"Tristram, Henry Baker"

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Henry Baker Tristram (1822–1906) was an English priest, traveler and ornithologist.

Biography

Tristram was born in Eglingham parish in Northumberland and studied at Lincoln College in Oxford. He was ordained a priest in 1846, but was forced to travel abroad due to tuberculosis. He was secretary to the governor of Bermuda from 1847 to 1849. He explored the Sahara and visited Palestine in 1858. In 1863 and 1872 he returned there and devoted his time to natural science observations and the identification of biblical sites. In 1873 he became canon of Durham Cathedral. In 1881 he again traveled to Palestine, Lebanon, Mesopotamia and Armenia. He then went to Japan to see his daughter Katerina Tristram, who was a missionary in Osaka.

Tristram was a co-founder of the British Ornithological Union, and in 1868 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. His travels and contacts allowed him to assemble an extensive collection of stuffed birds, which he sold.

Publications
The Great Sahara (1860)
The Land of Israel, a Journal of Travels with Reference to Its Physical History (1865)
The Natural History of the Bible (1867)
The Daughters of Syria (1872)
Land of Moab (1874)
Pathways of Palestine (1882)
The Fauna and Flora of Palestine (1884)
Eastern Customs in Bible Lands (1894)
Rambles in Japan (1895)

Honors.
A number of bird species are named after Tristam, including the long-tailed starling tristram, the Myzomela tristrami, the flower-eater Tristrami, and the dark-colored rocker Oceanodroma tristrami. Also, the Persian gerbil (Meriones tristrami) and the genus of fish of the family cichlid Tristramella are named in his honor. He later published the first scientific descriptions of bird species such as Otus insularis, the Cypriot Slav and the Mesopotamian sparrow.

Notes

British Ornithologists
British Travellers
Members of the Royal Society of London
Palestinian scholars