The Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain

Abstract

THE death of the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain at his home in Southbourne, Bournemouth, on February 27 at the age of seventy-four is a grievous loss to European ornithology. Jourdain was generally recognized as the leading authority on the breeding biology of the birds of the Palsearctic region, and the accuracy and comprehensiveness of his knowledge of the subject has not been equalled by any ornithologist past or present. His great collection of the eggs of Palsearctic birds was formed in a truly scientific spirit unfortunately too rare among collectors of eggs, and its value for comparative purposes is unrivalled, so that it is greatly to be hoped that it may be preserved intact. But although Jourdain was an enthusiastic collector, he was intensely interested in every aspect of the breeding biology of birds, and his mastery of his subject was based on a happy combination of wide field experience and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the literature. For many years he had made a collecting expedition almost annually, visiting in this way almost all of the more ornithologically interesting parts of Europe (excluding Russia) and North Africa, and these trips resulted in a number of valuable faunistic papers in the Ibis and elsewhere.