Frank Finn

Who was Frank Finn?

Frank Finn FZS, MBOU was an English ornithologist.

Finn was born in Maidstone and educated at Maidstone Grammar School and Brasenose College, Oxford. He went on a collecting expedition to East Africa in 1892, and became First Assistant Superintendent of the Indian Museum, Calcutta in 1894, and Deputy Superintendent from 1895 to 1903. He then returned to England, and was editor of the Avicultural Magazine in 1909-10.

Finn was a prolific author, his works including Garden and Aviary Birds of India, How to Know the Indian Ducks, Birds of Calcutta, How to Know the Indian Waders, Ornithological and other Oddities, The Making of Species, Eggs and Nests of British Birds and Indian Sporting Birds.

The weaver bird Ploceus megarhynchus was originally described from a specimen collected by A. O. Hume from Kaladhungi near Nainital in 1869. It was rediscovered near Calcutta by Finn and E. C. Stuart Baker called it Finn's Weaver in the second edition of the Fauna of British India.

Another species, though so far very rare and little known, needs mention here, as most of the recorded specimens have been met with in captivity.