192 The F other gill Family as Ornithologists. 
Besides the published pedigrees which I have quoted, I 
have seen documentary evidence which establishes the fact that 
John Fothergill (I) was the son of William Fothergill (G), 
and therefore first cousin of Charles Fothertill (H). That 
John Fothergill (I) was the ‘ ingenious surgeon at Askrig ' 
to whom the author of the History of Richmondshire in 1823 
‘ acknowledges his obligations ’ for a list of local birds, I 
think there can be no doubt. We have seen that he was a 
Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London (which 
degree neither his father nor first cousin attained) and also 
that he was in practice at Askrigg in July, 1819, and perhaps 
later, though it has been shown that he had removed to 
Darlington in 1821. 
As regards the actual list of Birds, this, as has already 
been stated, is published in Whitaker’s History of Richmond- 
shire (1823).* * * § It comprises seventy-one names of birds, and 
the list is of no little importance, since it gives ‘ the first 
Yorkshire mention ’ — according to Mr. T. H. Nelson, Author 
of the Birds of Yorkshire — of the Shoveler, Tufted Duck, 
Green Sandpiper, Red-necked Grebe, and Sclavonian Grebe 
under the name of ‘ Dusky Grebe.’ I find that Mr. Nelson 
refers to the list no fewer than fourteen times, f but he 
attributes it to Charles Fothergill (H).J This list of John 
Fothergill’s (I) also includes (as might be expected since his 
father William Fothergill (G) was the first to chronicle 
them: vide antea) the Swallow-tailed Kite and the Little 
Crake : there are, moreover, several curious names for birds 
which are no longer recognised, such as Weasel Coot (Mergus 
minutus) for the Smew ; Red Sandpiper ( Tringa islandica) 
for the Knot, and Great Coot ( Fulica aterrima) for the Coot. 
It must not be thought that this list of Wensleydale birds has 
hitherto been forgotten : it is duly recorded in the Geographical 
Bibliography of British Ornithology § as by ‘Fothergill,’ but 
without any distinguishing Christian name, and, as we have 
seen, it has been freely quoted in the Birds of Yorkshire , 
but is there wrongly attributed to Charles Fothergill (H). 
Instead of taking ‘ The Fothergill Family as Ornithologists’ 
as the title for this paper, I might perhaps have headed it 
‘ Honour to whom honour is due,’ for this text has been my 
incentive in compiling these notes on the ‘ ingenious surgeon 
at Askrig ’ who, I think it is now clear, was John Fothergill (I). 
* Thomas Dunham Whitaker : An History of Richmondshire , in the 
North Riding of the County of York, Vol. I. (1823), pp. 415-416. 
f T. H. Nelson : The Birds of Yorkshire (1907), Vol. II., pp. 378, 
381, 425, 426, 451, 464, 466, 481, 631, 638, 641, 740, 742, 743. 
X Tom. cit. p. 820. 
§ W. H. Mullens, H. Kirke Swann, and Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain : 
A Geographical Bibliography of British Ornithology , 1920, p. 337. 
Naturalist 
