William Edwin Brooks, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetWilliam Edwin Brooks
Irish civil engineer and ornithologist
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Dublin, Leinster, Ireland
About William Edwin Brooks
- William Edwin Brooks (July 30, 1828 near Dublin, Ireland – January 18, 1899 in Mount Forest, Ontario) was a civil engineer in India and an ornithologist.
- He went to India in 1856 as a civil engineer with the railways and stayed on until 1881. After retirement he moved out of India and settled in Ontario, Canada.
- He was an honorary member of the British Ornithological Union.
- He corresponded with Alfred Russel Wallace, Thomas C.
- Jerdon and Robert Christopher Tytler.
- His vast collection of bird specimens is at the British Museum and during his career in India, he corresponded actively with other ornithologists in the region, notably Allan Octavian Hume.
- He also corresponded with ornithologists in Britain, including Henry Eeles Dresser, and sent many specimens to Dresser to distribute and trade with other ornithologists on his behalf.
- His third son Allan Brooks, named after Hume, became an ornithologist and artist of repute. He retired in 1881 and moved to Ontario.
- In 1887, Brooks moved his family from Milton, Ontario, to a new farm at Chilliwack, British Columbia.
- In 1891, he sold the Chilliwack property to return to Ontario where he bought a farm in Mount Forest. Brooks was admired by later workers for his careful observations and notes on the vocalizations of warblers.
- He was among the first to suggest that each species of warbler had a distinctive call.
- Phylloscopus subviridis, first described by Brooks (in the genus Reguloides) is referred to as Brooks' leaf warbler.
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