Leslie McCracken and Charles Bethune Horsbrugh: collecting birds’ eggs in Northern Ireland in the 1920s and early 1930s

This paper is a case-study of a school-boy's egg collection in Northern Ireland in the 1920s and early 1930s. The collection and Leslie McCracken's friendship with Charles Bethune Horsbrugh, an established naturalist, not only expanded McCracken's consciousness far beyond the boundaries of his rural existence but also reveal, through the specimens given to McCracken by Captain Horsbrugh, the considerable extent of amateur egg-collecting and the interchange of eggs both within Ireland and Great Britain, and further afield, then and in previous generations. A socio-historic sketch is provided, together with an account of the more interesting bird's eggs, their collectors, and the location of collection.