{Authors are responsible for nomenclature used.) 



The Scottish Naturalist 



No. 13.] 1913 [January 



3\\ flftemoriam 



Ramsay Heatley Traquair, M.D., LL.D.(Ehin.), F.R.S., 

 V.P.R.S.E., F.G.S., ETC., late Keeper of the Natural 

 History Collections in the Royal Scottish Museum. 



The writer made the acquaintance of young Ramsay H. 

 Traquair as he sat solitary and reserved before the fire in 

 the dissecting-room in the University of Edinburgh, on a 

 raw day early in November 1857 ; and a friendship was then 

 formed which lasted throughout life. Though born in 1840, 

 in the parish of Rhynd, in Perthshire, he was practically an 

 Edinburgh man, and had just entered on the study of 

 medicine in the summer of that year his first experience of 

 university life. Slight in physique, but with a massive head 

 covered with fair hair, and expressive blue eyes which kindled 

 when he spoke, Traquair proved to be an earnest and talented 

 student, as well as a valued and accomplished companion. 

 His health probably did not permit him to join the eager 

 band of students who entered every competition, and some of 

 whom (endowed, as Traquair himself remarked, "with iron 

 powers of work ") were capable of sitting most of the night 

 for a week on the eve of a great competition, or who, spring- 

 ing from the final examination in medicine in the Library 

 Hall (and which they passed without an oral), a few 

 minutes before the senior competition in botany, swept 

 along the Bridges and the northern slopes at the "double," 

 and, breathless, entered the botanical class-room in Inverleith 

 Row (to the amazement of the esteemed Prof. J. H. Balfour), 

 not too late to head the list. Thus, though conscientiously 

 mastering his subjects, his name was not familiar in the 



32496 



