10 
pressing want ; while, year by year, the number of specimens is 
added to by donations, chiefly from graduates of the medical 
school. Among the more important additions since 1860 may 
be noted the contents of the Natural History museum at 
King’s College, of the museum of the Pharmaceutical Society, 
the bequest of the museum collected by the Rev. James Leslie 
of Coull, and the gift of a large and valuable collection of skins 
of mammals and birds from Java and of shells from the Indian 
Ocean, by Mr. A. Fraser. Of objects of local Natural History, 
the chief additions are the collection of fish made by Dr. Dyce, 
Mr. Dawson of Cruden’s colleetion of shells, and a pretty fair 
collectiou of the Macro-Lepidoptcra of the district. The verte- 
brata of the district are also fairly represented, but in the other 
groups the collection is poor in local specimens. In making 
local collections, this Natural History Society might and ought 
to help wery materially were the various members to take up the 
branches most in need of study, and to communicate their dupli- 
cates (named if possible) to the University museum, where access 
to them would be easy to any one. In this way we might hope, 
in no long time, to make very great advances in our knowledge 
of the local fauna, and the society would do its part in giving an 
effective stimulus to the study of Zoology in this part of Scot- 
land. 
To return to the systematic teaching of Zoology in former 
times in Aberdeen, we learn from Kennedy’s Annals that in 
King’s College and University, in 1818, Mr. Patrick Forbes, 
A.M., was lecturer on Chemistry and Natural History, and that 
“Mr. Forbes was appointed lecturer on Chemistry and Natural 
History on the 18th June, 1817. His class meets 6 days in 
every week, for an hour each day ; and, by the regulations, every 
candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, must give attendance 
tor one session. The lectures on Chemistry are delivered in the 
beginning of the course, and those on Natural History conclude 
it; the space of time allotted for each branch being nearly the 
same.” Mr. Forbes was at the same time assistant and successor 
to the professor of Latin, and was appointed to the professorship 
of Latin in 1819. There is no record of what was embraced in 
the course of Natural History. Outside the Universities, Zoo- 
logy has been little taught in Aberdeen, though I believe a 
class was taught for some time in the Mechanics’ Institute by 
Dr. Beveridge. However, the class was given up, and a few 
years ago the specimens in the museum of the Institute were 
presented to the Natural History museum in Marischal College. 
Turning now to what has been done more especially in the 
elucidation of the local fauna, the first to direct his.attention to 
fauna as well as flora seems to have been Dr. David Skene, whose 
