PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE, lix 
referred, I may add that Dr. White frequently expressed to me his 
opinion that it was well the book had not been published in the 
earlier days of the Society, as at first intended, for so much fresh 
information was constantly coming to him that an early issue would 
necessarily have been very incomplete. We may now have the 
melancholy satisfaction of knowing that the work, when published, 
will contain the completed results of his life’s work amongst the 
plants of Perthshire. 
The summary which I have given above of his communications 
to the Society gives a very inadequate impression of the varied 
character of the subjects which he brought before us from time to 
time. I should like to refer very briefly to a few of these. One 
subject which he had made peculiarly his own, and which frequently 
formed the theme, either directly or indirectly, of his papers and 
addresses, was that of Distribution and its causes. As a means to¬ 
wards throwing light on this subject he made himself thoroughly 
familiar with the topography, orography, and geology of any district 
of which he was working up the fauna and flora, and thus he was 
often able to solve problems of local variation, of dispersal, of dis¬ 
appearance, or of local occurrence, which would have baffled a 
naturalist who was less thorough in his methods. As examples of 
papers bearing on this subject, or rather group of subjects, I may 
mention the following:—“The best manner of dividing Perthshire 
into Districts,” “Naturalised Plants found in the neighbourhood of 
Perth,” “ Origin of the Perthshire Flora,” &c. Many of his addresses 
are taken up with accounts of the progress and work of the Society, 
and also on the arrangement of the Museum, and these always con¬ 
tained sagacious hints for future increase of usefulness. Perhaps, 
however, the class of addresses which delighted us most to listen to 
at the time—and which still delight us to peruse in print—were 
those in which he told the story of our summer rambles, including 
both the official excursions organised by the Society and also the 
extemporised expeditions arranged amongst a few members for some 
particular object of research. In these papers the scientific details 
were always relieved by picturesque touches of description, and 
frequently by gleams of humour as well. While this was the case, 
however, we were never allowed to forget that the primary object of 
the excursion was scientific research, and every discovery, whether 
botanical, zoological, or geological, worth noting was carefully re¬ 
corded in these addresses. He had a wholesome dread of our 
excursions becoming mere pleasure pic-nics, such as so-called scien¬ 
tific excursions are apt to degenerate into. For this reason he stead¬ 
fastly discouraged all “entertaining” of the parties, except on rare 
occasions, when local members of the Society pressed on us their 
hospitality. In this connection it is interesting to find from the 
minutes that in the summer of 1872, when Dr. White resided at 
Dunkeld, he himself invited the members to spend a day with him 
there for the purpose of exploring the district. 
Passing from this brief review of Dr. White’s communications to 
the Society, I wish now to refer to three other Societies, which, in 
large measure, sprang out of our own, and which owed their first 
