John Henry Gurney : A Passion for Birds

JohnHenry Gurney: A Passion for Birdsdetails the life of JohnHenry Gurney (1819-1890) who became a successful banker when still young. Hiswealth enabled him to indulge his passion for collecting natural historyspecimens, especially birds. A major supporter of the fledgling Norfolk andNorwich Museum, in 1853 he announced his intention to collect a series of everyspecies of bird of prey in the world, and to donate and display them in themuseum. Unfortunately, devastating events in his private and professional lifethreatened to derail his efforts. Nevertheless, he persisted in hisspecimen-collecting and ornithological studies and became a world-renownedexpert on birds of prey and the birds of southern Africa. Gurney named nearly30 bird species new to science and had several species named after him. He madesignificant and long-lasting contributions to bird identification and knowledgeof the distribution of many species. But why did he choose to collect and studybirds of prey in particular; how closely did he approach his goal and how muchdid it cost him? This book attempts to answer these questions.