KEVAN, Douglas Keely

Born at Chelmsford, Essex and received little orthodox education. His father died when he was ten and he left school to join a firm of timber merchants, G.F.Neame and Co (later Price & Pierce (Woodpulp) Ltd.) where he remained until his retirement in 1958. Served in France for a short time during the First World War before being invalided out in 1915 and transferred to the Army Service Corps. Subsequently rose to the rank of Captain. Following his marriage in 1919 he moved for two years to Finland as his firm’s representative. In December 1921 he took a first in Accountancy and later became a Fellow of the Corporation of Registered Accountants. He went to work in Edinburgh in 1922 and remained there until his death. Apart from reading widely Kevan was also interested in: supernatural phenomena and reincarnation, stamp collecting, Freemasonry, playing the piano and composing - his last fugue, no 67 being composed the year before his death - but his main enthusiasms were shells and beetles, the latter evolving out of the former some time after 1935. Kevan’s first paper on Coleoptera was published in 1939 in the Scottish Naturalist and the first of the series of important papers on some of the more difficult genera of beetles, ‘The aedeagi of the British species of the genus Catops’, for which he is now well know, in 1945 (EMM., 81, pp.69-72). Other papers in this series were: ‘The aedeagi of the British species of the genera Ptomaphagus Ill., Nemadus., Th., Nargus., and Bathyscia Sch.’ (ibid., 81, 1945, pp.121-125); ‘The sexual characters of the British species of the genus Choleva Lat., including C.cisteloides Frohl. new to the British list’ (ibid., 82, 1946, pp.122-130); ‘A revision of the British species of the genus Colon Hbst.’ (ibid., 83, 1947, pp.249-267); ‘The British species of the genus Sitona Germar’ (ibid., 95, 1959, pp. 251-261); ‘The British species of the genus Haltica Geoffrey’ (ibid., 98, 1962, pp.189-196); ‘The British species of the genus Cyphon Paykull including three new to the British list’ (ibid., 98, 1962, pp. 114-121. The new ones were hilaris, Nyholm, pubescens F. and phragmiteticola Nyholm); ‘The British species of the genus Helophorus Illiger, subgenus Helophorus s.str.’ (ibid., 101, 1965, pp.254-268); and ‘The British species of the genus Longitarsus Latreille’ (ibid., 103, 1967, pp.83-110). The dissections and drawings he produced for this series of articles were all made using a Victorian Crouch binocular microscope producing an inverted image. His additions to the British list also included Catops nigriclavis which he took near Pentaitland, E.Lothian (ibid., 82, 1946, pp.155-57); and Sitona brevirostris Solari (ibid., 99, 1963, pp.39-41). Apart from his revisionary work Kevan also undertook the re-arrangement of the general collection of the RSM in 240 cabinet drawers (in the process writing new det labels for each of the more than 100,000 specimens) This collection includes some of his own specimens. He also appears to have worked on the Balfour Browne collection in the Museum many of the specimens of Helophorus, for example, bear his det labels. Kevan’s main collection is also housed in the RSM in an 18 drawer cabinet (home made?) and is accompanied by eight drawers of correspondence. FRES from 1950. There is an obituary by E.C.Pelham-Clinton in EMM., 105, 1969, pp.73-74 and another by A.R.Waterston in Journal of Conchology, London, 26, 1971, pp.419-421. (MD 8/03)