Bernhard Adolph Hantzsch (12 January 1875 – June 1911) was a German ornithologist, Arctic researcher, and writer, notable for his discovery of two Icelandic bird subspecies. Hantzsch was the first white man to cross Baffin Island. Early life Hantzsch was born in Dresden, Germany the youngest son of the school master and researcher Adolf Hantzsch (1841–1920) and his wife Emma Jencke (1842–1889), niece of Johann Friedrich Jencke (1812–1893), the founder of the Dresden Institute, the first deaf institution. Hantzsch's siblings include the geographer and historian Viktor Hantzsch (1868–1910), the builder Hermann Hantzsch (1870–1945), and the clergyman Paul Kleinert's wife, Bertha Kleinert (1873–1924). He was baptised on 8 February 1875 by the deacon, Dr. Frommhold from Dresden's Anne Church (Annenkirche). During the period of 1881 to 1889, he attended the second public school in Dresden. At an early age, Hantzsch spent time in Tharandt Forest for health reasons. He later became an assistant teacher in , a village within the forest, giving him the opportunity to study bird life and developing an ornithological career. While having little inclination to foreign languages in his early years, he later became fluent in Croatian, English, Danish, and Inuktitut. Career After receiving a position in 1897 at a public school in Dresden, he was able to continue his bird studies but in more varied terrain. In 1897, Hantzsch published his first scientific paper. Like all his future contributions, it was written in German language, and thus unavailable or overlooked by many ornithologists until recent years. Beginning in 1898, he made trips to Slavonia to study waders and waterfowl, and to Bulgaria in 1901. With the connections he received there, Hantzsch was able to study birds of prey in the Rhodope Mountains and the Balkans. After developing a "Check-List of the Birds of the Kingdom of Saxony, Hantzsch explored Iceland, he left for Iceland to study its birds during the period of 21 April-8 September 1903. There, he developed a scientific systematization of Icelandic birds. He is credited for the discovery of the subspecies Acanthis Linaria islandica in 1904, and Corvus corax islandicus in 1906. He developed two avifaunal lists of important regions in Europe, such as his 1905 Contribution to Knowledge of the Avifauna of Iceland. In 1906, Hantzsch conducted research in Canada on the avifauna of the northeastern Labrador Peninsula, working in Killinek (Port Burwell) for several months, and then proceeding southward. He published