Obituaries. 
15 
1918-19.] 
author of two papers published by the London Chemical Society, viz. 
“ A Contribution to our Knowledge of Oxonium Compounds,” published in 
1910, and “ Arylidene-dimethylpyrone and its Salts,” published in 1914. 
After filling various posts as a teacher in Edinburgh and Leith, he became 
in 1899 Principal Lecturer in English Literature and Philology in Leith 
Technical College. In 1901 he was appointed First Master and Principal 
Teacher of Science in Leith Academy Higher Grade School, and in 1907 
Master of Method in the Junior Student Centre in Leith. 
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1911, 
and died after an operation in a nursing home on May 27, 1918. 
[ Contributed by Professor MTntosh.] 
James Ramsay Tosh was born in Dundee on November 2, 1872, and 
was the son of one of the curators of the Public Museum, Dundee. He 
was educated at Donaldson Street School and the Harris Academy. 
Dundee. He entered the University of St Andrews in October 1889, 
and qualified for both the M.A. and B.Sc. degrees. In zoology he especially 
distinguished himself, gaining high honours in both the systematic and 
practical classes. His college career was especially adapted for training 
as a science teacher, a profession for which he seems to have had a natural 
aptitude. His interest in zoology led to his obtaining the Woodall Prize. 
For some time he worked in the Old Marine Laboratory, familiarising 
himself with the fauna of the beach, and becoming expert in dredging 
and in the use of the tow-nets — surface, mid-water, and bottom. 
His first paper, “ On the Rate of Growth of certain Marine Fishes,” viz. 
the lump-sucker, sea-scorpion, armed bull-head, and Montagu’s snake, was 
published in the Twelfth Report of the Fishery Board. He also for the same 
Report identified the pelagic ova, larvae, and young of fishes collected in 
the cruises of the Garland and the Dalhousie, as well as some on the East 
Coast and on board H.M.S. Jackal in May, thus familiarising himself with 
fishery work, which he also extended by frequent voyages on board the 
trawlers from Dundee. Moreover, he was a skilful photographer and an 
accurate and neat draughtsman — see, for example, his drawings of the 
abnormal edible crabs which he described for the Annals of Natural 
History. When appointed to a post in Berwick-on-Tweed, advantage was 
taken of his ability and interest in the subject by Mr Archer, then Inspector 
of Salmon Fisheries in Scotland, who arranged for his carrying out a 
series of researches on the length, weight, sexual differences, and other 
points in the salmon of the Tweed, which were subsequently contrasted 
with similar observations by Dr Hock of Helder. Whilst thus engaged 
