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Notes and Queries, which have long been a popular feature of our newsletter, are now being added to the website. This is a service for members and friends of the Society to exchange information and see if they can help each other with their research. If you wish to ask a question or answer a query, please send it to:
Julia Bruce
5 St Anne's Road
Headington
Oxford OX3 8NN
01865 762118
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Further to my “Notes on lord Filford’s coloured figures of the Birds of the British Islands”, in vol 21 Part 1 of the Archives of natural history, February 1994, I would like to correct the statement I made that only 528 copies of the First Edition were subscribed. With a more careful recount 556 copies appears to be the more likely number as I had overlooked the fact that a number of subscribers had ordered more than one copy (e.g. Messrs Dulan 60 copies and Messrs Sotherans 13 copies). This is only noted against six names in the final list of subscribers, but is made clear in an earlier list of subscribers up to April 1888 that I have recently discovered was issued in Part VI of the work and apparently discarded, more often than not, when the more complete list appeared later.
I would also like to take this opportunity to correct a printer’s error in the article. At the bottom of page 14, Vol IV should read Vol V and Vol VIII should read Vol VII.
Howard Radclyffe
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There were transcription errors and omissions in the paper by David Evans on the Ornithologie d’Angola published in the last Newsletter 88: p12. Please note:
The date on line 14 should, read 1851.
Lines 10-11 on page 12 should read:
Part I nos. (plates) I, III, IV, IX. Part II nos. (plates). V, VI, Vii, VIII, X, II. Why this final plate (factually the second plate), should be bound in such an order remains something of a mystery. It may well be related to the constant taxonomic and nomenclature changes which have occupied bird men for over two centuries, resulting in confusion between the London based printers, Mintern Bros and the author based 1000 miles away to the south. Include Dr Richard Bowdler Sharpe, the celebrated bird-knower of the period, and it is small wonder the book has some variant issues. I have noted a bibliographical error within Senhor Burnay’s paper (Arch. Nat. Hist.) 1992 19: 181–184. This lies on p 183 line I, which should I suggest read Part II … pp. 257–576 and not pp 257–276. This may of course have appeared after his own account left Mafra in Portugal.
The author would like to add the following note:
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I posed a question about naturalists who were also composers in Newsletter 84, and I am grateful to Michael Walters for responding.
I can think of two: the American ornithologist Charles Cory (author of some volumes of Catalogue of the birds of the Americas) apparently wrote music, including an opera, but I have no details to hand. Bernard-Germain-Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède (1756–1825) wrote a considerable amount of music, including operas, of which Gluck is said to have thought highly. The music s all “lost”. Some years ago I contacted the writer of Lacépède’s entry in The new Grove dictionary of Music (1980) vol. 10, p. 345, as to whether “lost” meant known to have been destroyed, or simply not found. He said the latter.
This prompted me to look on the internet, and googling the words:
naturalist/botanist/zoologist/composer/
music/ yielded several more, rather famous names.
Ferdinand Schuyler Mathews (1854–1938) bird-lover, composer and artist. “He would venture out into the fields and woods around his home in Campton, New Hampshire, and write down the songs the birds were singing. Then, he translated bird song into musical notes.” Mathews’ book Field book of wild birds and their music (1904) contained watercolour illustrations, “lush descriptions” of 82 birds, and transcriptions of bird songs. A re-illustrated and condensed edition of Mathews' book was issued in 2004: Judy Pelikan, The music of wild birds (Workman Pub Co. ISBN 1565122712). Mathews also published botanical works: two examples are Familiar flowers of field and garden and Field book of American trees and shrubs, and he illustrated A manual of weeds by Ada E. Georgia. [source:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1783346]
Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
“undoubtedly our only celebrity composer with a short-form bio that reads “mystic, theologian, naturalist, herbalist, poet, and adviser to emperors...” (B. D. Sherman, The Los Angeles Times, 9 August 1998).
Ludwig Alois Ferdinand Ritter von Köchel (1800–1877) “was a musicologist, writer, composer, botanist and publisher. He is best known for cataloguing the works of Mozart and originating the “K” numbers by which they are known. ... Scientists of his day were greatly impressed by his botanical researches in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, the United Kingdom, the North Cape and Russia. In addition to botany, he was interested in geology and mineralogy, but he also loved music and was a member of the Mozarteum Salzburg.”
[source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_K%C3%B6chel]
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767)
“... on the way to Leipzig University [Telemann] met none other than “Herr
Georg Friedrich Handel, who was already of some importance even in those days.” This encounter was the start of a long friendship between the two men, who exchanged letters throughout their lifetimes. (On several occasions, Handel even sent Telemann, an amateur botanist,’botanical curiosities’ from London).” [source:http://www.baroque.org/baroque/
composers.htm]
There is no zoologist-composer in the Oxford dictionary of national biography, but there is one geologist and two botanists:
Seemann, Berthold Carl (1825–1871): botanist was also a composer of music (although no work is named) and author of three “short German plays”. [Oxford dictionary of national biography
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25029 (accessed January 6, 2007)]
Sherard, James (1666–1738): apothecary and botanist, brother of William, was a gifted musician—an accomplished violinist. He composed 24 trio sonatas which were published in 1701 and 1711. [Oxford dictionary of national biography
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25354 (accessed January 6, 2007).]
Stephen, Edward Jones (1822–1885): Welsh composer and amateur geologist wrote papers on the geology of Wales; his geological specimens are in UCNW, Bangor. [Oxford dictionary of national biography:http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26370(accessed 6 Jan 2007)]
E. Charles Nelson
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