Scottish entomologist who published several notes and lists of beetles including, Entomologia Edinensis or a Description and History of the Insects found in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, Coleoptera (1834) which he wrote in conjunction with James Duncan. This includes detailed descriptions of each species as well as locality information, and is one of the best of the early local lists. It runs to 351pages. To a certain extent it relied on the earlier work of Charles Stewart (1809) and on Duncan’s own ‘Catalogue of Edinburgh Coleoptera’ in Memoirs of the Wernerian Society., 4, p.443, (read in 1831). The Register in the RSM states that a ‘large collection of British and Foreign insects formed by the late James Wilson, Woodville in 4 cabinets containing 58 drawers besides 52 loose drawers’ was purchased from Miss Wilson by the College Museum for £40 in 1868. (When I visited the Museum in 1979 Pelham Clinton indicated to me that only 6 drawers survived, of which I could only find 2). Smith (1986) p.96 records letters to Hope from J.Wilson covering the period 1827-35 but it is not clear whether this is the same person. (MD 12/04)
Dates
1795 – 1856