Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/311

 his first paper (on some rare British birds) was published.

Having taken up zoology as his hobby, he wisely went through a course of instruction in anatomy, which qualified him subsequently to write several useful memoirs on the structure of birds that were published in the ‘Transactions’ of the Linnean and Zoological societies. The first scientific society of which he became a member was the Royal Institution, which he joined in 1817. In November 1825 he was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society, and on the death of J. Forster in 1849 was appointed treasurer, an office which he filled together with that of vice-president until his death. In 1826 on the formation of the Zoological Society he became one of its original members, and took an active part in its proceedings both as a naturalist and as a man of business. When [q. v.] commenced the publication of his ‘Magazine of Natural History’ in 1828, Yarrell became a constant contributor to its pages, as he did also to the pages of other journals, notably the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ the ‘Entomological Magazine,’ and the ‘Zoologist,’ which was founded by [q. v.] in 1843.

As early as 1825 Yarrell had formed a fair collection of British birds and their eggs, as well as a collection of British fishes, to which he continued to make additions as opportunity occurred. These provided him with much material for his two great works, the one completed in 1836 under the title of a ‘History of British Fishes,’ the other in 1843 under that of a ‘History of British Birds.’ The former reached a third edition, revised after his death by (1787–1865) [q. v.] in 1859, the latter reached a third edition in the year of his death (1856), and a fourth edition has since been published in parts (1871–85) under the able editorship of Professor Newton (vols. i. and ii.) and Mr. Howard Saunders (vols. iii. and iv.). The ‘History of British Fishes’ was the forerunner of that fine series of works on the natural history of the British Islands of which Van Voorst was the publisher, and which have materially helped to extend and popularise the study of nature among all classes of English readers.

Yarrell died at Great Yarmouth on 1 Sept. 1856. His remains were interred in the churchyard of Bayford, Hertfordshire, where those of his parents, his brothers and sisters already reposed. The grave is on the north side of the church, within a railed space allotted to his family.

In St. James's Church Piccadilly, at the west end of the north aisle his executors erected to his memory a marble tablet with a medallion portrait, supported by two swans, in appropriate allusion not merely to his own love of birds, but to the fact of his having added a new species of swan to the European avifauna, which he named in honour of the celebrated engraver, Thomas Bewick. Besides the medallion portrait referred to there is an oil portrait of him painted in 1830 by Mrs. Carpenter, which hangs in the meeting-room of the Linnean Society at Burlington House. A later and extremely good likeness in chalk by an unknown hand was in the possession of Professor Newton at Cambridge, as well as a miniature in watercolour by Mrs. Waterhouse Hawkins. In addition to these there is a lithographed portrait in what is known as the Ipswich series (it was prepared when the British Association held its meeting in Ipswich), and a good engraving by F. A. Heath from a photograph by Maull & Polyblank taken in 1855, the year preceding his death.

In estimating Yarrell's merits as a zoologist, it may be said that the value of his works and the admiration which they still evoke are due to the accuracy of the information which they impart, and to the simplicity of style in which they are written; while they have the further advantage of being well illustrated with wood engravings. The volumes on fishes and birds were issued in parts at a time when they were much needed, and the additions which have been since incorporated in successive editions have made them what they will long continue to be—the standard works on the subjects of which they treat.

 YATES, EDMUND (1831–1894), novelist, and founder of ‘The World,’ the son of (1797–1842) [q. v.], who married, in 1823, Elizabeth Brunton [see ], was born during a theatrical tour of his father's company at Howard Place, Calton Hill, Edinburgh, on 3 July 1831. He was brought as an infant to London, where his early home was at 411 Strand (adjoining the Adelphi Theatre), and was baptised Edmund Hodgson, after Edmund Byng of the Torrington family, and