Andrew Murray (botanist)
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Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
– 10 January 1878, Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
) was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
lawyer, botanist, zoologist and entomologist. Murray studied insects which caused crop damage, specialising in the Coleoptera. In botany, he specialised in the Coniferae, in particular the Pacific rim
Pacific Rim
The Pacific Rim refers to places around the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The term "Pacific Basin" includes the Pacific Rim and islands in the Pacific Ocean...
conifer species.
Murray practised law in Edinburgh until 1860, becoming a Writer to the Signet. Following the publication of his Catalogue of the Coleoptera of Scotland he was appointed professor of natural science
Natural science
The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...
at New College
New College, Edinburgh
New College was opened in 1846 as a college of the Free Church of Scotland, later of the United Free Church of Scotland, and from the 1930s has been the home of the School of Divinity of the University of Edinburgh...
in 1857, and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity, operating on a wholly independent and non-party-political basis and providing public benefit throughout Scotland...
the same year.
In 1861 he moved to London, upon his appointment as Assistant Secretary to the Royal Horticultural Society
Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...
(1860–5).
Murray was a prominent opponent of the Darwin-Wallace model of natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
.
Works
- 1853 Catalogue of the Coleoptera of Scotland Edinburgh, London, W. Blackwood and sons.
- 1861 On the pediculi infesting the different races of man Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinb. 22: 567
- 1866 The Geographical Distribution of Mammals
- 1867 List of Coleoptera received from Old CalabarCalabarCalabar is a city in Cross River State, southeastern Nigeria. The original name for Calabar was Atakpa, from the Jukun language....
, 1867 Annals and Magazine of Natural History (3rd series) 19: 167-179. - 1870 On the geographical relations of the chief coleopterous faunae. J. Linn. Soc. 11: 1-89.
- 1877 Economic entomology Chapman and Hall,London.
External links
- Internet Archive Digitised Catalogue of the Coleoptera of Scotland
- http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/chronob/MURR1812.htm