James Rennie FRS  was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 naturalist

Naturalist

Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...

.

Life

In 1815 he graduated M.A. from Glasgow University where he had previously studied natural sciences, and took holy orders. In 1821 he moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. From 1830 to 1834 he was professor of natural history

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 and zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 at King's College

King's College London

King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...

. From then on he made his living as a natural history author. Rennie was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1845.

Rennie eventually emigrated to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, where he ran the College High School in Elizabeth Street, Sydney, with an emphasis on the Arts and Natural History.

Works

He wrote, among many other books, The Natural History of Insects published by John Murray

John Murray (publisher)

John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...

 (1829) co-authored by John Obadiah Westwood

John Obadiah Westwood

John Obadiah Westwood was an English entomologist and archaeologist also noted for his artistic talents.Born in Sheffield, he studied to be a lawyer but abandoned that for his scientific interests....

;Insect Architecture (1830), a very popular work originally in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge but reissued in 1857 John Murray and Alphabet of Botany for use of beginners (1834).

Publications

(Rennie,James) 1831. The Architecture of Birds. The Library of Entertaining Knowledge. London: Charles Knight, Pall Mall East.

External links

• Google books Several works
• Insect architecture (1830)