THE LATE CAPTAIN SYDNEY E. BROCK 27 



The Late Captain SYDNEY E. BROCK. 



Bv the death of Capt. Sydney E. Brock, lOth Batt. Royal 

 Scots, another Scottish naturalist has fallen in the war for 

 right and freedom. Wounded on the field of battle at 

 Courtrai, France, on i6th October last, Capt, Brock was 

 brought to Aberdeen where he died at a military hospital, 

 as the direct result of his wounds, on nth November, the 

 very day on which hostilities ceased. Strange that he who 

 wrote the simple, heartfelt tribute to the memory of his 

 friend, J. C. Adam, which appeared in the October number 

 of this magazine, should so soon have shared his fate. 



Sydney Edward Brock, who came of an old line of West 

 Lothian farmers, was born at Overton, near Kirkliston, in 

 that county, on 6th October 1883, and about fifteen years 

 ago succeeded his father as tenant of the farm. Educated 

 at Kirkliston and Edinburgh, his school-days too were mainly 

 spent in the same surroundings. Thus Linlithgowshire was 

 the chief field of his observations, and there is reason to 

 believe that he had the preparation of a "F'auna" of the 

 county in his mind. 



Capt. Brock was a naturalist in the best sense of the 

 word : from his boyhood he loved Nature for its own sake, 

 and the main pleasure of his life was derived from its 

 investigation. In his studies he brought to bear a happy 

 blend of originality and that sense of proportion so essential 

 for the avoidance of the not uncommon tendency to push 

 ideas to extremes. Except in a very limited way, he was 

 not a collector of specimens : what appealed to him was 

 the living creature its habits and all that these signify. 

 Bird-life was his chief study; but with his broad outlook he 

 could not fail to be interested in other branches of natural 

 history, and already he had acquired considerable knowledge 

 of our native Aculeata and Hemiptera. 



For a number of years prior to the outbreak of the war 

 S. E. Brock was a regular contributor to the pages of this 



