Thomas Ayres

Thomas Ayres (July 1828 in Hereford , England , † July 31, 1913 in Potchefstroom , South Africa ) was a South African trader, prospector and naturalist of British origin.

Live and act

Ayres was the son of John Ayres and Heléne Duschesne. His father was the then mayor of Hereford . In 1850 the family emigrated to Natal as part of the first great British wave of immigrants to the region. From 1852 Ayres tried unsuccessfully as a gold prospector in Australia for a few years. He returned to Natal and established himself as a plantation owner near Pinetown . In his free time, Ayres devoted himself to collecting birds. Through the influence of Harriette Emily Colenso, daughter of the first Anglican Bishop of Natal, John William Colenso , Ayres made the acquaintance of the British ornithologist John Henry Gurney , with whom he had a long friendship. Between 1859 and 1873 Gurney published eleven scientific articles in the journal Ibis on the bird species that Ayres had collected. In 1865 Ayres moved to Potchefstroom, where his brother Walter was already living. He hired himself as a hunter and trader and collected birds, beetles, moths and butterflies, including the presumably extinct blue Lepidochrysops hypopolia for the last time in 1879 . Thomas and his brother ran a touring business and followed the trek boers to the Crocodile River and Marico . Thomas Ayres' house, known as The Ark or Uncle Tom's Cabin , was filled with stuffed animals, mostly birds. Ornithologist Austin Roberts , who was a student of Ayres, was among the many visitors. In the early 1870s, Ayres worked unsuccessfully in the Lydenburg gold fields . From 1880 he accompanied hunting expeditions to Matabeleland and Mashonaland , in which the Irish hunter and naturalist James Sligo Jameson (1856-1888) took part. The bird species that were collected on these excursions were described by George Ernest Shelley in the Journal Ibis in 1882 . Ayres also worked as a beer brewer. He produced a beer called Ayres XX Pale Ale . However, after private brewing was made illegal by law, he had to close the brewery. Ayres was married and had a son, Thomas Lambert, whose nephew Alfred D. Millar was a lepidopterist .

Dedication names

The following taxa are named after Thomas Ayres: the mirror rail ( Sarothrura ayresi ), the spotted eagle ( Hieraaetus ayresii ) and the dwarf cistus warbler ( Cisticola ayresii ). The plant species Sesuvium ayresii from the afternoon flower family (Aizoaceae) also bears his name.

literature

• Bo Beolens, Michael Watkins: Whose Bird? Common Bird Names and the People They Commemorate. Yale University Press, New Haven CT 2003, ISBN 0-300-10359-X , p. 33.

Web links

• Short biography of Thomas Ayres (English)