{"title":"The dispersal of Vivian Vaughan Davies Hewitt’s collection of great auk (Pinguinus impennis) eggs","authors":"T. Birkhead, Dave Clugston, E. Fuller","doi":"10.3366/anh.2023.0837","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2023.0837","url":null,"abstract":"Private collectors and museums have coveted the eggs and skins of the great auk ( Pinguinus impennis) both before and after the species became extinct in 1844. Because of their monetary and scientific value, the provenance of most great auk eggs and skins is well documented. In the 1930s and 1940s one wealthy collector, Vivian Vaughan Davies Hewitt (1888–1965) amassed no fewer than thirteen great auk eggs (of a total of about 75 known) and four mounted skins (of 78 known). After he died in 1965, the skins and five of the eggs were sold through the dealer Spink & Son Ltd, but the remaining eight eggs remained unsold until 1992 when they were purchased by Dr John Alan (“Jack”) Gibson (1926–2013) of Kilbarchan, Renfrewshire, Scotland. Gibson informed several individuals that he intended to donate the eggs to the National Museum of Scotland. This did not happen, however, and the fate of these eggs has, until now, been unclear and undocumented. We present some details of how Gibson acquired and later disposed of the eight great auk eggs, and, where known, their current whereabouts.","PeriodicalId":49106,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Natural History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41738882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A variant issue of Mark Catesby’s Natural history of Carolina (volume 1, issued 1729–1732) given to John Bartram","authors":"L. K. Overstreet, H. Mcburney, R. Gaskell","doi":"10.3366/anh.2023.0836","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2023.0836","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":49106,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Natural History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46392069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"McCRACKEN, Donal P. Napoleon's garden island. Lost and old gardens of St Helena, South Atlantic Ocean","authors":"A. Macgregor","doi":"10.3366/anh.2023.0842","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2023.0842","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49106,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Natural History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45292645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"William Turner on the dipper, the robin and the redstart (1544)","authors":"Mary Addyman","doi":"10.3366/anh.2023.0838","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2023.0838","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49106,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Natural History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42106272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Luca Ghiraldi, Matteo Ruzzon, Marta Coloberti, Alessandro Di Meo
{"title":"Notes on the birds collected by Giovanni Emilio Cerruti during his journey to New Guinea (1869–1870)","authors":"Luca Ghiraldi, Matteo Ruzzon, Marta Coloberti, Alessandro Di Meo","doi":"10.3366/anh.2023.0834","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2023.0834","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":49106,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Natural History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43893626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"KENNEDY, Victor S. Shifting baselines in the Chesapeake Bay: an environmental history","authors":"Michael L. Lewis","doi":"10.3366/anh.2023.0853","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2023.0853","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49106,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Natural History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41817712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ROTHFELS, Nigel. Elephant trails: a history of animals and cultures","authors":"Helen Cowie","doi":"10.3366/anh.2023.0844","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2023.0844","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49106,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Natural History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43060557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"WITTON, Mark P. and MICHEL, Ellinor. The art and science of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs","authors":"A. M. Lucas","doi":"10.3366/anh.2023.0849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/anh.2023.0849","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49106,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Natural History","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44420257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}