PROCEEDINGS FOR 1909 XLVII 



ated in that body, and the Council are persuaded that the Eoyal Society 

 of Canada as a whole will view that movement with the utmost sympathy. 



One or two biographical details may be placed on record. Our late 

 colleague was born at Ashe, in tlie county of Kent, England, on the 28th 

 of March, 1852, and was educated at Bang's School, Eochester. He en- 

 tered the service of the Bank of British jS^orth America in London, in 

 April, 1871. Three years later he was sent by the bank to Canada and 

 fetationed at Montreal. Just one year afterwards he was transferred to 

 Ottawa, and again after the lapse of a year he obtained a position more 

 suited to his tastes in the Library of Parliament. " Here/' says Mr. 

 Harrington in his excellent appreciation read at a memorial meeting of 

 tlie Ottawa Field Xaturalists' Club, on the 1st December last, " he had 

 ample facilities for prosecuting his studies in botany and entomology, in 

 ])oth of which sciences he was already well versed." 



Having been elected to this Society, as already mentioned, in the 

 year 1885, Dr. Fletcher became at once one of the most active members 

 of Section IV, of which he was one year president. In the year 1893, he 

 was made Honorary Treasurer of the Society, an office which he retained 

 till elected to the Honorary Secretaryship in 1905. 



The special meeting of this Society held at Quebec last summer 

 tlii'ew upon the honorary secretary a serious burden of labour. There 

 were so many details to be arranged, so many enquiries to be answered, 

 and so much to be done in the way of oversight lest something should 

 go wrong or be left unprovided for. The energy and patience, however, 

 of your faithful officer met all demands, and there was nothing to in- 

 dicate any impairment of health as a result of his labours and anxieties. 



"My last evening with him," says Mr. Harrington, "was that of the 

 14th of September, a day or so before he started on his last, trip West. 

 He was busy in his garden watering his flowers until it M'^as tooi dai'k to 

 continue, for so he spent many evenings among the beautiful and fragrant 

 plants which; he loved, and which afforded him such sustained and gen- 

 uine pleasure. The task of planting and tending them was with him a 

 labour of love, and not merely performed for the utilitarian or decorative 

 effects which might result. His profound love of nature in all her moods 

 and forms was in no respect more evident than in the patient and skilful 

 gardening from which he derived such undoubted pleasure. Just before 

 we said good-bye he gave me directions where to find a certain water weed 

 which my collection lacked, for he had such an intimate knowledge of the 

 habitat of our plants, and such a retentive memory that he could de- 

 scribe the exact locality in which any rare species had occurred, even if 

 many years previously." 



At this very time, however, an inward trouble from which lie had 



