Nathaniel Colgan

Nathaniel Colgan (1851 Dublin – 1919 Dublin ) was an Irish naturalist.

Colgan worked as a clerk in the Dublin Metropolitan Police Court. A keen amateur botanist, he later became interested in Mollusca and recorded the marine Mollusca collected during the Clare Island Survey. His mollusc collections from Co. Dublin and Clare Island are conserved in the Natural History Museum Dublin. He is also noted for his work in identifying the botanical species meant by the term 'shamrock'.

Works

Partial list

• 'The Shamrock: an attempt to fix its species' The Irish Naturalist: a monthly journal of general Irish natural history, Vol. 1, No. 5, 95-97, (August 1892)
• 'The Shamrock: a further attempt to fix its species' The Irish Naturalist: a monthly journal of general Irish natural history, Vol. 2, No. 8, 207-211, (August 1893)
• Flora of the County Dublin. Hodges, Figgis & Co., Dublin (1904)
• 1907 Contributions to a natural history of Lambay: marine Mollusca. Irish Naturalist 16: 33-40 (1907)
• Clare Island Survey: Gaelic plant and animal names, and associated folk-lore. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 31B: 1-30 (1911)
• Clare Island Survey: Marine Mollusca. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 31B: 1-36 (1911)
• The opisthobranch fauna of the shores and shallow waters of County Dublin. Irish Naturalist 23: 161-204 (1914)
• The marine Mollusca of the shores and shallow waters of County Dublin. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 39B: 391-42 (1930)

References

• Robert Lloyd Praeger Some Irish naturalists: A Biographical Note-book W.Tempest, Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, 1949.