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Abstract

CONGRATULATIONS are due to Prof. W. Carmichael M'Intosh, F.R.S., emeritus professor of natural history in the University of St. Andrews, who celebrates his eighty-seventh birthday this week, having been born on October 10, 1838. Time has dealt kindly with this veteran of science, as all must have noticed who, in London, this summer, came in contact with his engaging and breezy personality. A pioneer of research in fishery problems, he was the first to found a marine biological station in Great Britain. Elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1877, Prof. M'Intosh received a Royal medal in 1899, at the hands of Lord Lister, then president, in recognition of his labours as a zoologist. Earlier (1869) the Royal Society of Edinburgh awarded him its Neill prize for his paper “On the Structure of the British Nemerteans, and on some New British Annelids.” President of the Section of Biology of the British Association, Aberdeen meeting, 1885, he discoursed at some length on the phosphorescence of marine animals. Last year Prof. M'Intosh received the Linnean medal allotted especially to mark the Linnean Society's admiration for the single-hearted devotion and unremitting industry with which he had engaged in the study of the animal inhabitants of the sea. Opportunity was taken to congratulate him on the completion of his great “Monograph of the British Marine Annelids,” published by the Ray Society. We understand that Prof. M'Intosh has been a fellow of the Linnean Society for sixty-two years, whilst being second in seniority amongst the whole body of fellows, in point of election.