Ray of Light
Last Wednesday, 29 November, was the 390th anniversary of the birth of John Wray, exactly one week later than the birthday of his student, friend, collaborator, and benefactor Francis Willughby …
Pigeon Coup
When I was a young teenager I spent my Saturday mornings during the school year at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). I was there to attend the weekly meeting of …
German Ornithological Treasures
Johann Friederich Naumann (1780-1857) is probably the best known of the early German ornithologists, and was one of the founders of scientific ornithology in continental Europe. Naumann collected birds and …
Uncle Bill’s Eggs
Yesterday (12 November) marked the anniversary of the discovery, in 1912, of the remains of Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole. The story of that …
Bird Names Then and Now
Where did the English names for birds come from (and where are they going)? I discussed a few weeks ago some of the onomatopoeic bird names (cuckoo, for example), but …
What Is a Species?
Guest Post Karl Schulze-Hagen, Mönchengladbach, Germany The very first paper published in the Journal für Ornithologie, in 1853, was written by the Dresden zoologist Ludwig Reichenbach (1793-1879). That paper {On …
The First Penguins
While preparing a talk [1] last week about the early history of ornithology in North America, I wondered who might have been the first to describe and identify a bird …
Discovering Francis Willughby
Francis Willughby (1635-1672), an English ornithologist, is far from well-known. He died at just 36, so his groundbreaking books on birds, fish and insects were all completed and subsequently published …
Small Groups of Men
Just a week ago the Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft (DO-G; German Ornithologists’ Society) celebrated its 150th anniversary at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Halle (Saale) near Leipzig, Germany. The DO-G was …
The Sparrow Question
When I visited England at the beginning of last month, the English House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) was notable for its scarcity. I spent a week in London, Sheffield and the …