McGhie notes Dresser's role in the association of Ross's Gull with British ornithology: 'Henry Dresser (1838-1915) was a leading British collector; he began collecting birds' eggs and skins when he was a teenager, and by the end of his collecting career (sixty years later) he had one of the finest private collections in Britain. Writing in 1867, when he was twenty-nine years old, he asked an American correspondent to try to obtain any Ross's Gull specimens he could from the Smithsonian Institution, writing that "I feel the want of them much in my collection." The bird represented a gap. Twenty years later, after having had to borrow skins to describe in his famous History of the Birds of Europe (1871-82), he wrote once more to the Smithsonian Institution requesting specimens, again unsuccessfully. After a further five years he eventually met with success, leading him to write to the curator at the Smithsonian, "I cannot tell you how greatly indebted I am for your kindness in the matter. R. rosea especially is most welcome as I have so long wished to possess it. Dresser gave the Smithsonian four specimens of birds chiefly from Japan in return for the rare gulls. It had taken him nearly thirty years to obtain the skins of Ross's Gull. His continuous efforts to obtain them show just how desirable these specimens could be to collectors.

When Russian ornithologist Sergei Buturlin (1872-1938) discovered the regular breeding grounds of Ross's Gull in Siberia in 1905, Henry Dresser arranged for Buturlin's account of the discovery to be published in Britain in the leading ornithological journal, Ibis, produced by the British Ornithologists' Union. Buterlin was elected as a Foreign Member of the Union following the publication. Dresser also arranged for the sale and exchange of Buturlin's Ross's Gull specimens to European and American collectors and museums. Dresser's access to such privileged information and specimens on the one hand, which came as a result of his business links with America and Russia, and to the highly elitist scientific societies and publishing circles on the other hand, helped propel his own career as an ornithologist. Even early in his collecting career (in the 1870s), Dresser intended to bequeath his collections to a public museum when he was finished with it, and sometimes used this intention as a means of obtaining specimens from other museums. Gis collections were sold (for a nominal sum) to the Royal Scottish Museum (Now the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh) in the late 1880s and to the Manchester Museum in 1899 (skins, including two of Ross's Gull) and 1912 (eggs, including ten of Ross's Gull).' (109-110)