4o PROCEEDIIs^(^S OF THE 



lives and occupations his high culture and manly presence, in a 

 manner as beneficial as it was exemplary in a person of his 

 position and attainments. He took a keen interest in the intel- 

 lectual development of these his county folk, and wtis in his prime 

 a leading speaker and advocate at meetings in connection with 

 the organization of science and art classes in their midst. His 

 intellectual capacity, always high, found most forcible expressioa 

 ill a book published while in his eighty-seventh year under the 

 title ' Knowledge, Duty, and Faith, a Study of Principles Ancient 

 and Modern.' A generous and convivial host, who treated rich 

 and poor alike, having estates extending into Devon, Cornwall, 

 and Somerset, he will be remembered as a prominent member of 

 the British Aristocracy of the Victorian Era, an ideal County 

 Squire who found his greatest happiness in the fostering of good 

 works likely to benefit those largely dependent upon him. 



He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society on April 20th, 

 1882, and was also a Fellow of the E-oyal Geographical and 

 Chemical Societies. 



Brigade-Surgeon James Edwabd Tiernet Aitchison was a son 

 of Major James Aitchisou, and was born at Neemuch, Central 

 India, on 28th October, 1835. After preliminary school educa- 

 tion at Lasswade and Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, he went to the 

 University of Edinburgh. After taking his degree of M.D. in 

 1856, he entered the service of the Honourable East India Com- 

 pany in 1858, and remained in the Indian Medical Service till 

 1888, when he retired from it. The first work produced by him 

 was a ' Flora of the Jhelum District of the Punjab ' in 1863, and 

 this date shows that he must have taken up the study of botany 

 very shortly after his arrival in India as Assistant-Surgeon. Six 

 years later, in 1869, he brought out a ' Catalogue of the Plants 

 of the Punjab and Sindh,' and the ' Flora of the Hushiapur Dis- 

 trict of Punjab.' A more substantial volume appeared in 1874, 

 on the economic botany of the Leh, entitled ' Handbook of the 

 trade products of Leh,' 1874. This was compiled while he was 

 British Commissioner in Ladak, to which he had been appointed 

 in 1872. 



Dr. Aitchison's more especially valuable collections were begun 

 in 1878, when, under Lord Eoberts (then General Sir Frederick 

 Eoberts), an expedition advanced into Afghanistan, and the 

 Kuram Valley Flora was investigated by him. From that year 

 to 1880 he made an admirable collection, which he brought home, 

 worked up at Kew with the help of Mr. W. Betting Hemsley, 

 and pubhshed in the 18th volume of our Journal. In 1884-85 

 he acted as Naturalist to the Afghan Delimitation Commission, 

 bringing back about 10,000 botanical specimens as well as some 

 zoological ones. The account of the Botany was issued in our 

 Transactions, Series IE. Botany, vol. iii., with48 plates and 2 maps, 

 the illustrations being at the cost of tiie Indian Government ; the 

 Zoology was likewise published in the Transactions, Ser. II. vol. v., 



