22 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



Professor John Eeid, Donald Macaskell, and one or two 

 others, may be said to have kept the Society afloat, and ob- 

 tained for it an asylum in the University, when, owing to the 

 foreclosing of a mortgage, it was (in 1834) turned out of doors. 

 Owing to this financial calamity, the Society for some time 

 had great trouble in weathering the storm, and could scarcely 

 have done so had not our late President — Professor Dick — 

 most generously given by way of loan, without bill or bond, 

 timely pecuniary aid. In 1834-35, there was an excellent 

 turn-out of members; and in 1837, when the writer left 

 Edinburgh for England, the Society seemed to have acquired 

 new life and vigour. Mr Grieve's diploma as President was 

 signed by twenty-one regular attenders, including, among 

 others (and they may be taken as types of the leading men 

 in the Society about that period), the well-known names of 

 " William B. Carpenter, John Hughes Bennett, John Eeid, 

 M.D., James Y. Simpson, M.D., and Edward Forbes." 



III. Dr J. A. Smith exhibited the following rare birds : 



1. Circus ceruginosus (the marsh harrier), shot near Seacliff, 

 East Lothian, by J. W. Laidlay, Esq., on the 7th October. 



2. Scolpax major (the great or solitary snipe), shot by Mr 

 M'Hafiie, Torhousemuir, Wigtonshire, on the 5th September. 



3. Coracias garrida (the garrulous roller), shot by Mr Dick- 

 son, gamekeeper at Dalhousie, near Edinburgh, on the 15th 

 October. 4. Anser leucopsis (bernicle goose), shot near' 

 Gifford, Haddingtonshire, on the 15th October. Another was 

 shot by Dr Crombie, near North Berwick, on the 29th Sep- 

 tember last. These birds were sent by Mr Small, taxider- 

 mist, George Street, who notes that Lestris Bichardsonii 

 (Eichardson's skua) is apparently not uncommon in the Firth 

 of Forth this autumn or early winter. 



lY. Mr E. Scot-Skirving exhibited a specimen of the grey 

 phalarope {Tringa lohata), which was floated in by the sea, 

 dead, after the storm of the 21st October; and the shoveler 

 duck {Anas clypeata), a young male, in immature plumage. 

 Both birds were obtained by him at Gullane, and are, espe- 

 cially the last, among the rare visitants of Scotland. 



