atkinson] 
BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY 
29 
Atkinson (John), 1787-1828 
John Atkinson, who was born at Leeds, May 29, 1787, 
was a surgeon by profession, being a member of the Royal 
College of Surgeons, London. He was Curator of the Museum 
and Librarian to the Philosophical and Literary Society at 
Leeds. He was a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and appears 
to have been a botanist as well as an ornithologist, as he 
contributed a list of Leeds plants to Whitaker’s Loidis and 
Elmete, 1816, and a “ Sketch of the Geographical Distribution 
of Plants in Yorkshire ” to the fifth volume of Memoirs of the 
Wernerian Society. According to the Preface to his Com- 
pendium , the author’s intention was “ to collect the informa- 
tion scattered through extensive treatises and the transactions 
of learned societies — to state the species which have been 
recently discovered — and to correct those errors in synonyma 
which the difference in feather in different ages, or at certain 
times in the year, has frequently produced.” The work, 
however, is not now in much repute. # 
He died at Leeds on October 3, 1828. An oil portrait of 
him by Richmond is said to exist, as well as a lithograph by 
Denny. 
1820. A Compendium | of the | Ornithology | of | Great Britain | with a 
reference to the | Anatomy and Physiology of | Birds. | By John 
Atkinson, F.L.S. | Member of the Boyal College of Surgeons in 
London, &c. | Curator of the Museum, and Librarian to the Philo- 
sophical and | Literary Society at Leeds | [motto] | London : 
| Printed for Hurst, Bobinson & Co., No. 90 Cheapside ; and | 
Bobinson and Co. Leeds. | 1820. 
Collation — 1 vol. 8vo, pp. xii + pp. 232. 
Idem. Another edition with same title and collation but 
with Six lines of “ honours ” after author’s name. n.d. 
Atkinson (Rev. John Christopher), 1814-1900 
This writer, best remembered by his British Birds' Eggs 
and Nests , which has been the most popular book on the 
subject for beginners for half a century, was an Essex man, 
and was born May 9, 1814, at Goldhanger, of which place 
