He was born in 1878, possibly the son of William Staig, a shipmaster, living at 165 Ferry Road in
Leith. He graduated MA in Science from
Glasgow University around 1900 and began lecturing in Zoology in the university. He was Curator of the Hunterian collections from around 1905 to 1945. In 1925 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers for the latter were Sir
John Graham Kerr, Sir
John Arthur Thomson,
Frederick Orpen Bower, and
John Walter Gregory. He died on 19 March 1963. ==Family==