Andrew Leith Adams

Andrew Leith Adams (March 21, 1827 - July 29, 1882) was a Scottish physician, naturalist and geologist. 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. Between 1849-1854 he was posted in Dagshai, Rawalpindi and Peshawar. He also served in Kashmir, Egypt, Malta (1861-1868), Gibraltar and Canada. 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 "Pyrrhula aurantiaca" was discovered by him as also the first breeding site of Brown-headed Gulls "Larus brunnicephalus" in the lakes of the Tibetan plateau.

After his retirement from the army in 1873, Adams was professor of natural history at Trinity College, Dublin and Queen's College, Cork. He was elected a fellow of the Geographical Society in 1870 a fellow of the Royal Society in 1872. 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) and "Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta" (1871).

He is commemorated in the Black-winged Snowfinch "Montifringilla adamsii".

Publications

* Adams, A.L. (1859): Notes on the habits, haunts, etc. of some of the birds of India. "Proc. Zool. Soc. London" 26, 466-512.
* Adams,AL (1859): The birds of Cashmere and Ladakh. "Proc. Zool. Soc. London" 27, 169-190.
* Adams, A.L. (1870). "Notes of a naturalist in the Nile Valley and Malta". 195pp. Edinburgh.
* Adams, A.L. (1874). On the dentition and osteology of the Maltese fossil elephant, being a description of the remains discovered by the author in Malta between the years 1860 and 1866. "Trans. Zool. Soc. Lond.", 9: 1-124.
* Adams, A. L. (1875) On a fossil saurian vertebra, "Arctosaurus osborni" from the Arctic region. "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy" 2:177-179.

References