226 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



Baird, surgeon, Mr Robert Embleton, surgeon at Embleton, 

 Northumberland, and a few others, founded the Berwick- 

 shire Naturalists' Chib on a Plinian basis, and drew up 

 the six short and simple rules, which we know as its 

 Constitution — the main object being " to investigate the 

 natural histoiy and antiquities of Berwickshire and its 

 Vicinage." I may explain, in passing, that Bank House 

 was the original name of the village, not of any house 

 in particular ; and when the i-ailway was opened the 

 name was changed to Grant's House, from a Mr Grant 

 who had come to the district at the time the Duns road 

 was being made, before the lailway, and afterwards built 

 an inn. He was father of the individual whose name, 

 as most of us know, became celebrated in a certain lucrative 

 line of business. The first number of the Club's Pro- 

 ceedings shows that Dr Johnston was first President, 

 but does not record the name of the first Secretary 

 (probably it was also Dr Johnston), that there were 27 

 original members, and 4 extraordinary, or lady members — 

 the term, I presume, having no reference to their person- 

 ality ; and that the first object of natural history recorded 

 was Pastor roseus (rose-coloured starling), shot at West 

 Ord near Berwick, an occasional visitor to the British 

 Isles, a handsome, interesting bird, well known as the 

 great locust-eater of the Continent. By 1832, or not 

 long after, the Plinian Society had probably ceased to 

 exist, but whether or not, our Club then stood alone, 

 and continued to do so for the next fifteen years as the 

 first and only bona Jide Naturalists' Field Club in the 

 Kingdom, as the Plinian was only partially a Field Club. 

 It is true that the Northumberland, Durham, and New- 

 castle Natural History Society had been founded in 1829, 

 two years before ourselves, but it does not appear to 

 have been exclusively a Field Club. By 1853 we learn 

 from an account of the scientific and learned Societies 

 in the Provinces, apart from great national or metropolitan 

 ones, that there were 30 in England, 9 in Scotland, and 



