Archives of natural history, Volume 39, No 2 (October 2012)
Archives of natural history, Volume 39, No. 2 (October 2012) is available online at Edinburgh University Press.
J. M. Camarasa & N. Ibáñez : Joan Salvador and James Petiver: the last years (1715–1718) of their scientific correspondence.
J. D. Archibald : Darwin’s two competing phylogenetic trees: marsupials as ancestors or sister taxa?
N. P. Hellström : Darwin and the Tree of Life: the roots of the evolutionary tree.
M. DeArce : The natural history review (1854–1865).
A. Benocci & G. Manganelli : Early research on anatomy and mating of land slugs and snails: Francesco Redi’s (1684) Osservazioni.
P. G. Moore : The supply of marine biological specimens (principally animals) for teaching and research in Great Britain from the nineteenth century until today.
H. Funk : Towards bibliographical accuracy: a clarification of some obscure references in Linnaeus’s Musa cliffortiana (1736).
R. B. Williams : The editions, issues, states and dates of William Henry Harvey’s A manual of the British algae.
A. R. Kabat : Richard Frederick Deckert (1878–1971), Florida naturalist and natural history artist.
Obituary
Rosemay Ng Kee Kwong : Marie Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane (1928-2011).
Short notes
C. D. Preston & P. H. Oswald : A copy of John Ray’s Cambridge catalogue (1660) presented by the author to Peter Courthope.
S. Albuquerque : Watercolours of orchids native to British Guiana at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, attributed to Hannah Cassels im Thurn (1854–1947).
A. S. George : Eucalypt cigars, Ferdinand Mueller and Prosper Vincent Ramel.
F. E. Vega : A recently discovered manuscript by William Alford Lloyd on the growth of seaweeds in aquaria.
E. G. Hancock & P. Williams : An early preserved example of Phylloxera infesting British grape vines.
Archives of natural history, Volume 39 Pt 2 (2012) Abstracts
J. M. Camarasa & N. Ibáñez : Joan Salvador and James Petiver: the last years (1715–1718) of their scientific correspondence.
At the time of the war of the Spanish Succession (1705–1714), Joan Salvador and James Petiver, two apothecaries with an impassioned interest in understanding nature, began a long and fruitful correspondence that would only come to an end with Petiver’s death in 1718. A previous paper sets out and discusses these two naturalists’ correspondence (which is quite exceptionally complete) during the wartime period between the end of 1706 and the fall of Barcelona on 11 September 1714. This paper completes the review and discussion of their correspondence up until the death of Petiver in 1718.
En mig de la Guerra de Successió d’Espanya (1705–1714), Joan Salvador i James Petiver, dos apotecaris curiosos i apassionats pel coneixement de la natura havien iniciat una llarga i fructífera correspondence, que havia de perdurar fins a la mort de Petiver el 1718. En un article anterior s’havia recollit i comentat la correspondence (excepcionalment completa) intercanviada entre aquests dos naturalistes durant el període de guerra que va de finals del 1706 fins a la caiguda de Barcelona l’11 de Setembre de 1714. En aquest es completa l’estudi de la correspondencia entre els dos naturalistas fins a la mort de Petiver.
J. D. Archibald : Darwin’s two competing phylogenetic trees: marsupials as ancestors or sister taxa?
Studies of the origin and diversification of major groups of plants and animals are contentious topics in current evolutionary biology. This includes the study of the timing and relationships of the two major clades of extant mammals – marsupials and placentals. Molecular studies concerned with marsupial and placental origin and diversification can be at odds with the fossil record. Such studies are, however, not a recent phenomenon. Over 150 years ago Charles Darwin weighed two alternative views on the origin of marsupials and placentals. Less than a year after the publication of On the origin of species, Darwin outlined these in a letter to Charles Lyell dated 23 September 1860. The letter concluded with two competing phylogenetic diagrams. One showed marsupials as ancestral to both living marsupials and placentals, whereas the other showed a non-marsupial, non-placental as being ancestral to both living marsupials and placentals. These two diagrams are published here for the first time. These are the only such competing phylogenetic diagrams that Darwin is known to have produced. In addition to examining the question of mammalian origins in this letter and in other manuscript notes discussed here, Darwin confronted the broader issue as to whether major groups of animals had a single origin (monophyly) or were the result of “continuous creation” as advocated for some groups by Richard Owen. Charles Lyell had held similar views to those of Owen, but it is clear from correspondence with Darwin that he was beginning to accept the idea of monophyly of major groups.
N. P. Hellström : Darwin and the Tree of Life: the roots of the evolutionary tree.
To speak of evolutionary trees and of the Tree of Life has become routine in evolution studies, despite recurrent objections. Because it is not immediately obvious why a tree is suited to represent evolutionary history – woodland trees do not have their buds in the present and their trunks in the past, for a start – the reason why trees make sense to us is historically and culturally, not scientifically, predicated. To account for the Tree of Life, simultaneously genealogical and cosmological, we must explore the particular context in which Darwin declared the natural order to be analogous to a pedigree, and in which he communicated this vision by recourse to a tree. The name he gave his tree reveals part of the story, as before Darwin’s appropriation of it, the Tree of Life grew in Paradise at the heart of God’s creation.
M. DeArce : The natural history review (1854–1865).
The natural history review was a quarterly founded in 1854 by Edward Perceval Wright, then an undergraduate student of zoology at Trinity College Dublin. Its first editorial committee (1856–1860) held traditional views of natural history. By 1860 The natural history review had failed, ostensibly for lack of subscribers, and Wright put it in the hands of Thomas Henry Huxley who, together with Joseph Hooker, John Tyndall and others, was then looking for a vehicle to disseminate the agenda of what Huxley later called “scientific naturalism”. Against advice from his friends, Darwin, Lyell and Hooker, Huxley accepted the editorship, preserving the title but giving The natural history review a new direction by replacing the former editorial team with some of his like-minded colleagues. Extant correspondence between several of these comprises dozens of letters in which The natural history review (1861–1865) was discussed. By the end of 1862 Huxley had given up on it, but the periodical survived until July 1865 with Hooker at the head. Throughout this second series, Charles Darwin exercised an unofficial, effective, and to today’s eyes, ethically questionable editorial role. The natural history review ceased publication under Hooker in 1865. Competition from other publications, the lack of a clear purpose and the prevalence of ideology over business sense in the editor-in-chief were the likely reasons for its repeated failures.
A. Benocci & G. Manganelli : Early research on anatomy and mating of land slugs and snails: Francesco Redi’s (1684) Osservazioni.
In 1684 the Italian scientist Francesco Redi published one of the first detailed studies on land gastropods. It included the mating and functional anatomy of limacid slugs, functional anatomy of helicid snails and morpho-anatomical comparisons of land and marine slugs and snails. His research was based on a few marine species (an unidentified gastropod, the neogastropod Hexaplex trunculus and aplysiid opisthobranchs), several land snails (including the large helicid Helix lucorum) and some limacid slugs (probably different species of the Limax corsicus group and perhaps Limacus flavus). Redi’s investigations are generally accurate and his description of slug mating is much more detailed than the earlier account by Martin Lister. However, his survey also contains minor oversights and mistakes: he did not identify major organs of mollusc anatomy (radula, salivary glands and certain genital structures), his illustration of mating slugs is unrealistic and he overlooked important anatomical differences between marine and land slugs. His most remarkable oversight is hermaphroditism: although he observed slug mating, knew that no differences existed between partners, and was probably aware of earlier literature on the androgynous nature of land snails, he failed to conclude that they are hermaphrodite.
P. G. Moore : The supply of marine biological specimens (principally animals) for teaching and research in Great Britain from the nineteenth century until today.
The nineteenth-century growth of biology, particularly as developed in Germany, was focused initially on morphology and anatomy. In Britain, the growth of biology followed T. H. Huxley’s principle of teaching the characters of certain plants and animals selected as types of vegetable and animal organization, which brought demands for marine specimens for dissection. The history of the provision of such material in Britain is investigated, particularly apropos of the Marine Station at Millport. Supplementary information is presented on the equally long-standing specimen trade at Plymouth and on two small commercial concerns that supplied marine specimens (from the Isle of Luing and Shoreham-by-Sea). The demise of the specimen-supply trade in Britain in recent decades has resulted from curriculum changes in schools and universities no longer requiring students to do dissections (relating also to Health and Safety concerns about formalin-preserved material); and biology departments that can often no longer, as a result of financial stringency, afford the “luxury” of supplying students with the range of practical experiences that previous generations once valued so highly. The concern among some students about the ethics, or religious strictures, surrounding dissection is acknowledged. The need for biological conservation is stressed, as too, the need for awareness of the risks posed by alien species introduced into foreign ecosystems via international trade in live marine organisms.
H. Funk : Towards bibliographical accuracy: a clarification of some obscure references in Linnaeus’s Musa cliffortiana (1736).
A consistent and reliable method of citing published works was an integral part of Linnaeus’s great project on classification and nomenclature which began with the publication of Systema naturae in 1735. Unfortunately, this applies only to a limited extent for his Musa cliffortiana of 1736, a monograph about the banana, abounding in historical details, but which suffers from a series of cryptic or faulty references. In this paper, corrections of some of these erroneous citations are suggested.
R. B. Williams : The editions, issues, states and dates of William Henry Harvey’s A manual of the British algae.
William Henry Harvey was the author of A manual of the British algae in 1841 and a second edition, A manual of the British marine algae in 1849. Both editions, printed in London and published by John Van Voorst, exist as various issues or states, not adequately described in previous bibliographical accounts. For the unillustrated first edition, a more precise publication date is provided, and the two states of the title-page in the original issue and the reissue are described and dated. For the illustrated second edition, the date of publication, uncertain because of conflicting external evidence and important because of the new taxa and new combinations included, is confirmed. The absence of Harvey’s portrait from early-issued copies of the second edition is noted and the date of separate issue of the portrait in two different states is discussed. Some of the 27 plates exist in up to three states, apart from the additional hand-colouring in some copies.
A. R. Kabat : Richard Frederick Deckert (1878–1971), Florida naturalist and natural history artist.
Richard Deckert (born in Germany in 1878, immigrated to New York in 1887, died in Florida in 1971) was a polymath with great enthusiasm and wide ranging interests in natural history. His collections and publications did much to document the reptiles, amphibians, and land snails of Florida. His contributions to natural history illustration were equally important, as his carefully detailed line drawings and water colour paintings delineated the intricate details of snails, fishes, amphibians, and reptiles (particularly snakes and turtles), as well as fossil vertebrates, and were used in a wide range of systematic publications. Deckert also contributed to the modernization of fish taxidermy, leading to the current methods for creating lifelike fish mounts. This paper documents his scientific and artistic work.