Collins New Naturalist Library. David Cabot

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Robert Warren (1829–1915) comprised an ornithological triumvirate of probably the most gifted bird watchers ever seen in Ireland. In 1890 the three had planned together with More to write a much needed sequel to Thompson’s great work on birds published nearly 50 years earlier. New data had been gathered, especially on species in the process of becoming extinct or undergoing distributional changes, and it was clearly time for a new work. But Barrington was over-committed to his migration studies and unable to assist, More was suffering from ill health – he died in 1895 – and Robert Warren, in the words of Praeger ‘did not feel himself sufficiently equipped for so wide an undertaking’ so the task fell upon Ussher who became the ‘real’ author of The Birds of Ireland (1900).⁹¹

      Ussher, born and based in Co. Waterford, was, according to Praeger, facile princeps among Irish ornithologists. He was a quiet, courteous man with blue eyes and a red bushy beard. His almost over-modest bearing conveyed little impression of the determination, fearlessness, and contempt for discomfort he harboured inside. His expeditions, whether ornithological or speleological, necessitated descending the most dangerous cliffs and working underground for weeks amid rocks and mud. There were indeed very few cliffs, hills, loughs, woods and other places in Ireland that did not receive the imprint of Ussher’s foot. He was an oologist and for many years relentlessly persecuted the eyries of his favourite species, the peregrine falcon. He gave up egg collecting later in life. Warren was less robust. Born in Cork, he later settled on the Moy Estuary, Co. Mayo, an excellent location for birds. A regular correspondent with Thompson, he supplied the latter with plenty of information to be used in the Natural History of Ireland.

      The Birds of Ireland proved worthy of its predecessor of 50 years earlier. It is probably the finest avifauna of its time from any European country with accurate and detailed information on the status and distribution of all species recorded in Ireland. Much of the data was gathered in the field by Ussher, to which were added Barrington’s results from the migration studies, and Warren’s steady contributions. Like Thompson, Ussher also drew upon an extensive network of gifted bird watchers scattered throughout the country who provided, by correspondence, detail of local occurrences. The quality of the information in The Birds of Ireland, as in Thompson’s three volumes on birds, is irreproachable, making it an invaluable historical text, regularly quoted by ornithologists today.

      The Victorian natural history clubs

      One particularly important development of the Victorian period was the field club which has been described by Allen as a masterpiece of social mechanism.⁶² These clubs were founded in most large British towns and cities during the 1820s and 1830s. The meeting rooms were the focus of intellectual debates on natural history with much exchanging and sharing of views. Special displays, or ‘cabinets of curiosity’, which were essentially miniature museums, flourished in association with these clubs. Field excursions were all the rage. The day was spent, often after a group breakfast – improved by a few stiffening drinks for the more hardy members – collecting specimens of flowers and rocks and perhaps some insects. Women were very much present on the outings as shown by group photographs. A grand picnic punctuated midday, adding further to the fortification of the participants, followed by more hunting of ‘specimens’ before the group dispersed to change gear and boots – the excursionists wore what would be seen today as the most inappropriate attire for active field work. They later reassembled for dinner and afterwards continued to be enlightened on the subject of natural history by ‘addresses’ and speeches from the luminaries. Most clubs were patronised by a single social class, the privileged one. But a few were more open and democratic.

      The Belfast Natural History Society came into existence in 1821 – one of the first societies within Ireland and Britain. It was formed for the ‘cultivation of Zoology, Botany and Mineralogy in all their branches, more especially the investigation of the Natural History and Antiquities of Ireland’. The word ‘Philosophical’ was added in 1842 to the Society’s name which then became The Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society to allow scope for a broader interaction between science and ideas. Robert Templeton and William Thompson, two of Ireland’s most distinguished naturalists, were members of the BNHPS. So was Robert Patterson, author of several zoological text books and, following the death of his friend Thompson, editor of the fourth volume of The Natural History of Ireland. In the words of John Wilson Foster, the Society was an ‘impressive intellectual consortium’ that bridged the arts and science.⁹²

      Partly as a result of a series of very successful public lectures on geology by Joseph Beete Jukes (1811–69) and on natural history by Ralph Tate (1840–1901), organised by the Department of Science and Art in Belfast in 1862–3, demand arose for a specialist natural history society. This led to the creation of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club (BNFC) in 1863, a society much more narrowly focused on natural history than its predecessor, the BNHPS. However, both these organisations shared many common members, up to 500, most of whom were of the Protestant middle classes from the ship-owning and linen-manufacturing families of Belfast – a good number of them were women. Further south, in the less industrial parts of the country, the development of societies and clubs was slower: the Natural History Society of Dublin started in 1838 and ended c.1871; the Cuvierian Society of Cork fl. 1845–55; the Dublin Microscopical Club in 1849–1924; the Dublin Naturalists’ Field Club in 1885–present day; the Cork Naturalists’ Field Club 1892–1923, and the Limerick Naturalists’ Field Club 1892–1912.

      Eminent Victorian naturalists Samuel Alexander Stewart, Ralph Tate, William Gray and Joseph Wright at a meeting of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club in the early 1860s.

The Dublin Naturalists’ Field Club was founded by Alfred Cort Haddon (1855–1940), who started his scientific career as a marine zoologist engaged in deep water dredging expeditions off the southwest coast in 1885 and 1886. But, on taking up a Fellowship at Cambridge in 1901, it was his interest in anthropology that consumed the remainder of his professional life. Towards the end of his stay in Ireland he published several papers on the cranial measurements of west coast islanders where he was affectionately known as ‘Haddon the head hunter’. In the words of Praeger, ‘after a brief period of decline following a very successful start, the Club settled down, and with some fluctuations has reached a gratifying success’.² Initially the Club apparently felt no need to establish its own journal as there already existed other publication outlets that could be used. But the Club’s great achievement was the founding, in 1892, of the Irish Naturalist, an independent monthly journal for all aspects of Irish natural history. For 33 years the Irish Naturalist was the main outlet for Irish natural history publications. As rightly pointed out by Patrick and Peter Wyse-Jackson in their review of the journal ‘it is one of the major sources for scientific research today and provides a valuable insight into the countryside, nature, environment and attitudes of the 1890s to 1920s’.⁹³ The last issue was December 1924. Its demise was due mainly to financial mismanagement and other circumstances of the early 1920s, exacerbated by the wider economic and political uncertainties facing the country. Almost immediately after its death another publication, The Irish Naturalists’ Journal, sprung forth from Belfast in September 1925. The new Journal was born, at the insistence of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club, under the aegis of a committee, representing various natural history societies and institutions from both parts of Ireland. Today, after 73 vigorous years, The Irish Naturalists’ Journal is the main organ for Irish naturalists to reveal their discoveries and findings.

      Another institution pivotal to the development of Irish natural history was the Dublin Natural History Museum. In 1792 the Royal Dublin Society (founded in 1731 for improving ‘Husbandry, Manufactures and other useful Arts and Sciences’) bought ‘the natural history museum’ of the German Nathaniel Gottfried Lesk (1752–86), known as the Leskean collection, of minerals, shells and insects – at least 2,500 species of the latter. Later, in June 1795, William Higgins was appointed Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy and put in charge of the special cabinet, СКАЧАТЬ