Abstract
AT the ripe age of eighty-six this genial and enthusiastic naturalist has at last passed away. Never was there a more notable example of the irrepressible instinct of a true lover of nature. Born in Northamptonshire, he eventually joined the Coast-Guard service, and was stationed at various parts of the coast where smuggling went on apace and where his shrewdness and tact were often more than a match for the daring spirits who defied the revenue laws. But in the intervals of his duties he found time for close observation of the living things he met with along the shores and of the plants, insects, birds, and fishes he saw inland. Working in the pre-Darwinian days, when the adding of new species to the known list was one of the chief aims of natural history students, his zeal was early enlisted on behalf of the species-makers Some twenty species and several genera of sponges were first made known by him as inhabitants of our seas. He considerably augmented our list of native hydrozoa and polyzoa. Among the naked-eyed medusæ, echinoderms, mollusks, and fishes he also materially increased our knowledge. One of his distinguishing characteristics was his readiness to tell everything he knew to any naturalist engaged in the investigation of the departments of zoology in which he himself had worked. He was a keen observer rather than a trained naturalist. He published little himself, but he contributed rich materials to those who knew how to make the best use of them. He was consequently a valued correspondent of many of the leading naturalists of his day, who gladly acknowledged their indebtedness to his generous aid. Nor were his observations confined to the living things of the existing creation; he searched the rocks around him for traces of former plants or animals, and found them in places where no one had ever seen or suspected them before. His keen eye detected the first relics of fossil fishes in the Devonian rocks of Devonshire, and when, after his transference to the north of Scotland in 1849, he had an opportunity of looking at the limestones of Durness, he soon brought to light a series of fossils which, in the hands of Murchison and Salter, proved of the utmost value in fixing the geological age of the rocks of the North-West Highlands. After his retirement from the public service he went to reside in Edinburgh, and devoted himself with all his old enthusiasm to the exploration of the fossil flora of the Carboniferous rocks of that neighbourhood. Nothing seemed ever to escape his notice, and hence even from the quarries and sections where many a practised eye had preceded his own he was able to glean materials which no one but himself had noticed. In recognition of his important services to the cause of natural history, the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1875 awarded to him the Neill Gold Medal. His health has for some time past been failing, and he has now gone to his rest with the affectionate regrets of all to whom the progress of natural science in this country is dear. His son, Mr. B. N. Peach, of the Geological Survey, with all his father's enthusiasm and more than his father's range of acquirement, will, we hope, for many a long year, preserve among the naturalists of this country a family name that is familiar as a household word.
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Charles William Peach . Nature 33, 446–447 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/033446a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/033446a0