Name John Cordeaux | Role Ornithologist | |
John Cordeaux FRGS (27 February 1831, Foston, Leicestershire – 1 August 1899, Great Coates House) was an English amateur naturalist and ornithologist, known for his work with the British Association on bird migration.
Cordeaux began his study of bird migration on the coasts of the counties of Lincolnshire (where he lived) and Yorkshire. In 1872 he published a summary of the results of years of observations in his book Birds of the Humber District. In the autumn of 1874 he went to the island of Heligoland to learn about the ornithological knowledge accumulated by Heinrich Gätke; soon after the visit Cordeaux wrote a paper for The Ibis describing Gätke’s collection. In 1879 Cordeaux collaborated with J. A. Harvie-Brown in persuading keepers of lighthouses and lightvessels on the coasts of England and Scotland to accumulate information on bird migration. At the summer 1880 meeting at Swansea, the British Association formed a committee headed by Alfred Newton with Cordeaux as secretary; the purpose of the committee was to systematically continue the work which Cordeaux and Harvie-Brown had shown to be practicable. At the summer 1896 meeting of the British Association at Liverpool, W. Eagle Clarke presented a Digest of the Observations for the committee's findings.
For thirty-five years, Cordeaux made ornithological contributions to The Ibis, The Zoologist and several other journals. In 1894 he was the president of the Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union.