President's Address. 9 



( Unio margaritiferus, Linn.), he says, — " These early in the 

 morning, in the gentle, clear, and calm air, lift up their upper 

 shells and mouths a little above the water, and there receive 

 of the fine and pleasant breath of heaven" as dew. Pearls 

 were to Boece only dewdrops solidified — a conceit which calls 

 to mind E. Browning's allusion to the sapphire — 



' ' Stone which dewdrop at first 

 (An old conjecture) sucks by dint of gaze 

 Blue from the sky, and turns to sapphire so. " 



Had Boece given us more science, we would not have grudged 

 him these freaks of imagination. The science comes later, 

 though not free from the conceits. Bringing our review down 

 the generations, and noting the joints of time and their 

 characteristic links as we proceed, we come to 1578, the date 

 of the pubKcation of Bishop Leslie's "Description of Scot- 

 land," a quarto volume printed at Eome in that year. Leslie 

 keeps, in a great measure, clear of Boece's fables, and gives 

 us a good deal of interesting information relative to our rap- 

 torial birds, to grouse, capercailzie, whales, salmon, herrings, 

 etc. But it was not till 1684, the date of Sir Eobert Sibbald's 

 " Scotia Illustrata," that zoology as a science — systematic 

 zoology — had a well-defined place in Scottish literature. Yet 

 the efforts, whose records I have thus hastily reviewed, could 

 no more have been dispensed with, than the gathering of 

 loose stones could, if you are to have a compact building of 

 any sort. Much rubbish had been accumulating, but so like- 

 wise had much good material. Unskilled hands may have 

 thrown unsuitable stones on the heap, which skilled hands 

 finding there, as if by intention, may have built into the 

 structure ; but in good time all this will be put right. The 

 value of the record of these efforts consists in its showing us 

 beginnings, and thereby making clear the indebtedness of the 

 present to the past. Now, I suppose, every true scientific 

 worker owns to the indebtedness ; but is there not a tendency 

 to pay off' the score in the somewhat shabby fashion of exag- 

 gerating the deficiencies of the workers in those olden times, 

 that our excellences, if not our perfect knowledge of one form 

 and another, might stand out in very bold relief ? 



