He was a co-founder of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, and contributed to the founding of the Ray Society. He was "keenly addicted to field-sports, and a master equally of the rod and the gun". While ornithology was his main passion, he also studied ichthyology, botany and geology. His book on fossil burrows and traces, the "Ichnology of Annandale", included fossils from his ancestral estate. He was the first to coin the term "ichnology", and this was the first book written on the subject. His private natural history museum and library are said to have been the finest in Britain.