Percy Roycroft Lowe

Percy Roycroft Lowe (born January 2, 1870 in Stamford , Lincolnshire , † August 18, 1948 ) was a British surgeon and ornithologist .

Lowe studied medicine from 1887 at the University of Cambridge ( Jesus College ) with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1891, a Bachelor in Surgery in 1898 and a Medical Bachelor (MB) in 1899. He was a clinical assistant at Guy's Hospital in London, House Physician at Leicester Infirmary and Senior House Surgeon at Derby Royal Infirmary. From 1899 to 1902 he volunteered as a surgeon in the Second Boer War and directed Helena’s hospital train from Great Britain and Ireland to relieve the siege of Ladysmith . In South Africa he began to be interested in birds and to collect them. From 1902 to 1912 he traveled with Sir Frederic Johnstone (as his personal doctor), among other things, the Caribbean on his yacht. He put on a large collection of birds that later came to the British Museum of Natural History . During World War I he served as a military doctor with the rank of captain on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean.

From 1918 to 1935 he headed the ornithological department of the British Museum, succeeding William Robert Ogilvie-Grant . The expression Darwin finches comes from him (in an essay in 1936). With Dorothea Bate he published about fossil ostriches from China.

He was President of the British Ornithologists 'Union from 1938 to 1943 (and received its medal), chairman of the European section of the International Committee for the Conservation of Birds, and from 1927 to 1930 Chairman of the British Ornithologists' Club and editor of its bulletin. He was a Knight of the British Order of St. John, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and OBE .

Fonts

• A naturalist on desert islands. Whitherby and Co., London / Scribner's, New York 1911 (description of his trips to the Caribbean).
• The finches of the Galapagos in relation to Darwin's conception of species. Ibis, 6, 1936, pp. 310-321.
• Struthious remains from northern China and Monogolia; with descriptions of Struthio wimani, Struthio anderssoni and Struthio monogolicus, spp. nov. Beijing 1931.
• Our common sea-birds cormorants, terns, gulls, skuas, petrels and auks. New York, Scribners 1913.

literature

• Lowe, Percy Roycroft . In: John Archibald Venn (Ed.): Alumni Cantabrigienses . A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900. Part 2: From 1752 to 1900 , Volume 4 : Kahlenberg – Oyler . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1951, pp. 219 ( venn.lib.cam.ac.uk Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

Web links

• Manuscripts at the British Museum Natural History