CONTRIBUTORS TO THE FIRST SERIES OF ^THE IBIS.' 173 



Captain T. W. BLAKISTON. 



Captain Thomas W. Blakistou, to whom we are indebted 

 for so much of our knowledge of Japanese Ornithology^ was 

 born in 1832, and belonged to an old Durham family. After 

 passing through Woolwich, he obtained a commission in 

 the Royal Artillery. In 1861 he wrote a very interesting 

 paper for this Journal on a collection of birds which he had 

 made in North-West Canada, and in the following year he 

 published a narrative of his adventurous expeditions up the 

 river Yangtsze, for which he received the gold medal of the 

 Royal Geographical Society. He then settled at Hakodadi, 

 in the north island of Japan, and devoted much attention to 

 the Birds of Yesso, discovering many new species, writing 

 various papers which appeared in this Journal, the ' Chry- 

 santhemum,^ and the ' Transactions of the Asiatic Society of 

 Japan,^ and sending small collections of new or rare birds 

 to Mr. Swinhoe, or, after the death of that distinguished 

 ornithologist, to Mr. Seebohm. In conjunction with 

 Mr. Harry Pryer of Yokohama, Captain Blakiston succeeded 

 in adding more than a hundred species of birds to the avi- 

 fauna of Japan. A few years later Captain Blakiston removed 

 from Hakodadi to the United States, and took up his 

 residence at London in Ohio, and afterwards, we believe, in 

 New Mexico. His last ornithological paper was an essay on 

 the " Water-Birds of Japan,^^ published in the ' Proceedings 

 of the United States National Museum.' He died on 

 October 17th, 1891, in New Mexico. 



