(Authors are responsible for nomenclature used.) 



LA ib 



The Scottish Naturalist 



No. 61.] 1917 [January. 



GEORGE STOUT. 



It is with deep regret that we record the death of George 

 Stout, who was known to our readers and to many 

 ornithologists through the excellent work he accom- 

 plished as bird-watcher at Fair Isle. Shortly after the 

 war broke out he responded to his country's call for men, 

 and having joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, fell 

 mortally wounded during the recent fighting on the Somme, 

 and died in hospital on 13th November 191 6. George 

 Stout was in several respects a remarkable individuality. 

 The writer became acquainted with him at Fair Isle in the 

 autumn of 1905. George was then sixteen years old, and 

 assisted his father, a crofter-fisherman. Youths who have 

 been brought up in the remotest of our isles rarely show any 

 predilection for natural history, but the subject of this notice 

 was an enthusiastic devotee, and only required the chance to 

 become a skilled naturalist. Thanks to his own excellent 

 qualities of character, coupled with his great intelligence, the 

 opportunity was not long in coming. His abilities were 

 recognised and appreciated. He was supplied with books 

 and binocular glasses, and these, together with a few weeks' 

 training in the autumns of 1905 and 1906, equipped this apt 

 pupil for the duties of bird-watcher at this now famous 

 ornithological observatory a post which he filled with marked 



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