6o PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



work, hilt to receive a universal acknowledgment of its value from 

 naturalists in all parts of the world. 



It was a great feat when in 1858 he discovered a breeding 

 liaunt of the Wax wing (AmpeHs garrulits) on an island in the 

 Baltic near Uleaborg, and hnd the peculiar satisfaction of taking 

 a nest of this bird there with his owu hands. This was two 

 years after John AVolley had described for the first time the 

 eggs of the AVaxwing (until then unknown) taken at Sardio, 

 Keiiii Lappmark, in June 1856. 



ISiiic^ then he h.as made us acquainted with many rare eggs, 

 ihe appearance of which Avas unkno\Mi until he described and 

 figured them. Thus, in a series of articles on " Kare Palsearctic 

 Birds' Eggs," published in 'The Ibis' from 1901 to 1906, he 

 h'gured such rar.ties as the eggs of the wliite-tailed plover 

 {Chtthisia leucura), the pin-tailed snipe {GalUnarjo siewrtro), and 

 of Boss's rosy gull, received from Mr. S. A. Buturliii, who dis- 

 covered its nesting haunts in the delta of the Kolyma river, 

 ]S'.E. Siberia. The following year (Ibis, April 1907) he published 

 descriptions and beautifully colouied figures of the eggs, pre- 

 viously unknown, of the Himalayan solitary snipe (GaUinago 

 solitaria), which inhabits also the mountains of ISortbern Tibet, 

 Mongolia and Siberia, and of the still rarer Ihidorhynchus 

 struthersii, discovered by Mr. S. L. AVhymper in the Himalayas, 

 and figured for the first time. 



In 1901-2, he had been experimenting upon the three-colour 

 process for eggs with a view to the publication of a work on 

 Palaearctic Oology, illustrated by that method. His first plate 

 (Ibis, 1901, pi. 9) was executed by this process from a water- 

 colour drawing, but in the next (Ibis, 1902, pi. 6) the figures 

 were photographed in colours from the eggs direct, without the 

 intervention of an artist, and were not touched by hand. This 

 was the first illustration of birds' eggs illustrated by the new 

 process. These experin)ents paved the way for the publication of 

 his important quarto woi'k, ' The Eggs of the Birds of Europe,' 

 and furnishes a splendid complement to the previously published 

 eight volumes (1871-81), with supplement (1895-96), of his 

 monumental work on European birds. 



Notwithstanding the labour entailed in the preparation and 

 pul)lication of these volumes, Mr. Dresser found time to bring 

 out two important monographs : one on the Bee-eaters (1884-86), 

 the other on the Boilers (18['3), and both illustrated with 

 beautifully coloured ])lates. The brilliant colours of the birds 

 vhich con)pose these families makes these quarto volumes 

 supremely attractive. The last work of importance which 

 emanated from his busy pen was 'A Manual of Palaearctic 

 Birds,' which was published in large octavo, Mithout plates 

 (1902-03). In view of the costly nature of the larger work iu 

 nine quarto volumes, which exceeds ^50, these two octavo 

 volumes came as a boon to those unable to afford the quarto, for 



