ORIGINAL MEMBERS. 107 



Professor ALFRED NEWTON. 



Death was busy in 1907 among the original members ot 

 the l^ritish Ornithologists' Union. Not to mention the 

 name of Osbert Salvin^ whose death occurred some nine 

 years previously^ those of Ednard Cavendish Taylor and 

 Henry Baker Tristram must not be forgotten ; but greatest 

 loss of all was that of Alfred Newton, who died at Magdalene 

 College, Cambridge, on the 7th of June of that year. By 

 a curious coincidence, this happened to be the day of the 

 celebration of the bi-centenary of Linnteus, and tlie sad 

 news, as it circulated among the Fellows of the Linnean 

 Society, served to cast a gloom over the proceedings of the 

 evening. 



Alfred Newton was born at Geneva on the 11th June, 

 1829, and thus, at the time of his decease, only wanted four 

 days of completing his 78th year. He Avas one of a large 

 family of brothers and sisters, and his father was the owner 

 of the well-known estate of Elveden (called in those days 

 " Elden"''), on the borders of Suffolk and Norfolk, famous for 

 its partridges. In fact, the eldest brother, William, one of 

 the few survivors of the Coldstreams at Inkerman, and the 

 youngest brother, Edward, well known to many of the 

 members of the B. 0. U., ranked amongst the crack partridge- 

 shots of their day. Nor was Alfred at all averse to this 

 sport, though his lameness, the result of an accident during 

 childhood, was always a bar to any great physical exertion. 

 Perhaps it was this cause which rendered him the more 

 contemplative and observant of the features of the verv 

 interesting district in which it was his good fortune to 

 spend his early years. 



He was educated at home and at a private school^ but 

 when he came to Cambridge as an undergraduate in 1818, 

 he was already a thorough-going naturalist, both by nature 



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