DR Johnston's address. 9 



A passing notice of some invertebrates wliicli I have described and 

 figured in the Magazine of Natural History for the j)resent year [1832] 

 may perhaps be excused, since the subjects of them were procured in 

 Berwick Bay. The Praniza fmcata is a minute criistaceous insect, and 

 the Eolis rujihranchialis a molluscum new to naturahsts ; and the Pla- 

 naria cornuta appears to be likewise an acquisition to the list of British 

 worms. They afford a small sample of the many remarkable inverte- 

 brates that inhabit our shores, and which have found, to this day, no 

 one willing to make known their singular forms and structure, that, 

 through the medium of his intelligent creatm-e, they may praise their 

 Creator, and evidence still farther the endless variety in his works and 

 wisdom. " Let the heaven and earth praise Him," says the Psalmist, 

 "the seas, and every thing that moveth therein.'''' 



Plants. — I turn now with pleasure to the vegetable kingdom ; for 

 here I have to speak of others' discoveries, and not of my own. It 

 might, perhaps, be presumed that, because a flora of the district had 

 been so recently published, there was little here to reward the student ; 

 but the fact is greatly otherwise ; and I esteem the numerous discoveries 

 which have been made of species, and of new stations for the rarer 

 ones, as a proof of the utility of our Club ; for the zeal which led you 

 on was surely kept alive b}^ the knowledge that there were around you 

 some who interested themselves in your researches, and were ready to 

 give you their meed of approbation and applause. The sternest stoic 

 of us all, it has been observed, wishi^s at least for some one to enter 

 into his views and feehngs, and confirm him in the opinion which he 

 entertains of his favourite pursuits. 



Since the publication of my Flora of Berwick, there has been added, 

 exclusive of some naturalized or recently imported species, to the wild 

 plants of Berwickshire, 20 dicotyledonous, 8 monocotyledonous, and 18 

 crj'ptogamic species, the names, stations, and discoverers of which are 

 inserted in your minutes. By much the most interesting of these, 

 whether we consider it in reference to its beauty or rarity, is the Saxi- 

 fraga Uircalm ^ discovered in the parish of Langton, by our ingenious 

 colleague, Mr Thomas Brown. Only two stations for this saxifrage 

 have been recorded in our British floras, and both are in the south of 

 England ; so that Mr Brown has had the good fortune — and good 

 fortune never waits but on the industrious and intelligent — to make 

 one of the most interesting additions to the Mora Scotica that has been 

 made of late years. Another adtlition to that flora is due to Misses 

 Bell and Miss Hunter, who have found, for the first time in Scotland, 

 the Sison Amomum growing at the Hirsel Lough, near Coldstream ; and 

 these ladies deserve our best thanks for their contributions, and still 



^ '"Hirculus, a dimanitive from hircus a goat. Now look at the liair which 

 heards our plant, and you will see why Linnaeus calls it a ' little ^oat.' It is just 

 like that happy playful fancy which he possessed so remarkably." — Mr Brmvn, 

 in litt. 



