XLVI ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



pened, and we mourn individually the all too early death of a colleague, 

 a comrade, and a friend; while the Society as a whole deplores the loss 

 of a distinguished member and an officer of exceptional merit. 



While the late Dr. Fletcher was intimately associated with the Eoyal 

 Society of Canada, to which he was elected as long ago as the year 1885, 

 his general sphere of activity was an extremely wide one. As Dominion 

 Botanist and Entomologist, he was brought into contact, not only with 

 students of the sciences to which he was himself devoted, but with horti- 

 culturists and agriculturists throughout the length and breadth of the 

 Dominion. It would be difficult to overestimate the services he rendered 

 to Canada in the performance of the duties assigned to him, or the bene- 

 ficial nature of the influence he exerted by his kindly and encouraging 

 •way of imparting useful knowledge. His memory will be cherished in 

 hundreds of Canadian homesteads as one who, wherever he went, sank 

 the official in the friend and the helper. As a member of his own Section 

 (IV) of this Society, the Eev. Professor C. J. S. Bethune, has well said: 

 " Old and young, rich or poor, learned or ignorant, children or their 

 elders — it made no difference — he had a kindly word for each one, and 

 most can treasure in their memories a kindly deed as well. When he 

 addressed a meeting he captivated his audience at once, and when he 

 joined an excursion of nature students all were eager to be with him, and 

 learn from him some of the secrets of the woods and the fields that he 

 knew so well." ^ 



One of our late colleague's principal achievements was the forma- 

 tion in the month of March, 1879, of the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club, 

 an organization which, in the thirty years of its existence, has accom- 

 plished a most useful work in creating a wide-spread interest in natural 

 history studies in Ottawa and its neighbourhood. From the first he had 

 earnest and enthusiastic helpers, and he was accustomed to give the credit 

 for having originated the idea of the club to our public-spirited fellow- 

 tcwnsman, Mr. E. B. Whyte, at present the first vice-president of the 

 Ontario Horticultural Association. Xevertheless it was acknowledged by 

 all that he was, to use the language of another member of Section IV, 

 Mr. W. H. Harrington, " the central and moving figure in its organiza- 

 tion, and that to his sustained exertions during the many years in which 

 he occupied various positions on the Council is largely due the progress 

 and high standing achieved by the club." Considering the very impor- 

 tant relation in which our late colleague stood towards the club, with its 

 Eumerous and active membership, it is natural that a movement for creat- 

 ing some form of memorial for their deceased leader should have origin- 



1 In Canadian Entomologist, December, 190S. 



