. 
THE ZOOLOGIST 
No. 686.—August, 1898. 
WILLIAM TURNER, THE FATHER OF BRITISH 
ZOOLOGY. 
By Rey. H. A. Macrpuerson, M.A., 
Author of ‘A History of Fowling,’ ‘A Fauna of Lakeland,’ &c. 
THE near advent of the International Zoological Congress, to 
be held at Cambridge during the present month, renders it fitting 
that attention should be drawn to the important part which 
_ Cambridge played in training the first naturalists bred upon 
Tinglish soil. That the revival of learning trained the youth of 
this country to concentrate their thoughts upon the study of 
dead languages is, of course, an obvious commonplace ; it would 
be a grievous mistake to infer from this circumstance that a 
spirit of higher research was wholly absent from the minds of 
the ambitious youths who gathered together at Cambridge to 
acquaint themselves with the truths of philosophy. Any such 
erroneous surmise is disproved by the work accomplished by 
William 'l'urner, to whom the title of ‘‘ Father of British 
Zoology” may fairly be applied. This voluminous writer was 
apparently a man of humble extraction,—one of a family of that 
name resident at Morpeth,—where his father carried on the 
trade of atanner. It was in rambling in the copse woods near 
Morpeth that the future naturalist spent his early years, searching 
for birds’ nests in the thickets, or listening to the winter songs 
of the Dippers (Cinclus aquaticus), as those sprightly birds 
Zool. 4th ser. vol. IT., August, 1898. Zz 
