500 Zoology. 



Switzerland for six months, and resumed his lessons in taxidermy with a 

 Mr. Linder, a naturalist of Geneva, who once disposed of a specimen of 

 the Great Auk for £5 ! Entomology occupied his attention more than 

 ornithology, though he studied the habits of the Nutcracker, Wall- 

 Creeper and Alpine Accentor. A year was spent in Italy, notable for a 

 visit to Savi at Pisa. On his return to England he held a curacy in 

 Devonshire, where he met with many species of birds unknown in his 

 native Northumbria. Ill-health compelled him to go abroad, and he 

 became acting Naval and Military Chaplain in Bermuda. Here he found 

 several keen ornithologists, who became his life-long friends, Colonel H. 

 Drummond-Hay, the first President of the British Ornithologists' Union, 

 Colonel Wedderburn, J. L. Hnrdis, and Sir J. Campbell Orde, of which 

 little band of workers Canon Tristram is the sole survivor. They all 

 collaborated in working at the subject of migration of birds, and during 

 the whole time of his stay in Bermuda, Tristram kept up a continual 

 correspondence with Sir William Jardine, while he formed the nucleus of 

 his great collection of birds, increased during a six months' tour through 

 the United States and Canada. 



Canon Tristram returned to England in 1849 to the rural parish of 

 Castle Eden, Durham, a unique collecting ground for botany and 

 entomology. In 1852 he made an excursion into Norwegian Lapland, 

 finding the nests of the Great Snipe, Bar-tailed Godwit and Green 

 Sandpiper, the eggs of which were figured in the second edition of 

 Hewitson's work. Ill-health, however, soon made him an irregular 

 migrant. He spent two years in Algeria and the Sahara, and a third 

 in yachting in the Eastern Mediterranean with his friend William 

 Gibbs. 



These three years gave the naturalist a rare opportunity of observing 

 and collecting birds, and he took full advantage of it. He was also able 

 to make an expedition up the Nile, and passed a few weeks in Palestine, 

 not forgetting the Jordan Valley. The ornithological results of these 

 three years are set forth at considerable length in the early numbers of 

 the ' Ibis,' and in his volume on the " Great Sahara." 



It was after Canon Tristram's return from the Levant that the idea of 

 forming the British Ornithologists' ITnion took shape in his study at 

 Castle Eden, when John Wolley, Alfred Newton, and Osbert Salvin were 

 on a visit. The matter having been fully discussed, they all went to 

 Cambridge for the meeting of the British Association of 1858, and with 

 the addition of J. H. Gurney, Dr. P. L. Sclater, F. Du Cane Godman, 

 Percy Godman, Edward Cavendish Taylor and W. H. Hudleston (then 

 W. H. Simpson), the foundation of the British Ornithologists' Union was 

 accomplished, and in January 1859 the first number of the "Ibis" was 

 published. 



Since that time Canon Tristram has devoted his attention principally 

 to the Ornithology of Palestine and Syria. His first hurried visit had 

 suggested to him what the Jordan Valley might reveal, and having been 

 asked by the S.P.C.K. and by Mr. John Murray to write a work on the 

 Holy Land, he obtained leave of absence from his little country parish 

 and spent a year (1863-64) in a systematic exploration of Palestine, taking 

 with him Dr. B. C. Lowne as Botanist, and Mr. Edward Bartlett as 

 Taxidermist, with several valued private friends — Sir W. C. P. Medlicott, 

 H. M. Upcher, and others. 



The outcome of this expedition was satisfactory, as it led to the forma- 

 tion of the Palestine Exploration Fund, through the efforts of the late 

 Dean Stanley and Sir George Grove, the Dean making a tour with Canon 



