98 
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
[brown 
Bbown (Capt. Thomas), 1 1785-1862 
Thomas Brown was born at Perth in 1785, and was 
educated at the High School, Edinburgh, in which city he 
acquired a knowledge of anatomy. When about twenty he 
entered the Forfar and Kincardine Militia, and became 
captain in 1811. He served in Ireland, chiefly in Dublin. 
Before joining the Militia, however, he was with B. Scott, 
the Edinburgh engraver, who afterwards engraved the plates 
for the Elements of Conchology, which were drawn by Brown. 
While at Manchester with his regiment, he supplied the 
notes for an edition of Goldsmith’s Animated Nature , pub- 
lished by Gleave. On his regiment being disembodied, he 
purchased a flax - spinning mill in Fifeshire, which was 
burned down, thus compelling him to turn to his scientific 
attainments for a livelihood. He resided at Edinburgh, 
where he wrote most of his books, engaging Lizars as an 
engraver. In 1838 he was appointed Curator of the Man- 
chester Natural History Museum, at a salary, which in 1847 
was £150 per annum, and held this post until his death on 
October 8, 1862. 
He was Hon. Secretary of the Manchester Zoological 
Society, Fellow of the Royal Society, Edinburgh, and Fellow 
of the Linnean Society. 
His chief claim to a place in the present work rests on 
his popular little edition of White's Selborne (12mo, 1833), 
many times reprinted. He published several important 
works on conchology, and three scarce and valuable works 
on ornithology, viz. Illustrations of the American Ornithology 
of Wilson and Bonaparte (124 col. pk, fob Edinburgh : 1835) ; 
Game Birds of North America (15 col. pk, fol. Edinburgh : 
1834) ; and Illustrations of the Genera of Birds (Nos. 1-16, 
with 56 cob and 3 plain pb, roy. 8vo, London: 1845-46). 
He also wrote The Zoologist's Text-Book , 2 vols. 12mo, 1832, 
and The Taxidermist' s Manual , a little work which went 
1 For the substance of this notice we are indebted to particulars furnished by Mr. 
J. Wilfrid Jackson, of the Manchester Museum to Mr. H. S. Gladstone, and kindly 
communicated by the latter to us. 
