Harry Kirke Swann

Harry Kirke Swann (born March 18, 1871 in Malquoits, Ewhurst , Surrey , † April 14, 1926 in Barnet , London ) was an English ornithologist and non-fiction author. His research interests were birds of prey and the British avifauna .

Life

Swann was initially tutored privately. He then attended the Roan School in Greenwich , and eventually he had a private tutor in Brighton . His interest in nature and especially in ornithology was aroused in early childhood. At the age of 20 he traveled to the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia , about which he published the work Nature in Acadie in 1895 . After he returned to England in 1892, he founded the magazine Naturalist's Journal , which was published after two issues (1892 and 1894) by Seth Lister Mosley (1848-1929). In this journal, Swann's first article, Bird Life on Epsom Common , appeared in 1892 . In 1893 he published the work Birds of London , in which he describes his seven years of ornithological field work in the London District. A Concise Handbook of British Birds followed in 1896 . In the same year he was editor of the fifth edition of Francis Orpen Morris ' standard work History of British Birds , and he supervised the new edition of Henry Seebohms British Birds . In the spring of 1896 Swann founded the Vogel journal The Ornithologist , which was discontinued after an edition.

In 1904 he became an employee of the publishing bookstore Messrs. John Wheldon & Co., which specialized in natural history works and in 1921 merged with the William Wesley & Sons publishing house. During this time Swann acquired extensive ornithological and bibliographical knowledge. In 1913 Harry Witherby published his standard work A Dictionary of English and Folk-Names of British Birds . In 1917 he published together with William Herbert Mullens (1866-1946) the work A Bibliography of British Ornithology , a dictionary of British ornithologists. In 1920 Swann became a member of the British Ornithologists' Union .

Swann died on April 14, 1926, at the age of 55, of complications from an operation at Barnet Cottage Hospital in London.

In 1930, Alexander Wetmore posthumously published the book A Monograph of the Birds of Prey (Order Accipitres) , begun by Swann , which is one of the most outstanding standard works on birds of prey of the first half of the 20th century.

The species described by Swann include the Traylor Forest Falcon (1919), the Cape Verde buzzard (1919) and the collar harrier (1922). He also described subspecies of the cuckoo fair ( Aviceda cuculoides batesi , 1920), the robin falcon ( Microhierax caerulescens burmanicus , 1920) and the two- banded buzzard ( Buteo nitidus costaricensis , 1922).

literature

• Mullens, William Herbert & Swann, Harry Kirke (1917 / Reprint 1986): A Bibliography of British Ornithology , ISBN 0-854-86098-3
• Anonymous: Obituary in The Ibis , Volume 68, Issue 3, 1926.