SOME EARLY BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS. 7 



with " Birds and Flying-Things," and being the first printed 

 book to contain illustrations of birds, must always be of 

 interest to the student of early ornithology. 



It was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that 

 the general revival of learning throughout Europe touched 

 the study of ornithology in particular, and that of natural 

 history in general. This revival, as far as it affected 

 ornithology, was largely due to the illustrious Conrad 

 Gesner (1516-1565), and his able contemporaries, Pierre 

 Belon (1517-1564), author of UHistoire de la Nature des 

 Oyseaux (Paris, 1555), Gybertus Longolius (1507-1543), 

 who wrote the Dialogus de Avibus, and Wilham Turner, 

 the subject of this article. In no way inferior in ability 

 to the authors mentioned. Turner was in point of publication 

 their leader, his book Avium .... liistoria, appearing 

 in 1544, eleven years before the ornithological works of 

 Belon and Gesner were printed. 



WiUiam Turner"^ was born at the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century at Morpeth, in Northumberland, the 

 exact date of his birth being unknown, as the registers of 

 his native town date only from the year 1582. He is said 

 to have been the son of a tanner, but of his childhood and 

 early education we have no record. Through the influence 

 of Thomas, Lord Wentworth, Turner in due course became 

 a member of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated 

 B.A. 1529-30. He became a Fellow of his College in 1531, 

 and its Senior Treasurer in 1538. His M.A. degree he 

 commenced in 1533. How long he retained his Fellow^ship 

 is uncertain. Mr. Jackson thinks he may have held it 

 until his marriage with Jane, daughter of George Ander, 

 alderman of Cambridge. 



At Cambridge, Turner was a contemporary of the famous 

 John Caius, founder of the college which bears his name, 

 and also one of our earliest writers on natural history (his 

 De rariorum animalium atque stirpium Historia was 



* The particulars of Turner's life are derived from those given in 

 the facsimile reprint of Turner's "Libellus de re Herbaria," by 

 Benjamin Daydon Jackson, F.L.S., privately printed, London, 1877. 

 1 vol., 4to. 



