Andrew Leith Adams

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

, FRS (21 March 1827 – 29 July 1882) was a Scottish

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

, naturalist and

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

. He was the father of the writer Francis Adams.Gaston, A. J. in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Volume 1. pp. 222–223

Life and career

Adams was the son of Francis Adams (1796–1861), a surgeon and Espeth Shaw. He studied medicine and joined as an army physician in 1848, serving in the 22nd Infantry Regiment in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. Between 1849–1854 he was posted in Dagshai, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. He also served in

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

(1861–1868),

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. He married Bertha Jane Grundy on 26 October 1859, who later became famous as a novelist. He spent his spare time studying the natural history of these countries. He was among the first to study the interior of Ladakh and wrote about it in "The Birds of Cashmere and Ladakh". The

orange bullfinch The orange bullfinch (''Pyrrhula aurantiaca'') is a species of finch in the family Fringillidae. It is found in India and Pakistan. Its natural habitat is temperate forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of defi ...

(''Pyrrhula aurantiaca'') was discovered by him as also the first breeding site of

brown-headed gull The brown-headed gull (''Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus'') is a small gull which breeds in the high plateaus of central Asia from Tajikistan to Ordos in Inner Mongolia. It is migratory, wintering on the coasts and large inland lakes of the India ...

s (''Larus brunnicephalus'') in the lakes of the Tibetan plateau. In 1868, following twenty years of service in the army, he was promoted to surgeon-major. After his retirement from the army in 1873, Adams was professor of natural history at

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

and

Queen's College, Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) ( ga, Coláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh) is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one of ...

. He was elected a fellow of the Geographical Society in 1870 a fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

in 1872, and

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1873. He died of a pulmonary haemorrhage on 29 July 1883 at Rushbrook Villa (Cork). He published ''Wanderings of a Naturalist in India, the Western Himalayas and Cashmere'' (1867), ''Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta'' (1871) and ''Field and Forest Rambles'' (1873). He is commemorated in the black-winged snowfinch ''Montifringilla adamsi'' and in the genus of the Pleistocene giant

dormouse A dormouse is a rodent of the family Gliridae (this family is also variously called Myoxidae or Muscardinidae by different taxonomists). Dormice are nocturnal animals found in Africa, Asia, and Europe. They are named for their long, dormant hibe ...

and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Leithia melitensis ''Leithia'' is a genus of extinct giant dormice from the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Sicily. It is considered an example of island gigantism. ''Leithia melitensis'' is the largest known species of dormouse, living or extinct, being twice ...

'' and ''

Leithia cartei ''Leithia'' is a genus of extinct giant dormice from the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Sicily. It is considered an example of island gigantism. ''Leithia melitensis'' is the largest known species of dormouse, living or extinct, being twice ...

''. In 1868 Leith Adams described the very large form of giant dormouse from the Maqhlaq cave as ''Myoxus melitensis'' and the smaller form as ''Myoxus cartei''. Later, Richard Lydekker assigned the two species to a new genus, named ''Leithia'' in honour of Leith Adams in 1895.Lydekker, R., 1895. On the affinities of the so-called extinct giant dormouse of Malta. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for the year 1895: 860–863, 3 figs (published 1896).

Publications

* * * 2 plates, July 1862-Jan. 1863. * 4 figures, 1864. * * Adams, A.L. (1870). ''Notes of a naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta''. 195pp. Edinburgh (Edmonton and Douglas). * plates I–XXII. * Adams, A.L. (1874). Concluding Report on the Maltese Fossil Elephants. ''Report of the British Association for 1873'', 185–187. *

References

;Attribution

Other sources

* Anon (19 August 1882
Obituary: Andrew Leith Adams, M.B., F.R.S
The British Medical Journal 2(1129):338

External links

Wanderings of a naturalist in India

Archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Andrew Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Naturalists of British India Irish naturalists Academics of Queens College Cork Fellows of Trinity College Dublin 1827 births 1882 deaths British ornithologists Indian ornithologists