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Alexander was born at Croydon in Surrey and studied Natural Science at Cambridge University. He was Assistant Superintendent at Cambridge Museum of Zoology from 1910 to 1911. In 1912 he went to Australia and worked at the Western Australian Museum in Perth until 1920, when he moved to the Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board in Brisbane. The search for a biological control for the prickly pear involved a number of voyages to South AmericaSouth America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. South America is situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. It became attached to North America only recently, geologically speaking, wi, and Alexander used his time aboard to observe the seabirds. This resulted in his book Birds of the Ocean, a forerunner of later field guides. In 1926 he went to work at the American Museum of Natural HistoryThe American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History is a landmark of Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York, at 79th Street and Central Park West. The museum has a staff of more than 1,200. The museum sponsors over 100 special f.
Alexander returned to England in 1929. In 1930 he became director of the newly-formed Oxford Bird Census (later Edward Grey Institute of Field OrnithologyThe Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford University is an academic body which conducts research in ornithology and the general field of evolutionary ecology and conservation biology, with an emphasis on understanding organisms in natural e), In 1945 he retired as director and became the Institute's librarian, remaining so until 1955. The donation of his personal collection of bird books had provided the original nucleus of the library, and it was named after him in 1947.