1847-] Linnean Society. 339 



sion from the Crown in consideration of his own and his father's 

 services during the mental illness of King George the Third. He 

 became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1802, and died on the 

 18th of September last at St. Leonard's on the Sea, bequeathing a 

 collection of fourteen pictures to the National Gallery, and a collec- 

 tion of minerals to the University of Oxford, to which he had also 

 presented numerous very valuable specimens through the present 

 Dean of Westminster in 1832. 



Samuel Solly, Esq. 



Daniel Stuart, Esq., well-known for more than half a century as 

 a political writer, and as a proprietor of various leading newspapers, 

 became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1 806, and died at his house 

 in Upper Harley Street, on the 25th of August last, at the age of 80. 



William Nicholas Wickham, Esq., was one of our oldest Fellows, 

 having entered the Society in 1794. He married a daughter of Dr. 

 Latham the ornithologist, and died at Winchester in the course of 

 the last year. 



In our Foreign list we have lost since the last Anniversary two 

 distinguished members. 



The Baron Benjamin Delessert, eminent alike for his private worth 

 and for his enlightened patronage of natural history, was born at 

 Geneva in the year 1763, of a family whose attachment to botanical 

 pursuits is manifested by the ' Lettres Elementaires sur la Botanique ' 

 of Rousseau, which were addressed to Madame Delessert, the mother 

 of our late member, for the instruction of his sister, then a child. 

 His elder brother Etienne was also fond of natural history, and in 

 his company Benjamin in early life travelled through Switzerland, 

 France, England and Scotland, and made considerable collections of 

 the plants of those countries, which were afterwards incorporated in 

 his herbarium. At the commencement of the revolution he served 

 as an Artillery officer ; but after the 10th of August he quitted the 

 service, and from that time forwards applied himself to commercial 

 pursuits, in which he was eminently successful, and became one of 

 the most wealthy bankers in Paris. He was also at one time the 

 most considerable manufacturer of beet- root sugar in France ; but 

 this speculation, in which he appears to have embarked chiefly from 

 motives of patriotism, was not attended with much success. Foj 

 nearly thirty years he sat in the Chamber of Deputies as one of the 

 members for the Department of the Seine, and took a lively interest 

 and an active part in all measures for improving the condition and 



