10
THE BIRDS OF ESSEX.
words of his son, the Rev. J. C. Atkinson, "a good, practical
ornithologist, a keen observer, though without any scientific know-
ledge, and very much interested in anything connected with sport or
birds." Not a few notes contributed by him, are to be found in the
early numbers of the Zoologist.
BAXTER, G. H., of Hutton Park, Brentwood, takes much
interest in birds, and has an interesting collection (p. 34), the
principal specimens in which are mentioned hereafter.
BREE, Charles Robert, M.D. (1811-1886), was the
eldest son of the late Mr. John Bree, of Keswick, Cumberland,
by Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. John Bearcroft, and was born at
Ambleside, on the 4th of February, 1811. He spent his early life
mostly in the Lake Country. He was educated for the medical
profession in York, during which time he lived in the Minster Yard,
and was present at the fire of the Cathedral in 1829. From York
he went to London, and was a pupil at the University College in
1829-30. At the end of his second year, he joined a party of
fellow-students and entered into the Polish service, where he
remained till Warsaw was taken by the Russians in 1831. After
spending a few months in Berlin, he returned to England, and
commenced to follow his profession as a general practitioner at
Bildeston, in Suffolk. In 1834, he removed to the neighbouring
town of Stowmarket, where he remained until 1858, in which year
he gave up practice and went to Edinburgh, where he studied for
one year, and then became M.D. of its University. He married, in
1845, Frances Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Sir Augustus
Henniker, Bart, who survives him. In the autumn of 1859, he was
elected physician to the Essex and Colchester Hospital, and con-
tinued for twenty-two years senior physician to that institution.
During this period, he published—1st, The History of the Birds of
Europe, not observid in the British Isles (Groombridge & Co.), which
remained for more than ten years the only English general work of
reference on the subject, and of which a second edition, containing
important additions, published by Bell and Sons, in five vols., has
been called for ; 2nd. Species not Transmutable, nor the Result of
Secondary Causes ; 3rd, Popular Illustrations of the lower Forms of
Life, which was reprinted from the Field ; 4th, An Exposition of the
Fallacies in the Hypothesis of Mr. Darwin (Longmans, Green & Co.)
Dr. Bree was a contributor from time to time to the Field and the
Zoologist, as well as also part editor, with the Rev, Mr. Morris, of the