Henry Baker Tristram. xii 
In 1860 he became Master of Greatham Hospital and Rector of Greatham, 
and held these appointments until 1873 when, having obtained a Canonry in 
Durham Cathedral, he removed to Durham, which thereafter became his 
home until the close of his life. But his love of travel led him to return 
again and again to the East in order to gather fresh material illustrative of 
its geology and natural history. He renewed his acquaintance with Palestine 
in 1863—64, and again in 1872. In 1881 he travelled through Mesopotamia 
and Armenia. In 1891 he visited China, Japan, and the North-West of 
North America. In 1894 he was again in Palestine, and once more in 1897, 
at the age of seventy-five. On his last visit he had his leg broken by a kick 
from a horse when riding near Jerusalem, but such was his irrepressible 
vitality. that, after a few weeks in hospital, he reappeared as hale and hearty 
as ever. 
Throughout all these extensive wanderings Tristram showed the true 
instincts of a born naturalist, cultivated and enlarged by wide and constant 
experience. To him we are mainly indebted for our knowledge of the plants 
and animals of Palestine and the surrounding countries. His papers on the 
ornithology of Northern Africa, which appeared in the ‘Ibis’ for 1859 and 
following years, were important additions to what had previously been known 
on the subject. His frequent journeys through Palestine allowed him to 
acquire an unrivalled acquaintance with the geology, topography, and natural 
history of that country, and he gathered together an admirable account of 
his observations in his great work on the ‘Fauna and Flora of Palestine, 
which was published by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1884. His 
scientific labours and his descriptive powers, however, were made more 
widely known by the separate volumes which appeared from his facile pen 
in successive years. The first of these, ‘The Great Sahara,’ published in 
1860, at once established his place as an accomplished traveller and observant 
naturalist. It was followed by a series of attractive narratives of his 
wanderings through Palestine. 
His friend, the late Professor Alfred Newton, remarked that “ Tristram’s 
study of the ‘desert forms’ of the birds induced him to declare in the ‘Ibis’ 
for 1859 (p. 429) his conviction ‘of the truth of the views set forth by 
Messrs. Darwin and Wallace in their communication to the Linnean Society,’ 
adding that ‘it is hardly possible, I should think, to illustrate this theory 
better than by the larks and chats of North Africa.’ Three or four pages 
follow in which special examples are cited in illustration, and these were 
written, if not published, before the appearance of ‘ The Origin of Species,’ so 
that Tristram appears to have been the first zoologist to accept publicly the 
principles of Darwinism.” ‘He had to modify his expressions some time 
after, when the ‘ orthodox’ tide was flowing, just as Galileo was obliged to do, 
but he held them all the same until the end, and great credit is due to him 
for this.”* 
* From MS. notes supplied to the writer by Professor Newton, who also, in ‘ Nature,’ 
for March 16, 1906, called attention to Tristram’s early Darwinian pronouncement. 
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