ROBERT SERVICE. 37 



was re-founded with a membership of forty. When he 

 resigned office in 1882, the society was firmly estabHshed 

 with a membership of one hundred and thirty-seven. 



In 1879 he married Jemima Margaret, daughter of 

 Mrs. Glendinning, of Glasgow Street, Maxwelltown. 



In 1882 he was sorely tempted to leave his business 

 in pursuit of his natural bent, by the invitation of Joseph 

 Thomson, the African explorer, to accompany him as 

 naturalist on an expedition to Eastern Africa for the 

 Royal Geographical Society. I have often talked over 

 with him this episode in his life, and it does credit to the 

 man to have sacrificed to his sense of duty what must 

 have been the height of his ambition. 



The extensive immigration of Pallas's Sand-Grouse to 

 the British Isles, in 1888, naturally appealed to him, and 

 he was in almost daily communication on the subject 

 with the Rev. H. A. Macpherson. The sandy shore, at 

 Southerness in Kirkcudbrightshire and on the opposite 

 coast of Cumberland, afforded attractive ground to this 

 species, so that these two ornithologists were fortunately 

 placed for making observations. When, in August, 1889, 

 a nestling was found in the Culbin Sands, Moray, it was 

 sent by Professor Newton to Robert Service for examina- 

 tion. He found forty-five seeds, " Three of which were 

 those of rye grass {Lolium perenne), one of tufted hair grass 

 {Aira ccespitosa), and one of broom (Cytisus scoparius).'''^ 

 He also identified some seedling plants, raised in pots from 

 seeds, which William Hastings, the Dumfries taxidermist, 

 had taken from a Sand-Grouse he had skinned in 1888. 

 The majority were wild mustard and fescue grass, 

 while the rest were Vicia cracca, Ranunculus sp., and a 

 few clover. 



He was one of the principal witnesses summoned before 

 the departmental committee appointed in 1892 by the 

 Board of Agriculture to inquire into a plague of field- 

 voles in Scotland, when he strongly deprecated the 

 destruction of the natural enemies of these agricultural 



*Ibis, 1890, p. 213. 



