CANON TRISTKAM 67 



February 26, 1906, 



My dear Tristram, 



If the letter I have just received is really to be 

 the last I am to have from you, as therein foreshadowed, 

 there could not be one more gratifying to my feehngs, 

 and I am at a loss for terms in which to answer it. I 

 can never forget the steady, friendly, I may say, brotherly 

 support I have invariably received from you, and if it 

 were my good fortune to have done you a good turn in 

 the matter of the Royal Society, a circumstance that 

 had wholly passed from my mind, it was but a slight 

 return for the aid you rendered in starting the B.O.U. 

 and the Ibis, and again at the critical moment when our 

 first Editor threw up the job, and (with one or two more) 

 would not have been sorry had it come to an end. It 

 was your Palestine papers that to a very great extent 

 caused the success of the second series of the Ibis ; not 

 that I would overlook the value of the help I had from 

 Blyth, Swinhoe, and others. Their articles were of great 

 scientific interest, but they failed in the qualities for 

 reading, while your articles possessed both merits. 



There are few things I look back to with greater 

 satisfaction than my six years' editorship of the Ibis, 

 but that was entirely due to my contributors, among 

 whom you were chief, and one on whom I could always 

 rely. 



I can't trust myself to write more, and indeed you 

 might easily be tired with more. It must indeed have 

 been a comfort to you to have had all your children 

 round you on Saturday, and so I say farewell, and God 

 be with you till you are with Him. 



Yours as always, 



Alfred Newton. 



Henry Baker Tristram, Canon of Durham, was a 

 friend and frequent correspondent of Newton's for several 

 years before the foundation of the B.O.U., of which he 

 was an original member. That Newton had a very 

 strong afiection for him is shown by his action " in the 



