WATERTON, Charles, English naturalist, born at Walton Hall, near Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, 3 June, 1782; died there, 27 May, 1865. He was of an old Roman Catholic family, from Lincolnshire, and through his grandmother was descended from Sir Thomas More. He was educated first at a school at Tudhoe, near Durham, and then at the Jesuit college at Stonyhurst, in Lancashire. In boyhood he displayed greater fondness for open-air observations of natural history than for books. Shortly after attaining his majority he visited Spain, where some of the Waterton family were in business. In 1804 he went to Demerara to superintend the estates of an uncle, and travelled through the interior of the country, noting its fauna, flora, and scenery. On the death of his father he gave up the management of these estates and returned to England, but only for a short time: so that, for twenty years from his first going to Demerara in 1804 till 1824, with the exception of a few visits to his ancestral home, he rambled about in South America, having no other object than the pursuit of natural history. Although not distinguished as a scientific man, he is well known as a good and enthusiastic field-naturalist, while his vivid and spirited style of writing has rendered his narratives popular. Waterton was eccentric and abstemious. He was noted as a skilful taxidermist, and his ornithological collection at Walton Hall was almost unrivalled. During the latter part of his life, settling in his ancestral home, which was on a small island in the midst of fine scenery, he surrounded himself with the creatures and pets he loved. He forbade the use of fire-arms on his grounds, so that they became the chosen haunt of many rare and shy birds and animals, and, to discourage poachers, he placed ingenious wooden images of game-birds in his trees. His adventures in South America, often daring, are graphically described in his "Wanderings in South America, the Northwest of the United States, and the Antilles, in 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824; with Original Instructions for the Preservation of Birds, etc., for Cabinets of Natural History" (London, 1825). The frequent journeys that he afterward made to Belgium and Italy, with his home-life at Walton Hall, are described in the autobiography prefixed to his " Essays on Natural History, chiefly Ornithology" (3 vols., 1838-'44; new ed., with a continuation of the life, by Norman Moore, based entirely upon autobiographical notes, 1871). See also a life of him entitled "Charles Waterton, his Home, Habits, and Handiwork," by Richard Hobson, M. D. (1866).