Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London - University Library

LINNEAW SOCIETY OF LONDON. 37
has in all respects been one of the best students I have ever had
under my charge, and will yet distinguish himself as a botanist.''
In a clerical cajDacity he was first licensee in Edinburgh in the
Established Church of Scotland in 1858, and was ordained a minister
of that communion in 1862, His first essay in natural history was
his small volume, ' Braemar, its Topography and Natural History,'
Aberdeen, 1861, Svo. This was written during his probation at
Castleton ; later he was stationed at North Leith,
came to London as assistant to Dr, John Gumming.
before he
He had a
ministerial charge at Swallow Street, Piccadilly ; and on its sale,
served for many years as an acting -chaplain to the forces at
Aldershot.
In spite of these claims upon his time he managed to engage in
botanic work, especially devoting himself to lichenology, in whicli
branch he published his first paper in the ' Journal of Botany ' for
1869, in three parts, entitled "New British Lichens," many of whicli
were described from his own collecting. He was at this time an
indefatigable pedestrian, and would even pass the night among the
heather, in order to get at plants he wanted ; thongh most averse to
trade collectors, with whom he sometimes had warm disputes in
the wilder districts. In the next year he brought out a manual
for British lichenologists, namely, ' Lichenes britannici, sen
lichenum in Anglia, Scotia et Hibernia vigentium enumeratio,'
Londini, 1870. Erom this time onward to 1893 Crombie published
many papers on his favourite study, in which he ranged
himself
lichen.
with Nylander, and against the symbiotic nature of the
He described many novelties from the Arctic and Antarctic
regions, and investigated de novo the lichens of Dillenius
and of Withering. Eor the Trustees of the British Museum he
undertook an enumeration of the British Lichens in the Department
of Botanj', of which the fii"st volume came out in 1894 as
' A
Monograph of the Lichens found in Britain,' &c., but the
second volume was not completed in the author's lifetime. He
•was elected a Eellow of the Liunean Society, 6th May, 1868, and
served on the Council from 1879 to 1882 ; in 1879 also he became
Lecturer on Botany at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School till
1891. Shortly after his retirement from this lectureship he
removed to Ewhurst, Surrey, and there
on 12th May, 1906.
quietly lived till his death
His herbarium is now at the British Museum (Natural History).
[B. D. J.]
The Right Hon. Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff,
G.C.S.I., was the son of James Cunningham Grant Duff, the
author of the ' History of the Mahrattas,' and Jane Catherine,
the only child of Sir Whitelaw Ainslie, author of the ' Materia
Medica of Hindostan,' published at Madras in 1813, and recast in
two volumes, London, 1826. He was born at Eden, Aberdeenshire,
21st February, 1829, received his education successively at