Obituary. — David Thomas Gwynne- Vaughan. xi 
part in it to play, my interests being still right away back with the honest, 
clean, and simple savagery of the Malay/ 
H is friend Lang, who was himself in the Malay Peninsula a year or 
two afterwards, writes to me as follows on the subject of Gwynne-Vaughan’s 
travels : 
‘ The expedition, as you know, had a pretty adventurous time in the 
unexplored Siamese States as well as in better-known Eastern States of the 
Peninsula. The experience made a deep impression on Gwynne-Vaughan’s 
life and thought, but not on his work, which he continued on the straight 
line on his return. Apart from collecting for the expedition and loyally 
handing over all the results, he drank deeply of the life with the Malays, 
who were after his heart in many ways. The Malay attitude to many 
things was always with him afterwards, and since I was there, a little later, 
we kept up an interest in the subject and for a time hoped to return. 
Malay proverbs and phrases were always coming from him as the appropriate 
expression of his thought in circumstances little dreamt of in the East. 
‘ The Amazon expedition was a much rougher and less scientific 
experience, but he was younger, and got great joy of adventure in pulling 
through tight places in which the whites were often more savage than the 
natives. The experience appealed to his joy in adventure, which was 
always a current parallel to that of his almost too conscientious discharge 
of the duties of his various posts. 
{ This side of him came out in his fishing expeditions to out-of-the-way 
spots in Ireland and the Hebrides, where he loved to meet with all sorts and 
conditions of men, and not to be suspected of having been “ academic 
There is nothing to add to these words, which seem to me to express 
perfectly the significance of Gwynne-Vaughan’s journeys in his life. 
After he returned from the Malay expedition he took up the thread of 
his work, where he had dropped it, and his most important publications 
date from the period which then opened. These will be considered after- 
wards ; his career may be first shortly sketched. He remained at Glasgow 
till 1907 — ten years in all. He assisted his Professor in preparing the 
second edition of the ‘ Practical Botany for Beginners ’, which appeared in 
1902 under their joint names. I believe this was the only work in book 
form in which he took part. 
In 1904 he became lecturer in Botany at Queen Margaret’s College, 
Glasgow, in addition to his other University duties. 
. In 1907 his long and happy association with the University of Glasgow 
came to an end, and he accepted the post of Head of the Department of 
Botany at the Birkbeck College, becoming a Recognized Teacher and 
Internal Examiner in the University of London. He did not, however, 
remain for very long in the ranks of London botanists, for two years later, 
in 1909, he became Professor of Botany in the Queen’s University at 
