1922-23.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 191 



after facts. His published papers run to well over 100, while 

 short notes exceed 500 in number. Running through this 

 long and extensive series of publications there is a guiding 

 and connecting thread, for the aim of the author was a complete 

 faunal survey of the area of the Forth — an area which William 

 Evans made peculiarly his own, becoming the acknowledged 

 authority on the animal life of the district. In his presidential 

 address on " Our Present Knowledge of the Fauna of the 

 Forth Area," delivered in 1906 to the Royal Physical Society, 

 he summarised the species of animals known to occur in the 

 district, giving the total number as 6865, of which he had met 

 v>'ith no fewer than 4250 in the course of his own investigations. 



His botanical papers were relatively few in number, and 

 most of them have appeared in the Transactions of our Society. 

 He did not count himself a botanist — such was his great 

 modesty — yet he knew his plants well, both phanerogams and 

 cryptogams. Mosses and Hepatics interested him especially, 

 and the Ricciae of the Edinburgh District were dealt with in 

 a paper published in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin., 1907. Mosses 

 and Hepatics from the Isle of May were recorded in 1908, 

 with additions in 1910, while a long paper giving moss records 

 for Selkirk, Peebles, and the Lothians was published in 1917. 

 A further contribution in 1921 dealt with mosses from St. 

 Kilda. His last public appearance was at a meeting of the 

 Society on 18th May 1922, when he read a note on the occur- 

 rence of Anthoceros punctatus, L., in West Lothian, hitherto 

 unrecorded from that county. Even during his last illness 

 his interest in natural history continued to the very end, 

 and he had in hand numerous zoological and botanical studies, 

 including a list of the larger fungi of the Edinburgh district. 



With a wealth of information at his disposal, William Evans 

 was ever ready to help, and, so close is the web of life, his ex- 

 pert knowledge was often of the utmost value on such economic 

 matters of importance as the insect pests of timber and other 

 inter-relationships in the world of living things. To the 

 younger man in need of help or in search of information there 

 was always extended that warm welcome which made him 

 feel encouraged to carry on ; and pervading all was that 

 extreme modesty so distinctive of the man at all times. Such 

 men are few, and the death of William Evans on Monday, 

 23rd October 1922, leaves a blank in our ranks which will be 



