WILLIAM EVANS, F.R.S.E., ETC 173 



191 2 onwards he was one of the Editors of The Scottish 

 Naturalist ; and this magazine and its forerunner, The 

 Annals of Scottish Nattiral History, owe much to his many 

 and varied contributions as well as to his mature and valued 

 advice and guidance. 



William Evans was a modest man, but in him lay that 

 full knowledge which comes of enthusiasm and life-long 

 study. He was intolerant of slipshod work or of inaccuracy, 

 but no man more appreciated the difficulties of the beginner, 

 or did more to help the young naturalist who sought his 

 assistance and advice. In his friendships he gave much, 

 and, I think, received much ; for one cannot but see in his 

 life's work the influence of his long association with the 

 Royal Physical Society and its members. It is easy also to 

 see that he owed much to the sympathy and understanding 

 of his wife, who predeceased him by little over a year, and 

 his family, all of whom were interested in and familiar with 

 his work. His last continued labour was the mounting and 

 classification, for specialist study, of the important collection 

 of animals made by his son, Capt. W. Edgar Evans, 

 R.A.M.C, B.Sc, during his war service in Mesopotamia, a 

 collection in which he justly took great pride. 



James Ritchie. 



Food of the Goldfinch {Cardnelis ekgans). — One of the most 

 gratifying results of the various Wild Birds Protection Acts, and 

 the power conferred under them upon County Councils to prohibit 

 the capture of desirable species, is manifest in the steady increase 

 of Goldfinches in districts where, to quote the words of the late 

 Professor Newton, " they were once more plentiful than sparrows 

 [but] are now only rare stragglers " (jO/V/w/mry of Birds, p. 370). 

 In the flower-garden here there are great breadths of the wood 

 forget-me-not {Myosotis sylvaticd), whereof the ripe black seeds 

 offer unfailing attraction to these pretty birds. In the present 

 season two pairs of Goldfinches reared their broods close to the 

 house, a third nest being deserted after two eggs had been laid, 

 no doubt because the female bird had come to an untimely end. 

 We enjoyed, therefore, good opportunity of observing the move- 

 ments of both old and young Goldfinches. It was interesting to 

 see the parent birds plunging their beaks into those bundles of 



