344 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxxiii 



cally ; and he was already beginning the detailed com- 

 parisons when the insistent duty of military service came 

 upon him. He qualified himself specially for the Water 

 Service, and quickly rose to the rank of Captain in this 

 responsible and necessary service. He was present in 

 France with his unit during the retreat of the earlier 

 months of 1918, and the subsequent advance. After the 

 armistice he was granted leave in January 1919, and died 

 while at home. 



Davie had already made his mark as a teacher, an 

 investigator, and an organiser in Botany. An easy diction, 

 with unusual command of liis native tongue, gave him a 

 good footing as a Lecturer. It is an open fact that he ran 

 a strong candidature for a Chair in one of the larger 

 Dominions in 1917, and early promotion to Professorial 

 rank was anticipated for him. A quickness of appre- 

 hension of facts and comparisons, good powers of observa- 

 tion, a lively imagination, and a very retentive memory 

 gave him a hold as an investigator, which a judgment 

 ripening with age would have strengthened and directed 

 into useful channels. As an organiser his departmental 

 work was marked by cheerful efficiency. His stimulating 

 intluence was shown in the part he took in founding the 

 Glasgow University Botanical Society. In a wider sphere 

 his activity as one of the Secretaries of the Botanical 

 Section of the British Association had already brought 

 him in relation with the great body of British botanists. 

 At the age of 32 he had fully (jualified for years of active 

 usefulness. It is this wliich makes his early death all the 

 more lamentable. Time and opportunity were against 

 him. So that at the moment of his death he was of the 

 Front rather than actually at the Front, both in Science 

 and in War. F. O. Bower. 



William Brack Boyd. 



A past-president of the Society passed away on KJth 

 March 1918 in the person of W. B. Boyd of Faldonside. 

 He was born on 2.Srd February 1881 at Cherry trees, 

 Yetholm, and educated at The Grange, Sunderland. 



