history file Edinburgh in 1852. He joined the Rifle Brigade in 1873 and was posted to Gibraltar the following year. Verner became interested in ornithology at an early age but it was at Gibraltar that he became serious about egg hunting and the killing and stuffing of birds. While serving at Gibraltar, Verner met and worked with Lord Lilford (a founder of the British Ornithologists Union), Colonel L.H. Irby (author of Ornithology of the Strait of Gibraltar) and Prince Rudolf of Austria. On the unexpected invitation to meet the Prince, Verner wrote: “It was in 1879 that the late Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria arrived at Gibraltar in his yacht, the Miramar, bent on an ornithological expedition in Spain. At this time I was a subaltern doing regimental duty and was not a little surprised to receive an invitation from the Governor, Lord Napier of Magdala, to meet at dinner His Imperial Highness, of whose ornithological accomplishments I was at the time, I am ashamed to say, quite unaware. “Our meeting resulted in the Prince requesting me to take him on a ride into Spain the following day, the upshot of which was that when the Miramar sailed for Tangier I was bidden to accompany him. We subsequently went cruising up the Guadalquiver where, thanks to the kindness of the late Henry Davies of Jerez and his comrade, we were permitted to explore that most fascinating region the Coto de Donana. There I made the acquaintance with the famous ‘wild’ camels and gathered eggs of the flamingo.” In the forward to his book My Life Among the Wild Birds of Spain Verner explained he didn’t want to encourage others to kill birds or steal their eggs and he only did so in the interests of science. Fortunately for the birds of Gibraltar they were protected by Garrison Order. This forced Verner to travel into Spain to get his eggs and birds for taxidermy. If a type of bird was native to the Rock he would find a nest, or nests, of the same kind in Spain. An example of this was his Verner collected eggs from flamingos in nearby Spain
Gibraltar’s Champion Egg Hunter by Reg Reynolds
Today he would be arrested, fined and possibly jailed but a century ago Lt. Col. Willoughby Verner, was the ‘bird-nester’ and egg hunter supreme. In 1897 a London newspaperman boldly declared Colonel Verner to be “…one of the most popular officers in the British army… and his collection [of birds’ eggs] is probably one of the finest owned by an individual”. What excited the journalist about Verner was the life-threatening risks he would take to col-
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lect his eggs, including climbing rocky towers and hanging upside down over cliffs 100s, even 1000s of feet, in the air. It would seem Verner was a match for any modern-day ‘extreme sports’ rock climber, a skill he perfected during six years stationed on the Rock of Gibraltar. William Willoughby Cole Verner was born in
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE • October 2011