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ALFRED NEWTON, 1829—1907. 
By the death of Professor Alfred Newton, the ranks of British zoologists have 
lost one of their most venerable and distinguished ornaments, and Ornithology 
in particular has been deprived of its most learned and accomplished British 
representative. Born at Geneva on June 11, 1829, he spent his boyhood 
with his numerous brothers and sisters at Elveden, an estate on the borders 
of Suffolk and Norfolk, which belonged to his father. His undergraduate 
life, which began at Cambridge in 1848, does not appear to have been 
marked by any conspicuous success in the usual subjects of study, though he 
is said to have gained a considerable reputation in his college for his English 
essays. Certainly his literary style gave proof of his having cultivated the 
humanities. His natural bent, however, was already strongly pronounced 
towards natural history pursuits, which at that time met with but little 
encouragement at the university, nor were his tastes favoured by his own 
family, as they did not seem likely to lead to any kind of successful career. 
In 1853, however, after having taken his B.A. degree, he was elected 
at Magdalene College to the Drury Travelling Fellowship, which is open to 
the sons of Norfolk gentlemen. He was thus enabled to throw himself 
heart and soul into the active prosecution of science. He went abroad 
during several years, and made various journeys through Arctic latitudes, 
studying the abundant bird-life of these regions. Lapland, Iceland, and 
Spitzbergen were successively visited by him in the course of these 
wanderings, and, not improbably, he then imbibed that affection for 
northern forms which distinguished him. He likewise took occasion to 
cross the Atlantic more than once. In 1857 he was in the West Indies, 
and went thence to confer with the naturalists of the United States in 
Philadelphia and Washington. In 1862 he spent some time in Madeira. 
During those fruitful years of active experience, his ready pen was busy in 
the description of the facts which he had observed at home and abroad. He 
communicated his notes to the pages of the ‘ Zoologist’ and ‘ Ibis,’ of which 
latter journal he was one of the original founders. For a long succession of 
years his numerous papers in these publications, and in the ‘ Proceedings of 
the Zoological Society, on the occurrence, distribution, structure, and habits 
of birds, formed notable contributions to Ornithology. They so fully estab- 
lished his reputation as an experienced naturalist that in 1866 he was 
appointed to the newly-created Chair of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy 
in his own university. Afterwards his college elected him to a Foundation 
Fellowship. For more than thirty years, up to the time of his death, he 
lived in the picturesque Old Lodge of Magdalene, surrounded with his books 
and papers, always busy with important and useful work, delighted to 
welcome his friends to his den, and constantly on the outlook for oppor- 
