Books > Biography > Religious & spiritual
|
Buy Now
Sacred Ibis - The Ornithology of Canon Henry Baker Tristram, DD, FRS (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,479
Discovery Miles 14 790
You Save: R354
(19%)
|
|
Sacred Ibis - The Ornithology of Canon Henry Baker Tristram, DD, FRS (Hardcover)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
Henry Baker Tristram was a surprising and remarkable man: explorer,
ornithologist, and priest. With his wild beard (for which he
required special permission from his bishop) he undertook
expeditions to the Sahara and Palestine at a time when doing so was
even more fraught with danger than it is today. As a founding
member of the British Ornithologists' Union (BOU), he contributed
regularly to its journal, Ibis, as well as other scientific
journals. Tristram's nickname in the BOU was "Sacred Ibis".
Tristram was a collector par excellence, acquiring extensive
collections running to tens of thousands of specimens, primarily of
birds, but also of plants, fish, mammals, insects, molluscs,
geological samples and archaeological material. He was the first
scientist to support Charles Darwin in print, and became a Fellow
of the Royal Society in 1868 supported by his great friend Alfred
Newton as well as Darwin. Professor J. B. Cragg, an eminent
Zoologist at Durham University, described Tristram as "the most
important biological scientist to have emerged from Durham."
Tristram took part in the famous "Oxford debate" between Bishop
Wilberforce of Oxford and Thomas Huxley. This led to the
unfortunate and incorrect assumption that Tristram subsequently
gave up his support of Darwin. This book follows Tristram's epic
adventures and love for birds-from his boyhood on the moors of
Northumberland to his time as a Residentiary Canon of Durham
Cathedral-and the people that influenced him-from his dislike of
Gladstone whom he met as a fresher in Oxford to the offer of the
Bishopric of Jerusalem by Disraeli (which Tristram declined). In
the book are over 80 colour plates and a reproduction of Darwin's
first letter to Tristram. GBP10 from each sale of the hardback
edition of Sacred Ibis made through this website will be donated to
the Grey College Trust. Sales via other retailers will generate a
donation of GBP5 per copy. Perhaps Tristram's greatest contribution
to science was his Fauna and Flora of Palestine. On his deathbed he
wrote to his great friend Alfred Newton-who stood down temporarily
from his Fellowship of the Royal Society so that Tristram might be
elected-thanking him for his friendship. He and Newton had been a
great ornithological partnership and were responsible not only for
the development of ornithology as a science but also for the
establishment of the conservation movement. Not everyone these days
will approve of his collecting activities, but this is what he did
and what was necessary to the development of science in Victorian
times. Had the big majority of present-day biologists lived in
those times they would undoubtedly have acted similarly, but few
would have been so successful. As his granddaughter wrote, Tristram
may not have been a great churchman, but he was a great
ornithologist.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.