Obituary Notices. 11 



Australian dried plants." For some botanical works in our 

 library we are also indebted to him. 



Sir Walter entered heartily into whatever measures he 

 considered likely to promote the wellbeiug of society ; 

 hence the deep interest which he took in education, and 

 the earnest and persistent efforts which, both by precept 

 and example, he employed to suppress the vice of intem- 

 perance ; of which efforts the United Kingdom Alliance 

 showed their thorough appreciation by electing him their 

 first president in 1853, and retaining him in that position 

 till he was removed by death. 



He was a Non-Kesident Fellow of our Society, and his 

 name has been perpetuated in science by beiug associated 

 with one of the most elegant of all the minute Gastromysl, 

 the Leangium Trevehjani (Greville). 



In Dr James M'Bain science in many of its departments 

 has lost a most able and successful cultivator, and many of 

 us a warm and attached friend, whose absence from our 

 Society, of which he was a Eesident Fellow, we sincerely 

 mourn. Dr M'Bain was born at Logic, in the parish of 

 Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, on November 30, 1807. 



He began his medical studies in this city in 1823, and 

 passed his examination at the College of Surgeons in 

 March 1826, thus receiving his diploma from that body 

 when little more than nineteen years of age. In the same 

 year he also took the degree of M.D. at the University of 

 St Andrews. In the following year (1827) he passed his 

 examination for assistant-surgeon in the Eoyal Navy. Not 

 long afterwards he was appointed to H.M.S. " Undaunted," 

 then commissioned at Chatham to take out Lord William 

 Bentinck as Governor-General of India ; he served several 

 years, employing his spare time in natural history pursuits. 

 In 1832 he was appointed assistant-surgeon to H.M.S. 

 " Investigator," which was then employed under Captain 

 George Thomas in surveying the Shetland and Orkney 

 Islands. Here M'Bain had his scientific tastes largely 

 gratified, as he carried on dredging along the coast, as well 

 as in deep water, and there accumulated a large amount 

 of material which was afterwards utilised in Forbes' and 

 Hanley's " Mollusca." He also here made fine collections 



