William Alexander Forbes
William Alexander Forbes ( born June 25, 1855 in Cheltenham, † January 14, 1883 in Shonga on the Niger ) was an English zoologist who conducted research in Brazil and in the Niger Delta.
Life
Forbes was the second son of James Forbes and his wife Ann State (nee Bennett ). His father was chairman of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company. From 1866 to 1872 Forbes was educated at the Kensington School and Winchester College. In 1872 he studied in Aachen German. From 1873 to 1875 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and from 1875 to 1876 at University College London. Early on during his studies he showed a great interest and talent for biology, Forbes devoted himself.
Thanks to the influence of his friend Alfred Henry Garrod (1846-1879), Forbes attended from 1876, St John's College, Cambridge. Here he obtained in 1879 a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude in the Tripos in Natural Sciences. Subsequently, he was elected a Fellow of the St John 's College. In the same year he was appointed as successor to the late Garrod prosector to the Zoological Society of London. Forbes was Garrod's literary executor and published in 1881 a collection of scientific works Garrod with biographical notes. The same year, Forbes placed the monotypic genus Garrodia on the slaty- petrel, which was described by John Gould in 1841 nereis as Oceanites. In addition to his zoological work Forbes taught comparative anatomy at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School.
Between 1879 and 1882, Forbes worked for the gardens of the Zoological Society, of which he wrote several scientific articles. The most famous include On the anatomy of the passerine birds ( Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1880-82 ), On the Contributions to the anatomy and classification of birds made by Professor Garrod (The Ibis, 1881) and On the anatomy of the petrels collected falling on the voyage of HMS Challenger ( Zoology of the Challenger, 4, Pt. 11 , 1882).
In the summer of 1880 Forbes embarked on a short expedition in the forests of Pernambuco in Brazil. Here He gained the holotype of the collar Weihs, a bird of prey, which was only in 1922 by Harry Kirke Swann ( 1871-1926 ) scientifically described and recognized in the 1980s as an independent species. 1881 Forbes published a report on this trip in the journal The Ibis. In 1882 he traveled to visit in the United States to its American brethren.
On July 19, 1882, he sailed from Liverpool on an expedition to tropical Africa. Beginning on the Niger Delta he wanted to explore the fauna. However, this project he had to cancel upriver from Shonga due to the non - arrival of a steamer. He decided to return immediately to England. Shortly after Christmas of the same year he fell ill with fever and the Ruhr, the consequences of which he died at the age of 28 years on 14 January 1883. His remains were brought to England and buried in the cemetery of Wickham on April 1, 1884 in Kent.
Dedikationsnamen
After William Alexander Forbes of Kragenweih ( Leptodon forbesi ), the Forbesregenpfeifer (Charadrius forbesi ) and the Forbesstärling ( Curaeus forbesi ) are named.