James Wilson (zoologist)

James Wilson (1795–1856) was a Scottish zoologist.

He was the youngest son of John Wilson (died 1796), a gauze manufacturer, and his wife Margaret (born Sym), and was born at Paisley in November 1795. John Wilson who wrote as "Christopher North" was his eldest brother; Matthew Leishman was his cousin, and lived nearby; Henrietta Wilson the writer was his niece, daughter of his brother Andrew. His father having died during James's first year, the family moved to Edinburgh, where he was educated. In 1811 he began to study for the law, but his health was poor.

In 1816 Wilson visited the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Paris. He later returned to Paris to purchase Louis Dufresne's collection of birds for the museum of Edinburgh University; and helped to arrange them. In 1819 he visited Sweden, soon after which symptoms of lung disease appeared, and he resided in Italy during 1820–1. In 1824 he married In 1824 he married Isabella Keith, and settled down at Woodburn, Dalkeith near Edinburgh, where he wrote and worked on scientific pursuits. Losing his wife in 1837, he took a winter residence in George Square, Edinburgh.

In 1841, with Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, he made a series of excursions round the coasts of Scotland, at the request of the Fisheries Board, to study the natural history of the herring. Other trips followed at intervals between 1843 and 1850, and fishing excursions inland. In 1854 he was offered but declined the chair of natural history in the Edinburgh University, then vacant by the death of Edward Forbes.

He died at Woodburn on 18 May 1856. Wilson had joined the Wernerian Society when just 17, and was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Wilson was one of the first to have used the term "evolution" in the context of biological speciation. In 1830, he used this term in a paper on the history of goat and sheep, he wrote:

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