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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
of the Carboniferous rocks of the basin of the Forth. But the 
Council has considered that it will best conform to the liberal spirit 
of the founder, Dr Neill, himself, by having regard not only to 
Mr Peach’s work during the last five years, but to all his labours 
in Scotland, which have so frequently aided the researches of his 
brother naturalists, from whom, in his old age, every token of 
grateful appreciation and kindly feeling is justly due. 
The naturalist, not less than the poet, is born, not made. 
The quickness of eye which, without effort, lets nothing escape 
notice; the fine instinct which divines the meaning of half-hidden 
phenomena, and leads on to where further successful observations 
should be made; the patience with which repeated failure is borne; 
the enthusiasm which, amid foul weather or fair, brings the 
observer back joyously from the cares of this world to his self- 
chosen task, whether it be among the treasures of land or of sea, — 
these are qualities which no education can supply to us, and which 
no want of education can wholly repress. Mr Peach has been happy 
in the possession of them to no common degree. Appointed more 
than half a century ago to the Coast Guard Service, and necessarily 
restricted in his pursuits by the arduous duties of that calling, he 
has everywhere during that extended period shown the genuine 
characteristics of the born naturalist. His enforced residence near 
the sea has been turned by him to excellent account, for he has 
materially increased our acquaintance with the marine fauna which 
surrounds our islands. 
Somewhere about twenty species, and several genera of sponges, 
were first made known by him as denizens of British seas. He 
has considerably augmented our list of native hydrozoa and polyzoa. 
The naked-eyed Medusae owe not a little to his attention, and one 
genus of them (Staurophora) was first introduced by him to the 
naturalists of this country. The Echinoderms, too, are under 
similar obligations to him, for besides bringing several new species 
to light, he found the huge Echinus melo of the Mediterranean on 
the coast of Cornwall, and supplied the twenty- armed Holothuria 
nigra to fill up the blank pointed out by Edward Forbes among 
the British Holothuriae. 
Since his removal to Scotland in 1849, Mr Peach has done further 
and most valuable work among the mollusca and fishes, adding to 
our fauna several species of shell as well as some fishes — Yarreli’s 
