Thomas Ayres
Thomas Ayres (* July 1828 in Hereford, England; † July 31, 1913 in Potchefstroom, South Africa) was a South African traders, prospectors and naturalists British origin.
Life and work
Ayres was the son of John Ayres and Heléne Duschesne. His father was the mayor of Hereford. 1850 the family emigrated to Natal as part of the first major British wave of immigrants to the region. As of 1852, Ayres tried a few years unsuccessfully looking for gold in Australia. He returned to Natal and settled near Pinetown as plantation owners down. In his spare time, Ayres dedicated to the bird collection. Through the influence of Harriette Emily Colenso, daughter of the first Anglican Bishop of Natal, John William Colenso, Ayres made the acquaintance with the British ornithologists John Henry Gurney, with whom he had a long-standing friendship. Between 1859 and 1873 Gurney published eleven scientific articles in the journal Ibis on the bird species that Ayres had collected. 1865 Ayres pulled after Potchefstroom, where already lived his brother Walter. He worked as hunters and traders and collected birds, beetles, moths and butterflies, including in 1879 the last time the presumably extinct Bluebird Lepidochrysops hypopolia. Thomas and his brother launched an itinerant activity and followed the trekboers the Crocodile River and Marico River. The house of Thomas Ayres, which became known as The Ark or Uncle Tom's Cabin was filled with stuffed animals, especially birds. The ornithologist Austin Roberts, who was a student of Ayres, was among the many visitors. In the early 1870s, Ayres worked unsuccessfully in the gold fields of Lydenburg. From 1880 he accompanied hunting expeditions to Matabeleland and Mashonaland, followed among others, the Irish hunter and naturalist James Sligo Jameson ( 1856-1888 ) participated. The birds that were collected on these excursions, described George Ernest Shelley in 1882 in the journal Ibis. Ayres also worked as a brewer. He produced a beer with the name Ayres XX Pale Ale. However, after the private beer brewing had been declared by law to be illegal, he had to close his brewery. Ayres was married and had a son, Thomas Lambert, whose nephew Alfred D. Millar was lepidopterist.
Dedikationsnamen
After Thomas Ayres among others, the following taxa are named: the mirror Rail ( Sarothrura ayresi ), the stain Eagle (Hieraaetus ayresii ) and the Zwergzistensänger ( Cisticola ayresii ). The plant Sesuvium ayresii from the family of Mesembryanthemum plants ( Aizoaceae ) bears his name.