128 In Memoriam : Herbert Hastings Sturdy. 
district in The Naturalist , 1918, pp. 62-65 l another paper on 
the Fairyfly, Polynema natans, The Naturalist, 1916, 346-7, 
shows his interest in the life histories of the insect world. 
On his trips to the West Coast of Ireland during vacation^ 
he worked keenly at the marine plants and animals, especially 
the zoophytes, and the pages of the Irish Naturalist give some 
glimpses of his work in this field. 
In 1918 the offer of a post in the Research Laboratory of 
the Rubber Growers’ Association at Petaling, F.M.S. , gave 
him a long desired opportunity to see the fauna and flora of 
the tropics, as well as work of a congenial nature, and his 
success in this post is seen in the yearly reports of the work 
done in the laboratory. 
Botanically his interest seems still to have been mostly in 
the Mycetozoa, and he published along list of Malayan 
species. When on leave he generally made his way to the 
hill top stations which seemed to offer the most hopeful places 
for new insects. He collected a great amount of material, 
and had settled down at Austwick near his native district 
hoping to work out his collections, but this was not to be 
and his sudden death on Christmas Day leaves this to other 
hands. — C. A. C. 
HERBERT HASTINGS STURDY. 
Botanists from outside Yorkshire knew Sturdy better than 
those living in the County away from the Settle area. Settle 
may be looked on as the headquarter for the limestone area 
of Yorkshire ; here visitors with botanical interests were 
always directed to Sturdy, and they found him a man with an 
intense love of the wild plants of the district, one whose 
greatest delight in life was to show a plant lover the flowers 
and ferns of his native district, to go out with him was a 
pleasure such visitors were always anxious to repeat and also 
to tell to others who were likely to profit from his kindness. 
In this way he built up a widespread circle of friends. At 
Settle and in the surrounding neighbourhood his reputation 
was well known and his help was sought by all, but he was far 
too diffident to take a hand in the Union’s activities, looking 
on the members as far too scientific for him to associate with ; 
this may have been due to the fact that practically the whole 
of his botanical knowledge was self taught. Sturdy had no 
William West to help and guide him, he learnt from his father, 
who was a gardener, that plants had a double Latin name, 
and a list of plants of the limestone area at Buxton seems for 
long to have been his only text book. To those who have 
The Naturalist 
