MEMOIR OF REV. JOHN FLEMING, D.D. 661 
««Entomostraca and Hydrachnee;” with a perseverance seldom equalled, and 
with a rare artistic talent, Mrs FLemine copied the whole of these works of the 
admirable Dane. In this labour—truly one of love—Mrs FLEMING copied 687 
quarto pages, and 1308 most exquisite figures! Flisk was no longer a “ science- 
inspiring solitude,” as a friend had called it, but a centre of great attraction to 
many who loved its genial inmates. The Rev. Dr M‘Vicar, now of Moffat, was 
at this time frequently a guest at Flisk, of which, in a letter lately received, 
he says, “‘ I shall never forget the charm of Flisk Manse. After an interval of 
thirty years, it seems to me like a beautiful dream to remember it. All was so 
intellectual, so sweet, and so sacred, and the welcome always so full and 
friendly. Though eight miles from a market, Mrs FLEmine seemed always pre- 
pared for visitors; and the last idea that could enter into one’s head was that 
he was giving trouble, or putting people out of their way.” 
In 1814, FLEMING read a paper to the Wernerian Society entitled “ Contribu- 
tions to the British Fauna.” This communication contains the description of nine 
animals new to the fauna of the British Islands—namely, Sorex fodiens, or water- 
shrew, Pleuronectes punctata, or top-knot turbot, Lepas fascicularis, or banded 
barnacle, Hirudo verrucosa, Echinus nuliaris, Lucernaria fascicularis, Caryophyllia 
cyathus, Fungia turbinata, and lastly, Flustra Ellisii, which he named in honour 
of Exuis, distinguished by his accurate industry in the investigation of zoophytes. 
He also in the same year communicated to the Wernerian Society a paper 
describing eight new species of Orthoceratites which he had discovered in the — 
Carboniferous formation of Linlithgowshire. This paper was published, with 
illustrative drawings of the various species, in Thomson’s “ Annals of Philosophy.” 
In the introduction he shows how early (though at this time a most determined 
Geognosist) he was urging the necessity of studying the zoology of rocks. ‘‘ Had 
this department,” he says, “ been studied with greater care, geologists would not 
have been so frequently perplexed in accounting for the phenomena of nature. 
How often do we hear it asserted, that the plants, corals, and shells, which are 
found in a fossil state in the rocks of this country, bear the strongest resemblance 
to those of Africa and India. Yet when these are subjected to a close examina- 
tion, they are found to be specifically distinct, and the distracted philosopher is 
saved the trouble of deluging the earth by a comet, or of changing its axis of 
motion. Naturalists were long employed in searching for the means which 
transported the monsters of the equatorial forests to the frozen regions of the 
north, until the systematic accuracy of a CAMPER and a Cuvier proved the fossil 
elephant to be a new species, differing in form and character from the elephants 
of Africa orIndia. Before the physical distribution of petrifactions can be investi- 
gated with success, the particular species must be previously ascertained.” This 
latter sentence, penned in 1814, points to what is as much a desideratum now as it 
was then—a want of knowledge of species, and where a species ends and a genus 
