The F other gill Family as Ornithologists. 151 
Newcastle District, Upper Canada, by the Rev. William 
Thompson, Rector of Cavan, on Sunday, 20th March, 1825. 
She died at Whitby, Ontario, on the 26th December, 1892, 
and was buried in the Friends’ Burial Ground, Pickering, 
Ontario. Charles Fothergill was a literary man, and 
established a newspaper in Canada. He was also a celebrated 
naturalist, and had a very large museum. He died in May, 
1841, aged fifty-nine years, and was buried in the Friends’ 
Burial Ground at Pickering, Ontario. By his second wife he 
had issue two sons and two daughters.’* Descendants of 
Charles Fothergill are still living in Canada, and a grand- 
nephew resides at Nottingham. 
As an ornithologist, Charles Fothergill (H) is the acknow- 
ledged Author of Ornithologia Britannica , a scarce folio tract 
of eleven pages, giving a list of 301 birds, with short notes, 
which was published at York, in 1799, and it is noteworthy 
that at that time he could only have been seventeen years of 
age. Such precocity is remarkable, but is not infrequently 
noticed in young persons of the Quaker persuasion who, 
dissuaded against the usual sports and pastimes of youth, 
are early induced to prosecute the Study of Natural History 
and kindred subjects. Fourteen years later he published in 
London An Essay on the Philosophy , Study, and Use of Natural 
History, a small octavo volume of 236 pages, with 35 pages of 
introduction, dedicated to his uncle, James Forbes. J This 
work contains some references to birds,! and is of special 
interest since the Author reveals some details about himself. 
He appears to have been an ardent lover of animated nature, 
and he writes with affection of his spaniels, § and with con- 
trition at having wounded .a Lapwing. || He tells us : — ‘ in 
early life, the ardour of my love for the pursuits of Natural 
History was so great, that I overcame many very serious 
difficulties in order to make myself personally acquainted 
with the lives and manners of various animals in their 
native haunts ; and, with this view, I spent several years in 
* Bernard Thistlethwaite : The Thistlethwaite Family : A Study in 
Genealogy. (1910), pp. 151-152. 
f James Forbes was the grandfather of Charles Forbes Rene, Comte 
de Montalembert (one of the most distinguished Frenchmen of the 
nineteenth century), who was therefore first cousin once removed to 
Charles Fothergill (H). James Forbes was an artist, who died at 
Aix-la-Chapelle, and his daughter married Marc Rene, Comte de Monta- 
lembert. 
I The only birds specifically mentioned are the Lapwing, pp. 113-114 • 
Ostrich, pp. 160-168 ; Swallow, pp. 174-182 ; House-Martin, p. 177 ; 
Sand-Martin, p. 177 ; Swift, p. 177 ; Red Grous, p. 212 ; Red-breasted 
Merganser, p. 212 ; and Eider Duck, pp. 2 12-2 14. 
§ Charles Fothergill : An Essay on the Philosophy , Study, and Use of 
Natural History. (1813), p. 80. 
j| hoc. cit. pp. 113-114. 
U22 May 1 
