John Alexander Harvie-Brown

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

John Alexander Harvie-Brown, from the 1905 book Travels of a naturalist in Northern Europe

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.

Travels of a Naturalist in Northern Europe (1905)

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.[11]

Selected works
Image from A vertebrate fauna of the outer Hebrides

References
  1. "Obituary: Dr. J. A. Harvie-Brown". Nature. 97 (2440): 466. 3 August 1916. doi:10.1038/097466b0.
  2. "Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh" (PDF). July 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 September 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  3. Dunipace is about 9.5 kilometers from Falkirk.
  4. Gibson, John C., ed. (1903). "Thomas Spottiswoode, sixth of Dunipace". Lands and lairds of Larbert and Dunipace parishes. p. 118.
  5. "Harvie-Brown, John A." Who's Who. Vol. 59. 1907. p. 798.
  6. Love, John A. (Summer 1982). "Harvie-Brown - a profile" (PDF). Scottish Birds: The Journal of the Scottish Ornithologists' Club: 49–53.
  7. Foster, John Wilson; Chesney, Helena C. G., eds. (1998). "Expedition to Rockall". Nature in Ireland: a scientific and cultural history. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 269. ISBN 9780773518179. 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 November 1916.
  9. Wollaston, A.F.R. (1921). Life of Alfred Newton: late Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Cambridge University 1866-1907, with a Preface by Sir Archibald Geikie. New York: Dutton. p. 169.
  10. Clarke, William Eagle (1896). Bird migration in Great Britain and Ireland : digest of observations on migrations of birds at lighthouses and lightvessels, 1880-87. London: British Association for the Advancement of Science. OCLC 931262025 (all editions).
  11. Harvie-Brown (1897)
  12. Report on the migration of birds (1879–1887) (9 vols.) in HathiTrust Digital Library.
  13. Report on the migration of birds (1879–1887) (9 vols.) in Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  14. Sixth report (on 1884) in Gutenberg.org
  15. Harvie-Brown (1879): OCLC 1051572063 (all editions). Other digital copies: BHL; id.
  16. Harvie-Brown (1881): OCLC 1113041145 (all editions)
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