Hugh John Lofting was an English author trained as a civil engineer, who created the classic children's literature character of Doctor Dolittle. It first appeared in illustrated letters to his children written by Lofting from the British Army trenches in World War I. Lofting was born in January 1886 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, to Elizabeth Agnes and John Brien Lofting, he was of Irish ancestry. His eldest brother was Hilary Lofting, who became a novelist in Australia, having emigrated there in 1915. Lofting was educated at Mount St Mary's College in Derbyshire. From 1905 to 1906 he studied civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, he travelled as a civil engineer before enlisting in the Irish Guards regiment of the British Army in World War I. Not wishing to write to his children about the brutality of the war, he wrote imaginative letters which became the foundation of the successful Doctor Dolittle novels for children. Wounded in the war, in 1919 Lofting moved with his family to Killingworth, Connecticut.

He was married three times and had three children, one of whom, his son Christopher, is the executor of his literary estate. Hugh Lofting's character Doctor John Dolittle, an English physician from Puddleby-on-the-Marsh in the West Country, who could speak to animals, first saw light in the author's illustrated letters to children, written from the trenches during the 1914–1918 War, when actual news, he said, was either too horrible or too dull; the stories are set in early Victorian England in the 1820s–1840s. He was living in Killingworth, while he wrote most of the instalments to the series; the Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before Printed began the series and won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. The sequel The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle won Lofting the prestigious Newbery Medal. Eight more books followed, after Lofting's death two more appeared, composed of short unpublished pieces; the internal chronology of the books is somewhat different from the publishing order.

The first book is followed by Doctor Dolittle's Post Office, Doctor Dolittle's Circus and Doctor Dolittle's Caravan. Only follows the second book, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, continued by Doctor Dolittle's Zoo. After that, the publishing order is restored; the Story of Mrs Tubbs and Tommy and Mrs. Tubbs are picture books aimed at a younger audience than the Doctor Dolittle books, they are about the old woman of the title and her pets, with whom she can speak, the animals who help her out of trouble. Porridge Poetry is the only non-Dolittle work by Lofting still in print, it is a colorfully illustrated book of poems for children. Noisy Nora is a cautionary tale about a girl, a noisy eater; the book is printed as if hand-written, the many illustrations merge with the text. The Twilight of Magic is aimed at older readers, it is set in an age when magic is dying and science is beginning. This work is the only one of Lofting's books to be illustrated by another person. Victory for the Slain is Lofting's only work for adults.

It consist of a single long poem in seven parts about the futility of war, permeated by the refrain "In war the only victors are the slain." It was published only in the United Kingdom. Lofting commented, "For years it was a constant source of shock to me to find my writings amongst'juveniles', it does not bother me any more now, but I still feel there should be a category of'seniles' to offset the epithet." The Story of Doctor Dolittle ISBN 978-0099427322 The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle ISBN 978-0099854708 Doctor Dolittle's Post Office ISBN 978-0099880400 The Story of Mrs Tubbs Doctor Dolittle's Circus ISBN 978-1612035390 Porridge Poetry Doctor Dolittle's Zoo ISBN 978-0-09-988030-1 ISBN 978-0-397-30009-9 Doctor Dolittle's Caravan ISBN 978-0-09-985450-0 ISBN 978-0-397-30011-2 Doctor Dolittle's Garden ISBN 978-0099880509 Doctor Dolittle in the Moon ISBN 978-0099880608/978-1612035369 Noisy Nora The Twilight of Magic Gub Gub's Book: An Encyclopedia of Food Doctor Dolittle's Return ISBN 978-0-09-988070-7 Doctor Dolittle's Birthday Book Tommy and Mrs. Tubbs Victory for the Slain Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake ISBN 978-0099880806 Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary ISBN 978-1406763393 Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures OCLC 1185760 ISBN 978-0-14-030409-1 Works by Hugh Lofting at Project Gutenberg Works by Hugh Lofting at Faded Page Works by or about Hugh Lofting at Internet Archive Works by Hugh Lofting at LibriVox A Hugh Lofting website First Editions UK – with images Hugh Lofting at Library of Congress Authorities, with 89 catalog records

Boyd Robert Horsbrugh was an English ornithologist and military man, best known for his 1912 book The Gamebirds and Waterfowl of South Africa, a collaborative work with Claude Gibney Finch-Davies. He was born the elder son of Charles Bell Horsbrugh, a Captain and Adjutant of the 2nd Central India Horse. At an early age he was sent to England, attending Wellington College and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. On 25 February 1893 he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, serving in Ceylon with them for two years, he was transferred to the Army Service Corps in 1895 and was posted to Ireland where he was promoted to Lieutenant in 1896. Horsbrugh was stationed in Sierra Leone from saw service during the Bai Bureh rebellion. For his services during this operation, he was awarded the Protectorate Expedition Medal with clasp. While stationed in Sierra Leone he became a lifelong member of the Avicultural Society of Great Britain contributing articles to their journal. A local chief brought him birds to study, one of, a hornbill that became a valued pet until killed by another pet - a large-spotted genet.

He raised two grey parrots that became his constant companions and learnt to talk, as well as a turaco that shared an early morning bath with him. Horsbrugh had an understanding of wild birds. 1899 saw him back in England for only a short while before being drafted to South Africa to take part in the Boer War. He served with Lord Methuen and was promoted to Captain on 1 April 1900. In May of that same year he came under fire from the Boer forces while fording the Rhenoster River, he was among the troops that relieved the town of Lindley and the 13th Yeomanry Battalion on 27 June 1900. For the next two years he was moved all over the country in a endless war, his duties took up much of his time and energy, so that he published no bird articles during this period. Just before the end of the war, he was invalided back to England, arriving on the hospital ship Nubia in March 1902. For his services he received the Queen's Medal with three clasps and the King's Medal with two clasps; as part of his convalescence in 1902, Horsbrugh embarked on an extensive tour of the United States.

He devoted a large amount of time to studying gamebirds and waterfowl in their natural habitat. During his tour he met and married Elizabeth Mitchell of Philadelphia, she was to prove a steadfast partner. After a stay of two years in Kent, Horsbrugh was again sent to South Africa in 1905 to enforce the imperial peace, he was posted to Bloemfontein, where he and his wife were allocated an officer's house on top of Naval Hill. It was an idyllic location. Horsbrugh built some large aviaries in the garden so as to acquire first-hand knowledge of their breeding and habits. In June 1905 his younger brother, C. B. Horsbrugh, joined them on Naval Hill, but soon took up employment with the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria under Dr. J. W. B. Gunning. Besides hunting together, the two brothers made trips into the veld to study birds in their natural habitat; the Horsbrughs left for England in July 1906 on four months' leave, took along a large number of live birds. On the train trip from Bloemfontein to Cape Town, Boyd Horsbrugh travelled in the guard's van to ensure the proper feeding and care of his charges.

When C. B. Horsbrugh returned to England in 1907, he took along a considerable collection of live South African birds, causing great excitement in the avicultural world; the Gamebirds and Waterfowl of South Africa - facsimile reprint of 1912 work Works by or about Boyd Robert Horsbrugh at Internet Archive Bird paintings

Mensa is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere near the south celestial pole, one of twelve constellations drawn up in the 18th century by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille. Its name is Latin for table, though it commemorated Table Mountain and was known as Mons Mensae. One of the eighty-eight constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union, it covers a keystone-shaped wedge of sky 153.5 Square degrees in area. Other than the south polar constellation of Octans, it is the most southerly of constellations and is observable only south of the 5th parallel of the Northern Hemisphere. One of the faintest constellations in the night sky, Mensa contains no bright stars—the brightest, Alpha Mensae, is visible in suburban skies. At least three of its star systems have been found to have exoplanets, part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, several star clusters and a quasar lie in the area covered by the constellation. Known as Mons Mensae, Mensa was created by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille out of dim Southern Hemisphere stars in honor of Table Mountain, a South African mountain overlooking Cape Town, near the location of Lacaille's observatory.

He recalled that the Magellanic Clouds were sometimes known as Cape clouds, that Table Mountain was covered in clouds when a southeasterly stormy wind blew. Hence he made a "table" in the sky under the clouds. Lacaille had observed and catalogued 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the Cape of Good Hope, he devised 14 new constellations in uncharted regions of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere not visible from Europe. Mensa was the only constellation that did not honor an instrument symbolic of the Age of Enlightenment. Sir John Herschel proposed shrinking the name to one word in 1844, noting that Lacaille himself had abbreviated some of his constellations thus. Although the stars of Mensa do not feature in any ancient mythology, the mountain it is named after has a rich mythology. Called "Tafelberg" in Dutch and German, it has two neighboring mountains called "Devil's Peak" and "Lion's Head". Table Mountain features in the mythology of the Cape of notorious for its storms. Explorer Bartolomeu Dias saw the mountain as a mythical anvil for storms.

Mensa is bordered by Dorado to the north, Hydrus to the northwest and west, Octans to the south, Chamaeleon to the east and Volans to the northeast. Covering 153.5 square degrees and 0.372% of the night sky, it ranks 75th of the 88 constellations in size. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the IAU in 1922, is "Men"; the official constellation boundaries, as set by Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of eight segments. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 03h 12m 55.9008s and 07h 36m 51.5289s, while the declination coordinates are between −69.75° and −85.26°. The whole constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 5°N. Lacaille gave eleven stars in the constellation Bayer designations, using the Greek alphabet to label them Alpha through to Lambda Mensae. Gould added Kappa, Mu, Nu, Xi and Pi Mensae. Stars as dim as these were not given designations. Alpha Mensae is the brightest star with a visible apparent magnitude of 5.09, making it the only constellation with no star above magnitude 5.0.

Overall, there are 22 stars within the constellation's borders brighter than or equal to apparent magnitude 6.5. Alpha Mensae is a solar-type star 33.32 ± 0.02 light-years from Earth. It came to within 11 light-years from Earth around 250,000 years ago and would have been brighter back then—nearly of second magnitude. An infrared excess has been detected around this star, indicating the presence of a circumstellar disk at a radius of over 147 astronomical units; the estimated temperature of this dust is below 22 K. However, data from Herschel Space Observatory failed to confirm this excess, leaving the finding in doubt. No planetary companions have yet been discovered around it, it has a red dwarf companion star at an angular separation of 3.05 arcseconds. Gamma Mensae is the second-brightest star in the constellation, at magnitude 5.19. Located 104.9 ± 0.5 light-years from Earth, it is an ageing star around 1.04 times as massive as the Sun. It has swollen to around 5 times the solar radius, becoming an orange giant of spectral type K2III.

Beta Mensae is fainter at magnitude 5.31. Located 660 ± 10 light-years from Earth, it is a yellow giant of spectral type G8III, around 3.6 times as massive and 513 times as luminous as the Sun. It is 270 million years old, lies in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Zeta and Eta Mensae have infrared excesses suggesting. Zeta Mensae is an ageing white giant of spectral type A5 III around 394 ± 4 light-years from Earth, Eta Mensae is an orange giant of spectral type K4 III, lying 650 ± 10 light-years away from Earth. Pi Mensae is a solar-type star 59.62 ± 0.07 light-years distant. In 2001, a substellar companion was discovered in an eccentric orbit. Incorporating more accurate Hipparcos data yields a mass range for the companion to be anywhere from 10.27 to 29.9 times that of Jupiter. This confirms its substellar nature with the upper limit of mass putting it in the brown dwarf range; the discovery of a second substellar companion—a super-Earth—was announced on 16 September 2018. It takes 6.27 days to complete its orbit and is the first exoplanet detected by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite submitted for publication.

HD 38283 is a Sun-like star

Claire McCarthy is an Australian filmmaker, screenwriter and visual artist. She divides her time between Los Angeles. Claire was born in Sydney, the daughter of Christine, an author and concert pianist, John McCarthy QC, she graduated with honours from the University of Technology, Sydney with a Bachelor of Design/Communications majoring in film in 1997, is a Screen Directing graduate of the Australian Film and Radio School, 2001. Claire McCarthy has been making internationally acclaimed feature films, short films, music videos and documentaries for over a decade, her films have screened at many international festivals including Toronto International Film Festival, Tunis International Film Festival, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, Montreal Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Pusan International Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Flickerfest, St Kilda Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, London Film Festival. Her feature debut, Cross Life, premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and the Pusan International Film Festival in Korea and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award at the 2007 Inside Film Awards.

Cross Life was a low-budget, social realist multi-plot about Sydney's Kings Cross red light district, starring Paul Caesar, Imogen Annesley and Tony Barry. Her 2008 autobiographical documentary film Sisters was awarded a Young Filmmakers Fund grant, from the New South Wales Film and Television Office. Sisters is a 52-minute documentary about her journey to India with her teenage sister Helena, to volunteer with the Mother Teresa's religious institute, the Missionaries of Charity, in Calcutta. Sisters was broadcast on ABC Television in 2008 and 2009, on the Compass program, hosted by Geraldine Doogue. Building upon relationships she made with fellow volunteers in India, she wrote The Waiting City – a mystic infused drama about a young Australian couple's journey to Calcutta to adopt a baby; the Waiting City was the first Australian feature-length film to be filmed in India. The Waiting City, starring Radha Mitchell, Joel Edgerton, Samrat Chakrabarti and Isabel Lucas had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, as part of the prestigious "Special Presentation" section.

Chakrabarti was named as one of the "Fresh Faces at TIFF" for his role. The Waiting City has screened at the Pusan Film Festival, Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, the Tunis International Film Festival and the Sydney Film Festival and is still travelling the festival circuit; the film was released nationally in Australia on 15 July 2010 and release in other territories will be in 2010. In May 2016 it was announced that McCarthy would be directing an adaptation of The Personal History of Rachel Dupree which would be produced by Viola Davis. In September 2016 it was announced that Davis will star in the titular role, with Mahershala Ali as her husband and Quvenzhané Wallis as one of her daughters, she has taught screenwriting and filmmaking to masters and undergraduate students at Macquarie University. She has taught screenwriting to special needs students at North Sydney TAFE. In the Australian film The Black Balloon she had the role of choreographer to a group of autistic adults who were starring in the film and contributed to the musical soundtrack as she did with Sisters and The Waiting City.

She is married to award-winning cinematographer, Denson Baker ACS. The couple have collaborated on The Waiting City, The Black Balloon and other films; the couple collaborated on Old Man River's Sunshine music video together, set in Varanasi. Sunshine was nominated for an Australian Cinematographers Society Award in 2008 in the "Best Music Video" category. Adam Fulton, The waiting game in a city of spare children, 7 July 2010, Sydney Morning Herald TIFF Reviews The Waiting City Interview with McCarthy “At The Movies” Review Claire McCarthy's Agent RGM Artists Claire McCarthy at the Internet Movie Database imdb Claire McCarthy Myspace Fan Page myspace The Waiting City Official website Australian Film and Radio School AFTRS Inside Film Awards

The bar-winged flycatcher-shrike is a small passerine bird placed in the Vangidae. It is found in the forests of tropical southern Asia from the Himalayas and hills of southern India to Indonesia. Insectivorous it is found hunting in the mid-canopy of forests joining mixed-species foraging flocks, they perch upright and have a distinctive pattern of black and white, males being more shiny black than the females. In some populations the colour of the back is brownish while others have a dark wash on the underside; the bar-winged flycatcher-shrike is black capped with black wings that contrast with the white of the body. A white slash across the wing and a white rump stand out in contrast, they sit upright on branches, flying around to glean insects. The nostril is hidden by hairs and the upper mandible of the beak has a curved tip. Males are velvety black while females tend to be greyish brown but the pattern varies across the geographic populations. Both males and females of the Himalayan H. p. capitalis have a brown back but the males have a black head.

The Sri Lankan population leggei lacks sexual dimorphism in plumage. H. p. intermedius has only the females with a brownish back. The tail is black but the outer tail feathers are white while the non-central tail feathers are tipped with white; the call is a whriri-whirriri-whirriri and sometimes a sharp chip. Male-female pairs of the subspecies leggei of Sri Lanka have been reported to duet with precision. Young birds are said to have a broken pattern of grey giving the appearance of lichens; the exact systematic family position is unclear but the genus Hemipus has been found to be related to the genus Tephrodornis and show affinities to the Malaconotidae of Africa. The nominate race is found in the Western Ghats of India but becoming rare towards the Surat Dangs, they are found in some parts of central and eastern India, extending into Bangladesh. The subspecies capitalis is found along the Himalayas from Simla, east to Manipur and Chittagong in India and extending into northern Thailand and Laos.

Subspecies leggei of Sri Lanka has the sexes indistinguishable. It is found in the hill forests of Sri Lanka. Subspecies intermedius is found in Southeast Asia in Sumatra and parts of the Malay Peninsula; the brownish grey wash on the breast of females is darker, contrasting with the white of the abdomens. The back is darker brown than in other subspecies; the males have darker breasts. Other subspecies that have been described such as Walter Koelz's pileatus and insulae are not considered valid; this bird catches insects by making aerial sallies for flushed insects. It will associate with other small birds such as babblers, velvet-fronted nuthatch and white-eyes in feeding flocks, they move through the forest and stick to a particular location. The nesting season in Sri Lanka is from February to August, March to May in India; the nest is a neat cup with rim held stiff by cobwebs binding it and the inside is lined with fine grass and fibre. Lichens cover the surface of the nest cup, placed on the horizontal surface of a dry branch close to the tip of a dead branch or on a leafless tree making it appear like a knot in the wood.

The usual clutch is 3 eggs which are pale greenish white and blotched with black and grey. The bird sitting at the nest appears. Both males and females incubate; the chicks at nest stay still with eyes closed and face the center of the nest while holding their bills high giving the appearance of a broken branch. They have been said to be sensitive to forest degradation but some studies note that they are less sensitive and capable of persisting in disturbed forests. Photographs and videos Calls

Robert Chambers "Bob" Edwards was a Canadian newsman, editorialist and provincial politician. He is best known as the writer and publisher of the early 1900s weekly newspaper, the Calgary Eye Opener. Edwards was born in Scotland. Little is known beyond the fact that he had an older brother, Jack. Edwards' mother, Mary Chambers, survived his birth by only a few weeks, his father, Alexander Mackenzie Edwards FRSE, an Edinburgh surgeon and medical author, died in 1868 while on a world cruise. He was raised by unmarried aunts, attended school in St. Andrews and Edinburgh before spending time at Glasgow University, his mother's father, Dr. Robert Chambers, was a founder of the Scottish publishing house W. & R. Chambers. In 1881 and 1882, Bob Edwards put out a tourist periodical, The Channel, aimed at visitors to the French Riviera, he worked for a time with the Glasgow city clerk, Sir James David Marwick. Edwards and his brother Jack decided to emigrate to the North America in 1892. Edwards settled in the village of Wetaskiwin, founded a newspaper, the Free Lance, which he published for four years.

He moved to Strathcona, where he continued his work as a journalist. Edwards moved to High River and on March 4, 1902 began publishing a newspaper in Calgary. At first he called his paper The Chinook, but as the paper became known for its satirical content, he changed the name to the Eye Opener. Through this outlet he poked fun at local politicians, government officials and other well-known Calgary residents, invented fictitious people to lampoon. Edwards was elected in the 1921 Alberta general election as an Independent candidate, he was one of five MLAs elected in a plurality vote in that election. He began advocating for the ready availability of beer and the prohibition of stronger alcoholic beverages, in spite of the fact that he himself was an alcoholic. Edwards died November 1922, vacating his seat in the legislature, he was buried in Calgary's Union Cemetery. Bob Edwards Junior High School in Calgary, Alberta is named in his honour; the Bob Edwards Award has been presented annually since 1977 to a provocative Canadian, not afraid to speak his or her mind.

Notable recipients have included Margaret Atwood and Preston Manning. Supporting Alberta Theatre Projects as a fundraising luncheon, in 2012 the event moved to the Calgary Public Library Foundation as their signature gala; the long-running Calgary Eyeopener morning show on CBC Radio One in Calgary is named after Edwards' newspaper. Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online Canadian Encyclopedia online Calgary Eye-Opener online at Peel's Prairie Provinces Bob Edwards Award CBC Radio One's Calgary Eyeopener