Arthur Stanley Hirst (1883 – 4 May 1930) also known as Stanley Hirst, was an English

arachnologist Arachnology is the scientific study of arachnids, which comprise spiders and related invertebrates such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, and harvestmen. Those who study spiders and other arachnids are arachnologists. More narrowly, the study of ...

and myriapodologist on the staff of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, and was an authority on Arachnida, especially

Acari Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods). Mites span two large orders of arachnids, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari, but genetic analysis does not show clear evid ...

(ticks and mites)

Myriapoda Myriapods () are the members of subphylum Myriapoda, containing arthropods such as millipedes and centipedes. The group contains about 13,000 species, all of them terrestrial. The fossil record of myriapods reaches back into the late Silurian ...

. Born in Hackney, where his father practiced medicine, he was educated at the Merchant Taylor's School, and studied zoology at the

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. In October 1905 he was appointed as an assistant at the British Museum, where he at first worked on the mammal collection and shortly after was put in charge of the Arachnida and Myriapoda collections, succeeding Reginald Innes Pocock. With the abundant material he had at his disposal, he initially described new spiders, harvestmen, scorpions and millipedes, but soon worked mainly on mites and ticks. He also did some work on the spiders of Australia, the islands of the Indian Ocean, India and Africa. In 1927 ill health forced him to leave the museum and go to Australia and a drier climate, where he continued his Acari studies at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

. In April 1930, taking advantage of an improvement in his health, he set off to return to England, but died at sea before arriving in

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo m ...

Publications

*Hirst, A. Stanley, 1909a. Arachnida. p. 158. In: ''"The Fauna of the Cocos-Kneeling Atoll"'', collected by F. Wood Jones (F. Wood Jones, ed.). Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1909(1): 132–160. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1909b. ''"Ruwenzori Expedition Reports 6 Arachnida"''. London, Stanley Gardiner. No. xviii. The Araneae, Opiliones and Pseudoscorpiones. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Zoology, 19 pt. 1 pp. 57–58. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1911a. ''"On a collection of Arachnida and Chilopoda made by Mr. S. A. Neave in Rhodesia, north of the Zambesi"''. Manchester Mem. Lit. Phil. Soc. 2: 56. 11 pages. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1911b. ''"On some new Opiliones from Japan and the Loo-Choo Islands"''. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, London, ser. 8, 8: 625–636. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1911c. ''"Percy Sladen Trust Expedition to the Indian Ocean in 1905 under the leadership of Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner"''. No. xviii. The Araneae, Opiliones and Pseudoscorpiones. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Zoology, series 2, 14: 379–395. *Hirst, .Stanley, 1912. ''"Descriptions of new harvest-men of the family Phalangodidae"''. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Including Zoology, Botany, and Geology, London, 8th series, 10(55): 63–84, plate I. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1913. ''"The Percy Sladen Trust Expedition to the Indian Ocean in 1905 under the leadership of Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner"''. No. II. Second report on the Arachnida – The scorpions, pedipalpi, and supplementary notes on the opiliones and pseudoscorpions. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Zoology, series 2, 16: 31–37. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1914. ''"Report on the Arachnida and Myriapoda collected by the British Ornithologists' Union Expedition and the Wollaston Expedition in Dutch New Guinea"''. Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Zoology, 20: 325–334. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1919. ''"Studies on Acari No. 1."'' The Genus Demodex, Owen. Trustees of the British museum, London. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1920. ''"Species of Arachnida and Myriopoda (scorpions, spiders, mites, ticks and centipedes) injurious to man"''. Trustees of the British museum, London. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1923. ''"On some arachnid remains from the Old Red sandstone (Rhyne chert bed, Aberdeenshire)"''. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, ser. 9, 12: 455–474. *Hirst, A. Stanley, 1926. ''"On some new genera and species of Arachnida"''. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1925(84): 1271–1280.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hirst, Arthur Stanley English entomologists Alumni of University College London 1883 births 1930 deaths People from the London Borough of Hackney British arachnologists Myriapodologists 20th-century British zoologists