Howard Saunders

Howard Saunders

Howard Saunders (born September 16, 1835 in London , † October 20, 1907 ) was a British businessman and ornithologist.

Live and act

Saunders was trained at Leatherhead and Rottingdean . He then became an employee of the Anthony Gibbs and Sons banking house . The international connections of his employer enabled him to travel to South America in 1855, where he visited Chile and Brazil and developed his fondness for ornithology. From 1862 to 1868 he studied the avifauna in Spain and published his observations in the specialist journal Ibis . In 1883 and 1884 he was traveling in the Pyrenees . In 1891 he published an article on the bird world in Switzerland and in 1893 the article The Distribution of Birds in France .

Saunders' main focus of research was the seagulls and terns , on which he contributed to the Catalog of the Birds in the British Museum , the Proceedings of Zoological Society of London , the Journal of the Linnean Society and the Journal Ibis , including the first scientific description of the Antarctic skua ( Catharacta maccormicki ). Saunders also made a name for himself as an editor: In 1884 and 1885 he published the third and fourth editions of William Yarrell's work British Birds and in 1889 the standard work An Illustrated Manual of British Birds .

From 1901 until his death in 1907 he was Secretary of the British Ornithologists' Union . He was also the first secretary and first treasurer of the British Ornithologists' Club and an active member of the Zoological Society of London , the Linnean Society of London and the Royal Geographical Society .

The caped gull ( Saundersilarus saundersi ) and the oriental tern ( Sternula saundersi ) are named after Saunders .

Works (selection)

• 3rd (1884) and 4th (1885) editions of William Yarrell's The History of British Birds
• Sternae (1889)
• An Illustrated Manual of British Birds (1889)
• Catalog of the Gaviae and Tubinares in the Collection of the British Museum (1896 with Osbert Salvin )

Literature on Howard Saunders

• Mullens, William Herbert & Swann, Harry Kirke (1917 / Reprint 1986): A Bibliography of British Ornithology . ISBN 0-854-86098-3 .