416 Linnean Society. 
Wick, was also a Deputy-Lieutenant of the county of Caithness, 
and the representative of one of the most ancient families in the 
north of Scotland. Mr. MacLeay was educated for commercial 
pursuits, which he relinquished early in life, and. became in 1795 
Chief Clerk in the Prisoners of War Office, in 1797 head of the de- 
partment of Correspondence of the Transport Board, and in 1806 
Secretary of that Board, which office he filled until the abolition of 
the Board in 1818, when he retired upon a pension. In the year 
1825 he was solicited by the late Earl Bathurst to undertake the im- 
portant office of Colonial Secretary to the government of New South 
Wales, which he held until the close of 1836. Having fixed his re- 
sidence in the colony, with which he had now hecome completely 
identified, he was chosen in 1843 to be the first Speaker of the Le- 
gislative Council then established ; and in that capacity conducted 
himself with so much ability, judgment and impartiality, as to 
receive on his retirement from its duties in May 1846 the marked 
approbation of both sides of the House. 
In 1794 Mr. MacLeay became a Fellow of the Linnzan Society, 
and in 1798 he succeeded Mr. Marsham in the office of Secretary, 
which he held until his Colonial employment compelled him to re- 
linquish it in 1825. The following Minute of Council on that occa- 
sion, which was subsequently adopted by a General Meeting of the 
Society, expresses the high sense universally entertained by the 
Members of his long and useful services :— 
‘The Linnzan Society of London take the earliest opportunity 
after the retirement of Alexander Macleay, Esq. from the Secre- 
taryship of the Society, to record upon their Minutes the high esti- 
mation in which he is held by them on account of twenty-seven years 
of unremitted and unrequited labour devoted to the interests of sci- 
ence ; and that in quitting for a time this sphere of usefulness to fill 
an honourable station in a distant country, he carries with him the 
cordial esteem and sincere regret of this Society.” 
As a naturalist, Mr. MacLeay devoted himself almost exclusively 
to the study of insects, of which he had formed, previous to his 
quitting England, the finest and most extensive collection then ex- 
isting in the possession of a private individual. Of this great class 
of animals he possessed an intimate knowledge, without, however, 
having published anything on the subject, although he had made 
preparations for a monograph of the singular genus Paussus, in which 
his cabinet was peculiarly rich. He became a Fellow of the Royal 
Society in 1809, and was also a Foreign Member of the Academy of 
Sciences of Stockholm, and a Corresponding Member of the Academy 
of Turin. 
Mr. MacLeay married early in life a relation of the house of Bar- 
clay of Urie, by whom he had a numerous family. He died at Syd- 
ney, New South Wales, on the 18th of July 1848, in the 82nd year 
of his age. 
William Pilkington, Esq. 
Robert James Nicholl Streeten, M.D. 
John Frederick Walter, Esq., M.D. 
