Taylor, Michael A & Torrens H A (2014) History & mystery. Sequels and solutions 4. S4.1 History & mystery: were nonconformist divines the source for the maxim? The Society for the History of Natural History Newsletter, NO. 106 ; APR 2014 pp. 6-9. 0954-7169 http://repository.nms.ac.uk/1187 Deposited on: 29 July 2014

NMS Repository – Research publications by staff of the National Museums Scotland

http://repository.nms.ac.uk/

10. History & Mystery

History & Mystery is a delightfulcollection of notes and queries frompast SHNH Newsletters. The book is £15(post paid) for the UK and £18 for therest of the world (ROW). Orderingonline is easy: go to the SHNH website(www.shnh.org.uk) and click on theDONATE by PayPal button;

Proceeds from the sale of this volumewill help replenish the AlwynneWheeler Bursary to support youngscholars in attending SHNH conferencesand meetings.

History & Mystery:Sequels and solutions 4S4.1 History and Mystery: wereNonconformist divines the source forthe maxim?

Charles Nelson (2011) recentlydiscussed the origin of the old naturalhistory saying, “What’s hit is history;what’s missed is mystery”, in the fineanthology History and Mystery publishedby the Society. He could trace the sayingas far back as 1829, in the context ofgame-shooting and similar countrypursuits. We here show that analternative form, the briefer phrase “ahistory and a mystery”, is ofconsiderably greater antiquity, and thatwe can suggest a different first use inwhat might be called a natural historycontext – though this cannot be datedaccurately and may not be earlier thanthe previously noted 1829 usage.

An anonymous article on MaryAnning the younger (1799-1847), thefossil collector of Lyme Regis, waspublished in Chambers’s EdinburghJournal in 1857. It ends (Anon. 1857, 7:383-384; the emphasis is ours):

Who can ever hope to fill the place sheoccupied? Were Mary alive, I should like tohave extracted from her a list of the famousmen of all countries with whom shemaintained a correspondence. TheGeological Society subscribed towards thewindow [in Lyme parish church], ‘incommemoration of her usefulness infurthering geology.’ Molly Anning, themother, who was quite an original, used tosay of her famous daughter that she was ahistory and a mystery. The lower orders,who could not understand what she hadachieved, remembered the deadly flash oflightning.

We show elsewhere (Taylor &Torrens, forthcoming) that this articlewas credited by the publisher to thenaturalist Frank Buckland (1826-1880),

6

who however also included materialfrom his friend George Roberts (bap.1804-1860), Lyme Regis historian andschoolmaster, and from a MS. memoirprobably by his father, the geologistWilliam Buckland (1784-1856),recalling the day of the 1800 lightningstrike on a group including the infantAnning. We further argue that theparticular paragraph quoted hereappears to have been written by Frank.

The reference to Anning’s motherMolly (= Mary Anning the elder) callingher daughter ‘a history and a mystery’may have come from Frank’s personalexperience, or it may have been passedon within the family by his father, orhis mother Mary Buckland (1797-1857).All we can say about the timing of theoriginal expression is that it must stemfrom some time before Molly died in1842, and some time after her daughterdeveloped her idiosyncracies ofcharacter, so some time after, say, 1810or 1820, particularly after she took upfossil collecting for a living.

Where did Molly find this phrase? Itmay of course have been a variant –perhaps her own or a local one – of theshooters’ expression. But game huntingis a unlikely occupation for even themenfolk of a respectable working classfamily in early 19th century Dorset,especially given the attitudes oflandowners to any breach of the penalgame laws.

A more promising line of thought issuggested by the fact that the Anningfamily was Nonconformist1 andattended the Coombe Street Chapel inLyme (Torrens 1995). A search of theinternet shows that the phrase doesindeed occur in religious discourse, asfor instance in the works of WilliamHuntington (1745–1813), a popularindependent preacher, as

So much for the history and

introduction; — now for the mystery andexplication of this name. (Huntington1811, 1: 65-66)And

Having given the reader an account ofthe history and mystery of this wonderfulname […] (Huntington 1811, 1: 100)And the title:

The history and mystery of Abraham’sentertainment (Huntington 1811, 8: 20)And

Here, reader, is another history, andanother mystery. Here is a man who acts innothing so irrationally as in religion […](Huntington 1811, 10: 269).

In general, the expression does notseem to be particularly common, but itdoes occur elsewhere in a religiouscontext, for instance in the title ofpamphlets by [Robinson] [1782] andAnonymous (1739), and from the 1640sin the writings of Joseph Salmon, achaplain in the New Model Army, and aRanter, a member of one of the moreextreme sects of this period during theCivil Wars of Britain and Ireland andthe rule of the Commonwealth (quotedby Parnham 1997: 129). We thereforesuspect that Molly was using a phrasefrom religious discourse heard inchapel.

The phrase “a history and amystery” and close variants occur alsoin non-sacred contexts in the titles ofbooks, from venereal disease(Maynwarynge 1673) to political andlocal controversy (Cobbett [1810-1815],Davies 1840), to take a few examplesfrom the British Library catalogue(www.bl.uk, accessed 25 February 2013).Intriguingly, this also throws up thecharmingly titled The history andmystery of a glass of ale (Kirton 1863)and the factual potboiler All about it! or,The history and mystery of common things(Anon., 1858). The latter includesmention of Liassic fossils, and its date of

7

publication raises the possibility thatthe author had read the Chambers’sJournal piece, so perhaps Molly Anning’sversion of the expression found new lifehere as well as in the many books andarticles on her daughter which quotethis saying (Taylor & Torrens, forth-coming). It should certainly not beassumed to be an idiosyncratic, andeven malapropistic, expression origin-ated by an uneducated woman. Alas, we cannot plausibly credit Molly

with being the source of the shooters’version of the expression, for FrankBuckland, otherwise a fine potentialconduit to the naturalists’ community,was born just too late, in 1826. Perhaps,after all, it did come from shooters – butderiving from the hunting parsons intheir community? The question doeshowever remain open of whether theshooters added the double play onwords to an earlier version of “a historyand a mystery” to create their fuller and more profane version, “What’s hit ishistory, but what’s missed is mystery”.

1 In the English context: members of a

Reformed, and so Protestant church orcongregation which did not adhere tothe Church of England, which was theofficial State religion.

References

Anon. 1739 A discourse on the mysteryand history of the scriptures and on thenature and uses of miracles. Occasioned byMr. Woolston’s Discourses on the miraclesof our Saviour. London. Anon. 1857 The fossil-finder ofLyme-Regis. Chambers’s EdinburghJournal of Popular Literature, Science andArt 7: 382-384 [for attribution toBuckland, W., Buckland, F. T., andRoberts, G., see Taylor & Torrens,forthcoming].Anon. 1858 All about it! or, The history

and mystery of common things. London. Cobbett, W. [1810-1815] Paper againstgold : containing the history and mystery ofthe Bank of England, the funds, the debt,the Sinking Fund, the Bank stoppage, thelowering and the raising of the value ofpaper-money; and shewing that taxation,pauperism, poverty, misery and crimes haveall increased and ever must increase, with afunding system. London.Davies, G. 1840 The history and mysteryof the Scarborough Lancasterian Schools,first established in 1810. Includingcorrespondence with Dr. Murray thePresident, the Rev. G. B. Kidd, the Messrs.Rowntree, and many others. Scarborough. Huntingdon, W. 1811 The works of theReverend William Huntington, S.S.minister of the Gospel at ProvidenceChapel, Gray’s Inn Lane, completed to theclose of the year MDCCCVI in twentyvolumes. 20 volumes. London. Kirton, J. W. [1863] The history andmystery of a glass of ale. London.Maynwaringe, E. 1673 The history andmystery of the venereal lues conciselyabstracted and modelled (occasionally)from serious strict perpensions, and criticalcollations of divers repugning sentimentsand contrary assertions of eminentphysicians […]. London. Nelson, E. C. 2011 Prologue: a missedmaxim, pp. 1-2 in Nelson, E.C. (ed.),History and mystery. Notes and queriesfrom the Newsletters of The Society for theHistory of Natural History. London.Parnham, D. 1997. Sir Henry Vane,theologian: a study in seventeenth-centuryreligious and political discourse. Cranbury,New Jersey, U. S. A. [Robinson, R. 1782] The history and themystery of Good-Friday, by a gentleman ofCambridge. The fourth edition corrected.London [author and date fromwww.bl.uk, accessed 25 February 2013]. Taylor, M. A. & Torrens, H. S.(forthcoming) An anonymous account

8

of Mary Anning (1799-1847), fossilcollector of Lyme Regis, England,published in Chambers’s Journal in 1857,and its attribution to Frank Buckland(1826-1880), George Roberts (c.1804-1860), and William Buckland(1784-1856). Archives of Natural History(forthcoming). Torrens, H. S., 1995 Mary Anning(1799-1847) of Lyme; “the greatestfossilist the world ever knew”. BritishJournal for the History of Science 28:257-284.

Michael A. Taylor & Hugh S. TorrensE-mail: mat22@le.ac.uk. &

h.s.torrens@keele.ac.uk

9

warthog skull in Oxford, England.A. HOLLIER and J. HOLLIER: Are-evaluation of the nineteenth-centurynaturalist Henri de Saussure.A. M. LUCAS: James Rennie(1786–1867) in Australia, 1840–1867.Y. SAMYN, A. SMIRNOV & C. MASSIN:Carl Gottfried Semper (1832–1893) andthe location of his type specimens of seacucumbers.S. L. OLSON & C. LEVY: Eleazar Albinin Don Saltero’s coffee-house in 1736:how the Jamaican mango hummingbirdgot its name, Trochilus mango.H. W. LACK: Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin’senigmatic Icones selectarum stirpiumamericanarum (1797).Short Notes L. K. OVERSTREET: Inscribed copy ofAnimal life on the shores of the Clyde andFirth.G. BOANO & G. AIMASSI: Bonelli’srecord of the demoiselle crane, Grusvirgo from Piedmont, Italy.P. G. MOORE: Sea spidersmisrepresented (1887) as crustaceanparasites of cetaceans.E. C. NELSON: The Catesby brothers andthe early eighteenth-century naturalhistory of Gibraltar.J. P. d’HUART, M. NOWAK-KEMP & T.M. BUTYNSKI: A seventeenth-centuryFrench painting of a warthog.

The following papers and short noteswill be issued in Archives of naturalhistory 41.1, in print and online in April2014.B. J. GILL: Charles Francis Adams: diaryof a young American taxidermistvisiting New Zealand, 1884–1887.Y. SAMYN: Return to sender: Hydrozoacollected by Emperor Hirohito of Japanin the 1930s and studied in Brussels.R. MIDDLETON: The Royal Hort-icultural Society’s 1864 botanicalcompetition.

P. G. MOORE: Popularizing marinenatural history in eighteenth- andnineteenth-century Britain. A. M. LUCAS & P. J. LUCAS: Naturalhistory “collectors”: exploring theambiguities. A. G. KNOX: The first egg of Jerdon’scourser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus and areview of the early records of thisspecies.G. N. FOSTER & R. E. CLOSE: Theentomologist David Sharp and hisunwitting benefactor William Bontine. H. FUNK: Describing plants in a newmode: the introduction of dichotomiesinto sixteenth-century botanicalliterature. G. M. FELLERS: Animal taxa named forRollo H. Beck. I. SVANBERG & S. CIOS: Petrus Magniand the history of fresh-wateraquaculture in the later Middle Ages. C. J. BIDAU: The katydid that was: thetananá, stridulation, Henry Walter Batesand Charles Darwin.S. L. OLSON: The early scientific historyof Galapagos iguanas. Obituary H. S. TORRENS: Michael Denis Crane(1946–2013).Short notesK. D. HUSSEY: Ming the forgottencelebrity: a giant panda skull at theRoyal College of Surgeons of England.

10

‘Common objects on the sea shore’. JohnLeech, Punch, 1857.

E. C. NELSON: The natural historyinterests of the Barrington family ofFassaroe, County Wicklow, Ireland. P. DASZKIEWICZ & P. EDEL: The will ofLudwig Heinrich Bojanus (1776–1827),an interesting nineteenth-centurynatural history document.R. B. WILLIAMS: An annotated cata-logue of the marine biological paintingsof Thomas Alan Stephenson – a fourthmissing painting found.R. M. PECK: Discovered in Philadelphia:a third set of Thomas Horsfield’s natureprints of plants from Java. R. B. WILLIAMS: Another publishedletter by Philip Henry Gosse: a beluga inthe English Channel. E. C. NELSON: Additions to PhilipHenry Gosse’s bibliography: letters tonewspapers and horticultural period-icals 1864–1879.CorrigendumArchives of natural history 40.2, p.369.

Peter DavisHonorary Editor

13. Accessing Archives of NaturalHistory online

The full content of Archives of NaturalHistory dating back to 1936 is availableto SHNH members freely online.Electronic copies of new issues areavailable in advance of the printedversion.

Members will have been advised ofhow to access the publications onlineby Edinburgh University Press in 2013.Members and new members will receivea letter with information andinstructions in April from EUP. Theterms of the access token have beenextended to include 2014, to simplifythe process. If you have any queries,please contact EUP by email:JournalsEditorial@eup.ed.ac.uk.

14. Collectors and CollectingSpring Meeting and AGM

Royal Albert Memorial Museum,Exeter

Saturday 18th May

The one day meeting at the Royal AlbertMemorial Museum was attended by 32people, almost all of whom were SHNHmembers.

Talks in the morning sessionfocussed on natural history collectorsrepresented in the Royal AlbertMemorial Museum collections. In placeof Peter Dance, who was unable tocome, Ron Cleevely opened the sessionon George Montagu, giving us somebiographical background to explainMontagu’s very complex, and oftenirregular relationships, then going on todiscuss his contribution to Devonnatural history in both ornithology andinvertebrate zoology. He showed ussome of the beautiful drawings by his“companion” Eliza Dorville.

David Nicholls, from ExeterUniversity, was next, with the story ofW. Percy Sladen and his echinodermcollections, now on display in a specialroom in the Museum. We also learntabout Sladen’s life, his work on thematerial from the Challenger expedition,echinoderm morphology and theirpresent day role and importance inmarine ecosytems.

The morning finished with AnneSecord bringing us into the world of theseaweed collectors, focussing on MrsGriffiths who took up collectingseaweeds following the death of herhusband. She and Mrs Gatty mademajor contributions to knowledge ofcryptogamic botany through her linksto Samuel Goodenough and DawsonTurner, the pre-eminent workers in that

11

Society Events News

field at the time. Some of her collectionsare in the Exeter Musuem. Otherwomen collectors included EllenHutchins in Ireland as well as MrsGriffith’s servant, Mary Wyatt, whocreated and sold albums of seaweeds.

After an excellent buffet “plough-man’s” lunch, delegates were takenbehind the scenes by Helen Burbage,the Collections and AudiencesAssistant. An evening dinner followedoverlooking the cathedral precinct.

Special thanks go to IsabelleCharmantier for helping to set this upand to the Museum staff.

15. “Unremitting passion forthe beauty and mystery of the

natural world”Alfred Russel Wallace Centenary

SHNH, Linnean Society & Universityof Bournemouth joint meeting

in association with the BournemouthNatural Science Society

7-8 June 2013

The Wallace Lecture Theatre on theTalbot campus of the University ofBournemouth was the opening venuefor this joint event, attended by 74people, of which at least 23 were SHNHmembers.

Andrew Sortwell and his travellingcompanion, David Ord-Kerr, a wildlifeartist, introduced us to Wallace’sAmazonian experiences in theirre-tracing of his footsteps, often insimilar conditions. Apart frombeautiful, and sometimes dramatic,photographic images, we also hadindigenous artefacts and David’ssketchbooks to view. Janet Ashdown spoke next, explaining

and showing us how she had conservedWallace’s field notebooks, held in theLinnean Society, ensuring that theiroriginal character was retained as muchas possible.

That led on to James Costa and hisinterpretative work, published just afterthe meeting, on Wallace’s “SpeciesNotebook” of 1855-1859, which revealsWallace’s evolutionary insights.

A break for lunch was followed byCaroline Catchpole telling us about theWallace Correspondence Project at theNatural History Museum in London,then Annette Lord on the Wallaceletters and collections in the OxfordUniversity Museum of Natural History.The formal session finished withCharles Smith telling us about his workon Wallace, and what he has learntabout Wallace’s use of both Humboldtand Charles Lyell’s work. A paneldiscussion, moderated by Professor SirGhillean Prance, was followed by thedelegates moving to a nearby theatricalspace for a short performance of“Dorset’s Darwin: You should askWallace”. On Saturday morning delegates visited

Broadstone Cemetery, where a naturewalk in a nearby heathland reserve wasled by members of the BournemouthNatural Sciences Society. We then allmet by Wallace’s grave to remember hiscontribution to Natural History, witheveryone most impressed by the fossiltree, Protocupressinoxylon purbeckensisFrancis, which marks his grave.

16. The end of the A.R. Wallace year

The afternoon and evening of Thursday7th November brought together many ofthose who had helped with eventscelebrating the 100th Anniversary ofthe death of Alfred Russel Wallaceduring 2013. The occasion was theunveiling, at the Natural HistoryMuseum Darwin Centre, in London, ofa new bronze statue showing Wallace inhis thirties, in the field with a butterflynet, during his expedition to the MalayArchipelago. It captures the moment he

12

first saw the magnificent goldenbirdwing butterfly, Ornithoptera croesus.Now moved outside the Museum, thereis a bronze butterfly on the glass of theDarwin Centre, just where his gaze isfixed. The artist is Anthony Smith, whohas also produced a highly acclaimedstatue of the young Charles Darwin, aswell as a bust of the young CarlLinnaeus.

Sir David Attenborough unveiledthe statue, accompanied by Bill Bailey,Patron of the Wallace Memorial Fundand with Richard Wallace, Alfred’sgrandson, also present. Sir David wenton to deliver the tenth and final lecturein the series of Wallace100 events,focusing on birds of paradise, one ofWallace’s specialities.

For more information and pictures,see: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2013/november/sir-david-attenborough-unveils-wallace-statue125452.htmland http://www.entangled-bank.co.uk/wallace-statue-campaign.html

Gina DouglasMeeting Secretary

17. Mark Catesby’s third centennialin America - celebrating his impact

on our world (2012)

David Elliot writes that The Universityof Georgia Press has advised that it isenthusiastically going to publish “Thecurious Mister Catesby: a ‘trulyingenious’ naturalist explores newworlds”. Containing significant newinformation, this work is intended to bethe most comprehensive and accuratebook written about Catesby and is thelegacy of the Catesby CommemorativeTrust’s Mark Catesby Tercentennialsymposium, co-sponsored by SHNH.For more information, see:www.catesbytrust.org.

18. Naturalists’ Libraries350th Anniversary of John Goodyer(1592–1664), 17th- century botanist

SHNH Spring Meeting, SGM & AGMMagdalen College, Oxford University

OxfordSaturday 19 July 2014

This one day meeting is in celebrationof 350 years since the death of JohnGoodyer (1592–1664), the 17th-centurybotanist who added many plants to theBritish flora. He clarified the fourprincipal types of British elm tree andintroduced the Jerusalem Artichoke toEnglish gardens and cookery. Heproduced translations of Theophrastusand Dioscorides and, together withThomas Johnson (d.1644), revised‘Gerard’s Herbal’ (1633). He left hisextensive collection of books,manuscripts and notes to MagdalenCollege, Oxford.

Goodyer is commemorated in a genusof European orchids named by RobertBrown in his honour, by a memorialwindow in Buriton church, where he isburied, and through a dedication in thesecond Flora of Hampshire (1996).Talks will focus on the libraries of John

Goodyer, John Nidd, Phillip Miller, andRichard Richardson. Speakers include:Liam Dolan, John Edgington, ChrisPreston, and Bill Noblett.The Society’s Special General Meetingand AGM will take place in theafternoon. A display of books fromGoodyer’s Library is anticipated,together with a visit to the UniversityBotanic Garden nearby. To register,please return the registration form atthe back of the newsletter to GinaDouglas, Meetings Secretary. It is alsoavailable on the Society’s website(www.shnh.org.uk).

13

Forthcoming Society Events

14

Outline Programme09.30 - 10.00 Registration10.00 - 12.40 Morning session andrefreshments12.40 - 14.00 Lunch break 14.00 - 14.35 Afternoon session14.40 - 15.10 SHNH Special Generalmeeting and AGM (details will be inSGM/AGM papers to be circulatednearer the date)15.15 - 17.00 Final session &refreshments

19. Joint MeetingThe history of teaching natural

historyHorniman Museum & Gardens

London10 – 11 October 2014

SHNH is planning a joint meeting withthe Horniman Museum and invitespotential speakers to contact theMeetings Secretary, Gina Douglas, byemail (meetings@shnh.org.uk) or post(23 Jeffreys Road, London SW4 6QU, UK).

The Horniman has been open sinceVictorian times, when Frederick JohnHorniman first opened his house andextraordinary collection of objects tovisitors. Since then, the collection hasgrown tenfold and includes inter-nationally important collections ofanthropology and musical instruments,as well as an acclaimed aquarium andnatural history collections. For moreinformation on the museum andgardens visit:http://www.horniman.ac.uk/home

Other Events

20. Reichenbach’s OrchidsA Hidden Treasure at the Natural

History MuseumNatural History Museum, Vienna

Through 21 April 2014.

The heart of thisexhibition is theorchid collection be-queathed to theNatural HistoryMuseum by HeinrichGustav Reichenbachin 1889. Reichenbachhad great numbers oforchids shipped to him in order tostudy and classify them – especiallyfrom South America and Asia. Hislegacy includes over 70,000 orchiddocumentations. The Botany Depart-ment and the Historical ScienceArchives are exhibiting a smallcollection of these documentedherbarium specimens and illustrationsas well as photographs of Austrianorchids. Live orchid displays will alsoenhance the exhibition. See:http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/en/exhibitions/special_exhibitions

21. Natural HistoriesThe Prado Museum, Madrid

Through 27 April 2014

Conceived and curated by the Spanishartist Miguel Ángel Blanco, thisexhibition, explores the Prado’s pastassociation with the sciences – themuseum was originally designed andbuilt to accommodate the RoyalCabinet of Natural History– through aseries of interventions which juxtaposeartworks and natural objects. See:http://www.museodelprado.es/en/exhibitions/exhibitions/at-the-museum/historias-naturales

22. Discoveries: Art, Science &Exploration from the

University of Cambridge MuseumsTwo Temple Place, London

Through 27 April 2014

An exhibition exploring humandiscovery in all its forms, selected from

Other Events

more than five million objects at eightUniversity of Cambridge Museums. Itincludes ancient fossils, Darwin’s onlysurviving egg from the Beagle voyage,and a rare dodo skeleton. See: www.twotempleplace.org/exhibitions/current-exhibition/

23. Joseph Banks, a Great Endeavour The Collection & Usher Gallery

Lincoln, UKThrough 11 May 2014

Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist,explorer and patron of learning, grewup in Lincolnshire, gaining a concernfor the county’s countryside and ruralaffairs. His work is explored andcelebrated in an exhibition bringingtogether material associated withCaptain Cook’s Endeavour voyage. See:http://www.visitlincoln.com/whats-on/joseph-banks-a-great-endeavour

24. Curious Beasts Animal Prints from the British

MuseumUlster Museum, Belfast

28 February – 25 May 2014Ferens Art Gallery, Hull 7 June – 31 August 2014

This touring exhibition explores ourenduring curiosity about the animalworld through the beautiful and bizarreimagery found in prints of the 15th tothe early 19th centuries in the BritishMuseum’s collection. See:http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/uk_tours_and_loans/curious_beasts_animal_prints.aspx

25. Woodward 150Fossil fishes and fakes

Natural History Museum, London 21 May 2014

Arthur Smith Woodward (ASW) builthis scientific reputation on detailed and

meticulous studies offossil fish, many ofwhich helped toform the foundationsof current researchon numerous fishgroups. However, healso contributed toour knowledge ofother extinct animalsand regional geology,and he endured somenotoriety for hisinvolvement in thePiltdown Man hoax.Almost no attempthas been made toassess Smith-Woodward’s wider impacton palaeontology. This one daysymposium aims to rectify thisomission, with invited speakers whowill present papers on SmithWoodward’s life and career, his variedscientific outputs, and his involvementin Piltdown.

ASW joined the staff of the BritishMuseum (Natural History) at SouthKensington in August 1882 at just 18years of age following his examinationsuccess in competition with thirteenother candidates. He was madeAssistant Keeper of the Department ofGeology 10 years later and succeededHenry Woodward (no relation) asKeeper in 1901 at the age of 37, aposition he held until his retirement in1924. He died at his home in HaywardsHeath in 1944.

When he arrived, the building inSouth Kensington had been open to thepublic for just 16 months and ASWimmediately became involved increating the public displays of fossils.More importantly, it was at this timethat the extensive fossil fish collectionsof Sir Philip Grey Egerton and WilliamWilloughby Cole, (the 3rd Earl of

15

Arthur SmithWoodward(1864-1944).Photographreproduced withthe permission ofthe Natural HistoryMuseum.

Enniskillen) were acquired by theMuseum. These collections containedmany important type specimens andalso many specimens that had beenfigured by Louis Agassiz in hismonumental work on fossil fishesRecherches sur les Poissons Fossiles(1833-1843). No doubt inspired by theseries of lectures he attended given byRamsay H. Traquair (1840-1912) in1883, he devoted all his energies to thestudy of fossil fish, culminating in thefour part Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes inthe British Museum (Natural History)published between 1989 and 1901. Thiswas and remains a very importantreference point for fossil fish workers.ASW published extensively throughouthis career at the Museum and followingretirement. He was made a fellow of theRoyal Society in 1901, receivednumerous awards and medals and wasknighted on retirement.

The symposium is open to thegeneral public and is free of charge butpre-registration is required. There willbe displays of important fossilspecimens, memorabilia and otheritems of interest.

To pre-register and receive furtherinformation please e-mail the MeetingCoordinator at ASW150@nhm.ac.uk.

26. Maria Sibylla Merian, 17th

century naturalist/artistUniversity of Amsterdam

Amsterdam 26-27 May 2014

This two-day symposium will focus onMerian’s biography, her work in thecontext of early modern entomologistsand artists, the biology/ecology inMerian’s work, and her influence onboth art and science. An invited panelof speakers will discuss their research onMerian’s life and work and include: Kay

Etheridge, Jo Francis, John Fuegi,Truusje Goedings, Eric Jorink, Brian W.Ogilvie, Leslie Overstreet, Florence F. J.M. Pieters, Katharina Schmidt-Loske,Joos van de Plas, Kurt Wettengl, andBrigitte Wirth.

For more information see:http://exploringmerian.wikispaces.com/home an/or contact Kay Etheridge formore information at: ketherid@gettysburg.edu

27. Illustration & Identification inthe History of Herbal MedicineJodrell Lecture Theatre, Royal

Botanic Gardens, KewRichmond, UK

Wednesday 18th June 2014

This seminar aims to bring togetherresearchers to explore issues related toplant illustration and identification inthe history of herbal medicine. The dayhas been organised with a particularfocus on presenting research intofinding, and interpreting archival andother sources. Main speakers includeJulia Boffey, Celia Fisher, IsabelleCharmantier, Marie Addyman andMaria D’Aronco. Advance registrationis required. To check place availability,email Nicky Wesson at:nicky@nickywesson.com. See:http://events.history.ac.uk/event/show/12436

16

A seated woman holding a flower, fromBartolommeo della Rocca [Cocles], Phisonomei:Complexio und Art eins ieden Menschen(Strasbourg, c.1550). Courtesy of the NationalLibrary of Medicine.

28. SPNHC 2014Cardiff, Wales22-27 June 2014

National Museum Wales, in partnershipwith the Natural Sciences CollectionsAssociation (NatSCA), are hosting the29th Annual Meeting for the Society forthe Preservation of Natural HistoryCollections (SPNHC) in Cardiff. Thetheme is “Historic Collections: AResource for the Future”. Activities andevents include workshops, fieldtrips,workshops, and tours of the museumcollections. See:http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/spnhc2014/

29. Duets The Hunt Institute for Botanical

DocumentationPittsburgh, PA

Through 30 June 2014

As with duets in music, this exhibitioncreates new, harmonious couplings ofbotanical art with items createdbetween the 16th and 21st centuries fromthe Hunt Institute collections. Thesubjects of these pairings explore the

parallels between works created fornumerous botanical applications. Theyinclude works painted during ex-peditions and in native environs; plantsof the Americas and introductions nowcultivated for the garden; works thatshowcase the Eastern aesthetic and itsmodern influence; plants illustrated foragricultural and economic purposes andfor their pure aesthetic; and work byhistorical masters and the contemp-orary artists they influenced.

30. British Society for the History ofScience Annual Conference 2014

University of St AndrewsScotland

3-6 July 2014

The Annual Conference provides anopportunity for scholars throughoutthe history of science, technology andmedicine to meet and exchange ideas.For more information see:http://www.bshs.org.uk/cfp-bshs-annual-conference-2014-university-of-st-andrews-3-6-july-2014

31. Natural HistoriesAmerican Museum of Natural

History, New YorkThrough October 12, 2014

Inspired by the 2012 book NaturalHistories: Extraordinary Rare BookSelections from the American Museum ofNatural History Library, this exhibitionincludes reproductions from more than20 rare and beautifully illustratedscientific works, dating from the 16th toearly 20th century. Exhibits include arhinoceros taken directly from AlbrechtDürer’s 1515 woodcut, and lithographsfrom Sir Richard Owen’s Monograph onthe Aye-aye. See:http://www.amnh.org/calendar/natura-histories

17

Left, John Tyley, watercolour on paper ca.1802, Passiflora, Passiflora serratodigitata L.Right, Martin J. Allen watercolour on paper,2006, Passion flower Passiflora L., © 2006,Martin J. Allen. Images courtesy of The HuntInstitute.

32. Island AdventurerAlfred Russel Wallace

Science Centre SingaporeThrough 30 November 2014

Created in collaboration with theNational University of Singapore’sFaculty of Science and Raffles Museumof Biodiversity Research, The IslandAdventurer exhibition focusses onWallace’s adventure in expeditions andfield studies. See: www.science.edu.sg/exhibitions/Pages/wallace.aspx

33. 200 Years of Smith’s Map23-25 Apr 2015

The History of Geology Group (HOGG)is organising the 2015 annual WilliamSmith Conference entitled ‘200 Years ofSmith’s Map’ to celebrate publication ofthe first nationwide geological mapDelineating the Strata of England andWales with Part of Scotland’. Thisbicentenary meeting aims to addressSmith’s achievements and his impacton the state of geology in his time, hisfossil collection, his contemporaries, hisrelationship with the Geological Societyof London, and his various careersincluding canal builder, land drainer,mineral surveyor and lecturer.

Confirmed keynote speakers areProf. Simon Knell, Prof. Hugh Torrens,and Dr Tom Sharpe. HOGG invitesinterested participants to submitabstracts for oral presentations ontopics of relevance. More informationcan be found on the website under‘meetings’. See:http://historyofgeologygroup.co.uk/

News & Information

34. Oxford Museum of NaturalHistory reopens

Oxford’s Museum of Natural Historyreopened in February following a £2

million roof restoration. More than8,500 glass tiles were removed, cleanedand resealed to repair the leakingVictorian roof. Staff carried outconservation work on whale skeletons,which were treated for the first time in100 years. See: www.oum.ox.ac.uk/

35. News from NatSCA

Times have been tough for museumssince the economic downturn,increasing the need for organisationslike the Natural Sciences CollectionsAssociation (NatSCA) to become moreactive advocatesfor natural historycollections. Inorder to improveour ability tosupport the sectorand advocateeffectively NatSCAis undergoing a bitof an overhaul,with help fromArts Council England (ACE) SubjectSpecialist Network (SSN) funding.

Internally we are developing astrategic plan to focus our efforts for thenext 5 years and provide guidance forhow we can conduct our business in amore effective way. Part of this planinvolves improving communicationsinternally and between ourselves andother SSNs, societies and institutions.We’re all in this together and by unitingour voices we have a better chance ofbeing heard.

Our newsletter/journal the NatSCANews has been replaced by the newpeer-reviewed Journal of Natural ScienceCollections, which will be publishedonce a year to provide a more academicforum for sharing quality researchrelevant to both collections care andcollections used as a scientific orhistorical resource. Other content such

18

News & Information

as reports and opinion pieces will nowbe made available on the NatSCA blogor our new website (natsca.org).

We have commissioned researchinto museum audiences, with ACEsupport, in an effort to understand howthe public responds to different galleriesin mixed discipline museums – theresults of which suggest that naturalhistory is the most popular gallery type(natsca.org/understanding-audiences).We are also working on a project tofinally get to grips with the location andcomposition of natural historycollections around Britain. Finally, wehave two new patrons – Professor AliceRoberts and Professor Iain Stewart –who have kindly agreed to help us inour efforts to advocate for naturalhistory. Busy times ahead, but hopefullyour efforts will help support naturalhistory collections now and into thefuture. For further information or to getinvolved please contact:advocacy@natsca.org.

Paolo ViscardiHorniman Museum & Gardens

36. Early maps of Nepal relating tothe natural history collections of DrFrancis Buchanan-Hamilton, 1802-3

A set of three manuscript survey mapsof Nepal, executed by Major CharlesCrawford and relating to the BritishMission to Nepal in 1802-03, haverecently been acquired by the LinneanSociety of London (GB-110/401M/1-3).These maps once belonged to Scottishsurgeon-naturalist Dr Francis Buchanan-Hamilton, and relate closely to thebotanical materials he collected duringthe year he spent in Nepal as Surgeon tothe Mission. Buchanan- Hamilton’swere the first natural history collectionsfrom this Himalayan country, and so hehas become known as the ‘father ofNepalese botany’.

In 1806, Buchanan-Hamilton gavehis entire Natural History collection ofmanuscripts (notes and a partial FloraNepalensis), coloured drawings (seehttp://linnean-online.org/buchanan_hamilton.html and SHNH Newsletter 103,inside cover and p.13) and herbariumspecimens to James Edward Smith andthese are also now in the LinneanSociety Archives. Perhaps Buchanan-Hamilton retained the mapsanticipating their use on a futureposting in the Bengal Presidency –which indeed occurred when hereturned to India the following year.Crawford’s maps were sold by auctionby one of Buchanan-Hamilton’sdescendants and finally reunited withhis other Nepal materials in LinneanSociety archives via an antiquarian mapdealer.

The Linnean Society’s Buchanan-Hamilton collections are of internationalsignificance as they form the basis ofmany hundreds of scientific names ofHimalayan plants, and are thefoundation of scientific botanicalknowledge in Nepal. Buchanan-Hamilton’s only other Nepalese botanicalmaterial from this period is a veryincomplete, duplicate set of herbariumspecimens, which he gave to AylmerBourke Lambert - now in the NaturalHistory Museum, London.

Crawford’s were the first accuratelysurveyed British maps of Nepal andhence of exceptional rarity and

19

Buchanan-Hamilton’s mapof the KathmanduValley drawn byCharles Crawfordin 1804/5.

cartographic importance. The SurveyorGeneral, Lt. Col. Robert H. Colebrooke,found the maps ‘executed with particularneatness’, and recommended thatCrawford be directed to survey theNorthern Frontier of Bengal, which hedid in 1804-05. These maps would havebeen politically sensitive documents, andso it is very unusual for a civilian to begiven access to them. However,Buchanan-Hamilton’s patron was theinfluential Governor-General of India,Marquis Richard Wellesley, and it wasthrough his orders that Crawford wasable to favour him with copies.

These fascinating maps are not onlycartographically superbly detailed, butthey record the routes and camps used bythe mission when travelling to and fromKathmandu, and the excursionsundertaken and base camps within theValley of Nepal. They can be correlatedwith Buchanan-Hamilton’s botanicalrecords and so establish more preciselywhere these collections were made. Onlyone other extant set of these very raremaps is known, in the British Library IndiaOffice Collections (BL IOR X/2979-2981),and so they are of major cartographic aswell as scientific importance.

Mark Watson

37. ICHSTM 2013

The International Congress of Historyof Science, Technology and Medicine2013 in Manchester attracted a greatdeal of discussion and reporting fromvarious sources and a collection of thismaterial is now available from theCongress website at: http://ichstm2013.com/reports/. A special BSHS 8-pagereport is available as a PDF at:http://ichstm2013.com/downloads/viewpoint-article.pdf. The next meetingwill take place in summer 2017 in Riode Janeiro, Brazil.

38. Two Lost Bath Royal Literary andScientific Institution [BRLSI] fossilspecimens returned after 80 years

Some time after 1993, the large naturalhistory collections, especially strong inmalacology, of Robert Pickford Scase(born Frome 1914 - died Leatherhead1993) F.L.S. 1983, passed, by will, toGlasgow Museums. This was because ofhis friendship with their former naturalhistory curator, Frederick R. Woodward.They were found to include somefossils, two of which my friend GeoffHancock, their replacement naturalhistory curator, then passed on to me,to try and identify their provenance.Their label read:[Line 1] “Upper [i.e. Great] Oolite, nearWraxall, Rev. B. Richardson”[Line 2] “Palatal teeth, Ptychoduspolygyrus”

From the donor’s name, it wasimmediately clear these were specimenswhich must once have formed part ofBenjamin Richardson’s (1758-1832)1825 or 1828 donations to the BRLSI(see Geological Curators’ Group [GCG]Newsletter, 1, pp. 91 & 104, April 1975).A later Richardson donation, made byEliza Cave Jelly (c.1798-1860).“Richardson’s distant relation throughhis wife”, in 1860 (see GCG, 1, pp.98-99 and H. S. Torrens & J. E. Winston,2002, “Eliza Catherine Jelly (28thSeptember 1829 – 3rd November 1914):pioneer female bryozoologist, pp.299-325, in P. N. Wyse Jackson & MaryE. Spencer Jones (eds), Annals ofBryozoology, International Bryo-zoological Association, Dublin, 2002), isclearly not relevant.

This material had been carefullycurated at the BRLSI by WilliamLonsdale (1794-1871) their first, anddevoted, curator. They were not yetlisted in his MSS “Catalogue Raisonée ofRocks from the Neighbourhood of

20

21

Bath”, dated 12 March 1829 (in BRLSIarchives). But in the later version,which Lonsdale published in 1832, theyare listed (Transactions of the GeologicalSociety of London, second series, 3 (2):274) as “Great Oolite, Pisces, PalatalTeeth, Box [which is near Wraxall]”. Thegenus and species identifications had tohave been added later, as they were notavailable until 1835, when Louis Agassizfirst named them (see Sherborn, IndexAnimalium).

The main question now is how, andwhen, Scase had acquired them. TheBRLSI was in crisis in the 1930s, whenthe local novelist Horace AnnesleyVachell (1861–1955), of WidcombeManor, could write ”Th[eir] oldmuseum is full of fossils, and [is] run byfossils. Away with it” (The Golden House,1937, pp. 202-203). The BRLSI building,with its museum, had been demolishedin 1933 and all had been moved toQueens Square. It must have beenduring this period that Scase somehowacquired these fossils. He was thenreading zoology at Bristol University,under Professor Charles Maurice Yonge(1899–1986, see ODNB), who held thechair of zoology at Bristol from 1933 to1944.

Peter Dance’s fine 1966, ShellCollecting: an illustrated history (p. 290)also noted of the Jenyns collection ofRecent shells in the BRLSI, how his“Pisidium types [once there] weredestroyed (teste R.P. Scase 1965)”. Thiswas in a book (see also p. 212), in whichmany of Scase’s own illustrations of hisown shells were also included. FredWoodward (in lit. to me, 6 March 2003)confirmed that “Bob [Scase] alsoinformed me that he personally hadacquired material from the formerBRLSI, this being supported by materialfrom the Rev. L. Jenyns, later known asRev. Leonard Blomefield”, also since

found in Scase’s collections. These linksbetween the reformed BRLSI’s andGlasgow Museums’ natural historycollections clearly deserve to beexamined further.

Hugh S. Torrens

39. History of Early and ModernPlant Sciences (1450-1850) (HEMPS)

The HEMPS LIST is a new list serve withsubscribers from all over the world andfrom various academic fields. If you areinterested in subscribing to exchangeinformation, start discussions, askquestions, suggest projects, and issueCalls for Papers, write to the emailaddress: plant-early-modern-sciences@univ-lille1.fr

40. Joseph Hooker’sCorrespondence online

The personal and scientific corres-pondence of Joseph Hooker (1817-1911) is being made available online.The first series of correspondenceavailable dates from Hooker’sexpedition to India (1847-1851) andcontains accounts of his pioneeringexploration of the Himalayas. He writesabout the challenges of plant collectingat altitude and in terra nova, hisimprisonment by the Rajah of Sikkim,and everything from riding elephants toobservations on his friend Darwin’sfledgling ‘species theory’ and his ownthoughts on plant distribution. See:www.kew.org/collections/hooker/letters/index.htm

41. Wellcome images online

Over 100,000 high resolution imagesfrom the Wellcome Library are nowfreely available for commercial as wellas and non-commercial use. The imagescan be searched and downloaded fromhttp://wellcomeimages.org.

22

They include hundreds of platesfrom works ranging from Catesby’sNatural History of Carolina and theHortus Malabaricus to texts on medicalbotany and anthropology. SimonChaplin, Head of the Wellcome Library,said: “Together the collection amountsto a dizzying visual record of centuriesof human culture, and our attempts tounderstand our bodies, minds andhealth through art and observation. Asa strong supporter of open access, wewant to make sure these images can beused and enjoyed by anyone withoutrestriction.” See:http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2014/01/thousands-of-years-of-visual-culture-made-free-through-wellcome- images/

42. Board of Longitudemanuscripts now online

The archives of the Royal GreenwichObservatory, held in CambridgeUniversity Library, include thecomplete run of the surviving papers ofthe Board of Longitude through the 18th

century until its abolition in 1828.These papers throw a vivid light on therole of the British state in encouraginginvention and discovery, on theenergetic culture of technical ingenuityin the long 18th century, and on manyaspects of exploration and maritimetravel in the Pacific Ocean and theArctic. See: http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/longitude

43. Linnean manuscripts online

Through a collaboration between ExeterUniversity and the Linnean Society ofLondon, 16 manuscripts from theManuscripts Collection of CarlLinnaeus (1707-1778) are now availableonline at:http://linnean-online.org/linnaean_mss.html. The MSS were researched andedited by Staffan Müller-Wille, Isabelle

Charmantier, and Robert Leigh. Thisresearch, together with the onlinedigital images, is the offshoot of theproject ‘Rewriting the System of Nature.Linnaeus’s Use of Writing Technologies’(2009-2012). It explored what issometimes called ‘the first bio-information crisis’, through a detailedreconstruction of the ways in whichCarl Linnaeus assembled, filed, andcross-referenced information aboutplants and their medicinal properties.For more information on the project,see: http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/research/centres/medicalhistory/projects/writing/.

44. RHS Lindley Libraries –Archives Hub

Descriptive catalogues of archives heldby the RHS Lindley Libraries are beingmade available on-line via the ArchivesHub. The first collection to be madeavailable is the papers of WilliamRobinson which include letters fromCharles Darwin, John Ruskin, JosephHooker, Edward Burne-Jones and manyother prominent individuals. See:http://archiveshub.ac.uk/contributors/royalhorticulturalsociety.html

45. ICHO has a new website and blog

The International Commission of theHistory of Oceanography, a global bodydevoted to linking scholars, writers, andteachers interested in the history of themarine sciences, has a new website andblog. See: http://oceansciencehistory.wordpress.com

46. Undamaged eggs on the lawn

It is not uncommon to find intactstarling Sturnus vulgaris eggs on thelawn during the spring and early

Notes & Queries

23

summer. For along time theirappearance wasa mystery -where had theycome from andwhy had theybeen deposited on the lawn instead ofthe nest?

In the 1970s it was discovered thatstarlings behave as brood parasites ontheir own species. Some female starlingslay an egg in the nest of anotherstarling, essentially duping them intorearing an un-related offspring: aphenomenon known as intraspecificnest parasitism. Often the dumpingfemale removes one of the host’s eggs asshe lays. She flies off with it and drops it- often on a lawn.

I am trying to find published recordsof ‘dumped’ starling eggs found on theground from before 1970, and theearlier the better. If anyone has comeacross such records, I’d be interestedhear.

Tim BirkheadT.R.Birkhead@sheffield.ac.uk

47. A Hero of Marine BiologySir Frederick Stratten Russell

(1897-1984)

Volunteers are sought for thecompletion of a project at the RoyalSociety: to scan a collection of SirFrederick’s personal and scientificmaterials, to be made available online.The collection includes some of hiswatercolours, letters from friends, anddocuments about his awards andscientific interests. A modestcontribution to travel costs would beavailable. For further information pleasecontact the Archivist of the RoyalSociety:Joanna.Corden@royalsociety.org.

Sir Frederick was born at Bridport

and grew up by the sea in Dorset andCornwall. From his father’s preparatoryschool he went to Oundle School andafter the Great War to Cambridge. Theearly classical education from his fatherenriched his natural style. His parentsencouraged a fine artistic talent whichhe developed to good use, and each ofthem had a lasting influence on hisleisure pursuits. He shared his father’senjoyment of fishing all his life, athome or on holiday in good company.

He was a hero of both World Wars.He served with distinction during1916-18 in the RNAS and the RAF, forwhich he received the DSC, DFC andFrench Croix de Guerre (with Palme).During 1940-45 he served in RAFIntelligence as Wing Commander.

His scientific career was influencedby Cambridge (Zoology 1919-1922),and by early studies at the PlymouthLaboratory. In 1923 he marriedGweneth Moy Thomas, just beforesailing to Egypt to take up a post asAssistant Director of Fisheries Research.In 1924 he was appointed to the staff ofthe Plymouth Laboratory and workedthere until he retired. In 1928 he joinedthe Great Barrier Reef Expedition(C.M.Yonge’s plankton team) for 6months with his wife. His first book TheSeas (1928) co-authored by Russell andYonge, is an enthusiastic introductionof remarkable clarity and breadth bytwo remarkable young scientists.

Sir Frederick’s seminal work atPlymouth on diurnal rhythms anddistribution of planktonic speciesunderpins much of today’s research. Hewas elected FRS in 1938. After thedevastation of WW2 he returned fromLondon and served for 20 years asDirector of the Plymouth Laboratory(1945-65). He restored and developedthe Laboratory, its vessels, library, andgreat research potential with untiring

vigour, while at the same time pursuinghis own work on the taxonomy andbiology of British Medusae (Vol 1 (1953);Vol 2 (1970)), and the development ofyoung fish (1976). He gained manyscientific awards. As leader andadministrator he was notablyapproachable and friendly and kept up awide personal correspondence. Heenjoyed his leisure with zest and hisretirement was long and fruitful. After thedeath of his wife in 1978 he moved to aretirement home not far from his son.

48. Edwin Brown (1818/ 21-1876)Naturalist, Bank Manager and

Family Man

Edwin Brown (1818/21-1876) wasnothing if not energetic. A devotedfamily man, professionally, he held thepost of bank manager for much of hislife. As an enthusiastic and probablyself-taught naturalist, Edwin Brown wasa prolific collector of natural historyspecimens both from his ownneighbourhood of Burton-on-Trent andthrough purchase of exotic specimensfrom noted naturalists overseas. Inparticular, he maintained a lifelonginterest in Coleoptera. He publishedfrequently, but due to the eclecticnature of his work and the fact that hispublications were scattered through awide range of journals, the full pictureof his efforts remains obscure. After hisdeath his collection was sold anddispersed in a notable auction, anumber of lots being acquired by somekey museums. Information is soughton the whereabouts of his otherspecimens and notebooks, and otherpublications and contributions tonatural history societies of his day.

There is some doubt about EdwinBrown’s date of birth, sources variouslyquoting 1818 to 1821. However, theInternational Genealogical Index

reports a christening record in St Mary’sChurch, Stafford dated 13th September1818. There is nothing in his familyhistory to suggest any particularexpertise in scientific matters; he wasthe son of a Burton-on -Trent builder,and from the age of about 15 for the restof his life he was employed by theBurton, Uttoxeter and AshbourneUnion Bank, becoming manager inabout 1851. In 1849 he married awidow, Jane Tabberer, and took on thesix children by her first husband; heand Jane then proceeded to have twomore sons (Adrian and Edwin), with thefamily living above the bank, as wasoften the custom. In 1876 she diedfollowing a long and painful illness.Gravely weakened, his friends andcolleagues urged him to take a holiday,but on 1st September 1876 Edwin diedsuddenly ‘of an apoplectic fit’ in Tenby,Pembrokeshire.

Edwin Brown was eclectic in hisscientific pursuits. I have found about40 publications, covering topics asdiverse as local archaeology, geology,bird records, weasel behaviour, naturalhistory of fungi, all spread throughout arange of journals over an extended timeperiod – small wonder that the authorsof his various obituaries never graspedthe full extent of his studies. However,his particular focus was entomological,particularly in relation to Coleoptera.From an early age he had a friendshipwith Henry Walter Bates; they exploredthe flood plains of the River Trenttogether, obviously exchanged notesand specimens, and Brown lent Bates asmall volume on the Amazon, whichapparently inspired Bates and AlfredRussel Wallace to embark on theirfamous expeditions. He correspondedwith many notable naturalists of theday, including Charles Darwin. Brownprobably never travelled abroad, but he

24

amassed an enormous collection ofColeoptera and other natural historymaterial, including exotic specimenswhich he purchased from Wallace. Itseems that the collection became solarge, an annex had to be built on to hishouse to hold it, and after his death itwas auctioned by John Crace Stevens,the well-known Covent Gardenauctioneer in 1877, raising the thenenormous sum of £1,670. Thecollection was thus dispersed, butthanks to their helpful curators, I havebeen able to inspect specimens in theNatural History Museum (London),University Museum of Zoology(Cambridge), and National Museum ofIreland (Dublin). However, this isalmost certainly only part of thesurviving resource.

Brown’s activities were not justconfined to collecting. Other key areasof work currently noted in addition tohis publications were:• a significant contribution on the

local fauna and flora in Naturalhistory of Tutbury, together with thefauna and flora of the districtsurrounding Tutbury and Burton-on-Trent edited by Oswald Mosely(1863);

• classification of the taxonomic statusof the aquatic micro-moth AcentropusNiveus (today’s Acentria ephemerella);

• contributions to the debates aboutthe mutability of species in the1860’s following publication ofDarwin’s Origin of Species.

It is not intended to cite all the worksso far discovered, since it is likely to beincomplete at this stage. However,publications so far found to containhis papers include (in approximateorder of first appearance): • Annals and Magazine of Natural

History• The Zoologist

• Entomologist’s Weekly Intelligencer• Proceedings of the Northern

Entomological Society• The Reliquary• The Weekly Entomologist• Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine• Transactions of the Midland Scientific

Association (probably)• British Association for the Advancement

of Science• The Geological Magazine• Transactions of the Entomological

Society of London• Nature

Following further research, it isproposed to present a more extensiveand complete record of Edwin Brown’sactivities as a naturalist. Anyinformation relating to his effortswould be extremely welcome,particularly in the following areas:• Location of specimens and collection:

Whilst it has been possible to tracethe present whereabouts of someparts of the collection, a full audit isencumbered by closure and/orre-organisation of museums over thelast 140 years, disappearance ornon-documentation of privatelyacquired lots, and other causes. Ifanyone has knowledge of, or accessto, material that can be attributed toBrown, this would be extremelyuseful.

• Where are the notebooks? It isinconceivable that a man who wasable to document his localbiodiversity so well, and moreoverwas probably a meticulous bankmanager, did not habitually compilenotes of his efforts and data. Yetthere is no reference to notebooks inSteven’s auction catalogue, andpossibly they were retained ordiscarded by Brown’s family or sentto one of his collecting colleagues.These would be invaluable both as

25

an understanding of his collectingactivities as well as an importantcontext for the existing elements ofhis collection.

• Are there other areas/subjects ofpublication? It is almost certain thereare more publications to bediscovered and additional workscontinue to be located throughlibrary investigations and theinternet, but there may be additionalfields in which Brown engaged thatmay bring to light completely newlines of discovery.

• Correspondence archives: A few lettersare archived in the DarwinCorrespondence Project, and thepresent author intends to investigatearchives relating to Bates andWallace, but it would be enormouslyhelpful if holders of other likelyarchives might check their records incase of correspondence from or toEdwin Brown.

I have so far been unable to traceminutes or proceedings of somemeetings, for example the Burton-on-Trent Natural History Society, MidlandScientific Association etc., but it isalmost certain that Brown played asignificant role in these.

Edwin Brown presents a fascinatingand enthusiastic character: banker,family man, eclectic naturalist. It ispossible much remains to be discoveredabout his life and his contributions tothe natural history of his area and time,and the elements of his workre-connected. The author of thispaper, apart from being a descendent, isa biologist in his own right. Anyassistance or information would be verywelcome.

Robert (Bob) Brown, BSc, PhD, OBEBob.brown@saltydepths.com

Publisher’s Announcements

49. Ten Thousand BirdsOrnithology since Darwin

Tim. R. Birkhead, Jo Wimpenny & BobMontgomeriePrinceton University Press, 2014544 pp., 94 colour illus., 60 halftonesISBN: 978-0691151977 (hb) £29.95,US$45Ten Thousand Birds provides anengaging and authoritative history ofmodern ornithology, tracing how thestudy of birds has been shaped by asuccession of visionary and often-controversial personalities, and by theunique social and scientific contexts inwhich these extraordinary individualsworked. This beautifully illustratedbook draws on a wealthof archival material andin-depth interviews andreveals how research onbirds has contributedmore to our under-standing of animalbiology than the studyof just about any other group oforganisms.

50. Shadow among splendoursLady Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe’s

adventures among the flowers ofBurma

E. Charles Nelson Nat-ional Botanic Gardensof Ireland, 2014. 223pp., approx. 200 illus.ISBN: 978-0957594814(hb) £27.50Signed copies availableby contacting theauthor directly at:tippitiwitchet@phonecoop.coopAn account of the remarkable life of“Shadow” (Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe),

26

Publisher’s Announcements

especially about her adventures inBurma between 1897 and 1921 duringwhich time she twice visited MountVictoria (Natmataung) where shediscovered, among other plants,Rhododendron culteanum and R.burmanicum. She painted more than 100large watercolours of native Burmeseorchids, and was given the task ofestablishing the Maymyo BotanicGarden. Lavishly illustrated withnumerous examples of her water-colours.

51. John James LaForest AudubonAn English Perspective

Christine E. JacksonChristine E. Jackson, 2013 256 pp., 89 illus., 8 col. pl. (hb)£46 (incl. p+p), US$60 (p+p $15.50approx)Signed quarter leather limited edition£75 (p+p £6.50), US$115 (p+p $15approx)Email: cejacksonbirdart@waitrose.comThis new publication examines theinfluence and part played by theEnglish in the publishing of Audubon’sBirds of America, printed in London byRobert Havell Jr. Audubon spent theyears 1826-39 in England, where hereceived generous hospitality whichhelped him to survive financially.During this period he met industrialists,aristocrats and merchants who weresubscribers to his publication as well asa number of naturalists whose reactionto him varied considerably.

The author details the lives andcareers of Audubon’s subscribers andthose who befriended him whilst inEngland, many of them the mostprominent members of English Society.She includes valuable new research onthe social and historical background ofAudubon’s time in England andadditional data on Audubon’s English

wife, Lucy Green Bakewell and herfamily. This is a major contribution tothe Audubon archive.

52. Who found our ferns?A history of the discovery of

Britain’s ferns, clubmosses, quillworts and horsetails

John Edgington BPS Special Publication No 12British Pteridological Society, 2013216 pp. ISBN: 978-0992612016 (pb) £15Who found our ferns? tells the story ofthe discovery of Britain’s pteridophytes,from Saxon times to 2012. The lives ofthose who noticed, collected anddescribed our ferns, horesetails,quillworts and clubmosses areinterwoven with accounts of how,where and when they found them.

It includes historical accountssupplemented by recent taxonomicresearch of 85 taxa that grow wild inBritain and Ireland, or have done so inthe past, with details of almost allrecords before 1724, or later forsubsequent discoveries. Compre-hensively referenced to primary sources.Over 160 illustrations includeengravings from contemporaryliterature, nature prints, and herbariumspecimens. With a list of pre-Linnaeanphrase names and their scientificequivalents, chronological summariesof early reports, and a full index of plantnames.

53. The Natural History of Selborne

Gilbert White. Edited by Anne SecordOUP, 2013352 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-0199591961(hb)£14.99, US$24.95Over a period of 20 years Whitedescribes in minute detail the behaviour

27

of animals through the changing seasonsin the rural Hampshire parish ofSelborne. Written as a series of letters,White’s book has all the immediacy andfreshness of an exchange with friends,yet it is none the less crafted withcompelling literary skill. His gossipycorrespondence has delighted readersfrom Charles Darwin to Virginia Woolf,and it has been read as a nostalgicevocation of a pastoral vision, a modelfor local studies of plants and animals,and a precursor to modern ecology. Thisnew edition includes contemporaryillustrations and an introduction settingthe work in its eighteenth-centurycontext, as well as an appendix trackingthe remarkable range of responses to thework over the last two hundred years.

54. Alfred Russel WallaceLetters from the Malay Archipelago

John van Wyhe & Kees Rookmaaker,EditorsOxford, 2013304 pp. ISBN: 9780199683994), b & willus.ISBN: 9780199683994 (hb)£16.99This volume brings together the lettersof A. R. Wallace (1823-1913) during histravels of 1854-62 in the MalayArchipelago. Beautifully written, theyare filled with lavish descriptions of theremote regions he explored, thepeoples, and fascinating details of themany new species he discovered duringhis time there.

The editors present new trans-criptions of the letters, including thoserecently discovered that shed light onthe voyage, Wallace’s reluctance topublish on evolution, and why he choseto write to Darwin rather than to sendhis work to a journal directly. A revisedaccount of Wallace’s itinerary based onnew research forms part of an

introduction that sets the context of thevoyage, and the volume includes fullnotes to all letters.

Together the letters form aremarkable and vivid document of oneof the most important journeys of the19th century by a great Victoriannaturalist.

55. Walter Potter’s Curious World ofTaxidermy

Pat MorrisConstable & Robinson, 2013128 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-1472109507 (hb)£20A new edition of the 2008 book onWalter Potter and his taxidermy tableauxand famous museum in Sussex (latermoved to Cornwall). Potter’s museum isno more and these books are now all wehave left to remind us of a quirkyexample of English whimsy, includingthe kittens’ wedding, squirrels’ club andrabbits at their Victorian school, thatdelighted so many visitors for over 100years. The text is an abridged version ofthe original and its particular value isthat it includes many new images,especially of items that were exported toAmerica when Potter’s collection wasdispersed in 2003.

Note from Pat Morris. There has been aspate of books about taxidermy justlately and one of the best is Taxidermy(2013) by Alexis Turner. It focusesparticularly on a resurgence of interestin old taxidermy as a component ofmodern interiors. There are 400 pages ofminimal text and masses of excellentimages.

57. Tractatus de Herbis - Sloane 4016

M. Moleiro Editor, 2012218 pp., all illuminated

28

ISBN: 978-8496400764Price on request.In 2012, the publishers M. MoleiroEditor produced the only facsimileedition of the Tractatus de herbis Sloane4016, made in Italy circa 1440. Thisedition, limited to 987 copies, goes witha companion volume of study by AlainTouwaide of the Institute for thePreservation of Medical Traditions andthe Smithsonian Institution. Thecompanion volume (512 pp.) is lavishlyillustrated and includes a reproductionand translation of the text, theidentification of all the plants, abibliography and several indices. See:http://www.moleiro.com/en/books-of-medicine/tractatus-de-herbis.html

Many thanks to everyone whocontributes material to this section.May I just remind you to forward detailsof your own publications as well asthose of general interest. Please includeas many publication details as possible:such as publisher, date and ISBN.Anderson, J. G. T. (2013) Deep things outof Darkness: a History of Natural History.U. California Press.346 pp. illustr. ISBN:978-0520273764 (hb). £34.95.Aniko, T. (2013) Victoria: The Seductress:A Cultural and Natural History of theWorld’s Greatest Water Lily. LongwoodGardens. 468 pp., 400 col. & b/w photosand col. & b/w illus. ISBN:978-1935442226 (hb). £44.99, US$74,€55.Apple, R. D., Downey, G. J., & Vaughn,S. (eds.) (2012) Science in Print: Essays onthe History of Science and the Culture ofPrint. U. Wisconsin Press. 256 pp. ISBN:978-0299286149. US$34.95, £29.95.Appleby, J. (2013) Shores of Knowledge.New World Discoveries and the ScientificImagination. W. W. Norton & Co.

320pp. ISBN: 978-0393239515 (hb).US$26.95Attenborough, D. (2012) Drawn FromParadise: The Discovery, Art and NaturalHistory of the Birds of Paradise. Collins.256pp. illus. ISBN: 978-0007487615(hb). £30.Baione, T. (ed.) (2012) Natural Histories:Extraordinary Rare Book Selections fromthe American Museum of Natural HistoryLibrary. Sterling. 176pp. ISBN: 978-1402791499 (hb). £40.Baker, R. A. (2012) Microscopes, marinemillipedes and mounts: Joseph Sinel’s(1844-1929) microscopical legacy onJersey, Channel Islands. Société JersiaiseAnn. Bull. 30: 368-373.Bebber, D. P. et al. (2012) Big-hittingcollectors make massive anddisproportionate contribution to thediscovery of plant species. Proc. RoyalSoc. B: Biol. Sciences 279: 2269-2274.Bieler, R. & Petit, Richard E. (2012)Molluscan taxa in the publications ofthe Museum Godeffroy of Hamburg,with a discussion of the Godeffroy SalesCatalogs (1864–1884), the Journal desMuseum Godeffroy (1873-1910), and ahistory of the museum. Zootaxa 3511:1–80. Birkhead, T. R., Wimpenny, J. &Montgomerie, B. (2014) Ten ThousandBirds: Ornithology since Darwin.Princeton UP. 544 pp., 94 col. illus., 60halftones. ISBN: 978-0691151977 (hb).£29.95.Brook, T. (2014) Mr Selden’s Map ofChina: The Spice Trade, a Lost Chart andthe South China Sea. Bloomsbury.256pp. ISBN: 978-1781250389 (hb).£18.99.Buckland, A. (2013) Novel science:Fiction and the invention of nineteenth-century geology. U. Chicago Press. 384pp., illus. ISBN: 978-0226079684 (hb).£31.50, US$45.Cadbury, J. (2013) The botanical

29

New & Recent Publications

illustrations of John Gould’s The birds ofGreat Britain. BSBI News, no. 124: 39-40.Calhoun, J. V. (2013) The extraordinarystory of an artistic and scientificmasterpiece: The Butterflies of NorthAmerica by William Henry Edwards,1868-1897. J. Lepid. Soc. 67: 73-110.Capelotti, P. J. (2013) Shipwreck at CapeFlora: The expeditions of Benjamin LeighSmith, England’s forgotten Arctic explorer.U. Calgary Press. 300pp. ISBN: 978-1552387054. £33.50.Chambers, N. (ed.) (2013) The Indianand Pacific correspondence of Sir JosephBanks, 1768-1820. Vol. 6, Letters1801-1805. Pickering & Chatto. 560 pp.ISBN: 978-1851968404 (hb). £100.Chambers, N. (ed). (2013) The Indianand Pacific correspondence of Sir JosephBanks, 1768-1820. Vol. 7, Letters1805-1810. Pickering & Chatto. 608 pp.ISBN: 978-1851966349 (hb). £100.Charmantier, I. (2011) Carl Linnaeusand the Visual Representation ofNature. Historical Studies in the NaturalSciences 41: 365-404.Chicone, S. J., & Kissel, R. A. (2013)Dinosaurs and dioramas: creating naturalhistory exhibitions. Left Coast Press. 200pp. ISBN: 978-1611322750 (pb). £18.Clancy, R., Manning, J., & Brolsma, H.(2014) Mapping Antarctica: a five hundredyear record of discovery. Springer. 300 pp.163 illus. ISBN: 978-9400743205 (hb).£26.99.Clark. P. (2010) A predecessor ofDarwin? The surgeon William Lawrence[1783-1867]. Open University GeologicalJournal 31: 21-26, 2 portrs.Crane, P. (2013) Ginkgo: the tree thattime forgot. Yale UP. 400 pp., illus. ISBN:978-0300187519 (hb). US$40.Dawson, G. (2012) Palaeontology inparts: Richard Owen, William JohnBroderip, and the serialization ofscience in Early Victorian Britain. Isis103: 637-667. [Owen’s celebrated

palaeontological reconstructions fromthe 1830’s and 1840’s were reportedserially in Proc. Zool. Soc., in his ownHistory of British Fossil Mammals and, inparticular, the Penny Cyclopaedia –sequential publication of which theyexploited to evoke suspense andexpectation in accounts he co-authoredanonymously with Broderip of Owen’spalaeontographical researches.]de Lima, H. C., Kury, L. B. & Barretto,M. (2012) Sydney Parkinson: ilustraçõesbotânicas de espécies brasileiras naexpedição de James Cook, 1768-1769. RJ:Andrea Jakobsson Estúdio. 133pp., illus.ISBN:978-8588742567. [Portuguese/English]Delbourgo, J. (2012) Listing People. Isis103: 735-742. [A study of the lists ofspecimen suppliers published by JamesPetiver, an activity which helpedadvance his status as a global broker ofspecimens while provoking accusationsby some of vulgar self-aggrandisement.] Edgington, J. (2013)Who Found Our Ferns? AHistory of the Discoveryof Britain’s Ferns,Clubmosses, Quillwortsand Horsetails. BPSSpecial PublicationNo. 12. British Pterido-logical Society. 216 pp.ISBN: 978- 0992612016(pb). £15.99. Davenne, C. & Fleurant, C. (2012)Cabinets of Wonder. Abrams. 232p. ISBN:978-1419705540 (hb) £19.50.Friis, I. et al. (eds.) (2013) Early ScientificExpeditions and Local Encounters. NewPerspectives on Carsten Niebuhr and ‘TheArabian Journey’. Proceedings of aSymposium on the Occasion of the250th Anniversary of the the RoyalDanish Expedition to Arabia Felix.Royal Danish Academy of Sciences &Letters. 252 pp. illus. ISBN 978-

30

8773043752. 300 Kr.Fuller, E. (2013) Lost animals: extinctionand the photographic record. Bloomsbury.256 pp. ISBN: 978-1408172155 (hb).£25.Gibson, S. (2012) On being an animal,or the eighteenth-century zoophytecontroversy in Britain. History of Science50: 453-476.Glaubrecht, M. (2013) Am Ende desArchipels - Alfred Russel Wallace. Galiani,Berlin. 442 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-3869710709 (hb). €24.99. [Firstbook-length biography of Wallace inGerman.]Haikal, M. (2013) Master Pongo - EinGorilla erobert Europa. Transit, Berlin.128 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-3887472856(hb). €16.80. [Biography of the secondgorilla ever kept outside Africa and thefirst recognised as one during itslifetime.]Harris, S. A. (2013) Mark Catesby’sCollections in Oxford. Oxford PlantSystematics 19: 13-14. [348 localisedspecimens in Oxford Universityherbaria bear Catesby’s names; a further71 are unlocalised. Rediscovery of apen-and-ink drawing by him reveals heresorted to that in the case of a flowerhe found it impossible to preserve.]Harrison, T. & Harrison, V. (2013)Theodore Thomson Flynn: not just Errol’sfather. Anthony & Vicki Harrison. 238pp. ISBN: 978-0646594781. A$45. Harrop, A. H. J., Collinson, J. M. &Melling, T. (2012) What the eye doesn’tsee: the prevalence of fraud inornithology. British Birds 105: 236-257.Heyes, S. & Helgen, K. (eds.) (2014)Mammals of Ungava and Labrador. The1882-1884 Fieldnotes of Lucien M. TurnerTogether with Inuit and Innu Knowledge.Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.384 pp. ISBN: 978-1935623212 (hb).US$49.95, £30.Jackson, C. E. (2013) John James

LaForest Audubon: an English perspective.Christine E. Jackson. 256 pp., 89 illus., 8col. pl. £46 (incl. p+p) (hb). Jackson, C. E, Datta, A., &Vane-Wright, R. I. (2013) Dr JohnLatham FLS, and his daughter Ann. TheLinnean. 29 (1): 15-30.Johns, J. R. (2013) Jonathan Couch:medicine, Methodism and nature.J. Cornwall Assoc. Local Historians no.65:30-33.Kolbert, E. (2014) The Sixth Extinction:An Unnatural History. Henry Holt & Co.319 pp. ISBN: 978-0805092998 (hb).US$28, £20.Kusukawa, S. (2012) Picturing the Bookof Nature: image, text, and argument insixteenth-century human anatomy andmedical botany, U. Chicago Press.352pp. ISBN: 978-0226465296 (hb).£35, US$50.Leach, A. (2013) Things that are:encounters with plants, stars and animals.208 pp. Canongate Books. ISBN: 978-0857868633 (pb). £12. Leach, W. R. (2013) Butterfly People: AnAmerican Encounter with the Beauty of theWorld. Pantheon. 416pp. ISBN: 978-0375422935 (hb). US$21.25.Leaf, S. (2013) A love affair with birds:the life of Thomas Sadler Roberts. U.Minnesota Press. 296 pp. ISBN: 978-0816675647 (hb). £22.50.Lucas, A. M. (2013) Specimens and thecurrency of honour: the museum tradeof Ferdinand von Mueller. Historicalrecords of Australian Science, 24: 15-39.Ludecke, C. & Summerhayes, C.(2012) The Third Reich in Antarctica: TheGerman Antarctic Expedition 1938-39.Bluntisham Books/Erskine Press. 288pp., 90 illus., 8pp . col. ISBN: 978-1852971038 (hb) £27.50.McLoughlin, T. (2013) An Englishmanin Brittany: James Lloyd (1810-1897).BSBI News no. 174: 37-39. [Brief accountof life and work of English-born author

31

of a gradually expanded Flora of WestFrance, which went to 5 editions1844-97.]Martin, S. (2013) A history of Antarctica.Rosenberg Publishing. 280 pp. ISBN:978-1921719578 (hb). US$49.95.Montagnana-Wallace, N. (2012) 150years Melbourne Zoo. Bounce Books. 160pp., illus. ISBN: 978-0987214805 (hb).A$59.95.Morris, P. (2013) Walter Potter’s curiousworld of taxidermy. Constable &Robinson. 128 pp. ISBN: 978-1472109507 (hb). £20.Moore, P. G. (2012) A photograph of ateacher-training course in marinezoology at Millport (1914). The Glasgownaturalist 25(4): 132-133.Moore, P. G. (2013) Lord Rothschild atMillport (1937-1957): memories andlegacies. Ayrshire Notes, No. 45: 10-15.Müller-Wille. S. (2013) Systems andHow Linnaeus Looked at Them inRetrospect, Annals of Science 70:3.Mylechreest, M. (2010) ThomasAndrew Knight (1759-1838) and theapplication of experimentation tohorticulture. Annals of the History andPhilosophy of Biology 15:15-27.[Although the paper and the volumenumber are given as 2010 the journalitself it was not printed until 2012 asstated on the title page withUniversitatsverlag Gottingen as thepublisher.]Nelson, E. C. (2014) Shadow amongsplendours: Lady Charlotte Wheeler-Cuffe’s adventures among the flowers ofBurma. National Botanic Gardens ofIreland. 223 pp., c. 200 illus. ISBN: 978-0957594814 (hb). £35.Nielson, K. H., Herbsmeier, M. & Reis,C. (eds.) (2012) Scientists and Scholars inthe Field: studies in the history of fieldworkand expeditions. Aarhus UP. 475 pp.ISBN: 978-8771240146. US$72.Oldfield, M. (2013) The Secret Museum.

Collins. 352 pp. ISBN: 978-0007455287(hb). £25.Partridge, R. (2013) Almost like theRev. Joseph Greene M.A. Bull. AmateurEnts. Soc. 72: 88-92. [A test of theeffectiveness of Greene’s celebratedadvocacy of pupa-digging as amoth-collecting method.]Paterson, L. (2013) How the GardenGrew: A Photographic History ofHorticulture at RBGE. RBG Edinburgh.128 pp. ISBN: 978-1906129927 (pb).£12.Preston, C. D., Roy, D. B., & Roy, H. E.(2012) What have we learnt from 50years of biological recording? BritishWildlife 24: 97-106.Pugliano, V. (2012) Specimen lists:artisanal writing or natural historypaperwork? Isis 103: 716-726. [Routinepaperwork and techniques developed topreserve materia medica employed byapothecaries for commercial purposesmay have been a more defininginfluence on early-modern naturaliststhan the humanist practices ofindexing.]Reel, M. (2013) Between man and beast:an unlikely explorer, the evolution debates,and the African adventure that took theVictorian world by storm. Doubleday.352 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-0385534222(hb). £22.60, US$26.95. [Biography ofPaul du Chaillu and the discovery of thegorilla.]Schmidt, A. (2013) Seehunde an denKüstengewässern der Nord- und Ostsee.Cachalotpresse. 184 pp., illus. No ISBN(pb). €29. [History of sealing and sealshows along the German North Sea andBaltic coasts. Order from:alfred@schmidt-fluke.de.]Schneider, U. J. & Vieler, A. (2013)Römers Garten: Aus der Pflanzenbuch-sammlung der UniversitätsbibliothekLeipzig [Roman Garden - From the plantLibrary of the University Library in

32

Leipzig]. University of Leipzig. 91pp.ISBN: 978-386583826. €19. [ExhibitionCatalogue.]Scofield, P., Cooper, J. H., & Turvey, S.T. (2012) A naturalist of the very firstorder? Percy William Earl (1811-1846) inNew Zealand. Records of the CanterburyMuseum 26: 1-19. [Hampstead-born sonof a ship’s captain, Earl and his sonGeorge (later a noted orientalist) brieflyvisited the Swan River Colony in 1830.Returning to England in 1839, Earl raisedbacking for a zoological collecting trip toNew Zealand, arriving in 1842. Themany insects resulting included typematerial of 29 species. His single mostimportant discovery were Moa bones, ofwhich Richard Owen was offered thepick, while some were sold to the BritishMuseum along with 30 specimens ofN.Z. birds. A return trip in 1846 got nofurther than Torres Strait, where hedrowned in a shipwreck at the age of 35.]Seposki, D. (2013) Towards “A NaturalHistory of Data”: evolving practices andepistemologies of data in palaeontology,1800-2000. J. Hist. Biology 46: 401-444. Shindler, K. (2013) Martin Hinton, my‘mysterious career’. Evolve no. 15:56-61.[First installment of a biography for M.A. C. Hinton (1833-1961), whoseboyhood passion for collectingPleistocene fossils in the gravels of theThames eventually led, after 26 years as adissatisfied Barrister’s clerk, to a post inLondon’s Natural History Museum, andultimately to its Keepership of Zoology.Torrens, H. S. (2013) A forgottenprovincial English museums initiativeof the 1830s: The Midland countiesNatural History Societies, theirmuseums and libraries, pp. 159-181, inExcalibur: Essays on Antiquity and theHistory of Collecting in Honour of ArthurMacGregor edited by Hildegard Wiegel &Michael Vickers. Oxford, BAR Inter-national Series no. 2512. British

Archaeological Reports. 183pp. ISBN:978-1407311302 (pb).Turner, A. (2013) Taxidermy. Thames &Hudson. 256 pp. 337 col. illus. ISBN:978-0500516706 (hb). £19.95. Wallace, A. R. (2013) On the organic lawof change: a facsimile edition andannotated transcription of Alfred RusselWallace’s species notebook of 1855-1859,annotated by James T. Costa. HarvardUP. 640pp. ISBN: 978-0674724884 (hb).£36.95, US$49.95.Weir, J. C. (2013) Darwin, Lepidopteraand James William Tutt. Bull. AmateurEnts. Soc. 72: 63-75.van Nieuwstadt-van Hoof, J., ed.(2013) Burgers’ Zoo 1913 - 2013: eenfamiliebedrijf met passie voor dieren.Waanders, Zwolle. 336 pp., illus. ISBN9789491196461 (softback). € 39.80.[Coffee-table centennial history of thezoo in Arnhem, Netherlands.]van Wyhe, J. (2013) Dispelling thedarkness: voyage in the Malay Archipelagoand the discovery of evolution by Wallaceand Darwin. World Scientific. 420 pp.illus. ISBN: 978-9814458795 (hb). £26,US$49.van Wyhe, J. (2013) “My appointmentreceived the sanction of the Admiralty”:why Charles Darwin really was thenaturalist on HMS Beagle. Studies Hist. &Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sciences 44:316-326.Velten, H. (2013) Beastly London: AHistory of Animals in the City. ReaktionBooks. 288pp. illus. ISBN: 978-1780231679 (hb). £29. White, G. (2013) The Natural History ofSelborne, edited by Anne Secord. OUP.352 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-0199591961(hb). £14.99, US$24.95.Williams, G. (2013) Naturalists at Sea.Scientific Travellers from Dampier toDarwin. Yale UP. 309 pp., illus. ISBN:978-0300180732. £25.Williams, R. B. (2012) Victorian book

33

printing: a rare supernumerarysignature. Journal of the PrintingHistorical Society (ns), 18/19: 75-79.Wiliams, R. B. (2013) Nomenclaturaland bibliographical notes on new taxaof protozoan parasites described byErnest Edward Tyzzer (1875-1965).Zoological Bibliography, 2: 131-142.Williams, R. B. (2013) A prepared mind– Ernest Edward Tyzzer’s legacy ofresearch into avian diseases. AvianDiseases, 57: 716-729.Wolfe, R. J. (2012) Jacob Bigelow’sAmerican Medical Botany 1817-1821: AnExamination of the Origin, Printing,Binding and Distribution of America’s First

Color Plate ... Special Emphasis on theManner of Making an. 2nd edn. Oak KnollPress. 128 pp. ISBN: 978-1584563937(hb). US $95.Wright, A. E. (2013) Curious beasts:animal prints from the British Museum.BM Press. 112pp. ISBN: 987-1714126883 (pb). £9.99.Zonfrillo, B. & Monaghan, P. (2013)Alexander Wilson Bicentenary. ScottishBirds 33 (1): 54-56. [Brief biography ofthe Paisley weaver who emigrated to theUSA in 1794 to become North America’sleading ornithologist prior toAudubon.]

James BraundHannah-Lee ChalkJohn CunninghamCaradoc DoyErik DuckerAngelica GroomMichael FlanneryGarth FosterEsther van GelderPaul HendersonRonald A JavitchCaroline KerkhamAhren LesterRichard Middleton

Nuno Gomes OliveiraHeather PardoeJorgen QuickAnantanarayanan RamanElizabeth ScottBelen Serrano-AntonLeora SiegelMichael SmithE M SomervilleTom & Judy TaylorWilliam WalstonSamuel WhitbreadSarah WilmotLow Yee Wen

SHNH new members 2013 - 2014 (as of April 2014)

34

350th Anniversary of John Goodyer (1592–1664)

SHNH Spring Meeting, Special General Meeting & AGMSaturday 19 July 2014

The meeting will be held at Magdalen College, Oxford UniversityOxford OX1 4AU

This one day meeting is in celebration of 350 years since the death of John Goodyer(1592–1664), the 17th-century botanist. Talks will focus on the libraries of John Goodyer,John Nidd, Phillip Miller and Richard Richardson. Speakers include: Liam Dolan, JohnEdgington, Chris Preston, and Bill Noblett.

The Society’s Special General Meeting and AGM will take place in the afternoon. A displayof books from Goodyer’s Library is anticipated, together with a visit to the University BotanicGarden nearby.

Outline Programme April 201409.30 - 10.00 Registration10.00 - 12.40 Morning session and refreshments12.40 - 14.00 Lunch break 14.00 - 14.35 Afternoon session14.40 - 15.10 SHNH Special General meeting and AGM (details will be in

SGM/AGM papers to be circulated nearer the date)15.15 - 17.00 Final session & refreshments

Registration Form

Please complete and return this form, with payment (cheques payable to The Society forthe History of Natural History) to: Ms Gina Douglas, Meetings Secretary, 23 Jeffreys Road,London SW4 6QU, UK.

The closing date for registration will be Tuesday 1st July 2014. The Conference feeincludes tea/coffee breaks, and a self-service lunch*. (e-mail meetings@shnh.org.uk foradditional information or late registrations).Conference Fee £30 Members of SHNH £

£30 Partners of SHNH £

£20 Student members £

£35 Non-members of either organisation £

If you wish to stay for dinner after the meeting on Saturday 19th please indicate below: I am/am not interested in joining the Conference Dinner (delete as applicable).

* Please indicate if you have special dietary requirements for lunch.

Name(s) Prof/Dr/Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/other)

Address

Post code Country Telephone Number E-mail address

35

36

The Society for the History of Natural History is a friendly international society foreveryone who is interested in natural history in the broadest sense. This includesbotany, zoology and geology as well as natural history collections, exploration, artand bibliography. Everyone with an interest in these subjects – professional oramateur – is welcome to join.

The Society was founded in 1936 by a small group of scientists, librarians andbibliographers centred on the British Museum (Natural History) in London. TheSociety is still closely associated with the Museum, now the Natural HistoryMuseum, which contains the national collections of natural history specimens andhas a strong tradition in the historical study of these collections.

Since its modest beginnings, the Society has grown in membership andinternational standing. It is known for its friendliness and provides a focal point forthe history of all aspects of natural history. The Society also has a thrivinginternational membership and representatives in North America, Europe, Asia andthe Antipodes organise local meetings. An International Meeting is held at regularintervals, the most recent being in the Unites States in November, 2012.

The Society’s main publication is Archives of natural history, produced twice a year,and distributed free to all members. It contains refereed, illustrated papers andbook reviews and is published for the Society by Edinburgh University Press. Allvolumes published since 1936 are now available online. A more informal Newsletteris published two or three times a year.

For more information contact the Secretary, Society for the History of NaturalHistory, c/o the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UKor search on www.shnh.org.uk.

All subscription matters are handled for the Society by Edinburgh University Press.For subscription enquiries, including payment methods, please contact theSubscription Administrators at Edinburgh University Press.E-mail: journals@eup.ed.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0)1316 506207.

Newsletter 106 April 2014

Editor: Elaine ShaughnessyEmail: webmaster@shnh.org.uk

COPY DATEThe copy date for the next Newsletter is 15 July 2014.

Society for the History of Natural History

37

Officers and Council of the Society 2014

PatronSir David Attenborough OM CH FRS

Officers

President: Professor HUGH TORRENSSecretary: Mrs LYNDA BROOKS

Treasurer: Mr WILLIAM NOBLETTEditor: Professor PETER DAVIS

Meetings Secretary: Ms GINA DOUGLAS

Council

Dr Peter Barnard*Ms Jo Hatton+

Dr Sachiko Kusukawa+Dr Arthur MacGregor+

Mr Chris Mills#Dr Pat Morris*

Ms Elizabeth Platts#Dr Leucha Veneer+

Professor Ray Williams+

# elected 2011 * elected 2012 + elected 2013

Associate Editors: Dr Juliet Clutton-Brock, Dr E. Charles Nelson &Dr Peter Barnard

Associate Editor Book Reviews: Dr Isabelle CharmantierMembership Coordinator: Ms Miranda LoweNewsletter Editor: Ms Elaine Shaughnessy

Representatives’ Coordinator: Mrs Malgosia Nowak-KempWebsite Coordinator: Ms Elaine Shaughnessy

Email addresses

donations@shnh.org.ukeditor@shnh.org.ukinfo@shnh.org.uk

meetings@shnh.org.ukwebmaster@shnh.org.uk

Representatives

Asia: Dr L. C. (Kees) Rookmaaker, Australasia: Ms Kathryn Medlock,Central Europe: Prof. Mag.Christa. Riedl-Dorn, Ireland: vacant,

Italy: Dr Carlo Violani, Japan: Professor Takeshi Watabe, North America: Ms Leslie Overstreet, Spain: Dr Margarita Hernández Laille