Abstract
DR. J. M. DALZIEL, whose death was recently reported, was educated in Edinburgh and spent the first years of his career in South China as a medical missionary with the English Presbyterian Mission. His interest in natural history was evident even then. He eventually transferred to the West African Medical Service, where his work during many years took him to all the British West African Colonies. His greatest love was for Northern Nigeria in general, and the Hausas in particular. He was a good Hausa scholar, and also had, a considerable knowledge of Fulani. He was a keen observer, and collected a number of new species, especially of Northern Nigerian plants, although he collected animals as well, and recorded their vernacular names. He tried to record the vernacular names and the uses of every plant he encountered, and his field notes were always most thorough and painstaking. His Hausa names of plants, with scientific equivalents, and often with derivations of the names, were published in 1916 as "A Hausa Botanical Vocabulary", an invaluable work, unfortunately now out of print, and in which the majority of the information given is still accurate. During that period Dalziel helped, with his field notes, in J. H. Holland‘s monumental "Useful Plants of Nigeria".
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IRVINE, F. Dr. J. M. Dalziel. Nature 161, 920–921 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161920b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161920b0