216 THE ESSEX NATURALIST
Association, the Royal Microscopical Society and Quekett Microscopical
Club and of course the Essex Field Club. He joined the last named in 1898
and served as President from 1926 to 1929. He was a Vice-President and
Life Governor of the Freshwater Biological Association and was President
of the Quekett Microscopical Club from 1923 to 1925.
Scourfield's output of scientific papers was large, especially when it is
recalled that until his retirement his scientific work had to be done at evenings
and weekends. He published no fewer than seventy-nine papers, a complete
list of which will be found elsewhere in this issue. Nearly all are concerned
with freshwater biology. His first paper appeared in 1892 and dealt with
new records of British Cladocera, while at the time he joined the Essex Field
Club his important paper on the Entomostraca of Epping Forest appeared
in the Essex Naturalist. Another important contribution in this field is the
Key to the British Species of Freshwater Cladocera which he published jointly
with Dr. J. P. Harding in 1941 ; this is not a purely systematic work since it
contains valuable notes on the ecology of the British waterfleas. Scourfield
had a flair for looking for living organisms in out of the way places. He
discovered a new Copepod in water from hollows in tree trunks in Epping
Forest, he studied the microscopic life of the leaf carpet and, of course, of
pools which formed in bomb craters. Among papers covering a wider
field older members of the Field Club will remember his scholarly presidential
addresses, "Water Surface Plants and Animals" and "Some Field Pheno-
mena due directly to Microscopic Organisms." Scourfield also devoted a
good deal of attention to the freshwater Protozoa and flagellates. It was he
who discovered the minute, flattened, backwardly swimming chlamydomonad
at Leyton Flats for which the late G. S. West erected the genus Scourfieldia,
while one of his notebooks shows that he had seen and examined a number
of freshwater flagellates which we regard as rarities.
Among zoologists Scourfield will probably be best known for his import-
ant paper on the fossil Lepidocaris rhyniensis, a primitive crustacean whose
remains occur in the Rhynie Chert. This investigation called for the examina-
tion of thousands of tiny chips from the rock which were mounted in cloves
oil to make them transparent. The memoir appeared in the Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society. From the same material he worked on
the remains of a primitive insect, Rhyniella praecursor, a piece of research
which brought him the Crisp Award and Medal of the Linnean Society.
In this work he was greatly assisted by his wife who always took a deep
interest in his investigations and thus became expert in the preliminary
examination of the many thousands of microscope preparations which had
to be made.
Scourfield was neat and methodical in his scientific work, meticulously
careful and patient as an observer and a skilled and accurate draughtsman.
Despite the volume of his work he was never in a hurry to publish the results
of his investigations for he was cautious to a degree; the Lepidocaris work
took some fifteen years, while he discovered the Copepod Moraria arboricola
in water in the hollows of Epping Forest hornbeams in 1904, although he
did not publish his account of the animal until 1915. He was ever ready to
discuss scientific matters and a chat with Scourfield was always stimulating;
many will remember his readiness to help the beginner with his problems.
He was quiet and unassuming and the end came as I believe he would have
wished ; he died quietly, from a sudden heart attack on October 3rd, 1949.
It was his expressed wish that all his microscopes, specimens and books
should be given to friends and societies who would make good use of them.
Mrs. Scourfield's knowledge of her husband's work has enabled her to carry
out his intentions in this matter and many students have cause to be grateful
for her generosity.
F.W.J.