238 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



The Late J. C. ADAM. 

 By the death of J. C. Adam reported first as missing, and 

 later as killed, during the great German push on the Somme 

 in March 191 8, the younger ranks of Scottish field- 

 naturalists have suffered a severe loss. Slow to make friends, 

 he was known intimately by few : the present writer, however, 

 had the great privilege of a very close and complete friend- 

 ship with him, unbroken for the ten years preceding the 

 outbreak of war. The greater part of his boyhood, and 

 nearly the whole of his later life, was passed in Edinburgh, 

 and he possessed a full share of the pride and affection which 

 the grey old city inspires in her sons. In nature, birds were 

 his first, and greatest, love, and almost every minute of his 

 spare time, from early boyhood onwards, was spent usually 

 in the company of his younger brother, K. M. Adam in 

 exploring the neighbourhood of the city and the greater 

 part of the Lothians; while once or twice a year, longer 

 excursions were made to the Highlands or the Hebrides. A 

 few years before the war he received an appointment at the 

 Royal Botanic Garden, and although going there almost 

 entirely ignorant of botany, he took it up with his usual 

 whole-hearted enthusiasm, and in a wonderfully short period 

 became an excellent field botanist. Latterly he took up 

 mosses, and his rapid progress in that difficult group 

 promised that he would soon have achieved a high position 

 amongst Scottish Bryologists. 



Reticent with strangers, Adam was a keen talker amongst 

 friends, notably rigorous and original in thought ; inclined 

 to be critical and independent with regard to authority, but 

 with a most simple and infectious enthusiasm in his hobby, 

 which held nine-tenths of his interest in life. Many a great 

 talk the writer has enjoyed with him by a certain West 

 Lothian fireside, after a long day in the field ; and the 

 memory of these will not easily fade. 



His published papers on birds are mostly to be found in 

 the Trans, of the Edin. Field Nat. Club, while his principal 

 botanical contribution ("A List of West Lothian Mosses") 

 will be found in the Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh (191 7). 



S. E. B. 



