1886-87.] Charles William Peach. 13 



1876, was a comparison of the Fossil Plants in the 

 neighbourhood of Edinburgh, with those figured in Stur's 

 Culm Flora, then just published. A flower-like plant he 

 always found associated with the fossil fern Sphcnoptcris 

 affinis at West Calder excited much of Peach's enthusiasm, 

 and was the subject of his last and longest paper, communi- 

 cated to the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society in 

 1878. Its proposition is given in the title, which is " On the 

 Circinate Vernation, Fructification, and Varieties of Sphenop- 

 teris a^nis, and on StaphyloiJteris (?) Peachii of Etheridge 

 and Balfour, a Genus of Plants new to British Eocks." But, 

 as Mr Carruthers intimated during the discussion on the 

 paper, and as Mr Kidston subsequently demonstrated, the 

 supposed new genus is really the fruit of the fern. 



Mr Peach contributed several minor notices at our 

 meetings. Amongst these were remarks on a large cone, like 

 that of Pinus Bcnthamiana ; on Xanthium spinosum, growing 

 on the banks of the Tweed, supposed to have been introduced in 

 imported wool ; and on dodder growing on French clover near 

 Northampton. A paper was read in 1870 on the Fructifi- 

 cation of Grijffithsia corallina, with notes on ]\Iiss Jeffrey's 

 observations on alga? during the dredging trip in which 

 Peach accompanied Gwynn Jeffreys to the Shetland out- 

 skerries. This was followed up by exhibitions of a rock slab 

 from Stromness, showing imprints of the living marine algai 

 Desmarestia aculeata and P.viridis,qi\ite unimpaired after being 

 kept in the cabinet for fourteen years ; and also of striped 

 stones from Hale, near Penzance, exhibiting appearances 

 manifestly recently formed, which would have been designated 

 Calamites if found on rocks of the carboniferous system. 



EOBEET Geay died from an apoplectic seizure, at Bank of 

 Scotland House, Edinburgh, on 18th February 1887, after an 

 illness of three days, in his sixty-second year. More than 

 one auditor besides the writer of this obituary conversed 

 with our lamented Vice-President, apparently in good health, 

 just a few days before his decease. 



Fourteen years ago Mr Gray pviblished The Birds of the 

 West of Scotland, whilst actively engaged as a bank in- 

 spector. The book has been long out of print, and ranks 

 amongst our most valued treatises on ornithology. When 



