DAVID liYALL, M.D. 211 



'Assistance' and 'Pioneer,' retreated to that ship. During this 

 Arctic Expedition Dr. Lyall made good collections at every point 

 visited, from Disco to the Polar Islands, A list of these is published 

 in the Journal of the Linncan Socii^ti/. It contains about ninety 

 phfenogams and vascular cryptogams, and a large number of 

 Musci, &c. Exclusive of Greenland, this is far the largest her- 

 barium ever formed in the American Polar Islands, and exceeds the 

 sum of those of all previous expeditions in the same regions ; but, 

 as was to have been expected, no novelties rewarded his labours. 

 On his return he was appointed to the ' Pembroke,' Capt. Seymour, 

 under whom he served throughout the Baltic Campaign of 1855, 

 and was present at the bombardment of Sveaborg. 



After a short period of home service in the ' Koyal "William ' at 

 Devonport, Dr. Lyall was commissioned as Surgeon and Naturalist 

 to H.M.'s surveying ship 'Plumper,' and afterwards to the 'Hecate,' 

 under Capt. (now Admiral Sir Greorge) Richards, employed in the 

 delimitation of the sea boundary between Great Britain and the 

 United States in the Pacific Ocean. From this his services (in 

 1858) were transferred to the Land Boundary Commission, under 

 Col. Sir John Hawkins, R.E., which he accompanied in its survey 

 of the boundary line between British Columbia and the United 

 States possessions, from the Gulf of Georgia to the summit of the 

 Eocky Mountains. From this expedition Dr. Lyall brought home 

 a magnificent herbarium, one of such importance that, at the 

 earnest representation of Sir William Hooker, he was borne on the 

 books of H.M.S. ' Fisguard ' at Woolwich as Staff-Surgeon, a 

 vicarious appointment that allowed of his residing at Kew for the 

 purpose of arranging, reporting on, and distributing his collections. 

 The results are published in a valuable contribution to the Linnean 

 Society,* which contains an excellent botanical account of the 

 regions traversed, from the sea to 8000 feet alt. of the Rocky 

 Mountains, where the various zones of vegetation in British 

 Columbia are for the first time indicated and scientifically pour- 

 trayed. Immediately after the conclusion of his labours at Kew 

 Dr. Lyall was appointed Surgeon to Pembroke Dockyard, at that 

 time a permanency; and when the regulations affecting this branch 

 of the service (the dockyard) were changed in 18G8, he accepted home 

 appointments to H.M.S. ' Trincomalee ' and 'D.^edalus' consecu- 

 tively till 1873, when he retired. Latterly he resided at Cheltenham, 

 where shortly before his death he met with an accident, the break- 

 ing of an arm, from the effects of which he never wholly recovered. 

 Dr. Lyall's only other published contribution to science was a 

 paper on the habits of a remarkable New Zealand bird, the Kakapo, 

 Strigops hahroptilns.]- He married in 1866 Miss F. A. Rowe, 

 daughter of Dr. Rowe of Haverfordwest, by whom he had three 

 children who survived him. He was elected a Fellow of the Lin- 

 nean Society in November, 1862. j^ j)_ jJoq^jj^ 



* " Account of the Botanical Collections made by David Lyall, R.N., M.D., 

 F.L.S.," Journ. Linn. Soc. vii. 1863, pp. 124—147. 



t Proceedings of Zoological Society, xx. (1852), 31 — 33. 



p 2 



