178 
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
[dresser 
Dresser (Henry Eeles), 1838-1915 
Henry Eeles Dresser, who died at Cannes, November 28, 
1915, while these sheets were passing through the press, 
came of an old family of yeomen who had resided in the 
North Riding of Yorkshire for nearly three centuries, and 
was born on May 9, 1838, at the Thirsk Bank, of which his 
grandfather was the founder. His father, being a younger 
son, had to strike out a line for himself, and about 1845 
started as a Baltic timber merchant in London. In con- 
sequence of this change of residence, Henry Dresser, in 1847, 
was sent to a private school at Bromley, in Kent, and 
subsequently in 1852 to a German school near Hamburg. 
From this time onwards he was constantly travelling abroad, 
and led a most adventurous life in various parts of the world. 
In 1870 he started business at 110 Cannon Street, in the 
metal trade. In 1871 he commenced the Birds of Europe 
in conjunction with Dr. R. B. Sharpe, who, however, on 
obtaining an appointment at the British Museum, left him to 
continue the work alone after the first twelve parts had 
appeared. In 1878 he married, and did not go abroad that 
year, but since then he went abroad every spring or autumn, 
and on every occasion made use of his time to work at 
ornithology and oology. 
He could make a fair skin of a bird when he went to 
school in Germany in 1852, and first commenced to collect 
eggs in that year ; but in 1854 he began to amass both skins 
and eggs systematically. His collection of between 11,000 
and 12,000 bird-skins has been at the Manchester University 
since 1899, and he transferred his splendid collection of 
Palaearctic eggs to the same institution some twelve years 
later. 
He joined the B.O.U. in 1865. In 1882 he became 
Secretary, a post he held until 1888. To the Ibis he was 
a constant contributor. 
In addition to the undernoted list he published two fine 
monographs in roy. 4to on the Meropidae , or Family of 
