No. 7.] THE AUSTRAL AVIAN RECORD 167 



THOMAS CARTER. 



The name of Tom Carter will always be associated in the 

 history of Australian ornithology with his exploration of the 

 country round the North- West Cape, a virgin and inaccessible 

 locality, which by his pioneer work he developed into a habitable 

 and well-favoured land. It is necessary to remember this, as 

 his ornithological studies were all carried out under the extreme 

 disadvantage of living in a dangerous and distant land, in- 

 habited by treacherous and even cannibal aborigines. Such 

 conditions do not tend to the advancement of natural scientific 

 research (so that the results achieved by such a worker must 

 compare very favourably with the greater number of records 

 made by the ornithological student in the more civilised state). 

 The quantity as well as the quality of Carter's work stands 

 out prominently in Australian bird study. 



Thomas Carter was born at Masham, in Yorkshire, on 

 April 6, 1863. His father was James Carter, of an old Yorkshire 

 family of that district, and it is from him that Tom Carter 

 inherited his intense love of natural history, a feature shared 

 by all the members of the family, six in number, three sons and 

 three daughters. His father helped him to begin egg collecting 

 at the early age of five, a hobby which has survived to this day 

 through all his varied experiences. Not only birds and eggs, 

 but every branch of natural science interested the boy, and at 

 the age of eleven he began to keep a systematic diary devoted 

 to natural history, recording the arrival and departure of 

 migratory birds, breeding and egg-finding notes, interspersed 

 with notes on insect life, botany, and general items in the plant 

 and animal world. This diary was kept for twelve years in 

 England, and more or less ever since wherever Carter has 

 travelled. 



He was educated at Sedbergh School, at which school Edward 

 John Eyre, the famous Australian explorer, had been some 

 time previously. 



