( li»-i ) 



HENRY EELES DRESSER. 



(Plate 2.) 



By the death at Cannes on November 2n(l, 1915. of 

 Henry Eeles Dresser, at the age of seventy-seven years, 

 tlie ornithological Avorld has lost one of its best knoA^n 

 and most distinguished members. 



Mr. H. E. Dresser was bom at Thirsk on May 9th, 1838, 

 in the bank founded by his grandfather. His father 

 commenced life in London as a Baltic timber merchant, 

 and owing to this circumstance H. E. Dresser's career was 

 so shaped as much to assist and encourage his natural 

 bent toAvards ornithology. After attending school at 

 Bromley, near London, he went to Ahrensburg, near 

 Hamburg, in 1852, and tAvo years later to Gefie and 

 Upsala. He went in 1856 to St. Petersburg and on to 

 Finland, where he entered a timber merchant's office, and 

 in 1857 and 1858 travelled through Sweden, Finland, 

 and round the Baltic. It A\as on this occasion that his 

 fame as an ornithologist first arose, for \vhile on this 

 journey he discovered a breeding-place and took A\ith 

 his own hands the young and an egg of the Wax wing 

 {Ampelisgarrulus), an account of which is given by Newton 

 in the Ihis for 1861, pp. 102-104, being probably to this 

 day the only Englishman Avh.o has done so. In 1859 he 

 went to New Brunswick to manage a timber estate, 

 returning home in 1860. He travelled much in Sweden, 

 Russia, Finland, and Prussia in the next two years, 

 returning to New Brunswick in 1862 ; and in 1863 ran 

 a cargo for the Confederate States to Texas, which latter 

 ventvire was the source from which sprang his article in 

 the Ihis for 1865 " On the Birds of Southern Texas." 



From 1864 doAni to 1870, when he embarked in the 

 " Iron Trade "" and established his gfiices at 110, Cannon 

 Street, he travelled extensively in Spain, on the Lower 

 Danube and in Russia, Austria, Hungary, Italy and the 

 Balkans. These extensive travels and his knowledge of 



