Seaweeds.' I have 

 not been able to find any of his early intimate friends in Montrose, 

 but many remember him forty years ago as an enthusiastic Natural- 

 ist and the leading spirit in the ' Scientific Institute,' members of 

 which have survived the long since defunct society. It was a com- 

 mon practice with him in those days to start for the hills on a 

 Friday, or any other night before a school holiday, at twelve o'clock 

 so that he might be on the the botanising ground by daylight, and 

 get home the same evening after a walk of 30 or 40 miles. During 

 the autumn holidays, he made prolonged excursions to Clova, Dee- 

 side, &c, and on those occasions he commonly slept on the 

 heather, carrying his slender commissariat in his pocket. While 

 he was a recognised authority in botany, and numbered among his 

 correspondents Balfour, Dickie, Hooker, Darwin, and other em- 

 inent botanists, he had a very wide and accurate knowledge of 

 natural science generally, and probably knew the zoology of this (the 

 Muntrose) district better than any one else. About the year 1855, 

 he was employed by Sir William Hooker to prepare a Herbarium 

 of the plants of Braemar for Her Majesty the Queen, but his great 

 work was the " British Sea Weeds : Nature Printed," published by 

 Bradbury and Evans in i860. Modest, truthful, and honest him- 

 self, Croall credited others with the same qualities often to his 

 own loss. The ' British Sea Weeds ' was nominally the joint 

 production of W. G. Johnstone and Alexander Croall, but I have 

 reason to know that nearly the whole of the work devolved on 

 Croall, while the remuneration went to Johnstone, who died, or in 

 some other way conveniently vanished before accounts were squared 

 between them. I knew Croall intimately when he was preparing 

 this book. His days were spent in the drudgery of teaching an 



