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172 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



been in this direction, the demands of health must have 

 compelled him to follow nature in the country-side. Yet 

 there can have been few field naturalists who could compare 

 with him in the precision or the range of his knowledge. 

 His earlier papers were largely ornithological, owing, I have 

 little doubt, to the strong influence of Dr Robert Gray's 

 example ; but soon other vertebrates claimed his attention, 

 and he contributed to the Proceedings of the Royal Physical 

 Society excellent accounts of the Mammalia, afterwards 

 published in book form, and of the Reptiles and Batrachians 

 of the Edinburgh district. Then he turned also to inverte- 

 brates and wrote effectively not only on the more familiar 

 groups of Lepidoptera and Aculeate Hymenoptera, but 

 on neglected and obscure orders, such as Collembola, 

 Thysanura, and Harvest-men (Phalangids), False Scorpions 

 (Chernetidea) and Spiders, Ixodidae, Myriapoda, Ants, 

 Mallophaga, Oligochseta, and so on. This varied output, 

 running into well over 100 papers, apart from 300 to 400 

 odd notes and records, and consisting largely of systematic 

 lists with frequent notes on the structures and habits of 

 species referred to, was in great part held together by a 

 unity — the unity of place. For Evans made himself the 

 outstanding authority on the fauna of the Forth Area, and 

 the majority of his contributions were designed to fill now 

 this and now that blank in our knowledge of the denizens 

 of the district. His address on " Our present Knowledge 

 of the Fauna of the Forth Area," delivered in 1906 to 

 the Royal Physical Society, was a fitting memorial of 

 one of the chief aims of his scientific life. All his work 

 was characterized by scientific exactness, and by a fine 

 appreciation of the characters of species. He was a collector 

 of no ordinary skill, as his large collections testify, and his 

 enthusiasm in the chase of a rare or special quarry was 

 unbounded. 



Mr Evans was a Fellow of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh, elected in 1884, of the Faculty of Actuaries, and 

 of the Royal Physical Society, elected 1880, of which he 

 became in turn Secretary, Vice-President and President, as 

 well as a Member of the British Ornithologists' Union. From 



