81 
XL 
MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN SCALES. 
Lv Alfred Newtox, M.A., F.R.S. 
Read 2\th February, 1885. 
Apolooy is needless for offering to Xorfolk Naturalists a jMenioir, 
however imperfect, of one of their predecessors, whom the present 
writer believes to be fully deserving of such a po.sthuinous tribute, 
though the dilliculty in composing it, arising mainly from the 
want of materials, has been exceptionally great, and its incomplete 
character will be evident at a glance. The advanced age — over 
ninety years — to which the late ^lii. Scale.s attained, thus out- 
living m'arly all his contemporaries and the friends of the period 
when he lived in the county, as well as the fact that nearly all the 
results of his labours — the botanical and zoological collections 
formed by himself and his father before him, together with the papers, 
whether catalogues or correspondence, referring to them — perished 
in a disastrous lire more than twenty years since, are alone enough 
to account for the deliciencies of the present obituary sketch. "Were 
it not that some fragmentary remains have fortunately been pre- 
served ; and, by favour of Mr. Robert Henry Scales (the only 
son of the deceased naturalist), placed at the disposal of this Society, 
it would have been hardly possible to do more in honour of so 
worthy a Norfolk naturalist than to record the date of his birth 
and of his death ; for, though possessing, as is shewn by those of his 
letters which exist, a lluent pen, he never used it to publish any 
account of his researches or discoveries; and we may look in vain 
into the recognised records of zoological or botanical literature for 
any printed contribution to sciences in which he was, throughout 
his long career, deeply interested, and with which he had made 
himself thoroughly acipiainted. It is always unsafe to ascribe to 
any one motives for the doing or not doing such or such things ; 
but in this case it may be perhaps allowable to suggest that the 
active, practical life which Mr. Scales led while he had the best 
VOL. iv. 
G 
