ANIflYERSAIlY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. 39 



a lover of books, and intimate with all the leading men of science 

 of his generation, he docs not appear to have written much, and he 

 only contributed two papers to our publications ; probably he found 

 that the duties of his position interfered with the continuous study 

 which science demands ; few men, however, can have loved Nature 

 more than ho, and his body and mind happily remained vigorous 

 until the end. He was with us, then in his seventy-sixth year, a 

 very few weeks before his death, looking so hale and well that one 

 would have predicted an extension of his term of life to at least 

 fourscore years, deafness appearing to be the only infirmity from 

 which he suffered. Unhappily a chill, caught while driving in one 

 of the bitter winds of last spring, terminated in an inflammatory 

 attack which proved speedily fatal. He became a Fellow of the 

 Society in 1830, and of the Eoyal Society in 1831. He married, 

 late in life, a daughter of Sir Philip Grey-Egerton, formerly so well 

 known to this Society, and as he died without issue, the earldom is 

 merged with the titles of the House of Hamilton. In private life 

 few men have been more deservedly beloved than Lord Selkirk. In 

 the home circle, among his tenantry, in the larger duties of life, he 

 was distinguished no less for his rectitude of principle than for his 

 amiability of character. To our Society the loss is great. True, he 

 did not contribute much to our Journal, and of late years was 

 prevented by his deafness from joining in th^^ebates, but he was 

 one of those men who seemed to exercise a softening and refining 

 influence wherever he went. The present age, with its hurry, its 

 competition, its occasional asperities, which rufile sometimes even 

 the calm of science, can ill spare one in whom courtesy and 

 kindness seemed innate, who had all the grace of the " old school," 

 without its occasional affectation of condescension, who, in short, 

 was entitled to bear, in the fullest and highest sense of the word, 

 "the grand old name of gentleman." 



On October 14th last, after an illness of some duration, passed 

 away at his Brighton residence, Thomas Davidsox, of Moir House, 

 Midlothian. Born in 1817, his early days were chiefly spent on 

 the Continent. At first art divided his regards with science, and in 

 Paris he studied the one in the studios of Horace Yernet and Paul 

 Delaroche, the other in the lecture-rooms of Elie de Beaumont, 

 Milne-Edwards, Geoffrey St.-Hilaire, and other Professors of the 

 Sorbonne. At Edinburgh, where he matriculated, he came under 

 the influence of Jamieson ; then, after a further study of art in Rome, 

 he made it subservient to science, and at the instance of Leopold von 

 Buch, undertook the examination of the Brachiopoda. The first fruits 

 of his labour in this class, at that time but imperfectly understood, 

 appeared together with some contributions from the late Dr. Car- 

 penter and others in the volume of the Palaiontographical Society for 

 1851. Part followed part :vith little break in the annual succession 

 of volumes, such was the industry of the author, who, having suc- 

 ceeded to considerable property, was enabled to devote his whole time 

 to science. At last, in the volume for 1870, the magnificent mono- 



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