HISLOP, Robert

Born in Dunse, Scotland. He had two brothers who were Reverends, Alexander, a writer on religious subjects, and Stephen, a well known worker on Indian geology. He took up teaching as a profession and worked in the Glasgow Normal Seminary, the Free Church Training Schools and Blair House Academy, Polmont. Hislop was apparently of a retiring nature and wrote only a few notes but he was an enthusiastic collector and contributed substantially to our knowledge of Scottish Coleoptera. Murray (1853), p.vii wrote of him: 'My information as to the insects of Lanarkshire and the neighbourhood of Glasgow has been almost wholly received from Mr Hislop, now at Blairlodge, near Falkirk, but formerly resident in Glasgow, who was aided in his investigations in the west by Mr John Gray, and Dr Colquhoun... Mr Hardy and Mr Hislop have added much to the list of species found in Berwickshire... the Island of Mull ... has likewise been gone over by Mr Hislop and myself.' His first publication on Coleoptera appears to have been 'Note on Melolontha hippocastani' in Zool, 13, 1855, p.4924 and his last 'Capture of Trechus longicornis Sturm' in Scottish Naturalist, 1, 1872, p.212. He added two beetles to the British list Atomaria diluta Erichson (EMM, 2, 1865, p.139) and Negastrius pulchellus L. taken on the banks of the Findhorn in Morayshire (ibid., 5, 1868, p.139). Some beetles collected by Hislop are in the Perth Museum together with an annotated Catalogue of Scottish Coleoptera (I am grateful to Mr M.A.Taylor for this information). Two examples of Crioceris sp. were given to the NHM (1854/15). There are obituaries in EMM, 7, 1880, pp.71-72 and Scottish Naturalist, 5, 1880, p.331. (MD 5/03)