SOME EARLY BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS. 9 



able part of England, preaching, and while at Oxford he 

 was imprisoned for preaching " without a call." When, 

 *' At length being let loose, and banished, he travelled 

 into Italy." 



In Italy Turner studied botany under Luca Ghini, at 

 Bologna, and took the degree of M.D. either at that 

 University or at Ferrara. Continuing his travels, he 

 visited the illustrious Conrad Gesner, at Zurich, and 

 became a firm friend and trusted correspondent of that 

 great naturalist. 



Turner seems to have been at Basle in 1543, and the 

 following year at Cologne. From this latter place he 

 issued in 1544 his Avium Proecipuarum .... historia, 

 dedicated to Edward, Prince of Wales (afterwards 

 Edward VI.), and in the same year the posthumous work 

 of his friend, Gybertus Longolius, of Utrecht (1507-1543), 

 entitled Dialogus de Avihus. Turner's polemical works 

 now followed each other in quick succession, and were 

 prohibited by a proclamation of Henry VIII. On the 

 death of that monarch, Turner returned to England, 

 and whilst waiting for ecclesiastical preferment acted as 

 physician to the Lord Protector, Somerset. 



At length, after several disappointments, Turner 

 obtained the Deanery of Wells in 1550. 



The accession of Queen Mary saw Turner again a 

 fugitive, and his writings were once more prohibited in 

 England, and ordered to be destroyed wherever found. 

 He returned to his native country when Ehzabeth 

 succeeded her sister, and was reinstated in his Deanery. 

 In 1564, however, he was again suspended for non- 

 conformity, and took up his abode in London. There 

 he died on the 7th July, 1568, and was buried in the 

 Church of St. Olave, Crutched Friars, where may be seen 

 a tablet to his memory erected by his widow. 



The book on which Turner's fame as an ornithologist 

 rests has the following title : — 



" Avium / Prsecipu / arum, quarum / apud 

 Plinium et Ari- / stotelem mentio est, brevis 



