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Bavarian glassblower Herman Oscar Mueller (fl. 1900s–1960s) was employed for over forty years at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in his role as a glassblower making intricate glass models of biological subjects. From 1903 to 1945 he produced over one thousand models of invertebrate organisms that combined beauty, morphological accuracy and exceptional glassblowing skill. His talent often surpassed that of the famous Blaschkas of Dresden. Mueller enjoyed worldwide fame in his lifetime, yet his life and models have since fallen into relative obscurity, and few publications record his achievements. In contrast, the Blaschkas are the subject of extensive documentation. To correct this imbalance, Mueller's life and work are here analyzed, drawing on the large collection of primary sources in the Research Library of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, the Library of Congress, Washington DC, and the Rakow Research Library of the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, amongst others. Mueller's life provides important insights into his highly-specialized role as a museum glassblower, the changing role of natural history collections in the early twentieth century, and the ways in which the lives of important figures can be obscured by a focus on other, better documented individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the identification of a specimen in the New Brunswick Museum, Canada, previously believed to be the extinct sea mink (Neogale macrodon). The specimen, which was part of a private collection, was confirmed through genetic analysis to be the American mink (Neogale vison) instead. The sea mink was described based on a fragmentary skull found in Maine, USA, and was believed to have gone extinct as early as 1860. The identification of the specimen as Neogale vison suggests that the sea mink is only known from skeletal fragments found in Indigenous middens. [Extracted from the article]

Samuel Holker Haslam (1797–1856) was an English naturalist whose plant and insect specimens are extant in several museum collections. Born into a family of cotton manufacturers in Lancashire, Haslam used his inherited wealth to set himself up as a country gentleman, eventually settling near Milnthorpe in Westmorland. He was a bibliophile, subscribing to several important fine colour-plate books on natural history and gardening, a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and a member of many other societies spanning botany, entomology, palaeontology, agriculture and antiquarianism. He collected primarily in the Lake District (Westmorland, Cumberland and north Lancashire), West Yorkshire, Cheshire, Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset and the Channel Islands, especially Guernsey. His activities exemplify the role played by independent collectors in documenting early nineteenth-century British natural history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A box of invertebrates, mainly insects, some of which have labels dated between 1838 and 1841, was acquired by the author at a public auction in 2022. The box and the style of preservation is consistent with a collection assembled in the late 1830s. It is postulated that this small collection once formed part of the museum assembled by William MacGillivray at Marischal College, Aberdeen, Scotland, following his appointment as Regius Professor of Civil and Natural History in 1841. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henry Gustave Hiller was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, England, in 1864. He worked in Liverpool as a stained glass artist, but was also a keen microscopist and an amateur entomologist and arachnologist, with a particular interest in the life histories of spiders. He was an active member of Liverpool's natural history societies in his leisure time where he combined his passion for natural history with his artistic talent. His arachnology and entomological illustrations of Argyroneta aquatica, Chironomidae and Culicidae are part of the zoology collections of National Museums Liverpool's World Museum. In retirement, he lived at Rhosneigr, Anglesey, Wales, where he studied and illustrated the reproductive structures of marine algae. The watercolour sketches of the British marine algae he prepared are preserved in the collections of National Museums Liverpool's World Museum herbarium (LIV) along with the dried specimens of seaweeds that he collected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Claudius Loudon (1782–1843) was a Scottish landscape gardener and author who wrote extensively on topics such as agriculture, arboriculture, architecture, botany, and horticulture. He founded and edited The Gardener's Magazine and The Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, and Meteorology. While Loudon himself claimed to have been born in 1782, his wife, Jane Loudon, stated that he was born in 1783. However, the Barony, Lanarkshire, parochial register confirms that he was indeed born in 1782. Loudon added the middle name "Claudius" in memory of his deceased brother. [Extracted from the article]

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807–1894), celebrated in Britain and the United States for his models and illustrations of extinct animals, also had an extensive lecturing career. This paper discusses the reports of Hawkins's lectures in Britain, delivered between the 1850s and the early 1880s. Unabbreviated transcriptions of his lectures are rare, but newspaper reports are numerous. Hawkins spoke on comparative anatomy, geology, palaeontology and art, his most prominent themes being the origin of dragon myths and the impossibility of human evolution. Above all, he was known for his ability to sketch natural forms rapidly and accurately as he spoke. Hawkins saw significant success in metropolitan centres, but he also built rewarding relationships with provincial towns. This allowed for substantial engagement with civic scientific communities, whose fossil specimens were used by Hawkins and whose local science initiatives were promoted in press accounts of his lectures. Hawkins's fervent anti-evolutionism aroused attention, although his alternative explanation of life's development, "the unity of plan", led to some confusion, and he became embittered by the spread of evolutionary naturalism. Hawkins's career faded in the 1880s, but memories of his lecturing style lingered with audiences at the century's close. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When transporting specimens, both living and preserved, naturalists often took great care when deciding how best to ship them. One of the most important shipping methods was in wooden barrels. In the eighteenth century, many naturalists, including Joseph Banks, John Ellis, and René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, advocated the use of, or used, barrels to transport specimens when long voyages often caused specimens to become damaged or destroyed. This paper will investigate the use of wooden barrels by naturalists and detail how such a ubiquitous object proved to be exceptionally important in the history of natural history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An autograph manuscript written after late October 1747 by Mark Catesby, now in the collections of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA, reveals that he was the author of a summary of the final (eleventh) part of his own book, The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama islands (1729–1747). The summary was read to the Royal Society by Cromwell Mortimer in February 1748 and was then published under Mortimer's name in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Mortimer only lightly edited Catesby's manuscript and added an encomium. In his summary, Catesby took the opportunity, several months after the publication of the final part ("Appendix") of his two-volume book, to enlarge on a few details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the contribution of Johann Friedrich Naumann (1780–1857) to knowledge of the biology of Pinguinus impennis (great auk; "der fluglose Alk/ the flightless auk"), written for his natural history of German birds, Naturgeschichte der Vögel Deutschlands (1820–1844) and published in the twelfth and final volume in 1844, the year in which the great auk is generally accepted to have become extinct. Naumann, a farmer in a rural area of central Germany, never saw a live great auk, yet by careful examination of the literature, correspondence and conversations with other ornithologists, together with the examination of at least nine skins and three eggs, he produced an extraordinarily accurate and perceptive account of the bird. In the winter of 1830–1831, Naumann obtained his own great auk specimen – a bird in summer plumage – through Johann Heinrich Frank, one of several natural history dealers responsible for importing great auk specimens from Iceland to Denmark and Germany in the 1830s. Naumann noted several differences between the great auk and the smaller but morphologically similar Alca torda (razorbill), and suggested that the two species represented separate genera. Despite the plethora of publications relating to the great auk following its extinction, it is remarkable that Naumann's exceptional account should have been almost entirely overlooked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agnes Block (1629–1704) was a Dutch Mennonite naturalist, collector and patron, as well as an artist herself. In a family portrait by Jan Weenix (1642–1719) depicting Block at her renowned garden estate De Vijverhof near Wageningen, it is the fruiting pineapple, Ananas comosus, believed to be the first to be successfully cultivated in the Dutch Republic, which usually receives the most attention. However, while best known for such horticultural achievements and botanical interests, little attention has been paid to her ornithological endeavours. Block is known to have kept an aviary as well as a natural history cabinet which probably included specimens of birds. She also commissioned at least 18 artists to work for her, and had her exotic birds documented on paper just as she did her plants. In Weenix's painting, it is a drawing of a bird she proudly displays. What bird is it, and why does it matter? This paper offers an identification of the bird depicted – Cyanerpes cyaneus (red-legged honeycreeper) found only in Neotropical America – and considers what it can tell us about Block's unrecognized place in early modern European ornithology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benedykt Tadeusz Dybowski (1833–1930) was a Polish naturalist who, in 1864, was sent into exile in Siberia after the Polish uprising of 1863–1864. In 1865, he began his environmental research near Chita and then in Darasun. In 1868–1872, with his exiled associate Wiktor Ignacy Godlewski (1831–1900), he conducted the first limnological studies of Lake Baikal. In their work, they used an instruments, tools and traps constructed by themselves. They described the lake's properties and many of the endemic species like amphipods that lived in the lake. They also discovered many species of molluscs and fishes new to science. Dybowski also studied the differences in the malacofauna of the Caspian Sea and Lake Baikal, the ichthyofauna of the River Amur, the Ussuri and Lake Baikal, and the origin of individual species. The research in Siberia also included birds, that were collected in an innovative way. It was characteristic of Dybowski to create a series of individuals from a particular species. Based on the collected materials, he pointed out the differences or similarities in populations of species from geographically distant regions. The bird specimens thus contributed not only to knowledge of the fauna of Siberia but also to ecological and zoogeographical studies. The wide range of research and scientific discoveries of Dybowski and Godlewski became the basis for shortening their prison sentences and made it possible to return to their homeland. The collections of these naturalists – comprising thousands of specimens of sponges, crustaceans, spiders, molluscs, fishes, reptiles, birds and mammals – are still used today. The purpose of the paper is to disseminate knowledge about these naturalists, who remain well known in Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Germany, and their scientific legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: Cinclus cinclus; De avium praecipuarum; Erithacus rubecula; Morpeth; Northumberland; Phoenicurus phoenicurus EN Cinclus cinclus De avium praecipuarum Erithacus rubecula Morpeth Northumberland Phoenicurus phoenicurus 207 210 4 06/07/23 20230401 NES 230401 The process of identifying different avian species was undertaken by the physician and cleric William Turner ( I c i .1508-1568), later distinguished for his pioneering books on medicinal plants, while exiled on the European continent in the 1540s. Turner on birds: a short and succinct history of the principal birds noticed by Pliny and Aristotle. Turner's entry (1544) on the dipper ( I Cinclus cinclus i ) read ([4]: 23):[1] Besides the two kinds thus described by Aristotle and Pliny, I know of a bird, of which, if it should not be properly ascribed to the Kingfisher tribe, I really cannot say under what head it ought to go. [Extracted from the article]

A copy of the first volume of Mark Catesby's Natural history of Carolina which came to light in the 1980s, now in the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Washington, DC, has unique significance as an abandoned and previously unknown issue, a variant formatted quite differently from the standard copies of Catesby's book. Numerous physical features, including calligraphic trials in pen and ink, copied outlines of parts of the etched images in graphite, pencil identifications and annotations, and evidence of burning consistent with other items in the Bartram collections, allow the identification of this copy of the Natural History with the one that Catesby mentions in his letters as having been given to his friend the Philadelphia botanist and collector, John Bartram. From these features it would appear that the copy was used by John's son, William, as a copybook for teaching himself ornithological drawing and as a reference book for his own scientific study. The sensitive and transparent hand-colouring of the plates which allows the etched lines to remain legible strongly suggests that the copy was hand-coloured by Catesby himself. The presence of brush trials and paint daubs further suggests the possibility of the volume having been used as an exemplar or a set of pattern plates for Catesby's colourers, while the possibility that William Bartram used it for matching colours while making his own natural history drawings must also be kept open. The authors aim to draw attention to several different explanations for the unusual features of this volume, while acknowledging that many questions remain unanswered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the later decades of the nineteenth century, some Italian explorers carried out expeditions to the Indonesian archipelago and New Guinea, with the aims of concluding diplomatic agreements, strengthening commercial networks and obtaining territorial concessions. During these expeditions, collecting animal specimens and artefacts, later deposited in several museums, was fairly common, increasing the scientific renown of post-unitarian Italy. Giovanni Emilio Cerruti (fl. 1860–1875) was a traveller, little known today, who visited those then remote lands. He was a merchant and a strong supporter of colonial policies. Through the mediation of government officials, he managed to obtain a commission from the Italian government to identify one or more places close to New Guinea where a penal colony could be established. Although the trip was commissioned exclusively for diplomatic purposes, Cerruti collected some interesting ornithological specimens, which were later donated to Italian natural history museums. We reconstruct Emilio Cerruti's journey, using his letters to illuminate the most interesting details of its natural history. Fifty of Cerruti's specimens, extant in the collections of the Museo di Scienze Naturali di Torino and Museo Calderini di Varallo Sesia, are recorded in an annotated catalogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1555, Leonhard Thurneysser zum Thurn (1531–1596), a young apothecary, alchemist, astrologer and healer from Basle in Switzerland, travelled to Portugal and stayed in Lisbon with Damião de Góis (1502–1574), the Portuguese humanist and diplomat. The principal purpose of Thurneysser's visit was the study of natural history and the observations and information that he collected then and during a second trip about 1562. These observations were recorded in a manuscript that remained unnoticed until the twenty first century. Thurneysser's manuscript, now held in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, contains descriptions of animals, plants and of two economically important dyestuffs, kermes and dragon's blood, the first obtained from the scale insect, Kermes vermilio (associated with Quercus coccifera, kermes oak), and the second from Dracaena draco (dragon tree). Thurneysser's contributions to knowledge of these two products and their associated plants were innovative and reveal an observer endowed with exceptional insight. His main sources of information, in addition to his personal fieldwork, observation of goods sold in Lisbon markets and conversations with vendors and merchants, were the classics of Antiquity and contemporary works including two of Damião de Góis's works, Hispania (1542) and Urbis Olisiponis descriptio (1554). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mid-eighteenth-century copy of a manuscript containing taxonomic accounts of a collection of fishes from Ambon and Suriname, originally prepared by the Swedish naturalist Peter Artedi (1705−1735) for use in the third volume of Albertus Seba's Locupletissimus rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio (1759), is described. Unknown to historians of natural history prior to 1941 when it was briefly introduced by zoologist Daniel Merriman (1908–1984) of Yale University, the origin and circuitous history of ownership of the manuscript is traced from Amsterdam to its recently discovered presence in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. The manuscript is important because it holds the only known evidence as to what part of the published accounts in the Thesaurus belongs to Artedi and what part was altered by subsequent editors. The manuscript contains a large number of errors – often misspellings and grammatical inconsistencies, which are probably the result of careless reading on the part of the copyist – but a close examination shows that the factual contents of Artedi's text were not changed. Although embellished in various ways, what we see today in Seba's account is a faithful interpretation of Artedi's contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of fauna in South Sudan during the first two-thirds of the twentieth century relied on a web of collection stations, a vast field network of observers, the assembly of many disparate facts, and the collection of animals to be sold for display and study in zoos and museums in Sudan and other countries. This work of zoological study and the trade in animals mobilized great numbers of South Sudanese, relying on their labour, observations, and knowledge about how to capture and care for animals. These participants have rarely been credited for their own contributions to knowledge about the natural history of their country. This paper examines the work of Solomon Col Adol who was based at the zoological collection station in Bor, a small town on the White Nile, where he was a Game Ranger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Bodleian Plate", an early eighteenth-century engraved copper printing plate, bears a series of images of buildings erected in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, as well as depictions of plants and animals. Four of these natural history images portray fragments of marine algae here identified as Sargassum spp. (Sargassaceae) and Ascophyllum nodosum (Fucaceae). A fifth botanical subject is identified as fragments of the inflorescences of Tilia sp. (Malvaceae). Two of the Sargassum fragments show commensal marine organisms, a bryozoan (probably Jellyella tuberculata (Membraniporidae)) and goose barnacles (Lepas sp. (Crustacea; Cirripedia)). A seahorse (Hippocampus sp. (Syngnathidae)), a ground beetle and a spider are also depicted. These new identifications contradict the hypothesis that the illustrations portray agricultural or other commodities of financial importance in Virginia during the early 1700s. A putative link with William Byrd II of Westover, Virginia, is not supported by the natural history images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archival and other historical evidence, including digitized issues of The Radio Times and files from the British Broadcasting Corporation's Written Archives Centre, reveal the pivotal importance that natural history played in the BBC's programming during the 1920s and 1930s. Beyond merely replicating the forms and styles that could be found across other forms of mass media, natural history broadcasts demonstrated to the British public what radio technology was capable of. At the same time, radio was not isolated from the media landscape of the period, and natural history broadcasts made full use of visual accompaniments such as magazines and pamphlets. Examining a variety of different broadcasts, this paper focuses on how expertise was fashioned behind the microphone, on "stunts" such as broadcasting the live sounds of animals, on audience participation, and on broadcasts aimed at young audiences. Broadcast lessons for schools, which are generally overlooked by historians, offer a rich opportunity for examining how natural history radio developed over the years. Children's hour characters like the "Zoo Man" modelled an intimate, direct way of engaging with young audiences. Moreover, experiments in field ecology involving listeners in the collection of data showed that radio could act as a two-way medium. These broadcasts helped to shape the modern phenomenon of the nature documentary that would take off after 1945. While the origins of this phenomenon are usually traced either to the establishment of the BBC's Natural History Unit in 1957, or in some cases to early nature films, there is a strong case for considering the BBC's interwar broadcasts (1922–1939) as part of this trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

432 Gochberg, R. I Useful objects: museums, science, and literature in nineteenth-century America i 428 Harris, S. J. I Roots to seeds. 430 Beinart, W. & Dubow, S. I The scientific imagination in South Africa: 1700 to the present i 225 I Contributions to Herpetology i 430 Driver, F., Nesbitt, M. & Cornish, C. (editors). [Extracted from the article]

Perhaps Mosley originally intended to write this book himself, since all but one of those plates are inserted within his portion of the letterpress, which may have been printed and proofed before Brown's text was set up, since the "Addenda and Corrigenda" (pp. Edwin Brown, Burton-on-Trent, Sir Oswald Mosley, 2nd Bt, John Van Voorst However, publication is confirmed to have taken place between 15 and 31 December 1863 ([2]), a British Library copy having been accessioned on 30 December.[3] Brown was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society on 2 December 1863 ([10]), but his post-nominal "F. G. S." does not appear on the title-page. Keywords: Edwin Brown; Burton-on-Trent; Sir Oswald Mosley, 2nd Bt; John Van Voorst EN Edwin Brown Burton-on-Trent Sir Oswald Mosley, 2nd Bt John Van Voorst 408 411 4 11/23/22 20221001 NES 221001 John Van Voorst (1804-1898) published his renowned series of natural-history monographs usually either as entire volumes or as series of parts (fascicules) that on completion were consolidated into one or more volumes. [Extracted from the article]

A forgotten Renaissance herbarium dated to 1595 is described. It is connected to herbaria created by the naturalist Hieronymus Harder (1523–1607) of Ulm. This hortus siccus was recently found in the Muzeum Broumovska, Broumov (Braunau), Czech Republic, to which it came from the collections of the local Benedictine monastery. It is the oldest hortus siccus known in collections in the Czech Republic. It contains 358 specimens as well as annotations and drawings. Its creator was Johann Brehe from Überlingen, a sixteenth-century barber-surgeon. The paper analyzes the representation of species, the purpose of the annotations, and also the meaning of the illustrations which supplement some of the specimens. It also investigates connections between Brehe's work and Harder's activities linked to herbaria. Brehe's herbarium is compared with two similar collections; Johann Jakob Han's (?1565–1616) herbarium of 1594 and Harder's herbarium, also of 1594, and both kept in Überlingen. It shares some features with both, while differing in other respects. In particular, we compare representations of plants from the New World and the inclusion of mosses and lichens. Finally, we address the question of how a herbarium created in a town on the shores of Lake Constance, in present-day Germany, found its way to an eastern Bohemian monastery, where its presence was first documented as recently as 1937 by Pater Vincenz Maiwald OSB (1862–1951). We also highlight the importance of Czech monasteries as sources of important, unpublished documents dealing with both the natural and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French voyage of exploration to New Holland (Australia) between 1800 and 1804, commanded by Nicolas Baudin (1754–1803), made substantial natural history collections, notably capturing dwarf emus from the two distinct populations on King Island (Île King) in Bass Strait (December 1802) and Kangaroo Island (Île Decrès) (January 1803). Two of these emus survived their voyage to France, were housed briefly at the Empress Josephine's menagerie at Malmaison, and then the zoological park of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Both died in 1822. With the wild populations on both islands exterminated soon after Baudin's visit, two watercolours, one by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846) and one by Léon de Wailly (fl. 1801–1824), have been central to the history of the dwarf emus. However, an important contemporary engraving by Nicolas Huet (1770–1830) depicting the two surviving emus in captivity has been overlooked. This essay explores the history of the images of the now extinct dwarf emus, as well as the production and significance of Huet's engraving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the publication of a comprehensive English translation of Ikio Sato's Monograph of Japanese tailed amphibians, which was originally published in Japanese two years before the author's death in the Hiroshima bombing in 1945. The translation provides access to Sato's first-hand accounts of salamander taxonomy, ecology, reproductive biology, geographic distribution, and natural history. The book also includes a new foreword and introduction that contextualize Sato's work and provide up-to-date information on East Asian salamanders. The article highlights the book's value for amphibian biologists and its broader geographic and taxonomic scope. [Extracted from the article]

This book review discusses "Making entomologists: how periodicals shaped scientific communities in nineteenth-century Britain" by Matthew Wale. The author examines the practices and development of natural history communities in Britain during the 19th century, focusing on entomological journals and their subscribers, readers, editors, and commentators. The review highlights the use of the terms "amateur" and "professional" in the context of entomology, noting that the division between the two was not as significant at the time. The review also mentions the role of practitioners, including collectors, working-men naturalists, gentlemen of science, scientists, and recreational naturalists. The book explores the communication and publication practices of entomologists, including the description of new species in journals. It also touches on the fluidity of categorizing individuals as amateurs or professionals and the potential for extending the analysis into the 20th century. The review praises the book for its thought-provoking and entertaining account of the 19th-century entomological community and recommends it for libraries interested in the history of natural history. [Extracted from the article]

"Botanical Entanglements: Women, Natural Science, and the Arts in Eighteenth-Century England" by Anna K. Sagal explores the role of women in natural science during this time period. The book argues that domesticity was not restrictive for women interested in natural science, but rather provided them with authority to contribute to knowledge and reshape their relationship with scientific objects. The book is organized into three themes: the naturalist as teacher, artist, and poet, and examines the practical standards and interventions of women in these roles. The book highlights the connections between women's domestic production and natural history, particularly in the chapters on botanical artists. Overall, "Botanical Entanglements" is a well-researched and valuable resource for those studying women in science. [Extracted from the article]

In the early nineteenth century, the pre-eminence of lecturers at the University of Edinburgh medical school faced challenge from successful extra-mural teachers, like the anatomist John Barclay (1758–1826). Wishing to maintain the University's reputation, in 1816 Edinburgh Town Council proposed the institution of a new chair in Comparative Anatomy and Veterinary Surgery: a proposal which the University chose to reject. These events provided the subject to John Kay's (1742–1826) satirical print The craft in danger (1817), which accused Alexander Monro tertius (1773–1859), Thomas Charles Hope (1766–1844) and Robert Jameson (1774–1854) of attempting to hold back the progress of knowledge in the interest of personal profit. Kay staged a mock battle in which Barclay charges the entrance of the University mounted upon an elephant skeleton; Hope attempts to topple him using an insecurely anchored rope; Monro tries to fend him off with a bone, while Jameson, seated astride a walrus, brandishes a narwhal tusk. The animal specimens pictured represent identifiable objects, then in the museum collections of Barclay and Jameson – the depiction of which reflects the colonial networks of natural history collecting that brought them to Edinburgh. Kay's satirical print thus maintains a valuable record of the culture of natural history in the city, being facilitated to do so by periodicals like The Scots Magazine, and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany through which new knowledge was actively transmitted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the mid nineteenth into the mid twentieth centuries a significant number of British people spent their careers in India administering what was regarded as the most important territory of the British Empire. During this period, an extensive body of literature on Indian wildlife was published both in Britain and in India itself. This paper surveys the authors and the publishers of this literature and suggests that the material was shaped by the differing interests of readers in the two countries. The emergence of a community of enthusiastic naturalists among the British expatriates is contrasted with the promotion of India as an exotic location for readers in Britain itself. The role of hunting narratives in providing information for the study of natural history is explored, along with growing concerns about the need for conservation. The complexity of the relationships between expatriate British naturalists and the local populations is used to throw light on how the situation changed in the decades leading to independence. In conclusion, the publications of the Bombay Natural History Society are used to illustrate these developments [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1834 Commodore John Downes (1784–1854) donated two live tortoises, a male and a female, to the Boston Society of Natural History that he had collected on Charles Island (Isla Floreana), Galápagos, during the circumnavigation of the USS Potomac. Both died shortly after arriving in Boston and were dissected. Their remains currently reside in the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. By the beginning of the twentieth century it had become clear that each island had its own unique tortoise species, but most of the species' names were based on specimens of unknown provenance. The two Potomac tortoises were almost the only specimens whose island of origin was actually known. The male was considered to be the holotype of the Floreana tortoise, with the suggested name Testudo galapagoensis (the currently accepted name is Chelonoidis niger). Genetic analysis, however, has revealed that the male actually came from Duncan Island (Isla Pinzón). Although the Potomac apparently remained at Floreana during its stay in the Galápagos, records of the trip indicate that a boat was sent to collect tortoises from Indefatigable Island (Isla Santa Cruz) and, possibly, Pinzón. The disposition of the female was reported as unknown, but there is a specimen in the Harvard collection that documentation identifies as the female. However, the specimen is a male, and is not the tortoise that Commodore Downes had donated to the Boston Society of Natural History. Although genetic analysis determined that this tortoise did indeed come from Floreana, its provenance is unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexander Charles Stephen (1893–1966) was a Scottish zoologist who, during a long career at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, had interests in many fields: benthic marine ecology, systematics of Sipunculida and Echiura, natural history of cephalopods, cetaceans, fishes, turtles, birds and amphipods. He helped set up the Fair Isle Bird Observatory, eventually becoming one of its trustees, and served as President of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. He had an amateur interest in astronomy. He co-edited the Scottish Naturalist and, in 1935, became Keeper of Natural History at the Royal Scottish Museum, yet little has been published about him and his contributions except for brief obituaries. His biography is here expanded, his scientific contributions assessed and a bibliography of his publications presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bonnacon, an animal described in the medieval bestiary, when pursued by hunters, squirts a cloud of boiling dung at them, wounding both dogs and men. Another bestiary animal, the onager, also used its dung in a deceptive way to avoid pursuit. These defensive tactics can be related to similar tactics reported in medieval sources for two birds, the grey heron (Ardea cinerea) and the little bustard (Tetrax tetrax) when attacked by hunters' falcons. Was the fabled defensive behaviour of the bonnacon transferred to a completely different species when passing through the medium of experti, huntsmen, foresters and falconers, where the actions of animals were observed but not correctly interpreted as to cause and effect? This paper traces the bonnacon in late medieval history and studies the apparent portability of its defensive behaviour among different species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of scientific knowledge in the natural sciences in the nineteenth century to a large extent depended on networking and communication between naturalists. Our case-study illustrates such forms of scientific communication using a social network analysis (SNA) approach for studying the relationships of the Reverend Richard Thomas Lowe, an English naturalist who lived in Madeira from 1826 to 1852, and continued to visit until his death in a shipwreck in 1874. During his lifetime, he established a network of contacts mainly in the United Kingdom and in Madeira, which enabled him to develop and publish his pioneering work on the local flora, including A manual flora of Madeira and the adjacent islands of Porto Santo and the Desertas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I John Abbot and William Swainson: art, science, and commerce in nineteenth-century natural history illustration i 199 Orr, C. C. I Mrs Delany: a life i 417 Parry, J. and Greenwood, J. I Emma Turner: a life looking at birds i 200 Pässler, U. (editor). Griechisch-deutsch i 188 Andrei, M. A. I Nature's mirror: how taxidermists shaped America's natural history museums and saved endangered species i 94 Ayer, J. I et al i . [Extracted from the article]

Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, British East India Company officials, based in the Indian subcontinent, amassed huge collections of natural history images. One of the largest collections, consisting of many thousands of individual paintings commissioned mainly from Indian artists between 1790 and 1823, was formed by Major-General Thomas Hardwicke. Some of these later formed the basis of John Edward Gray's Illustrations of Indian zoology, but the vast majority remained unpublished. This paper focuses on one of these images, a detailed watercolour of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens), painted to accompany a scientific description of the species which Hardwicke sent from Bengal to the Linnean Society of London in 1820. The painting pre-dates Frédéric Cuvier's description of the animal by four years, and is almost certainly the first image of the red panda to have arrived in Europe. This paper sets the painting in the context of Hardwicke's career as a naturalist and private patron of Indian artists, highlighting both his role as an early investigator of Indian zoology and the importance of "Company Art" in the accrual of scientific information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the zoological specimens collected by Giuseppe Raddi during the Franco-Tuscan expedition to Egypt (1828–1829) held in the collection of the Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Università di Pisa. Twenty-two specimens exist, including four amphibians preserved in alcohol, and 18 taxidermy specimens (16 birds, 2 mammals). Among these is a specimen of the taxonomically controversial Canis lupaster (African wolf) and one of the first specimen of Oenanthe xanthoprymna (Kurdish wheatear) held in European museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michele Navakas's book, "Coral Lives: Literature, Labor, and the Making of America," explores the significance of corals in American literature and political history. Navakas examines how corals were not only admired for their beauty and building skills but also played a role in racial history, particularly for people of color. The book delves into the cultural and material value of coral, such as coral beads and artifacts, as signifiers of race, gender, and servitude. Additionally, Navakas explores how coral metaphors were used to represent hard work and collaborative labor in building the American nation. The book sheds light on the marginalization of women and the similarities between white and Black American communities in their calls for collective work. Overall, "Coral Lives" offers new insights into the ways coral metaphors shaped American society and labor history. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses Hugh Miller's book, "The old red sandstone," which was first published in 1841. The book is considered a classic in the field of Victorian science writing and is being reevaluated as a form of literature. The article praises Miller's work and highlights the two-volume edition of "The old red sandstone," which includes a critical analysis of the book's genesis, publication, and reception, as well as a facsimile reprint of the original edition. The article recommends reading specific chapters of the book for those interested in Victorian literature, geology, or natural history. [Extracted from the article]

The Shanghai Museum, which was established by the primarily British and American expatriate-led North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1874 and continued to operate until 1952, had a major influence on the popularization of natural history knowledge in China. It contributed to training the first generation of Chinese taxidermists, many descendants of whom continue even today to hold positions in academic institutions related to natural history in the country. Moreover, the Museum's habitat dioramas, in particular, played a significant role in raising public awareness about environmental issues among local and foreign residents of Shanghai. This paper traces the salient aspects of the Museum's history, focusing on the key individuals involved in its development and the contributions that it made to the production, dissemination and popularization of natural history knowledge and techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the mid-eighteenth century, the need to protect zoological and botanical collections from attacks of insects became pressing for the community of naturalists. Living ornamental and economically important plants and their seeds also needed to be protected from insects when transported by sail. John Ellis (c.1710–1776), one of the pioneers of plant transportation, was instrumental in disseminating the knowledge of insecticidal properties of corrosive sublimate (mercury(II) chloride or mercuric chloride, HgCl2). Although the use of corrosive sublimate for the protection of zoological collections had been proposed by John Woodward (1665–1728) in 1696, it was probably not widely used by naturalists until Ellis had published his Directions for bringing over seeds in 1770, recommending this substance for the protection of living plants, seeds and specimens during transport. Ellis possibly learned about the insecticidal properties of corrosive sublimate from the emerging use of this compound to control bedbugs (Cimex lectularius). The history of bedbug management in eighteenth-century London, and some early exterminators, including John Southall (fl.1726–1738), George Bridges (c.1695–1768) and Thomas Tiffin (fl.1760–1783), are discussed. Only a few days after the Directions was printed, Ellis asked Thomas Davies (c.1737–1812) to publish a method of preparing bird skins that involved corrosive sublimate and was probably involved in drafting it. Following these two publications, corrosive sublimate was frequently used for the preservation of natural history collections including bird skins and herbarium specimens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the naturalist Charles Bonnet (1720–1793), an "art of observing" was sorely needed to stimulate further progress in natural history. Although he never published on the subject, Bonnet proposed a prize competition on the "art of observing" to Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (the Dutch Society of Sciences) in Haarlem of which he was a member. Jean Senebier, a pastor and librarian who later became a skilled scientific observer in his own right, took part in this competition (1768) with an essay on the art of observing that influenced, embodied and codified the advanced scientific observational practices of the Genevan naturalists in the eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American zoologists and herpetologists during the past 50 years have successfully deciphered the mating calls of frogs and toads with ever increasing precision and sophistication. However, the vocalizations most commonly termed "rain calls", which typically occur beyond both normal breeding seasons and breeding sites, have remained a persistent puzzle. This article traces the gradual disappearance of rain calls, along with a corresponding decline in any mention of emotional states, from herpetological studies of anuran vocalizations in the United States from the middle of the twentieth century to the present and examines the historical roots of this disappearance. This evaporation of rain calls is indicative of a much larger change in the scientific climate of the times, involving the transition from traditional natural history to the neo-Darwinian, adaptationist paradigm of contemporary biology. Rain calls thus increasingly became anomalous, thereby eliminating a possibly fruitful line of inquiry in the comparative study of human–animal communication, in this case with evolution's earliest vocalizers. The contours and benefits of a more encompassing paradigm, envisioned by some leading early twentieth-century zoologists, are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book review discusses the joint study of Robert Brown and Mungo Park, two Scots of the late Enlightenment who were interested in exploration and botany. Both men studied botany at the University of Edinburgh and had connections to James Dickson, an expert in cryptograms. While Brown is known for his work in Australia as a botanist, Park's importance lies in his geographical exploration, particularly his discovery of the direction of the River Niger. The review highlights the thorough treatment of Brown's work in Australia and his institutional role in London in the book. The author also mentions other Edinburgh-educated Scots who made significant contributions to botanical and geographical inquiry during the late Enlightenment. [Extracted from the article]

Nicholas Menzies's book, "Ordering the myriad things: from traditional knowledge to scientific botany in China," provides a comprehensive history of modern botany in China. The book explores how traditional Chinese plant knowledge interacted with Western botany, resulting in a significant shift in understanding. Menzies emphasizes the need to contextualize this history within the intellectual dynamics of the time and challenges the linear teleological narrative often associated with scientific progress. The book covers various topics, including the definition of plants and botany, the role of expeditions, the challenge of taxonomy, and the contributions of Chinese botanical illustrators. While some topics may receive more attention than others, the book offers a valuable contribution to the study of botany in China and raises thought-provoking questions for historians of natural history. [Extracted from the article]

A brief note by Gosse noting that I Dendrobium breviflorum i , described the previous month as "long lost" by R. A. [14], had bloomed every summer for twelve years in his garden "under the care of Mr. Chudley, my excellent gardener". Keywords: Bromeliaceae; Calanthe hybrids; James Chudley; Orchidaceae; St Marychurch; Torquay, Devon EN Bromeliaceae Calanthe hybrids James Chudley Orchidaceae St Marychurch Torquay, Devon 207 210 3 07/05/22 20220401 NES 220401 [6] published a very extensive bibliography of the English naturalist Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1880) (see review by [11]). James Chudley, Orchidaceae, St Marychurch, Bromeliaceae, Calanthe hybrids, Torquay, Devon. [Extracted from the article]

Mycology is a relatively small and young discipline that has yet to achieve the institutional presence of similar disciplines such as botany and zoology. Because of this, mycological histories are often written by practitioners aiming to establish a narrative of professionalization that confirms mycology as a scientific discipline instead of a natural history pursuit. George Edward Massee (1845–1917) was one of the foremost mycologists of the late nineteenth century, achieving the top position in the field as Principal Assistant (Cryptogams) at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and publishing over 250 books and articles. Providing a link between the great Victorian mycologists Mordecai Cubitt Cooke (1825–1914) and the Revd Miles Joseph Berkeley (1803–1889) and the more modern school that included the likes of Elsie Maud Wakefield (1886–1972), he achieved this position without a university education. However, since his death, his achievements have been subject to multiple negative assessments and, as a result, he has become increasingly obscured in the history of British mycology. The majority of these unfavourable appraisals originated from the publications of Dr John Ramsbottom (1885–1974), a mycologist and historian who was a key member of the British Mycological Society and a founding member of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History. These articles were published across the first half of the twentieth century, and Ramsbottom's works have since become standard texts in both the biography of Massee and the history of British mycology. Here I question the validity of the substance of Ramsbottom's claims against Massee, given the circumstances under which Ramsbottom's articles were written and the relationship between Massee and the fledgling British Mycological Society, initially run by Carleton Rea (1861–1946) and of which Ramsbottom was a senior member. I examine wider reasons for such strong criticism of Massee and explore the professional differences and relationships between Massee and Ramsbottom, placing the analysis firmly in the context of changing scientific practice occurring in the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Beitang Collection, heritage of a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Jesuit library in Beijing now housed in the National Library of China, contains an incomplete copy of Pietro Andrea Mattioli's commentary on an Italian edition of Pedanius Dioscorides's De materia medica (1568) bearing extensive annotations in Chinese. Two hundred odd plant and animal names in a northern Chinese patois were recorded alongside illustrations, creating a rare record of seventeenth-century Chinese folk knowledge and of Sino-Western interaction in the field of natural history. Based on close analysis of the annotations and other contemporary sources, we argue that the annotations were probably made in Beijing by one or more Chinese low-level literati and Jesuit missionaries during the first two decades of the seventeenth century. We also conclude that the annotations were most likely directed at a Chinese audience, to whom the Jesuits intended to illustrate European craftsmanship using Mattioli's images. This document probably constitutes the earliest known evidence of Jesuits' attempts at transmitting the art of European natural history drawings to China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]