74 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



daughter arid heiress of Captain Hay, of Seggieden, assum- 

 ing the name of Hay. He entered the army, and joined 

 the 42nd Regiment in 1832, rising to the rank of captain 

 in it Most of his time in the army was spent in foreign 

 service in Malta, the Bermudas, and Nova Scotia. Leaving 

 the army in 1851, he returned to Perthshire, and joined the 

 Perthshire Militia with the rank of major; and from 1854 

 to 1872, when he finally retired, he commanded the Perth- 

 shire Rifles. For years he took an active share in the 

 public work of the county of Perthshire, acting as a member 

 of administrative bodies, though latterly he found it neces- 

 sary to restrict such labours to the Parish Council and the 

 School Board of Kinfauns, of which latter body he had been 

 chairman since its formation. He was an ardent golfer and 

 curler. His death, on Friday, 3rd January 1896, was felt 

 as a public loss ; and the high esteem in which he was held 

 was manifested by the very large number of mourners that 

 attended his funeral in Kinfauns churchyard. 



Possessed by a strong love of all kinds of nature- 

 knowledge, and endowed with keen powers of observation, 

 he made use of the opportunities afforded by foreign service 

 in the army to gain an acquaintance with the fauna of the 

 Mediterranean area and of the North American coast, of 

 which he frequently made good use in future years, especi- 

 ally in regard to the habits and migrations of birds. While 

 in the Bermudas he made a series of notes and drawings of the 

 fishes of the islands. These he communicated in 1860 to 

 the American Fishery Commission, from which they received 

 high commendation. But it was especially by his earnest 

 efforts to promote the investigation of the fauna and flora 

 of his own county of Perthshire (though also extended to 

 other parts of Scotland), and to strengthen the Perthshire 

 Society of Natural Science, that he peculiarly earned the 

 gratitude of all who recognise the interest of such studies 

 and their value in education. To these ends he devoted 

 much attention and labour alike in personal investigation in 

 the field and in the study, fortunately rendered possible by 

 excellent health even till advanced age, by the personal 

 publication of the results achieved, by the free communica- 

 tion to others of the materials collected or the information 



