THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 

 ORNITHOLOGY. 



Vol. XXIX. January, 1912. No. 1. 



IN MEMORIA^M: HENRY AUGUSTUS PURDIE. 

 Born December 16, 1840 — Died March 29, 1911. 



BY WILLIAM BKEWSTER. 



Plate 7.1 



Henry Augustus Purdie was born on the sixteenth of Decem- 

 ber, 1840, in Beiijah, Asia Minor, a suburban town about five 

 miles to the eastward of Smyrna. He died in Boston, Massachu- 

 setts, on the twenty-ninth of March, 1911. His father, John 

 Purdie, was Scotch, although born (in 1803) in London, and reared 

 there, his father being employed in the Bank of England. After 

 his marriage John Purdie served as British Consul at Adalia on 

 the southeast coast of Asia Minor, where he died in 1856. Henry's 

 mother, Eleanor (Pratt) Purdie, was descended from old New 

 England stock and born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1808. 

 Her father, John Pratt, was a merchant captain and a partner of 

 Judah Truro of Boston. 



In 1842 Henry Purdie, with his mother and his elder brother 

 Alfred, came in a sailing vessel from Smyrna to Boston where, 

 and at Billerica (Massachusetts), he spent the next two or three 

 years. He was then, as certain of his friends and relatives still 

 remember, a beautiful and interesting child, active, graceful, gentle, 

 easily winning the affection of those about him and attracting much 

 attention during his walks abroad, when he was usually dressed in 

 plaid kilts and black velvet jacket, and accompanied by his Greek 



1 From a crayon sketch by Miss Evelyn Purdie, based on recent photographs. 



1 



