Archives of natural history, Volume 36, No. 2 (Oct 2009)

Archives of natural history, Volume 36, No. 2 (Oct 2009) is available online at Edinburgh University Press.

Contents Abstracts

The Reverend Thomas Hincks FRS (1818–1899): taxonomist of Bryozoa and Hydrozoa
Dale R. Calder

William Hunter’s Goliath beetle, Goliathus goliatus (Linnaeus, 1771), re-visited
E. Geoffrey Hancock and A. Starr Douglas

The fate of the bird specimens from Cook’s voyages possessed by Sir Joseph Banks
David G. Medway

Charles Wesley Hargitt (1852–1927): American educator and cnidarian biologist
Dale R. Calder

Botany and zoology in the late seventeenth-century Philippines: the work of Georg Josef Camel SJ (1661–1706)
Raquel A. G. Reyes

Bute’s Botanical tables: dictated by Nature
Maureen H. Lazarus and Heather S. Pardoe

150 years of changing attitudes towards zoological collections in a university  museum: the case of the Thomas Bell tortoise collection in the Oxford University Museum
Małgosia B. Nowak-kemp

The identity of the birds depicted in Shaw and Miller’s Cimelia physica
Michael Walters

Obituaries

Professor L. B. Holthuis (1921–2008), carcinologist and historian of natural history: Honorary Member (1983); Founders’ Medal (1987)
Florence F. J. M. Pieters and Gerhard C. Cadée

Gavin Douglas Ruthven Bridson (1936–2008), bibliographer, librarian and scholar; Founders’ Medal (1992): an appreciation
Anthony P. Harvey

Short Notes

Letters from Alfred Russel Wallace concerning the Darwin commemorations of 1909
Henry A. McGhie

A checklist of sources of the botanical illustrations in the Grindon Herbarium, The Manchester Museum: additional sources
Daniel Q. King

Biographical Notes

Charles Davies SHERBORN: geologist and scientific bibliographer
R. J. Cleevely

Alexander Cockburn TOWNSEND: librarian (British Museum (Natural History) 1930–1964) and bibliographer
Pamela Gilbert

Stanley Smyth FLOWER: professional soldier, scientific advisor, administrator, zoologist
Amberley Moore and Frances Warr

Agnes ARBER (née Robertson): botanist, historian of natural history, biographer
Catharine M. C. Haines

Book Reviews

BRIDSON, G. The history of natural history: an annotated bibliography. The Linnean Society of London, London: 2008. Pp xxxii, 1032; illustrated (40 colour plates). Price £ 65 (hardback). ISBN 978-0-9506207-8-7.
Chris Mills

BIRKHEAD, T. The wisdom of birds: an illustrated history of ornithology. Bloomsbury, London: 2008. Pp 448; illustrated. Price £ 25 (hardback). ISBN 9780747592563.
Kirsten Greer

BURGESS, M. (editor) London’s changing natural history: classic papers from 150 years of the London Natural History Society. London Natural History Society: 2008. Pp 264; illustrated (maps and figures). Price £ 7.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 901009 25 3.
Juliet Clutton-brock

HARRISON, K. and SMITH, E., Rifle-green by nature. A Regency naturalist and his family, William Elford Leach. The Ray Society, London: 2008. Pp 621; illustrated (monochrome). Price £ 32.50 (hardback). ISBN 9780903874359.
David Allen

O’CONNOR, R. The Earth on show: fossils and the poetics of popular science, 1802 –1856. University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London: 2007. Pp xiii, 541; illustrated. Price US$ 45, UK£ 31 (hardback). ISBN 978-0-226-61668-1.
Patrick Boylan

DARE, D. and HARDIE, M. A passion for nature: nineteenth-century naturalism in the circle of Charles Alexander Johns. Patten Press & Jamieson Library, Penzance: 2008. Pp xiv, 275: illustrated. Price £ 15 (softback). ISBN 978-1-872229-58-4.
David Allen

CHAMBERS, N. (editor) The Indian and Pacific correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768–1820, Volume 1 Letters 1768–1782. Pickering & Chatto, London: 2008. Pp liii, 403. Price £ 100. ISBN 9781851968350.
David Hibberd

O’CONNOR, A. Finding time for the Old Stone Age. Oxford University Press, Oxford: 2007. Pp xxxix, 423. Price £ 25 (hardback). ISBN 978-0-19-921547-8.
Peter Worsley

BOULTER, M. Darwin’s garden. Down House and The origin of species. Constable, London: 2008. Pp xvii, 251; illustrated. Price £ 16.99 (hardback). ISBN 978-1-84529-599-8.
Duncan M. Porter

GROOM, L. First Fleet artist: George Raper’s birds and plants of Australia. National Library of Australia, Canberra: 2009. Pp vii, 146; illustrated (portfolio of 72 reference colour plates, numerous monochrome and colour plates), maps. Price AUS $ 49.95. ISBN 978-0-642-27681-0.
A. M. Lucas

SEWIG, C. Der Mann, der die Tiere liebte–Bernhard Grzimek. Gustav Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach: 2009. Pp 447; illustrated (64 photographs). Price € 24.95 (hardback). ISBN 978-3-7857-2367-8.
Herman Reichenbach

Abstracts

Indexes to Archives of natural history 36 (2009)

Archives of natural history, vol. 36, no.2 Abstracts

The Reverend Thomas Hincks FRS (1818–1899): taxonomist of Bryozoa and Hydrozoa
D. R. CALDER

Thomas Hincks was born 15 July 1818 in Exeter, England. He attended Manchester New College, York, from 1833 to 1839, and received a B.A. from the University of London in 1840. In 1839 he commenced a 30-year career as a cleric, and served with distinction at Unitarian chapels in Ireland and England. Meanwhile, he enthusiastically pursued interests in natural history. A breakdown in his health and permanent voice impairment during 1867-68 while at Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, forced him reluctantly to resign from active ministry in 1869. He moved to Taunton and later to Clifton, and devoted much of the rest of his life to natural history. Hincks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1872 for noteworthy contributions to natural history. Foremost among his publications in science were A history of the British hydroid zoophytes (1868) and A history of the British marine Polyzoa (1880). Hincks named 24 families, 52 genera and 360 species and subspecies of invertebrates, mostly Bryozoa and Hydrozoa. Hincks died 25 January 1899 in Clifton, and was buried in Leeds. His important bryozoan and hydroid collections are in the Natural History Museum, London. At least six genera and 13 species of invertebrates are named in his honour.

ADDITIONAL KEY WORDS: biography – bryozoans – hydroids – invertebrates – natural history – Unitarian Church – zoophytes.

Charles Wesley Hargitt (1852–1927): American educator and cnidarian biologist
D. R. CALDER

Charles Wesley Hargitt was born near Lawrenceburg, Indiana, USA, and died at Syracuse, New York. After a brief career as a Methodist Episcopal minister, he carried out graduate studies in biology at Illinois Wesleyan University and Ohio University. He served briefly on the faculty at Moores Hill College and later at Miami University of Ohio before receiving an appointment at Syracuse University. Hargitt spent 36 years at Syracuse, and for 21 years was a trustee of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. His research encompassed animal behaviour, cell biology, development, ecology, natural history, and taxonomy, as well as education, eugenics, and theology, and he wrote or contributed to more than 100 publications in science. Approximately half of these were on Cnidaria, with 41 of them on Hydrozoa. His most important works in hydrozoan taxonomy were on species of the Woods Hole region, the Philippines, and south China. Hargitt was author of three genera and 48 species and subspecies ascribed to Hydrozoa, seven species of Anthozoa, and one species of Cubozoa. Four species of hydroids are named in his honour.

ADDITIONAL KEY WORDS: Cnidaria – developmental biology – Hydrozoa – Marine Biological Laboratory – Syracuse University.

William Hunter’s Goliath beetle, Goliathus goliatus (Linnaeus, 1771), re-visited
E. G. HANCOCK and A. S. DOUGLAS

The first Goliath beetle was found floating in the mouth of the River Gabon in the Gulf of Guinea in 1766. It became the centre of eighteenth-century arguments concerning ownership and engendered petty jealousies between collectors. The search for more specimens was initially fruitless as its native habitat was unknown. Illustrations and descriptions of it appeared with varying degrees of accuracy. This paper develops the history of the individual beetle and the species to which it belongs as the result of finding additional contemporary sources.

ADDITIONAL KEY WORDS: Moses Harris – Dru Drury – Henry Smeathman – Sydney Parkinson – Guillaume Antoine Olivier – Johann Christian Fabricius.

Bute’s Botanical tables: dictated by Nature
M. H. LAZARUS & H. S. PARDOE

In the final years of his life, after a long and turbulent political career, John Stuart, third Earl of Bute, was at last free to indulge in one of his passions: botany. The publication of Linnaeus’s Systema naturae in 1735 threw the botanical world into disarray and academic argument raged throughout Europe. The production of the Botanical tables (1785) was an ambitious project to explain Bute’s individual view of Linnaeus’s system of taxonomy and was particularly composed for the “Fair Sex”. Twelve volumes were published privately and presented to family, royalty and botanical colleagues across Europe. The Botanical tables were illustrated by the renowned botanical artist, John Miller. The illustrations are both aesthetically pleasing and scientifically correct. In this paper we consider the circumstances of the production of the Botanical tables and explore how the original sets of this publication and original material have been dispersed.

ADDITIONAL KEY WORDS: John Stuart – third Earl of Bute – Linnaeus – botany for ladies – John Miller – eighteenth century – private publication.

The fate of the bird specimens from Cook’s voyages possessed by Sir Joseph Banks
D. G. MEDWAY

Joseph Banks possessed the greater part of the zoological specimens collected on James Cook’s three voyages round the world (1768 – 1780). In early 1792, Banks divided his zoological collection between John Hunter and the British Museum. It is probable that those donations together comprised most of the zoological specimens then in the possession of Banks, including such bird specimens as remained of those that had been collected by himself and Daniel Solander on Cook’s first voyage, and those that had been presented to him from Cook’s second and third voyages. The bird specimens included in the Banks donations of 1792 became part of a series of transactions during the succeeding 53 years which involved the British Museum, the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and William Bullock. It is a great pity that, of the extensive collection of bird specimens from Cook’s voyages once possessed by Banks, only two are known with any certainty to survive.

ADDITIONAL KEY WORDS: John Hunter – British Museum – Royal College of Surgeons – William Bullock – donations – sales – exchanges

150 years of changing attitudes towards zoological collections in a universitymuseum: the case of the Thomas Bell tortoise collection in the Oxford University Museum
M. B. NOWAK-KEMP

Thomas Bell’s collection of tortoises arrived in the Oxford University Museum in 1862 as part of the great benefaction of the Reverend F. W. Hope. The collection’s fate, together with the fate of other zoological collections of the University, was closely linked with the research and personal interests of the Heads of Departments in the Museum. The whole collection was at first exhibited in the Museum’s Main Court for over thirty years, followed by the removal of most of its specimens to stores, with only a small number left on display. In between, the specimens were the subject of furious custodianship claims, and only in 1956, after nearly a century in Oxford, were the tortoises finally entered in the accession catalogues of the Zoological Collections. The battles and controversies surrounding the collection reflected the changes in teaching and the approach to the natural history collections in the oldest university in the United Kingdom.

ADDITIONAL KEY WORDS: nineteenth century – F. W. Hope – E. Ray Lankester – J. O. Westwood.

Botany and zoology in the late seventeenth-century Philippines: the work of Georg Josef Camel SJ (1661–1706)
R. A. G. REYES

Georg Josef Camel (1661–1706) went to the Spanish colony of the Philippine Islands as a Jesuit lay brother in 1687, and he remained there until his death. Throughout his time in the Philippines, Camel collected examples of the flora and fauna, which he drew and described in detail. This paper offers an overview of his life, his publications and the Camel manuscripts, drawings and specimens that are preserved among the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Library and in the Sloane Herbarium at the Natural History Museum, London. It also discusses Camel’s links and exchanges with scientifically minded plant collectors and botanists in London, Madras and Batavia. Among those with whom Camel corresponded were John Ray, James Petiver, and the Dutch physician Willem Ten Rhijne.

ADDITIONAL KEY WORDS: Jesuits – medicine – John Ray – James Petiver – Hans Sloane – British Library – Natural History Museum, London.

The identity of the birds depicted in Shaw and Miller’s Cimelia physica
M. WALTERS

J. F. Miller’s Icones animalium (1785) is a very rare book; only two copies (both incomplete) are known to survive. It is, however, nomenclaturally important, as some of Miller’s names are the first for the species in question. A second edition was published in 1796 with a text by George Shaw. It is on this edition, entitled Cimelia physica, that much of the identification of Miller’s names has been based. This author examined copies of both editions to determine whether variable colourings in different copies could have affected the identification of the species depicted. In fact, no departures from previous identifications resulted. The appendix discusses the bird plates.

ADDITIONAL KEY WORDS: John Frederick Miller – Icones animalium – George Shaw – ornithology – illustrations

Abstracts

Indexes to Vol. 36