182 Liimean Society. [May 24, 



Secretary of Van Diemen's Land, which appointment he continued 

 to hold under the successive Governments of Sir John Franklin, Sir 

 Eardley Wilmut and Sir William Denison. He died at Hobart Town, 

 on the 28th of February 1851, after a short illness, from which 

 no serious result was at first apprehended, it is supposed from dis- 

 ease of the heart ; leaving no nearer relations than a nephew and 

 two nieces, the children of a deceased sister, w^ho have been for 

 some time resident in Massachusetts. The branch of natural his- 

 tory to which Mr. Bicheno especially attached himself was botany, 

 and our ' Transactions ' contain the following papers from his pen : — 

 " Observations on the Orchis militaris of Linnaeus," vol. xii. p. 28 ; 

 " Observations on the Linnean genus Juncvs, with the characters of 

 those species which have been found growing wild in Great Britain," 

 vol. xii. p. 291 ; " On Systems and Methods in Natural History," 

 vol. XV. p, 479. He also printed " An Address delivered at the An- 

 niversary Meeting of the Zoological Club of the Liunean Society," 

 on the conclusion of his year of office as Chairman of the Club, in 

 1826. His information on a great variety of subjects was accu- 

 rate and extensive, and his conversation in a high degree agree- 

 able and instructive. His society was consequently peculiarly ac- 

 ceptable in the several circles in which he successively moved, and 

 the genial amiability of his disposition contributed to render him a 

 universal favourite. It can scarcely be necessary to recall to the 

 recollection of the Members of this Society the general regret with 

 which we sa\v him depart for the distant scene of his later labours, 

 or the pleasing anticipations of his return in which many of us 

 vainly indulged. 



William Arnold Bromfield, M.D., was the son of a clergyman, 

 formerly Fellow of New College, Oxford, and was born at Boldre in 

 the New Forest, Hants, in the year 1800. His school-days were 

 passed at Tunbridge and Ealing ; and after a short residence with a 

 clergyman in Warwickshire, he was entered as a student in the 

 University of Glasgow, and became an inmate in the family of the 

 distinguished Chemical Professor, Dr. Thomas Thomson. In the 

 botanical class of that University, and more particularly in the ex- 

 cursions connected with it, he first acquired that enthusiastic love 

 of botany, which led to its becoming the engrossing pursuit of his 

 life. After two years' residence at Glasgow he there took his degree 

 in Medicine, and quitting Scotland in 1826, he visited Germany, 

 France and Italy, and returned to England in 1S30. His circum- 

 stances placing him beyond the necessity of engaging in medical 

 practice, he look up his residence first at Hastings, then at South- 



