John Alexander Harvie-Brown Explained

John Alexander Harvie-Brown (27 August 1844 – 26 July 1916) was a Scottish ornithologist and naturalist.[1]

Biography

Harvie-Brown was born near Larbert in central Scotland,[2] the only son of John Harvie-Brown and his wife, Elizabeth Spottiswoode, who was the daughter of Thomas Spottiswoode of Dunipace[3] (entitled "Thomas Spottiswoode, 6th of Dunipace").[4] He inherited approximately 2100 acres near Dunipace.[5]

Harvie-Brown was educated at Merchiston Castle School, and then attended both the University of Edinburgh and Cambridge University.

As a wealthy landowner, he could dedicate himself to ornithology and other naturalistic studies without pursuing a profession. He made ornithological visits to Norway, Russia, Finland and Transylvania. Perhaps his most famous expedition was with Henry Seebohm to the lower reaches of the Pechora River in 1875, when the eggs of the grey plover and the little stint were discovered. For many years Harvie-Brown cruised each summer among the islands of the Scottish coast in his yacht the "Shiantelle" (built in 1887 in Fraserburgh).[6] He, with H. W. Feilden, collected many eggs and birds' skins from the Hebrides, Orkney, the Faroes and even the island of Rockall (no eggs but birds' skins in the case of Rockall).[7] However, in January 1897 a fire almost totally destroyed the collection.

Harvie-Brown died in 1916, after a number of years of ill health. His burial was at Dunipace Old Cemetery. His publications in the scientific literature number close to 250 items. He was elected an Honorary Life Member of the American Ornithologists' Union. In 1912 the University of Aberdeen conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D.[8]

Bird migration and the British Association

In 1880 Alfred Newton persuaded the British Association to sponsor a committee for the study of bird migration all over the world but especially along the coasts of England and Scotland. Harvie-Brown, John Cordeaux, and W. Eagle Clarke were among the most important contributors to the committee's effort to recruit the keepers of lighthouses and lightvessels to make and record observations of bird migration.[9]

Between 1879 and 1887 the reports of the Committee on the Migration of Birds, worked out by Eagle Clarke, and presented in 1896,[10] involved information from many lighthouses of Great Britain and Ireland, but none from the south coast of Great Britain, between Varne Lightvessel in the east and Start Point Lighthouse in the west. For this reason Harvie Brown wrote a paper, addressed to "the lighthouse keepers of the English Channel, and to the local ornithologists of the counties abutting thereone." He was especially keen on filling in the blank, that could support conclusions concerning the so-called east-to-west migration line.

Selected works

External links

Notes and References

  1. Obituary: Dr. J. A. Harvie-Brown. Nature. 3 Aug 1916. 97. 2440. 466. 10.1038/097466b0. free.
  2. Web site: Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. 8 February 2017. 19 September 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150919152306/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf. dead.
  3. Dunipace is about 9.5 kilometers from Falkirk.
  4. Book: Gibson, John C.. Thomas Spottiswoode, sixth of Dunipace. Lands and lairds of Larbert and Dunipace parishes. 1903. 118. https://archive.org/stream/landslairdsoflar00gibs#page/118/mode/2up/search/dunipace.
  5. Harvie-Brown, John A.. Who's Who. 1907. 59. 798.
  6. Love, John A.. Harvie-Brown - a profile. Scottish Birds: The Journal of the Scottish Ornithologists' Club. Summer 1982. 49–53.
  7. Book: Foster, John Wilson. Chesney, Helena C. G.. Expedition to Rockall. Nature in Ireland: a scientific and cultural history. 1998. 269. McGill-Queen's University Press. 9780773518179. https://books.google.com/books?id=SG8sbdTzUdgC&pg=PA269. Harvie-Brown visited the island of Rockall in 1896 with Richard Barrington, Robert Lloyd Praeger and others on an expedition partly financed by the Royal Irish Academy and partly by Barrington and Harvie-Brown. Even though the waves were too rough for a landing, the expedition did observe birds and shoot a number of specimens, which were collected by dinghy.
  8. Obituary: John Alexander Harvie-Brown. British Birds. 1 Nov 1916.
  9. Book: Wollaston , A.F.R. . Sandy Wollaston. Life of Alfred Newton: late Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Cambridge University 1866-1907, with a Preface by Sir Archibald Geikie . 1921 . Dutton . New York . 169 .
  10. Book: Clarke, William Eagle . William Eagle Clarke. Bird migration in Great Britain and Ireland : digest of observations on migrations of birds at lighthouses and lightvessels, 1880-87. 1896. London. British Association for the Advancement of Science. .
  11. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009145426 Report on the migration of birds (1879–1887)
  12. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/62769 Report on the migration of birds (1879–1887)
  13. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/65700/65700-h/65700-h.htm Sixth report

  14. . Other digital copies: BHL; id.

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