of Edinburgh, Session 1874-75. 511 
Blenny, Ray’s Bream, and the Anchovy, for example — which were 
not before known to occur so far north as the seas which wash the 
northern shores of Scotland. In none of his labours does the true 
spirit of the naturalist appear more pre-eminently than in those 
by which he made known the nest-building habits of certain sea- 
shells and fishes. At Wick he noticed that the jelly-like masses 
of the ascidian Leptoclinum very frequently contained small yellow 
patches in the centre. Watching these, he found that the central 
yellow parts were really extraneous bodies, and consisted of nests 
containing ova. Further observation connected these ova with the 
slug-like gasteropod Lamellaria, and showed him that this shell 
comes every spring regularly to shore from deeper water outside, 
and remains two or three months for the purpose of nidification. 
Again, at Peterhead he made himself intimately acquainted with 
the family arrangements of that rather fierce-looking little fish, 
the 15-spined stickle -back ( Gasterosteus spinaceus). In a rocky 
pool he found a colony of them, and learnt how they built their 
nests and deposited their ova. He watched the hatching and growth 
of the young until the whole colony, young and old, took to the sea. 
As he used to visit them five or six times a day, the parents grew 
so familiar that they would swim round and touch his hand, though 
on the appearance of a stranger they would angrily dash at any 
stick or incautious finger that was brought near them. The same 
habit of close and cultivated observation was shown by his study of 
the maternal instincts of the female lobster in its native haunts. 
Previous to Mr Peach’s transference to Wick, very little was 
known about the fossil plants of the Old Red Sandstone of Caith- 
ness. Many specimens had been found, but they were commonly 
spoken of as indistinctly preserved, and as probably of marine 
origin. Setting to work among the dark flagstones of that district, 
he eventually succeeded in forming an admirable collection, and in 
showing the truly terrestrial nature of that ancient flora. Within 
the last few years he has continued his services to fossil botany by 
bringing to light some new and most interesting vegetable forms 
from the Carboniferous strata of the basin of the Forth. He has 
shown, for example, the connection between the flower-like Antho- 
lites and the usually detached fruit, Cardrocarpon, and has obtained 
in one fossil a conjunction of microspores and macrospores. 
vol. viii. 3 u 
