﻿4 



Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



Goodsir, the young naturalist who perished with the Franklin 

 Expedition ; a parasitic worm, to John Goodsir ; a planarian, 

 to Sir John Dalyell ; an echinoderm, a medusa, or a mollusc, 

 to Edward Forbes ; a zoophyte, to Strethill Wright and 

 Allman; a sponge, to Grant; an insect, according to its kind, 

 to James Wilson of Woodville, Duncan, Greville, Lowe, Logan, 

 and others. Clearly, it is to the sure advantage of our subject 

 to keep green the memory of these men : it adds greatly to 

 the pleasure of the pursuit, and stimulates to further effort. 



Possibly there are still some who are disposed to doubt 

 the utility of such local faunal work, but happily, as I think, 

 the day when it may have been necessary to bring forward 

 arguments in its favour is behind us. The " Local List," 

 it has been well said, when carefully and scientifically drawn 

 up, is the useful handmaid of many a science^; and we need 

 have no fear that our " Forth " list will be allowed to remain 

 in its present incomplete state through want of interest on 

 the part of serious workers, as I have sometimes heard 

 suggested. Of course, he who would engage in the work 

 should bear in mind that the more attractive groups have 

 already been largely overtaken, and that if he wishes to 

 make his mark now he must leave the beaten track and 

 devote his energies to some obscure or neglected, i.e., so-called 

 '•'unpopular" group; but if he will work at a "popular" one, 

 he must select some neglected section or aspect of it. 



Here let me say that I fully appreciate the superiority of 

 a scientific zoological (as part of a biological) survey, which 

 aims at finding out not only what animals are in a district, 

 but everything connected with their occurrence there, over 

 any purely faunistic inquiry ; and I only wish it could be 

 said that the inauguration of such a survey of Scotland was 

 within sight. No doubt, the scientific department of the 

 Scottish Fishery Board, and the Lake Survey which Sir John 

 Murray is conducting, are to some extent doing the work ; 

 but before it can be said to have been properly taken in 

 hand, an organisation planned and manned on lines similar 

 to our Geological Survey will require to be constituted.^ 



^ Rev. A. Thornley, Trans. Nottingham Naturalists' Societij, 1900. 



2 Since the above was written, a thoughtful paper by Prof. Trail of Aberdeen, 

 advocating the formation of a Society to carry out a full survey of the Natural 

 History of Scotland, has appeared in Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1907. 



