23 
from Mr Hunter’s book on The Woods and Forests of Perthshire, 
a work which should be in every forester’s library :— 
“David Douglas was born at Scone in 1798, and was the son 
of a working mason. He received his education at the parish 
school of Kinnoull, after which he served his apprenticeship 
in Scone Gardens. In 1818, when at Valleyfield, near Culross, 
on the Firth of Forth, in the gardens of Sir Robert Preston, 
he had excellent opportunities of studying the choice collection 
of exotic plants which it then contained; and, through the 
kindness of the head gardener, he obtained access to Sir 
Robert’s large botanical library. He was afterwards employed 
in the Glasgow Botanic Garden, where his botanical knowledge 
gained for him the favourable notice of Sir William Hooker, 
whom he accompanied in several of his excursions, including 
the one through the Western Highlands to collect materials for 
the Flora Scotica. He was subsequently recommended to the 
Horticultural Society of London by Sir William, and was sent 
several times to America to collect the indigenous plants for the 
Society. His first visit to America was in 1823, in which year 
he secured many valuable plants, and greatly increased the 
Society’s collection of fruit trees. He returned home in the 
autumn of the same year, but was sent out again in July 1824, 
for the purpose of exploring the botanical riches of the country 
adjoining the Columbia river and southwards to California. 
When the vessel touched at Rio de Janeiro, he collected many 
rare orchideous plants, shot many curious birds in his voyage 
round Cape Horn, sowed a collection of garden seeds in the 
island of Juan Fernandez, Robinson Crusoe’s island, and arrived 
at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia on the 7th April 1825, 
During this visit he sent home the first seeds of the Douglas 
fir to Britain, and on returning home in the spring of 1827, he 
crossed the Rocky Mountains to Hudson’s Bay, and reached 
England in the autumn of that year. Through the influence 
of Mr Joseph Sabine, secretary of the Horticultural Society 
of London, he was introduced to the Literary and Scientific 
Society of London; and he was elected, free of expense, a 
member of the Linnean, Geological, and Zoological Societies, 
to which he contributed some valuable papers. After remaining 
for a couple of years in London, he again sailed for North-West 
America to continue his favourite pursuit in the autumn of 
1829. He afterwards visited the Sandwich Islands, where he 
met with his death under very shocking circumstances, having 
fallen into a pit made by the natives to ensnare wild animals. 
He was attacked by a bull already entrapped, was dreadfully 
mutilated, and eventually killed. The intelligence of his 
dreadful end, which took place on the 12th July 1834, in the 
