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Bulletin of the [2i 7J
British Museum (Natural
Historical series
Vol 6 No 1 29 September 1977
Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-91) and the Conchology, or natural history of shells P. J. P. Whitehead
British Museum (Natural History) London 1977
The Bulletin of the British Museum {Natural History), instituted in 1949, is issued in four scientific series, Botany, Entomology, Geology and Zoology, and a Historical series.
Parts are published at irregular intervals as they become ready. Volumes will contain about four hundred pages, and will not necessarily be completed within one calendar year.
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World List abbreviation : Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (hist. Ser.)
© Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), 1977
ISSN 0068-2306 Historical series
Vol 6 No 1 Pp 1-24 British Museum (Natural History) Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD Issued 29 September 1977
Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-91) and the Conchology, or natural history of shells
I 2 8 SEP J977 P. J. P. Whitehead W, library a.
Department of Zoology, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD
Contents
Introduction . Sources .
George Humphrey . E. M. da Costa King's Bench Prison Later years The Conchology
Authorship
Illustrations
Dating Acknowledgements References
1 2 5 6 11 13
16 19 20
22 22
Introduction
To earn a respected place in both the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society was not, in the eighteenth century, an uncommon achievement; but to be then expelled from the one and sent to prison by the other is altogether rare. Such was the fate of Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-91), 'that wayward Hebrew genius . . . whose scientific enthusiasm atoned for less honour- able traits of character' (Fox, 1919:212). Da Costa has so far received only brief biographical treatment although, like many of his colleagues, he was an avid letter-writer and his carefully preserved correspondence (over two thousand letters) still survives. His life and career are here explored in connection with his authorship of the Conchology, or natural history of shells.
The true authorship of the Conchology - said to have been the first work in which this term was used (Dance, 1966 : 271) - has always been a puzzle since the book is undated and merely 'By a Collector'. Two possible authors have been suggested. The first is George Humphrey (? 1745-1825), collector and dealer in shells. Among those who have favoured his authorship have been Sherborn (1904) and Jackson (1937: 333). The second possibility, more frequently cited, is da Costa and among those who put his name to the work were Schroter (1774: 156), Chemnitz (1795 : 181, 184-8), Roding (1798 : 1-7), Maton & Racket (1804 : 200-1), and Iredale (1915 : 307 & 1922 : 86). Dillwyn (1817 : ix) settled for joint authorship and Swainson (1840a : 154) implied it, while Sherborn (1902 : xx, xxx) had initially been even more cautious and given the work under each of these two authors, but with a reference to possible authorship by the other. Dance (1966 : 271), who enjoyed such enigmas but never explored this one, opted for joint authorship.
In spite of this difference of opinion, no very convincing arguments have been offered. Certainly, Humphrey himself once claimed authorship, referring to the work as 'HUMPHREY'S Con- chology' in his sale catalogue, the Museum Humfredianum (1779, 36th day). Da Costa, on the other hand, actually disclaimed authorship, giving the work as 'A new anonymous Conchology' (da Costa, 1776 : 51) or as merely the 'Anon. Conch.' (da Costa, 1778b : 1-24). However, there are reasons for believing that the statements of both Humphrey and da Costa are misleading.
The key to the mystery lies in the highly unusual circumstances that attended the production of the work, for it was during this time that da Costa fell into disgrace, being convicted of em-
Bull. Br. Mus. nat Hist. (hist. Ser.) 6 (1): 1-24
Issued 29 September 1977
bezzlement and spending four years in prison. In itself, this merely suggests that anonymity is more consistent with da Costa's authorship than with Humphrey's. It does not explain what role Humphrey played and why he attached his name to it. The real solution to the puzzle, and a source that seems to have been overlooked by previous writers on the subject, can be found in the eleven volumes of da Costa's correspondence in the British Library.
On the basis of these da Costa letters, a number of which were written from prison during the critical period when the Conchology was being produced, together with hints in letters to other naturalists, the conclusion is reached here that the true author was da Costa and not Humphrey. The latter saw the work through the press and acted as editor, but it was actually written by da Costa as an unrepentant debtor in the King's Bench Prison.
Sources
The principal source for information on da Costa is the collection of his letters in eleven bound volumes in the Manuscript Department of the British Library. A note on the flysheet of the first volume states:
This Collection, bound in Eleven Volumes, chiefly on Subjects of Natural history - addressed to Emanuel Mendes Da Costa, F.R.S. Author of a Natural History of Fossils, 4to 1757, with copies of his answers, in his own handwriting - from 1737 to 1787 - contains Two Thousand Four Hundred and Eighty seven Autographs. I purchased them from the late John Nichols, Author of the History of Leicestershire - who procured them from J & B White's Catalogue, Fleet Street - in exchange for other books. 1831 William Upcott
On a subsequent page is written 'Presented by the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Derby 8 Oct. 1870'.
This collection of letters is notable for its size, range of correspondents, variety of topics and frequent inclusion of drafts of da Costa's replies. No biographer could wish for better. Da Costa had a rather distinctive, angular, even childish hand and his drafts are easily read. Unfortunately, rather fewer letters date from the prison period (1768-72) and one gains the impression that many of his earlier correspondents fell silent when the blow fell.
The first to have this collection, Messrs J. & B. White, were the booksellers who, as B. White, had retailed the Conchology many years earlier. This was Benjamin White (1725-94), publisher at the 'Horace's Head' in Fleet Street, brother of Gilbert White and publisher of the first edition of 'Selborne'. White may have bought part or all of da Costa's library, possibly in 1787 when the letters cease.
There is no record of when the da Costa correspondence came to John Nichols (1745-1826), its next owner, but it apparently remained at the booksellers until at least 1812. Thus, in the third volume of Nichols' Literary anecdotes (1812b: 757) it is stated that 'Messrs. White and Cochrane possess in fifteen large portfolios, a very curious collection of letters to Mr da Costa from men of the first literary character of the time'. In the same year, Nichols published a genealogical manuscript of da Costa's family, drawn up by da Costa himself and also some 'brief memorials of contemporary Virtuosi' written by da Costa (Nichols, 1812a & b). Six years later Nichols had evidently acquired the da Costa letters, as noted in the Advertisement of volume 3 of his Illustrations of literary history (1818 : viii). In that and in subsequent volumes he printed a large number of letters to and from da Costa, as well as the 'brief memorials' where they were appropriate to the letters.
Nichols' library was sold at Sotheby's on 16-19 April 1828, but apparently it was not at that time that William Upcott (1779-1845) bought the da Costa letters (not in sale catalogue). Upcott, natural son of Ozias Humphrey and a passionate autograph hunter, died without issue and his huge collection of manuscripts, books, prints and drawings was sold at Sotheby's in June 1845 (priced catalogue, formerly owned by Dawson Turner, in the British Library). The da Costa letters were amongst several important lots which the British Museum declined to buy. Instead, they were bought by the Earl of Derby, to be presented to the British Museum in 1870.
Da Costa himself arranged his letters chronologically in 'large folio volumes of strong blue papers on which the Originals are pinned (not pasted) & uniformly bound'; at the time that da Costa wrote this (June 1782) there were eleven of these volumes (fide Add. Ms. 9389, f. 28). The correspondence to 1787 when the letters end must have occupied a further four volumes, making the fifteen bought by John Nichols. The letters are now alphabetically arranged, having pre- sumably been rearranged and rebound by Upcott in 1831.
In addition to the main da Costa correspondence, the British Library manuscript catalogues give ten other da Costa items. There are seven letters to the Rev. Thomas Birch (Add. MS. 4303), a letter to Hans Sloane (Add. MS. 4439), an application for the post of Clerk to the Royal Society (Add. MS. 4441), da Costa's diploma from the Academiae Naturae Curiosorum (Add. MS. 6180), da Costa's catalogue of his library (Add. MS. 9389), a letter to him from Linnaeus (Add. MS. 23102, f. 123), da Costa's genealogy and notes on collectors, being those used by John Nichols (Add. MS. 29867), some historical notes on Jews (Add. MS. 29868), and his minutes from the Royal Society, 1757-62 (Eg. MS. 2381).
Another useful source for information on the Conchology and its author is the letter-book of his contemporary, the entomologist Dru Drury (1725-1804). Cockerell (1922) discovered this book, then owned by Messrs Power, Drury & Co, wine merchants of Funchal, Madeira, and he cited from thirty letters from Drury to Linnaeus, Moses Harris, Pallas and others, of which three to Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811) are relevant here (12 November 1767, 28 February 1768 and 14 January 1770). These report da Costa's intention to publish natural history plates and they describe his subsequent disgrace. Parts of the second letter were also quoted by Iredale (1922). The letter-book was presented to the British Museum (Natural History) in 1937 by Charles Dru Drury, together with some other Drury papers and the latter's account book for the first two volumes of his Illustrations of natural history (Drury, 1770-83), which shows translation fees paid to da Costa. Sherborn (1937) reported this gift and indexed the recipients of the letters.
Pallas had met da Costa during his visit to England in 1761-62. Urness (1967) reproduced seventeen letters written by Pallas to Thomas Pennant (1726-98) in the period 1766 and 1777-81 and in two of these Pallas speaks of having seen da Costa's collection and admiring especially his Brazilian emeralds, specimens of which he later solicited but in vain. What would be of the greatest interest would be the main body of Pallas' letters since he corresponded as widely as did da Costa, but it does not seem to have survived. He did not leave his correspondence in Lenin- grad, apart from a few letters to him now in the Archives of the Academy of Sciences (none rele- vant here), and most probably he took all his papers with him when he retired to Berlin in 1810. There are a few letters in the Manuscript Department of the Staatsbibliothek at Dahlem (West Berlin). These include two from Pennant to Pallas (15 May 1753 and 26 November 1784 -see Sig. Darmst. Lc(l) 1771), four long and interesting letters from John Ledyard (1787 and 1788 - see Ms. Germ., f. 788), and six other letters (to Tilesius, to his mother-in-law and to four unknowns). Of equal importance is Pallas' day book for 1762-63 (Sig. Darmst. Asien (4) 1768) which contains, in German, French and English, Pallas' itineraries, the people he met, poems, anecdotes and book titles (with five pages devoted to some of the most salacious literature then purveyed by the Dutch bookshops!). There are references here to two letters and a parcel (of amber) sent to da Costa (14 October and 28 November 1762, 12 February 1763); the final one is in the da Costa collection.
The Zentralkartei der Autographen of the Staatsbibliothek in Dahlem has records of only five other Pallas letters in the forty-six libraries so far covered (one letter in the Bayerische Staats- bibliothek in Munich, the rest in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Niirnberg). Pallas letters are not included in the East German catalogue Gelehrten- und Schriftstellernachldsse in den Bibliotheken der Deutsch-Demokratischen Republik.
There must be da Costa letters in very many libraries and institutions, but an exhaustive search
has not been attempted here. However, the following items have been noted:
a. British Museum (Natural History), London. Twelve da Costa letters (? 1774 and 1776-78) are
in a bound volume of letters to Richard Pulteney entitled 'R. Pulteney Letters from Bryer,
da Costa, et al. 1776-1800'. There are no da Costa letters in the Joseph Banks collection, but a
letter from Thomas Pennant to Banks refers to da Costa's frauds (Dawson, 1958 : 662).
b. Linnean Society, London. The Linnaean correspondence includes two letters from da Costa to Linnaeus and two of the latter's replies. There is also a letter from Peder Ascanius to Linnaeus referring briefly to da Costa's earlier term in prison. All these were reproduced by Smith (1821 : 482, 488-492 and comment on da Costa, p. 495). There is also a letter from da Costa to John Ellis (1755, Ellis Correspondence, calendared by Savage, 1948) and in the Pulteney Correspondence is one from Humphrey to da Costa concerning the purchase of shells (31 January 1782).
c. Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London. Three letters (1748-62) addressed to Antoine Reamur, Isaac Romilly and A. P. Schrader.
d. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. In the Perceval Collection (L90, 91 and 93) is a letter from da Costa to William Hunter, a copy of the latter's reply, and one from da Costa to Dru Drury.
e. Bodleian Library, Oxford. Reference to da Costa's possession of Edward Lhwyd's papers is in a letter from John Fothergill to William Huddesford, Ashmole MSS. 1822, ff. 225-6.
f. Royal Society, London. There are fourteen letters or documents by da Costa, none relevant here.
g. Haverford College, Pennsylvania. There is an oblique reference to da Costa in a letter from John Fothergill to John Morgan in the Charles Roberts Autograph Collection (this and the preceding Bodleian letter are reproduced, with footnotes, by Corner & Booth, 1971 : 250-1 and 294-6).
h. Mocatta Library, University College, London. There is no original da Costa material, but amongst the Lucien Wolf papers are transcripts of wills and family records, of which four files under the headings B 20 Cos and B 20 Men deal with the da Costas and Mendes da Costas (including da Costa's will and that of his father). & \ j
i. National Library, Edinburgh. A letter from Peter Collinson to da Costa (No. 583, f. 695).
j. Derbyshire County Library, Derby. About sixty papers, including a number of letters, many of which refer to Derbyshire minerals; about half the notes are written in Latin or French and very few are signed (Parcel 9X).
Another useful source has been the Public Records Office in London. For the dates of da Costa's second sojourn in prison a record appears in volume 4 (p. 203) of the Commitment Books of the King's Bench Prison, together with a note of the indictment and a margin entry recording his discharge. His name does not appear, however, in a book of admissions and dis- charges (King's Bench and Fleet Prisons, Miscellanea, 1696-1862, PRO. PRIS. 7, 1776-1862, 79 bundles). For some reason his case was not recorded in the Great Doggett of the King's Bench Crown Rolls (PRO. IND. 6660-1), nor in the Controlment Roll of that Court, nor in the King's Bench Indictments (PRO. K.B. 10. 36 for Michaelmas Term, 1768). The Judgement Rolls (Plea side) of the King's Bench for 1768 (PRO. IND. 6229-30) were also searched without success.
For details of da Costa's downfall there is a record in Lyons (1944), but the best source is the Minute Book (vol. 5, 1763-68) of the Council of the Royal Society, which gives a blow-by-blow account of the discovery of his frauds and the actions taken against him. Towards the end of the affair, however, the Council's attention was increasingly diverted to the arrangements for obser- vations of the transit of Venus by Captain Cook and others. One almost senses the relief with which the Council turned from the last report on the da Costa affair (his imprisonment) to a cheerful letter from Cook in Madeira blithely announcing his use of Society funds to purchase wine for himself and Mr Green the astronomer.
For convenience when citing these sources, the following abbreviations have been used in the text:
Add. MS. Additional Manuscripts, British Library
Banks Corr. Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks (copies) in the British Museum (Natural History);
these letters are calendared by Dawson (1958) DC. Corr. Da Costa's correspondence bound in 1 1 volumes, Manuscript Department, British
Library, Add. MSS. 28534-44; a number of these letters were published by John Nichols
{Lit. Anec. and ///. Lit. Hist., see below) DC. Gen. Da Costa's genealogy, written by himself, in Add. MS. 29867; published by Nichols (1812a) DC. Lib. Catalogue of da Costa's library, written by himself (final date, June 1782), Add. MS. 9389
Drury Corr. Letter-book of Dru Drury, British Museum (Natural History); 30 letters quoted by
Cockerell (1922), indexed by Sherborn (1937) Drury AB. Dru Drury's account book for the Illustrations of natural history, British Museum (Natural
History) ///. Lit. Hist. Illustrations of literary history - see Nichols (1817-31) Linn Corr. Linnaean correspondence. Linnean Society ; letters of Ascanius to Linnaeus, da Costa to
Linnaeus and replies - quoted by Smith (1821); also, Rev. J. Goodenough to J. E. Smith
mentioning da Costa - quoted by Smith (1832 : 267) Linn. Arch. Linnean Society archives, containing records of members; also rule books and other
papers of the Society for Promoting Natural History Lit. Anec. Literary anecdotes - see Nichols (1812-16) Moc. Lib. Lucien Wolf papers in Mocatta Library, University College, London; wills of da Costa
and his father Pult. Corr. Da Costa letters in Pulteney correspondence, British Museum (Natural History) Perc. Corr. Da Costa letters in Perceval Collection, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge PRO.PRIS.4 King's Bench Prison Commitment Books, volume 4 for 1767-72, Public Records Office,
London Well. Inst. Da Costa letters in Wellcome Institute, London.
George Humphrey
Of the two possible authors of the Conchology, George Humphrey was certainly the less qualified to write it, at least at that time, since he was essentially a London dealer and collector of natural history specimens and other 'curiosities', only later becoming a compiler of sale catalogues and eventually an amateur conchologist. Humphrey has never found a biographer although he well deserves one, having been at the centre of natural history transactions throughout the exciting period when Captain Cook's ships were bringing back rarities from the Pacific (see, for example, Whitehead, 1969). A summary of his career will be given elsewhere (Whitehead & Kaeppler, in prep.).
Humphrey's sole scientific publication was a short note on the gizzard of Bulla lignaria = Scaphander lignaria Linnaeus (Humphrey, 1794). Although he dealt in all manner of curiosities, shells seem to have held a special attraction for him, at least in the latter part of his career. A letter written by Humphrey to J. T. Swainson in 1815 (quoted by Jackson, 1937) is full of criticism of da Costa and gives a list of errors in the Conchology. It was this that convinced Jackson of Humphrey's authorship (although the reverse could be better argued). Towards the end of his life Humphrey met John Edward Gray (1800-79), later Keeper of Zoology at the British Museum. T recollect him well', wrote Gray, 'and was strongly impressed with his knowledge not only of species of shells, but also of the affinities which the groups bore to each other. Though compara- tively an uneducated person, he was far in advance of the state of natural history of his time' (Gray, 1858). When the Conchology was being produced, however, Humphrey was most likely a beginner, with a good collector's knowledge but no more. He certainly sought da Costa's opinion in one instance when he was puzzled by a specimen in the British Museum.
Enclosed is a drawing of a small unperforated Ear which they have at the Museum - They class it as such, perhaps you may think it a snail. If it is an ear please return it [symbol for per] Bearer.
(Humphrey to da Costa, 6 March 1771, DC.Corr.)
Humphrey's first recorded address was 48 Long Acre, London, from at least 1769 and during the period that he wrote to da Costa, as well as 30 St Martin's Lane from at least 1770 (DC. Corr.) In May 1778 he opened his Museum Humfredianum at the second address, but he seems to have kept the Long Acre residence since he wrote from that address again (at least in 1782) some years after the museum was sold in 1779. Thereafter, he dealt in curiosities and he catalogued many sales of mainly natural history specimens (Fothergill sale, 1782; Calonne sale, 1797; and many minor sales). In about 1786 he moved to 4 Leicester Street, off Leicester Square. His final sale, marking his retirement, took place in 1823 (all shells).
5
It has been suggested by Jackson (1937) that the abrupt cessation of the Conchology (in the middle of the text for plate 5) stemmed from a quarrel between Humphrey and da Costa. This may be so, and certainly the letters break off after April 1771, but their tone is always amicable. In view of da Costa's authorship of the work and Humphrey's later claims to it, however, one cannot help wondering if Humphrey even at this early date was not trying to reap more credit for the work than da Costa cared to grant. Thus, da Costa's references to this 'Anonymous Con- chology' may have been more pointed than modest.
E. M. da Costa
Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-91) came from a family of Sephardic Jews that had emigrated to England from France (his father's side) and from Portugal (his mother's side) in the seventeenth century. Like many such families, the genealogy of the da Costas and Mendes lines is complicated by marriage between cousins or with uncles, but fortunately the family relationships were care- fully detailed by da Costa himself in a manuscript (Add. MS. 29867) which many years later was published by John Nichols in the Gentleman's magazine (Nichols, 1812a : 21-22).
Da Costa's paternal grandfather, Moses alias Philip Mendes da Costa, came to England from Rouen in Normandy in about 1692. His son Abraham alias John (also born in Rouen, 1683) came to England when he was 13 and in 1702 he married his first cousin Esther alias Johanna of Budge Row, London, daughter of Alvaro da Costa (who had come to London in about 1660 and whose sister had married da Costa's grandfather). This appears to have been the more successful side of the family, for Alvaro's son Moses alias Anthony rose to a high position in the Bank of England; he married his first cousin Catherine Mendes, who was born at Somerset House and was named after her godmother, Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II. Joseph Salvador, who later stood bond for da Costa, may have been the same that married Leonor, daughter of Emanuel's first cousin on his mother's side, Isaac 2nd Baron of Auverne le Gras; da Costa's aunt (on his father's side) also married a Salvador. The da Costa family, or at least the Alvaro branch, was of sufficient standing for a grant of arms to be made on 20 February 1723; in a pun- ning reference to their name, the shield is blazoned with six ribs (Rubens, 1949 : 90, pi. 9, fig. 34 - da Costa's book-plate, of which examples are in Add. MSS. 9389 and 29867).
Emanuel da Costa was the eighth of Abraham and Esther's ten children (DC. Gen.). His father claimed to have given him a good education (Moc. Lib.) and according to Goodwin (1887) he was destined for 'a lower branch of the legal profession' and for period at least served in the office of a notary. I cannot find any other reference to him before 1740 when Nichols {Lit. Anec. 3 : 757) recorded that da Costa, then 23, was a member of the Aurelian Society which met at the Swan (afterwards King's Arms) in Cornhill. In 1746 da Costa was elected an Extra Regular Member of the Spalding Society and in their lists is cited as a 'merchant' (history and list of members, Lit. Anec. 6 : 81). By now he seems to have made his mark in quite high circles, for in November the following year he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, being recommended as 'a Gentleman well skilled in Philosophical Learning and Natural Knowledge, particularly in what relates to the Mineral and Fossil parts of the Creation'. His sponsors were the Duke of Montagu, Martin Folkes (President of the Royal Society), Henry Baker, Peter Collinson and several others.
In 1752 da Costa was also elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries; he is said to have been something of an authority on old silver and jewellery (Lyons, 1944 : 169). He later presented the Society with a sepulchral tablet of micaceous stone which was inscribed with the words 'Manilius / Hilarius vixit / Annos L'. In a footnote, Way (1847 : 10) commented dryly, 'The authenticity of this inscription may appear questionable'.
Da Costa was more than just a 'clubable' man and good talker. In 1752 he drew up an invitation to subscribers for his first book, the Natural history of fossils, to be issued in two volumes at a guinea each (Maty, 1752 : 236-238; also, Lit. Anec. 2 : 292), although the book was not finally published until five years later (da Costa, 1757). However, even before seeing it, and on the basis merely of a letter from da Costa, Linnaeus in his generous way was full of enthusiasm. He saw to it that da Costa's letter (of 5 April 1757) was read to a full meeting of the Royal Academy of
Sciences in Uppsala and he reported how da Costa's 'unparalleled knowledge and rare learning have excited so much esteem and respect in all those who were present' (English from Latin, 9 November 1757, Linn. Corr. ; quoted in Smith, 1821 : 488). In a subsequent letter, Linnaeus claimed that in his preparation of the tenth edition of the Systema naturae he could not dispense with da Costa's work 'as I intend to quote it with due commendation, throughout the fossil kingdom' (Smith, 1821 : 489). Elated, da Costa basked in this praise and hinted that election to the Royal Academy of Sciences would be gratifying; however, even a second and more pointed hint the following year had no success (10 February 1758 and 5 October 1759, Smith, 1821 : 489, 492). John Edward Smith commented on da Costa's subsequent antipathy to Linnaeus 'which the writer of this has often heard him express' (Smith, 1821 : 495) and it may have been partly for this reason that da Costa later castigated Linnaean terminology so strongly, insisting that he had to 'explode the Linnaean obscenity in his characters of the Bivalves; not only for their licentious- ness, but also that they are in no ways the parts expressed'. He went on (with perhaps just a hint of a Pope couplet in mind)
Ribaldry at times has been passed for wit;
but Linnaeus alone passes it for terms of science.
{Elements of conchology : iv)
By 1763, at the age of 46, da Costa was already a well-known and much respected member of the antiquarian and scientific worlds. In addition to his book on fossils, he also published eight short papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and he was in correspondence with many of the prominent literary and scientific figures of his day. For example, as early as 1747, Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) wrote to da Costa promising 'to entertain you without inter- ruption with the sight of anything in the power of your humble servant . . .' (///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 84). In the same year Martin Folkes (1690-1754), later President also of the Society of Antiquaries, urged da Costa to join him at the Duke of Richmond's seat in order to help embellish a 'wild receptacle and grotto' with fossils (///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 635-6). Another close acquaintance was the antiquarian William Stukeley (1687-1765), whose command of Hebrew da Costa had once criticized; Stukeley was obviously much impressed with da Costa's learning (///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 505, 566). Andrew Ducarel, the antiquary,' after visiting Paris in 1752, wrote to da Costa saying that he had been to see the great Buffon 'at whose house your name was mentioned, and some other handsome things said . . .' (///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 608). In fact, a review of the names in the volumes of the da Costa correspondence shows the extent to which he was integrated into the intellectual circles of his time.
By all accounts, da Costa was a devout Jew, receiving some good-natured teasing on one occasion when Folkes suggested that the lobsters of Chichester might prove 'a temptation, by which a weaker man might be seduced' during a visit to the Duke of Richmond (///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 635). Thomas Birch (1705-66) felt that 'your religious profession might possibly be a prejudice to you with some persons; but ought not, I think, to discourage you from offering yourself as Candidate [for Clerk]' (///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 540). The Jews Naturalization Act had been passed, but rapidly repealed (due to ecclesiastical and commercial opposition) in 1753, but there was probably little discrimination in the scientific community. Da Costa was able to assure Birch that he found 'no Objection on Account of Religion' (Add. MS. 4303, f. 182). The general tone of the letters written in this period suggests that da Costa was genuinely popular among both scientists and antiquarians and that he was considered to be something of an authority on a wide range of subjects, from Hebrew inscriptions and Jewish uniforms, to volcanoes, rocks and fossils.
Da Costa married in 1750, within the Portuguese Jewish community, his wife being Leah the third daughter of Samuel de Prado (on 14 Nisan 5510, being 20 April 1750 - Barnett, 1949 : 91). They had no children and Leah died in 1763 (DC. Gen., date not given). In the same year he also lost his father, on 1 1 February in his own records (DC. Gen.), but 1 1 January in the transcript of his father's will (Moc. Lib.). The latter date is more likely since he wrote to Thomas Birch on 20 January and spoke of 'My Greif on this Occasion . . .' (Add. MS. 4303, f. 184). He married again, about three years later, his second wife being Elizabeth Skillman (possibly Stillman) and
they had one daughter (Goodwin, 1887); his wife was a Gentile, but da Costa is said to have kept the faith {Encyclopedia Judaica 5 : 986).
There seems to have been only one small peccadillo, small enough at the time but in retrospect all too clear a pointer of what was to come. On the surface, or at least in the eyes of most of da Costa's scientific and antiquarian friends, his career held fair promise. At another level, how- ever, there were undertones, not yet of dishonesty, but of a recklessness over money that could - and indeed would - lead to it. In a letter to Linnaeus of 7 April 1755, Peder Ascanius (1723— 1803) said that da Costa had been sent to prison for debt. Da Costa, he wrote, 'certainly possesses an excellent collection of minerals; or rather, I should say, he did possess it; for he is at present in prison for debt. But his collection is in the hands of a friend, who allows him partial use of it' (Linn. Corr.; quoted in Smith, 1821 : 482). Peter Collinson (1694-1768) once exclaimed 'Thou art the archest wag alive', referring to the way that da Costa had relieved an old don of fossils and a hortus siccus (Fox, 1919:212), but it would seem that da Costa's passion for specimens and books was already outrunning his resources.
The real indictment of the da Costa of this period is found in his father's will, a rambling document in which the old man complains bitterly of the 'shocking misfortunes' he has had to bear in his business life 'and not one son to give a helping hand for to retrieve, but, on the con- trary, they have all set their hands who should destroy most and also their credit, which I had taken so much care to settle and advise them to take care to keep' (Moc. Lib.). Emanuel and David 'have done very bad' and he wishes they had followed his advice and found wives with fortunes, for it shocks him to think of bringing so many beggars into the world in his family; 'you were all young and healthy and no father mother nor sister to maintain but your own sweet selves and that you would not do'. The will is undated, but the first part appears to have been written before 1752 when his brother Jacob died and then completed shortly afterwards, by which time his son David is cut off with almost nothing (and only 5 shillings if he proves in any way troublesome). If this dating is correct, then da Costa's imprisonment in 1754 must have marked the end of his father's financial help.
Nevertheless, da Costa's personal troubles were either ignored or little known to his scientific friends, for in 1763 the high regard in which he was held culminated in his election to the respon- sible post of Clerk to the Royal Society. Among those who supported his application was Stukeley, who wrote to a friend T know he has many friends. All my corner of the room unani- mous: Sir William Browne, Collinson, Parsons, Baker, Clark, Van Rixtel &c. &c'. (///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 566). Thomas Birch appears to have backed him (presumed from Add. MS. 4303) and there must have been many others. Rarely can the members of a society have so misjudged their man.
On 3 April 1763 da Costa was duly elected Clerk of the Royal Society, as well as its Librarian, Keeper of the Repository and Housekeeper. He and his family were provided with rooms at the Society's premises at Crane Court, off Fleet Street, and he received £50 a year for his duties. The salary was not high, although Dr Johnson once pronounced £50 to be 'undoubtedly more than the necessities of life require', but there was no rent to pay and he also received some small sums for book-keeping and cataloguing. In addition - and ironic in the light of subsequent events - da Costa was encouraged to solicit members' dues by a grant of a shilling in the pound for all he collected. As a precaution, he was required 'to give a Security of One thousand pounds for the performance of the Duty assigned to him'. The Minute Book of the Council, from which this account is taken, shows that in June that year Joseph Salvador (his cousin^e letter to Salvador, 20 January 1786, DC. Corr.) and Samuel Felton, both Fellows of the Society, signed his bond, little realizing that even before the bond was delivered, da Costa had already misappropriated the first of what would eventually be more than a hundred members' subscriptions. In 1763 he pocketed a dozen subscriptions; in the next two years he annually helped himself at twice that rate; in 1767 nearly forty subscriptions failed wholly or partly to reach John West, the Treasurer. Hilarius vixit no doubt, but it could hardly last. The wonder is that he was not found out sooner.
In a letter to Joseph Priestley of 14 June 1766, congratulating him warmly on election to the Society, da Costa outlined the two methods by which dues could be paid (///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 541-2). The first was by a five guinea admission fee and the signing of a bond for annual payments of £2.12.0; the second was by a single payment of 25 guineas. 'The latter way is the most eligible,
and more agreeable to the Society', wrote da Costa, and the unsuspecting Priestley duly obliged.
According to Drury (28 February 1768, Drury Corr.), it was John Hope, Professor of Botany at Edinburgh, who first asked why his name did not appear in the list of perpetual members. Hope then asked someone to investigate this for him, and he too found that his name was given as an annual and not a perpetual member. Questions began to be asked and an enquiry was instigated. Da Costa must surely have been aware of this, but he seems to have been unprepared when, on Thursday, 3 June 1 767, the axe fell. That morning the Council met, called in their Clerk, and demanded an explanation for omissions in the books amounting to no less than five hundred pounds. The unfortunate da Costa, 'after several excuses and prevarications', which were of little avail, was finally forced to admit his guilt. He was then suspended from his duties and told to hand over his keys of the Libraries, Repositories and Closets to William Kirkby, the Society's solicitor. Kirkby was then instructed to contact da Costa's two bondsmen, Felton and Salvador. The latter wrote back in evident astonishment and mortification, but he assured the Society that he was ready to honour his covenant; Felton, with perhaps slight reluctance, agreed to do like- wise. They then instructed their own solicitor, a Mr Le Breton, to have a Judgement entered against da Costa and 'Execution issued against his effects'. As yet, they had no inkling of the true extent of da Costa's frauds and were clearly determined to rescue their bonds at da Costa's expense.
Meanwhile, however, the Council had probed further back into the accounts and had dis- covered additional omissions which totalled the equally enormous sum of £472.10.0. On 14 December da Costa was brought once again before the Council and he now admitted what he had previously denied, that Sir John Naesmith's was also one of the subscriptions that he had appropriated. He also gave a brief list of his possessions (specimens - including, one supposes, the Brazilian emeralds that Pallas so coveted - books, papers, etc.), being those on the Society's premises. In return the Council handed him an account of their claims against him, which now reached a grand total of £1090.19.0. Da Costa clearly saw the hopelessness of his position. He came before the Council the next day, queried two small items in the list, but pleaded guilty to the rest and said that he could not recall any further omissions. Two more were promptly cited and he meekly agreed them.
By now the debt had exceeded the bond and the Council, fearing that worse might come, demanded an account of his resources. Da Costa spoke of his personal possessions, now in the process of being seized and sold by his bondsmen, and of a very small annuity, a life policy and a copyhold in his wife's name, 'but no cash or any other effect'. His bonds were then taken from the Iron Chest and handed to Kirkby.
Thoroughly alarmed, but determined to fathom the depths of these frauds, the Council heard Kirkby report on 17 December that he had examined the official Checque Book and had dis- covered another £266.10.0 not accounted for. Kirkby then showed the Council a bill of sale, dated from the previous Sunday, for some four hundred books from da Costa's own library sold to Dr John Letch, F.R.S. (and another whose subscription da Costa had appropriated). Letch was called for and told firmly that the Society had no powers to deliver the books. The Council then formally dismissed da Costa from his various posts and that afternoon the affair was made generally known to the Society's members. Pennant was outraged and wrote to Joseph Banks that T expect daily to see our Society in the Bankrupt's list, since the trick my worthy friend da Costa has served us' (25 December 1767, Banks Corr.).
To what extent da Costa was able to call on his relatives and friends is not recorded, but it must have been a bleak Christmas. The family moved out of Crane Court on Christmas Eve and their possessions were taken across to Samuel Paterson the auctioneer at Essex House in Essex Street off the Strand. As da Costa complained to William Hunter, he was later denied the chance to manage this sale (Perc. Corr., 10 January 1771), which implies that his books made much less than he had been offered by John Letch. Possibly it was during this period that he managed to settle other debts by selling books and manuscripts not impounded at Crane Court. His patient friend John Fothergill (1735-80), who had a reputation for helping lame ducks, said that he had purchased Edward Lhwyd's papers from da Costa, or 'at least I accepted them as payment for a large debt' (cited in Corner & Booth, 1971 : 294). Da Costa had bought these papers (about 500
letters in two large portfolios) in 1757 and had later lent them to William Huddesford for his work on Lhwyd and his Lithophylacium. Similarly, da Costa may have been able to sell off a few of his specimens, but from the evidence in his father's will he could expect nothing from his brothers and probably not even sympathy from his sister Sarah.
Bad as things already looked, the new year brought to light still more discrepancies in the books and on 3 January a further three hundred pounds was reported to the Council. Three weeks later, on 28 January 1768, a full account of da Costa's debt to the Royal Society was drawn up, comprising 122 entries and totalling £1492.14.2. Salvador and Felton, the latter now very reluctant, managed to delay proceedings into the next term of the High Court, but on 10 May the case was heard in the Court of the King's Bench and they were ordered to surrender their bond. Two days after this, da Costa's 'entire library of printed books and MSS. and collection of prints and drawings of Natural History' was sold at Paterson's auction rooms, a fact that significantly is the only biographical detail given by da Costa against his name in his genealogical table (DC. Gen.; also cited in Nichols, 1812a : 24). Da Costa's natural history collection had already been sold at Paterson's on 25 April. Da Costa possessed catalogues of both these sales, but tantalizingly, in his library catalogue, he did not record the amount raised (DC. Lib., f. 31r and v). Since his debts seem to have been largely incurred by reckless buying of books and specimens (nowhere is there a hint of high living, even in his father's disparaging will), these sales may have gone some way toward placating his bondsmen, for on 2 June Felton attended a Council meeting and after a little hesitation agreed that he and Salvador would pay costs as well as surrender their bond.
The accounts show that the Royal Society retrieved the thousand pounds from the bond, but the Society was still considerably embarrassed by the remaining debt, stated to be £416.10.3. Counsel's opinion was sought and it was decided to proceed against da Costa.
Some clue to da Costa's character emerges from letters that he wrote during this period to John Anderson (DC. Corr.). Answering da Costa's letter of 14 January (no copy kept), Anderson apologized for not replying sooner but he had heard that da Costa 'had gone privately to Portugal'. Incensed, da Costa wrote back (14 July 1768) that 'the malice of my Enemies' invented this lie, which 'was not the only infamous falsehood they engaged', but 'they were soon drove from these lies in that I have never strayed a single step from the Metropolis and have dwelt ever since within sight almost of Crane Court. I have always appeared publikly & have had the Honour to be conversant with numbers of F.R.S. eminent not only for their learning but for their humanity. A greater proof of which cannot be urged than that of giving Public Lectures or Courses on fossils which I began last month [June] and have several F.R.S. my subscribers among which Drs Hunter and Fothergill cannot be unknown to you . . .' The bravado is incredible, for by now da Costa had been dismissed from his job, evicted from his home, expelled from the Society of Antiquaries for 'infamous conduct' (24 May), and had had his possessions sold by auction, while among the eminent names that accused him from the pages of his falsified accounts were none other than those of William Hunter and John Fothergill.
Anderson wrote back to express relief that the reports were so ill-founded, but the days of da Costa's defiant posturing before Crane Court were numbered. On 7 November 1768, by a Writ of Special Capias, he was detained by the Sheriff and two days later he was committed to the King's Bench Prison at St George's Fields (PRO. PRIS. 4, 4 : 203). The journey across Black- friars Bridge did not end his career as a naturalist, but it rang down the curtain on all those advantages to be reaped from having friends in high places. Like Johann Reinhold Forster (1727-98) and Rudolph Erich Raspe (1737-94), his two equally unfortunate and subsequently disgraced contemporaries,* da Costa was to find what a thankless task was science without the blessing of the Establishment.
* Although da Costa, Forster and Raspe, so similar in their breadth of learning and temperaments, certainly knew each other, their association has never been fully explored. Da Costa translated into English Forster's Specimen historiae naturalis volgensis of 1767, while Forster examined da Costa's collections and commented on them in his lectures at Warrington Academy in 1767-8 (Hoare, 1976 : 44, 55). Raspe stayed with the Forsters in the summer of 1776 and helped with the German translation of George Forster's Voyage (Hoare, 1976: 165). Seen in this light, the question of the authorship of the anonymous Travels of Baron Munchhausen (1785), which Carswell (1950) attributes to Raspe, could well be re-examined. Perhaps all three 'tactless philosphers' helped to pen this piece of mischief on some long summer evenings at 16 Percy Street back in '76.
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King's Bench Prison
There were, however, some compensations. The King's Bench Prison, at St George's Fields on the junction of Blackman Street and Newington Causeway, had at that time a reputation for its lax rules. Writing of a slightly earlier period, Macky (1722) had noted that 'its rules are more extensive than those of the Fleet' and by a 'Habeas Corpus you may remove yourself from one prison to the other . . .', a practice apparently adopted by some inmates merely to provide a welcome change of scene. Some impression of da Costa's circumstances in the prison, as well as his still unrepentant attitude, can be seen in the draft of his letter to Stanesby Alchorne ( 1 727— 1800), Assay-master at the Mint and an amateur botanist, dated 'King's Bench Prison 21 Feb- ruary 1769' (his deletions are placed in parentheses).
Tho in a prison placed by (the Royal) a Society founded for promoting Nat. Knowledge at (the very time I was given a second course of . . . Natural History of fossils in order to destroy ... a kingdom of Nature not yet rightly explored) a *see infra I have been so fortunate to meet a family in the same unhappy situation of Prisoners who not only delight in Nat. Hist, but also in Music & painting & they having a fine large commodious & extreme pleasant room commanding an extensive (& beautiful) prospect they have granted me leave to study (to) read my Lectures in it. & Dr MacKenzie & other Gentn to the number of 20 generously having subscribed I am now actually reading a Course wch meets with such approbation that a new sett of Subscribers is forming for a subsequent one.
Then follows a request to borrow for a fortnight the Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum of John Ray in order to help Dr Colin MacKenzie to identify his large collection of marine plants. The letter continues,
I have only to add that if you have at any time a spare hour and will pleasure me with a visit I shall be extremely glad to see you & enquire for me at the Gunroom in the State house.
At the bottom of the letter is the final form in which da Costa, with a bland disregard for the reasons behind his imprisonment, complains of the Royal Society's action.
* beginning of 2d paragraph supra
Tho placed in a prison by a Society founded for Promoting Natural Knowledge at a time when I was promoting Natural Knowledge in a course of Lectures on fossils I have been &c.
(draft to S. Alchorne, 21 February 1769, DC. Corr.)
A number of other friends seem to have remained loyal to da Costa during his time in prison. One of these was Ingham Forster (1725-82), brother of the natural history dealer Jacob Forster (1739-1806) who had married George Humphrey's sister Elizabeth (see notes and family tree in Whitehead, 1973). Ingham Forster, who was a dealer in Clement's Lane, Lombard Street, appears to have corresponded frequently with da Costa and was designated 'My dear friend' in one of the latter's brief biographical sketches (Nichols, 1812b: 515). Da Costa seems to have helped Forster with his catalogues, for three weeks after his arrival in the King's Bench Prison, Forster wrote saying 'you will likewise receive three volumes of your catalogue interleaved' (28 November 1768, DC. Corr.). Forster continued,
I wish you Health to prosecute your Studies, & Spirits to support you against the malicious designs of your Enemies: - Be assured you'll ever find me
Your friend and obed1 Serv*
I shall call & see you the first opportunity
Two months later, da Costa told him that T have now finished the Catalogue of the large Collection of Marbles' (11 January 1769, DC. Corr.). Their relationship seems to have been a particularly warm one. In the summer of that year Forster wrote T will see you soon (please God) for I long to have a few minutes conversation' and in the autumn T am sorry it has not been in my power to pay my duty to your Fossilian Majesty this long time' (5 July 1769 and 2 October
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1769, DC. Corr.). Although seven years younger than da Costa (who was now 52), Forster would often adopt a flippant, almost patronizing tone in his letters. Referring to work that da Costa was doing for him, Forster wrote 'You have been a very good Boy indeed! - Let us go on Briskly while the days are long and the Weather fine' and 'As 1 have given you a large number of Holidays, I hope like a good Boy you will apply closely to Business' (5 August 1771 and 24 January 1772, DC. Corr.). That this was perhaps not resented is suggested by Forster's use, after an initial period of signing himself 'I F', of the nickname 'Ferrum' (from 5 October 1772).
However depressing the King's Bench Prison may have been, da Costa's time there seems to have been extremely well spent; he certainly kept himself interested and in touch with outside events and he both ameliorated his living conditions and helped to meet his debt. One of the means that he adopted was the giving of courses of lectures, the second of which, scheduled for some time after July 1769, was thought to be too expensive by Forster. Da Costa was urged 'to endeavour to make the Expense of attending as reasonable as you can . . . the Proposal of 2 Guineas or 2/6 [symbol for per] Lecture I totally disapprove'; Forster recommended only 30 shillings the course or 1/6 per lecture (Forster to da Costa, 30 May 1769, DC. Corr.). The first set of lectures (on fossils) had apparently taken place in February and one supposes that da Costa continued to use the 'large commodious & extreme pleasant room' of his cultivated prison neigh- bours. The lectures seem to have been a success and a third series was planned the following year. Thus, George Humphrey, on behalf of Captain Thomas Cornwall, asked if da Costa could spare one of his syllabuses and on what terms, since Cornwall could not attend the course (24 January
1770, DC. Corr.). Humphrey wrote again the following month reminding da Costa that Cornwall would like a printed version of the lectures (February 1770, DC. Corr.) and da Costa duly dis- patched a syllabus via Dr MackKenzie, who immediately paid the required 3 guineas for it (da Costa to Thomas Cornwall, 4 April 1770, DC. Corr.). In 1771 da Costa gave yet another series of lectures on fossils beginning in April, which was to be followed by a series on shells (da Costa to John Fothergill, 4 April 1771, DC. Corr.).
If da Costa managed twenty subscribers to each of his courses of lectures, then even at the reduced rate recommended by Ingham Forster he would have reaped over a hundred pounds, not counting the profits made on the sale of printed versions of the lectures. Another source of income was catalogues (such as that of marbles for Ingham Forster - see above) and also trans- lations and revisions. Thus, he revised and prepared for press the English version of the Essay towards a system of mineralogy by Cronstedt (1770 - translated by Gustav Engestrom, with a Preface and notes by da Costa), for which he received 8 guineas and a promise that his name would appear on the title page (Agreement dated 3 April 1769, DC. Corr.). His footnotes in this work are marked 'D.C and it is interesting to note that in some copies of the second English edition (published 1788), the printer, presumably on da Costa's insistence, pasted in a small label drawing attention to this fact since da Costa's Preface was now omitted. According to his library catalogue, da Costa's own copy had 'Mr Brunnich's and my MSS. additions & notes' but it was 'Stole from me by Mr Debraw' (DC. Lib., f. 1 lv).
Of translation work in this period, the only recorded project (but there may well have been others) was for Drury's Illustrations of natural history, for which da Costa did the parallel French text for the first two volumes. A note in Drury's letter-book (Drury Corr., p. 150) lists payments made in 1768-69, but a more complete record appears in Drury's account book, showing that da Costa received three payments in 1768 (£4.14.6), two in 1769 (£4.4.0), and one in 1770 (£10.14.6), all for volume 1 of the work, and a part payment in September 1771 (£5.5.0) for volume 2; Drury also paid him a shilling for translating a letter (Drury AB.). Da Costa's knowledge of French may have stemmed from his childhood, since both his father and grandfather had come from Rouen (DC. Gen.). His letters to Antoine Reamur are fluent (DC. Corr.) and in a letter to Isaac Romilly he jokes of professing 'some Antigallican Principles' but implies that he is perfectly capable of conducting the business in French if he wishes (25 June 1748 and 22 December 1755, Well. Inst., No. 56485). Da Costa's French was in no way stylish and it was perhaps for this reason that the publisher Elmsley 'found great fault' with it (Humphrey to da Costa, 12 April 1771, DC. Corr.). He may at this time have been responsible for a translation from Latin of 'Principles of Testa- ceology', a paper delivered at Uppsala by Adolphus Murray on 29 June 1771, of which the
12
translation exists as a 23 + 3 page manuscript (Linn. Arch.). Although in another hand, da Costa's authorship is implied by the second part, the 'Author's Apology', which takes da Costa's familiar anti-Linnaean stance against certain offensive terms borrowed from misplaced analogies with human anatomy.
The length of da Costa's stay in prison has never been stated accurately in the literature. The Writ of Execution (Capias ad Satisfaciendum), which had commanded the Sheriff to deliver da Costa to the prison, ordered that he should remain there 'till he made satisfaction'. With his library and collection sold to pay off his bondsmen and no other resources to fall back on, da Costa's friends evidently did not expect to see him free for some years at least. Drury even wrote to Pallas that da Costa was 'confined in ye King's Bench Prison at ye instance of Royal Society and has been there near a year, from whence, I imagine, he will never return' (14 January 1770, Drury Corr.). In April 1772, however, da Costa's friend Thomas Hughes of Gossamer End near Berkhamsted wrote a delighted letter rejoicing at his 'soon expected enlargement' and inviting him to spend a few days with him and his wife (16 April 1772, DC. Corr.). The lectures, sale catalogues, translations, profits from the Conchology and fee for the Cronstedt book were surely not enough to cover the four hundred pounds owed to the Royal Society, so perhaps friends like Fothergill, Drury and others gave him some help. At any rate, by September da Costa was able to write to another of his loyal friends, Mitford Flower of Bedlington in Northumberland, to say T shall go from this place (where thou saw me) next month' (12 September 1772, DC. Corr.).
At last, on 8 October 1772 at the General Quarter Sessions at Kingston, da Costa was discharged under the Insolvent Act (PRO. PRIS.4, 4 : 203 - note in margin) and he set about making a new life. It was not to be easy, as he said to Thomas Hughes:
Tybo presents her [deleted] his Duty She [deleted] He says he is now clear of the World & owes not a farthing to anyone but sighs and adds times are so hard he does not know how soon he may be in debt again.
(27 November 1772, DC. Corr.)
Thereafter, for nearly twenty years until his death in 1791, da Costa struggled to make a living, as a dealer in shells and minerals, as a writer and as a lecturer. Apart from patronage, which da Costa had now largely forfeited, the eighteenth century offered to a man in his position little enough beyond what could be scraped from freelance work. He might, like J. R. Forster, have tried his luck abroad, but Forster had an energetic son to pave the way and was returning to a land and a language that he already knew. If da Costa's pre-prison letter to John Anderson is any clue, then da Costa was unrepentant and determined to brazen things out.
Later years
Some eighteen months after his release, da Costa asked the Oxford astronomer Thomas Hornsby (1733-1810) to help him institute a 2-guinea course of 27 lectures on fossils at the university (29 March 1774, DC. Corr.; also ///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 516-9). Hornsby found that the Vice-Chancel- lor favoured the idea, but several people in the university advised him against it and he turned it down. 'I am very certain', wrote da Costa, 'my attempt has not succeeded by means of some un- friendly and sinister misrepresentations' and he swore that he would not try Oxford again 'at least until his Vice-Chancellorship expires' (loc. cit.). Without such official support, da Costa had to promote his lectures as best he could; he was certainly giving lectures in London in 1776 and 1777 (25 April 1776 and 4 September 1777, Pult. Corr.). A copy of the syllabus for his fossil lectures, dated 9 October 1778, is bound in with a copy of his History of fossils now in the Paleont- ology Library of the British Museum (Natural History). This syllabus (da Costa, 1778a) outlines an introductory and 27 main lectures and was probably the course offered to Oxford four years earlier and perhaps essentially that given in prison; a copy of the syllabus is recorded in da Costa's library catalogue (DC. Lib., f. 25v) and another copy, again bound in with the History of Fossils, is in the possession of Dr V. A. Eyles, who mentions it in commenting on da Costa's contribution to petrology (Eyles, 1969 : 176, 178).
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As Dance (1966) has shown, this was a time of brisk dealings in shells (as well as other natural curiosities) and da Costa now decided to become a dealer. From prison he told Mitford Flower that 'One article of my livelihood hereafter will be to buy and sell all the curious productions of Nature to those who study Natural History and make Collections . . .' and he proposed acting as Flower's agent; if acceptable, Flower could send him curiosities 'directed for me at Mr Ingham Forster in Clement's Lane Lombard Street' (12 September 1772, DC. Corr.). Apparently 'Ferrum' was continuing to help him. Da Costa's twelve letters to the physician, botanist and shell collector Richard Pulteney (1730-1801) in the period 1775-85 are frequently concerned with offers of shells (Pult. Corr., DC. Corr.) and da Costa's other loyal friend John Fothergill was forever being importuned 'to spend on some fine new specimen' (Fox, 1919 : 212). In 1779 da Costa attended the sale of Humphrey's Museum Humfredianum in St Martin's Lane and 'by my principles & self bought near £150' (da Costa to Richard Waring, 6 July 1779, DC. Corr.); da Costa's annotated sale catalogue (Hope Department, Oxford) shows that he bought 79 lots for himself and 64 on behalf of Humphrey. Although his activities as a dealer never rivalled those of Humphrey, they must have gone some way toward providing a living. In addition, his knowledge of shells and fossils brought him work on the cataloguing of other people's sales and he catalogued the shells, corals, fossils and cabinets of his friend Ingham Forster (March and May-June 1783, Lit. Anec. 9 : 799).
In 1776 da Costa published his Elements of conchology and two years later came his British conchology (da Costa, 1776, 1778b). Both were well received and although he could no longer place F.R.S. or F.S.A. after his name, he still managed 'Member of the Imperial Caesarean Academy Naturae Curiosorum, by the name of Pliny IV* and of the Botanic Society of Florence'. He raised 1 1 1 subscribers for the second work, of which no less than 22 were Fellows of the Royal Society, and the list of names gives some measure of his rehabilitation. Joseph Salvador is among them, as well as Fothergill, Drury, Anderson and Pennant. The book was dedicated, in flowery terms, to Sir Ashton Lever, whose Holophusikon or Leverian Museum was then exhibiting in Leicester Square; Lever must surely have bought many specimens from da Costa and he may have helped him in other ways.
Da Costa wrote no more books, presumably finding his financial reward hardly justifying the labour. His feelings on this come out well in a letter to Richard Hill Waring (? 1720-94?), a friend and subscriber to the British conchology. Failing to receive either acknowledgement or payment from Waring, he wrote testily :
Good God here is a strange Encouragement indeed to a poor devil of an author when subscribers spurn him if he desires a subscription aforehand & deprive him of his due monies by not receiving the book according to their honour when the work is finish'd . . . such doings and similar fantastics for I have the luck to deal with such unthinking people has sour'd my temper & depress'd my spirits so much that I am resolved to quit all Authorship & be no more the Scape Goat of our English Literature Encouragement or Generosity.
(23 October 1779, DC. Corr.)
Many of the names of da Costa's subscribers to the British conchology appear some years later, together with a rather shaky signature by da Costa himself, in a manuscript rule book for the Society for Promoting Natural History (1783, Linn. Arch.; also printed rule books and much manuscript material). Founded in October 1782, this society was a forerunner of the Linnean Society, overlapping it for four years until it was wound up in May 1792. Da Costa never joined the Linnean Society, but this may well have been his own choice, membership implying tacit approval of Linnaean obscenity. However, it is clear that by perserverance and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge his crime, da Costa had gradually wriggled his way back into the community that had damned him in 1768. For example, the physician Thomas Percival (1740-1804) strongly recommended da Costa to Josiah Wedgewood, urging the latter to be 'very civil to him', since he
* Nicknames, a curious relict from the days when scientific societies had need of secrecy, persisted in the present case until 1870; Goethe was Arion IV, Linnaeus Dioscorides II and Prince Albert merited Fredericus secundus Hohenstaufensis (Sarton, 1931).
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was much esteemed. Unfortunately, things did not turn out so well, for Wedgewood took an instant dislike to da Costa, thinking him 'the most disagreeable Mortal who bore the name of a Philosopher, I had ever known' and he gained temporary relief 'by sending him two miles to see a FlintmiH' (Wedgewood to Thomas Bentley, 6 and 16 August 1774, see Farrer, 1976 : 189-190; also Meteyard, 1866 : 478). Percival was aware that 'there was some mistake in his [da Costa's] accts. with the R: Society, but he hoped it was rather negligence than design . . . [he] is very
high in his encomiums of da C as a sensible Man, of the most extensive knowledge, & equally
extensive correspondence with the Literati all over Europe, amongst whom the Dr. says he is very much esteemed' (loc. cit.).
Four years in the King's Bench Prison must have left some bitterness in a man so uncontrite as da Costa. Accepted on his own terms, with sympathy for his misfortune and respect for his learning, he could perhaps be again the popular figure of his Royal Society days. A hint of con- descension (by Wedgewood?) or the tardiness of a subscriber (Waring) could draw forth what Drury meant when he spoke of da Costa's 'Temper and Principle [which] was sufficient to over- turn a Kingdom' (Drury to Pallas on the collapse of the first Aurelian Society, 28 February 1767, Drury Corr.). Da Costa was not the only one to be thrown into bankruptcy, but there were differences. Drury himself was to fall into debt (for ten times the amount owed by da Costa) in his business as a silversmith and goldsmith 'the effect of which was O! terrible to relate, I was obliged to be a bankrupt'; but since this misfortune 'did not arise from extravagance or dis- honesty the world saw my distress and pitied me' (Drury to Robert Killingly, 21 December 1778, Drury Corr.). George Humphrey also had his financial troubles, the sale of his museum in 1779 only a year after its opening being more or less forced on him by his creditors (who had to settle for 12 shillings in the pound - da Costa to Richard Waring, 6 July 1779, DC. Corr.). Drury was merely gullible and Humphrey perhaps over-ambitious, but da Costa had shown less honourable traits of character and his misfortune must have long remained tainted with 'ignomy and dis- grace' in the minds of all but loyal friends.
Very little can be gleaned of da Costa's final years. He had drawn up his will many years earlier, on 13 December 1773, and he left everything to his 'dear and beloved wife Elizabeth Mendes da Costa otherwise Elizabeth Skillman' (not witnessed but after his death attested by Elizabeth Grigg and Charles Westricher - Moc. Lib.). His letters break off in the volumes of correspondence in 1787 and possibly he sold them and some or all of his other books and manuscripts to Benjamin White at this time. The catalogue of his library (DC. Lib.) shows that in 1782 he had something over two hundred books, as well as pamphlets, sale catalogues and manuscripts, but there are frequent deletions, presumably as he parted with some treasure to pay a bill. Among his books was a copy of his Natural history of fossils with 'interleaved MSS additions', and two copies of the British conchology interleaved and annotated, one coloured and bound in two volumes, the other plain in one volume. These have not been traced, but Donald MacAlister (in Nance, 1935) recorded an interleaved copy of the first inscribed 'Remarks and alterations made by Mr da Costa and copied in the year 1781 by James Smirnove' (but did not say where it was located; it is, in fact, in the library of the Geological Society of London). It would be of great interest to locate other annotated books, as also such items as 'A folio Copy book of Accounts Current MSS', 'A folio Copy book of Litterary Expenses MSS' and 'Copy Old Catalogues of my Collection of Animals & Vegetables' (DC. Lib.).
Da Costa evidently kept up as best he could with the scientific and antiquarian communities, carefully pinning his letters on to the blue sheets of the letter-books, attending natural history sales, lecturing perhaps, and joining in the discussions once a month at 19 Warwick Street where the Society for Promoting Natural History met 'on the Monday before full moon at 6 in the evening' (rule book, Linn. Arch.). His few recorded addresses (Arundel Street, 3 Bedford Street) were around Fleet Street and the Strand, where rents were not too high ; there were compensations, however, for the coffee-house life, booksellers and general bustle were attractive and even Dr Johnson in his later years resisted the temptation to migrate to a more fashionable part of town. Da Costa's final address was 463 Strand as recorded in the 1790 members list for the Society (Linn. Arch.).
In May 1 791 , nearing his seventy-fifth birthday, da Costa died at his lodgings in the Strand and
15
on the 22nd he was buried at the Bethahaim Velho or Old Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation at 243 Mile End Road, London ( Barnett, 1 962 ; see also Lysons, 1 795 : 478). Custom would have required Psalm 51, David's cry of repentance - a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Contrite or not, da Costa's name has outlived the opprobrium once attached to it and his books take a modest but not insignificant place amongst those of his less wayward contemporaries.
The Conchology
The Conchology, or natural history of shells is in no way a fundamental work, but it merits atten- tion for its illustration of shells in particular collections, some of which are types. Its authorship has been disputed, not very thoroughly, and its parts have never been dated. The authorship and dating can now be cleared up, chiefly on the basis of the da Costa letters, and something can be said of the illustrations.
Authorship
The authorship of the Conchology cannot be deduced from the work itself. The title page offers no clue, the work being merely 'By a Collector'. The Preface, unsigned, refers to an 'Editor' and also to an 'Author' in terms that imply that these were not the same person ('the Editor begs leave to acquaint the curious . . .' while 'the Author thinks it is his duty to inform them . . .'). The only names given on the title page are those of the printer (T. Jones, in Fetter Lane) and of the three people from whom the work could be bought: Mr B. White, Bookseller in Fleet Street, Mr Elmsley, Bookseller in the Strand, and Mr Humphrey, Dealer in shells and other natural curiosi- ties in St Martin's Lane near Charing Cross. The Preface also implies that neither Humphrey nor the two booksellers acted as Editor. Thus, shells for description are solicited from other collectors and 'if they will honour the Editor to send them either to the Booksellers Messrs. White and Elmsley, or to Mr Humphrey, to be conveyed to him [i.e. the Editor], he will return them safe, and gratefully acknowledge the favour . . .'.
It is clear that two people were involved in producing the Conchology, an author who was a collector, and an editor, the latter apparently not being Humphrey (who also by implication does not admit to being the author either). As shown already (see p. 1), some writers have favoured da Costa's authorship, while others have settled for George Humphrey.
Support for Humphrey's authorship stems in part from his claim in the Museum Humfredianum where the work is given as 'HUMPHREY'S Conchology' (Humphrey, 1779 : 36th day). This is repeated in the Portland Catalogue (Anon., 1786: v), which includes in its list of references 'Humph. Conch. - A Conchology or Natural History of Shells published by Mr. Humphrey, 17 ' (i.e. no date given). Although it was the Rev. John Lightfoot and not George Humphrey who compiled the Portland Catalogue (Dance, 1962), da Costa noted that the 'natural history [was] made by George Humphrey, and formed or corrected by the late Rev. Mr Lightfoot, her Grace's Chaplain' (Add. MS. 29867; Nichols, 1812: 516). The reference in Humphrey's own sale cata- logue obviously carries the most weight since there is no doubt that Humphrey himself penned it. In fact, Humphrey had seven copies of the Conchology and, ironically perhaps, da Costa purchased one of these -for 18 shillings (Lot 82, thirty-sixth day - annotated catalogue in Hope Department, Oxford).
Another hint of Humphrey's authorship occurs in letters between himself and da Costa at the time that the Conchology was being written. Among the repositories where there were shells for inclusion in the work was the British Museum. Humphrey visited and found that it was necessary to make a proper application to the Trustees 'in order to see the Shells, and Books relative thereto' as well as for permission for an artist to make drawings. He then asked da Costa to draft out such an application for him (April 1770, DC. Corr.). A copy of da Costa's draft is on the reverse of Humphrey's letter and it ends with a promise that the applicant (i.e. Humphrey) will present 'a copy of his intended work on its publication'. This letter is followed by Humphrey's rewritten application, which says that he will acknowledge the courtesy 'by humbly presenting a Copy of my intended work on its publication' (27 April 1770, DC. Corr.).
16
A further implication that Humphrey was the author comes in letters between Humphrey and the conchologist and collector Henry Seymer (1745-1800). Humphrey apparently sent to Seymer some kind of advertisement for the Conchology and the latter acknowledged 'your Proposals, Feb. 1, 1769' and added a word of caution on the 'expense and time your 'History of Shells' will take up' (16 February 1769, DC. Corr. ; also ///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 772). It would be interesting to know whose name if any was on the Proposal since 'your' could be singular or plural.
Taken together, these hints would seem to add up to Humphrey's authorship, but the case for da Costa's authorship is even stronger. In the light of what follows, Humphrey's name must be seen merely as a device for concealing da Costa's involvement at a time when he could expect little sympathy from certain potential subscribers or from the British Museum, the Duchess of Portland or others who might supply shells for description. Prison lectures were one thing, but the handling or loan of often rare and expensive shells might not be entrusted to a young dealer if it were known of his association with a man of da Costa's reputation.
Nevertheless, da Costa announced his authorship to at least a few people since Drury told Pallas that da Costa 'is at present engaged in writing a history of shells which he hopes will make its appearance this summer' (14 January 1770, Drury Corr.; quoted by Cockerell, 1922 and also by Iredale, 1922 : 86, who took this as evidence of da Costa's authorship). To Fothergill, da Costa at first referred to the Conchology as a joint work, sending coloured copies of parts 1 and 2 'as a present from us Editors'; but two months later he made it his own by dispatching 'No 3 of my History of Shells' (6 February and 4 April 1771, DC. Corr.). Unfortunately, no indication of authorship can be found in da Costa's own library catalogue, in which the only possible item is an undated 'New Conchology' with manuscript additions (DC. Lib., f. 7). Although this is remini- scent of his phrase 'a new anonymous Conchology' in the Elements of conchology (p. 51), the latter work is not listed and by 1781, when this part of the catalogue was drawn up, it could well have been dubbed as 'new' in contrast to the Conchology often years earlier. Johann Schroter, however, writing only a few years after the Conchology had appeared, attributed it to da Costa and made no mention of Humphrey (Schroter, 1774 : 15), while Chemnitz (1795 : 181) seemed to be in no doubt about the authorship when he wrote 'Da Costa, Conchology or Natural History of Shells'.
Perhaps the strongest evidence of da Costa's authorship (in the strict sense of having written the descriptions) comes from Humphrey himself. This is clearly proclaimed in a letter from Humphrey to da Costa proposing an addition to plate 12. He assures da Costa that this will not be incon- venient since 'it will be some time before you reach so far with the Descriptions' (1771, ? late July, DC. Corr.). This is further borne out in comments made by Humphrey many years later in a letter to John Timothy Swainson (cited in full by Jackson, 1937 - who wrongly gave William Swainson as the recipient; I am indebted to Nora McMillan for pointing out this error). The letter, dated 12 December 1815, contained a detailed list of the Conchology plates, with identi- fications and comments against each figure (thus most useful for those plates which lack a text).
By this time, Humphrey had established his reputation and had no hesitation in criticizing the Conchology. For plate 2, figure 3 he noted 'Scahrosa. Rough. Country Mediterranean. Da Costa has omitted this in his Description'-and indeed the text for figure 3 has been completely forgotten; of plate 3, figure 10, Humphrey remarked 'DC. confounds it with the Common Limpet and European Auricula'; for plate 3, figure 12, Humphrey exclaimed 'How DC. came to call it the Thorny I can't conjecture'; for the 'Cracked Limpet' of plate 4, figure 2, Humphrey says T never saw any from Falkland Islands but a very small one, which is perforated at top' - whereas in the text of the Conchology the 'author' states categorically T have also seen very fine ones from Falkland Islands in the Atlantic Seas'.
Jackson (1937) made the curious mistake of assuming these comments to be directed, not at the Conchology, but at da Costa's British conchology (1778). As a result, Humphrey's remarks seemed quite consistent with his supposed authorship of the Conchology, whereas in fact they would be quite absurd, as Jackson would have realized immediately. However, Jackson was then able to assign authorship of the Conchology to Humphrey, largely based on Humphrey's phrase 'the Patella published by me' which appears at the beginning of the letter, together with the annotation 'Humphrey's Patella etc' on the back of J. T. Swainson's copy of the Conchology. Salisbury (1945 : 138-9) spotted Jackson's mistake and, realizing the contradiction between
17
Humphrey's comments and his supposed authorship, unhesitatingly gave authorship of the Conchology to da Costa.
Da Costa's authorship of the parallel French texts seems certain in view of the very similar translations that he made for Dru Drury's Illustrations. His close involvement in the project is quite clear from the letters between Humphrey and himself, many of which will be mentioned below in dealing with the dating of the work and its illustrations. Finally, if there was indeed an editor and an author, it is much more likely that the author was the one who could not admit to his authorship, while the editor was the one who was free to negotiate specimens and illustrations.
A case can also be made for considering the Conchology a joint work, in the sense of joint authorship. Da Costa, after all, was in prison and the book could not have been produced without outside help. Humphrey evidently organized the specimens and the illustrations and dealt with the publishers, sending da Costa at least one account of the sales (12 April 1772, DC. Corr.). The first intimation of a partnership comes in a brochure in French (in Humphrey's and not da Costa's writing) addressed to the Secretary of the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and it states :
Nous avons l'honneur de vous envoyer les premieres feuilles [Enluminees - added by da Costa] d'un ouvrage dont vous donnerons chaque mois un pareil nombre . . .
Below this da Costa added,
Londres ce 20th Decembre de 1770 Les Editeurs
Chez Mons. Humphrey dans St Martin's Lane, pres de Charing Cross, Londres
(20 December 1770, DC. Corr.)
This formula is also followed in a note, possibly in Humphrey's hand, at the top of parts 1 and 3 of one copy of the Conchology (provenance unknown) where it is stated : 'Presented by the Editors' (bound copy in British Museum (Natural History) with end papers but top of title page for part 2 trimmed off). Some years later, in the Elements of conchology, da Costa conferred author- ship on these editors, saying that 'the authors have laid it aside' (da Costa, 1776 : 52).
Once again, this cannot be taken at its face value since the letters show that da Costa's involve- ment did not stop short merely at the descriptions. Of plate 4, Humphrey sent two proofs and in a strangely formal letter said that 'Mr DC. will be pleased to number and return [symbol for per] bearer' (2 October, 1770 DC. Corr.). Again, Humphrey deferred to da Costa's opinion on the identification of shells. The correct determination of the 'unperforated ear' has been mentioned earlier, but Humphrey also consulted da Costa on a dozen new species brought back from Captain Cook's first voyage (1771, ? late July, DC. Corr.). Even the choice of subjects for the plates was left to da Costa, Humphrey sending across various books and saying 'It lies with you to settle for the 8th plate which is to contain all the ears' (6 March 1771, DC. Corr.). Da Costa's responsibility for this is emphasized by Humphrey's later criticisms of figures copied from other people's works (letter to Swainson cited above).
Joint authorship could also be inferred from the slight stylistic difference between descriptions and the notes that follow, the former being impersonal in most (but not all) cases, the latter being in the first person. Thus, 'Mr Da Costa found them [a species of Patella] in great quantities . . .'. while in the note it says T do not find it described, or even mentioned, by any author' (text for plate 1, figure 10). On another occasion (plate 4, figure 13), the description says 'the only one in the British Museum', while the note reads 'In the same noble Collection I observed some small Limpets not above one Quarter of an inch long'.
In the face of Humphrey's own attribution of the descriptions to da Costa, one might suppose that the notes were afterthoughts added by Humphrey. This could be the case for the shorter notes, but there is some doubt in the case of the Black Limpet (plate 1, figure 8), in which there is a long and detailed criticism of Michel Adanson (1727-1806) and his synonymy of several species because of similarities in soft anatomy, regardless of shell characters. As noted earlier, Gray (1858) referred to Humphrey as a 'comparatively uneducated person' and Humphrey himself admitted in the Preface to the Museum Calonnianum sale catalogue that the editor 'hopes that his
18
confession of being but little acquainted with the learned languages will be received as an apology for such improprieties in the generic or specific names as he fears will be found' (Humphrey, 1797 : v). On the other hand, Gray also found Humphrey 'far in advance of the state of natural history of his time' (Gray, 1858), while Swainson (1840b : 21-22) simply could not heap enough praise on Humphrey's arrangement of shells in the Museum Calonnianum: it was an 'entirely novel and very remarkable plan ... a most extensive improvement upon everything of the kind which had hitherto been done ... as far exceeds that of Linnaeus, as Lister's exceeds Klein'; and if that was not enough, he concluded 'As a purely conchological system, this was unquestionably the best and most original of any that had appeared since the revival of learning'. Whether this second Aristotle deserved such praise is a matter of opinion ; da Costa, after all, was given the cognomen 'Plinius IV. In fact, Dall (1889 : 301) gave the real credit for the Museum Calonnianum -or presumably the exhibition catalogue of 1788 on which it was based - to Christian Hwass 'whose manuscripts (by the aid of E. M. da Costa, an English writer on shells)' were then used by Humphrey. Although Iredale (1937 : 417) rejected this, pointing to the evident lack of the 'learned languages' shown in the catalogue, there is still the impression that the passage on Adanson in the Conchology is more consistent with the work of a man who went on to write two books on conchology than with one who merely published catalogues and a brief four-page note on the gizzard of Bulla lignaria (Humphrey, 1794).
Finally, it can be noted that the idea of the Conchology appears to have originated with da Costa. Two years before the Proposal was issued, Drury wrote to Pallas that 'Mr Da Costa is going to publish plates of nondescript animals - shells, Insects, etc. in periodical numbers, five plates with their descriptions being a complete number' (12 November 1767, Drury Corr. ; also Cockerell, 1922 : 70). It seems likely that the Conchology stemmed from this larger scheme, being later pared down by force of circumstances.
Humphrey's role in the Conchology seems to have been more akin to that of an editor. Thus, he arranged for the illustrations to be done (perhaps paying for the artists), saw the book through the press, and kept a watchful eye on sales. Da Costa, on the other hand, probably conceived the project, certainly wrote the descriptions, made the French translations, chose some, if not all, of the species to be illustrated, identified material to be included, and collated the figures with the text. No doubt Humphrey put a lot of work into the book, but it seems reasonable to regard da Costa as its true author.
Illustrations
The Conchology has 12 plates, with between 11 and 27 numbered figures on each (or up to 33 actual drawings when shells are illustrated twice on the same plate). Henry Seymer had supposed that they could not have more than five shells on each plate, and if 26 genera with on average 50 species were to be figured, then a monthly issue of two plates would take nearly five and a half years; he advised an issue every fortnight and then 'persons almost of any age might hope to see the completion of it' (Seymer to Humphrey, 16 February 1771, DC. Corr.; also ///. Lit. Hist. 4 : 773). The advice was not heeded and in any case four plates had already been issued by then.
The first four plates were signed 'J. Wicksteed Jun. del'. This was James Wicksteed (1718-91) from Dublin, who later worked in Bath and then London (Benezit, 1966 : 736). He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1779 to 1824 and is given by Graves (1906 : 263) as a gem engraver who showed mainly portraits (Wellington, Johnson, etc.). There is no mention of his name in the Humphrey/da Costa correspondence, but in a single letter of 1757 addressed to 'Mr James Wicksteed (Seal Engraver) at Bath' da Costa states that he had sent him a copy of the History of fossils and hopes that Wicksteed will oblige with a second half-guinea subscription for the remainder of the book (4 October 1757, DC. Corr.). Thus, da Costa had known Wicksteed for perhaps fifteen years and may have already approached him in 1767 when he planned the series of plates mentioned by Drury to Pallas.
If the plates were drawn in the order that they were published, then Humphrey's brother William was the second artist to be employed on the Conchology. William Humphrey drew for plates 5 and 7 and the first record of his involvement in the project comes from George Humphrey's application of 27 April 1770 for his brother to accompany him to the British Museum as his
19
artist (Humphrey to da Costa, DC. Corr.). In asking da Costa to draft out this application, Humphrey had added 'Leave should also be asked for a person (my Brother) to be with me to draw any particular Shell' (April 1770, DC. Corr.). There is no indication in the letter why William Humphrey was employed at this stage or why he did not continue with the later plates. He was, in fact, an extremely competent mezzotint engraver and had already (1765) won the prize of the Society of Artists for an engraving after Rembrandt (Benezit, 1966 : 29), but he exhibited only once at the Academy (as an Honourable Exhibitor in 1793 - see Graves, 1906 : 193).
The third and probably the best artist to work on the Conchology was Peter Brown, who later turned increasingly to flower paintings and became Botanical Painter to the then Prince of Wales (Benezit, 1966 : 162). He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1770 and 1791 and his address in the early 1770's was 'At Mrs Munt's milliner 16 Portland St.' (Graves, 1905 : 311). Among his earlier pictures were 'Two drawings of shells' exhibited in 1777, possibly originals from the British conchology, for which he did plates 1-2 and 4-17 ; they are referred to in a letter from Brown to da Costa requesting permission 'to Exhibit two of your drawings of shells, there is room for two, I think it would be an advantage to your Publication & would much oblige me' (16 April 1777, DC. Corr., the only Brown letter).
Plates 8 to 12 of the published parts of the Conchology are by Brown, but these well outrun the text, which stops short in the middle of figure 2 of plate 5 ; as Humphrey remarked to da Costa 'great fault' was found by Elmsley 'that the Figures exceed the Descriptions so greatly' (12 April 1771, DC. Corr.). In fact, Brown went on to draw four more plates, but these were never pub- lished. These four signed plates, together with the signed originals of plates 8 and 9, are now bound in with one and a half copies of the Conchology in the British Museum (Natural History). Brown was an excellent artist and the plates give little clue to the delicacy of his originals. A note in the book (in pencil) states 'Six loose plates added May 1929'. These drawings, which are on parchment, are probably part of the 'Ten original drawings on vellum by Brown (5 unpublished)' listed as Lot 86 on the thirty-sixth day of the Museum Humfredianum sale. In the Hope Depart- ment copy of the catalogue this lot (p. 168) is annotated 'DC for Dr Fothergill' and sixteen guineas was paid for it. John Fothergill's library and paintings were sold at auction by Leigh & Sotheby in April/May 1781, and the ten Brown drawings appear as Lot 72 on the eighth day. The annotated sale catalogue in the British Library shows that they were bought by 'Dobello' for eight pounds. This is probably a mis-writing for 'Rebello', who also bought an earlier lot, and would be the 'D. Alves Rebello' who was a member of the Society for Promoting Natural History (Linn. Arch.). I have been unable to find out when Rebello relinquished the drawings; they may have come to the British Museum (Natural History) through Alexander Reynell (Peter Dance, in litt.).
The plates of the Conchology were all engraved by Peter Mazell, an excellent engraver who worked also for Thomas Pennant and others and whose best work is probably seen in Cordiner's Remarkable ruins and romantic prospects in North Britain. Mazell was sympathetic to natural history subjects and himself exhibited two flower paintings at the Royal Academy in 1797 (Graves, 1906 : 220). He is only once mentioned by name in the Humphrey /da Costa correspondence, Humphrey saying that 'Mazelle has promised me the 7th plate next Monday' (12 April 1771, DC. Corr.).
It is disappointing that more cannot be gleaned of the history of the Conchology illustrations since the employment of a third artist by the time of the eighth plate could imply dissatisfaction over the first two artists or, conversely, their rejection of the contract because of the haste required or the lack of payment. There is a hint that Humphrey's brother was not satisfactory in a letter from Humphrey to da Costa in which he says that 'the Masks which are for the 7th plate . . . have been Drawn twice, tho' some of them must be redrawn' (6 March 1771, DC. Corr.).
Dating
Like many other works of this type and period, no dates are given on the parts of the Conchology. The title page is a wrapper of blue paper, of which those for parts 1 and 3 (two of the latter) are bound in with the coloured copies in the British Museum (Natural History); the wrapper for part 6 is in the British Library (Joseph Banks' copy, uncoloured, possibly inscribed but top of wrapper
20
trimmed). Schroter (1774 : 1 56) seems to include 'a Londres 1771' in the title, but this is not printed on the wrapper. Authors since then have variously dated the work 1770-71 or 1771-72.
The most direct dating, unfortunately only of parts 1 and 3, is that inscribed on the wrappers of the incomplete copy in the British Museum (Natural History). The first reads 'Presented by the Editors Jan. 18, 1771' and the second 'Presented by the Editors [May 31 deleted] June 14 1771'. According to the wrapper, the work was to be issued in monthly parts containing two plates each. The text was obviously meant to keep pace with the plates, but it breaks off in the middle of plate 5 and the remaining six plates seem to have been issued without text.
The letters between Humphrey and da Costa in the British Library provide the only other method of dating the work. The result is shown in Table 1, which places the first five parts between December 1770 and August 1771, the sixth and final part presumably being later in 1771 but not in 1772. The earliest dates for each part can be summarized as:
Part 1, pis 1 and 2 20 December 1 770 Part 4, pis 7 and 8 7 June 1771
Part 2, pis 3 and 4 6 February 1771 Part 5, pis 9 and 10 5 August 1771
Part 3, pis 5 and 6 4 April 1771 Part 6, pis 11 and 12 ? October 1771
Part 2 followed part 1 after an interval of just over a month, but there was a delay over part 3 and da Costa must have taken Humphrey to task over this. The latter replied 'We are not in so bad a pickle as you imagine (tho' bad enough)' (6 March 1771, DC. Corr.). Thereafter, the parts appeared every other month, although the text had broken off in the third part at p. 26. Jackson (1937) supposed that Humphrey and da Costa quarrelled and thus the work was never completed, but according to da Costa (1776 : 52) the work was laid aside for lack of support. It remains now something of a literary curiosity and a record of how a once prominent man employed his time in a debtor's prison.
Table 1
Part 1 (plates 1 and 2, both by J. Wicksteed) 20 Dec. 1770 First sheets to Paris (DC. Corr. 5 : 229) 18 Jan. 1771 'Presented by the Editors' (Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) copy) 6 Feb. 1771 Coloured copy to Fothergill (DC. Corr. 4 : 163) 12 Apr. 1771 One plain and four coloured copies sold by Elmsley (DC. Corr. 5 : 232)
Part 2 (plates 3 and 4, both by J. Wicksteed)
2 Oct. 1770 Two proofs of plate 4 to da Costa for checking (DC. Corr. 5 : 228) 6 Feb. 1771 Two coloured copies to Fothergill (DC. Corr. 4 : 163) 12 Apr. 1771 One plain and two coloured copies sold by Elmsley (DC. Corr. 5 : 232)
Part 3 (plate 5 by W. Humphrey, plate 6 by J. Wicksteed) 24 Jan. 1770 W. Humphrey not yet begun drawings (DC. Corr. 5 : 223)
27 Apr. 1770 Application for W. Humphrey to draw shells at British Museum (DC. Corr. 5 : 227) 6 Mar. 1771 Plate 6 engraved, plate 5 in a week or eight days (DC. Corr. 5 : 230)
4 Apr. 1771 Three coloured copies to Fothergill (DC. Corr. 4 : 168) 14 Jun. 1771 'Presented by the Editors' (Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) copy)
Part 4 (plate 7 by W. Humphrey, plate 8 by P. Brown)
6 Mar. 1771 Plate 7 drawn, redrawn, but needs corrections; de Costa to choose subjects for plate !
(DC. Corr. 5 : 230) 12 Apr. 1771 Plate 7 promised by engraver 'next Monday' (DC. Corr. 5 : 232) 18 May 1771 Forster asks if published (DC. Corr. 4 : 1 14)
7 Jun. 1771 Two copies to Fothergill (DC. Corr. 4 : 163)
Part 5 (plates 9 and 10, both by P. Brown)
5 Aug. 1771 Forster has received copy (DC. Corr. 4:117)
Part 6 (plates 11 and 12, both by P. Brown) late Jul. 1771 Humphrey to consult da Costa on contents of plate 12 (DC. Corr. 5 : 231)
21
Acknowledgements
I am particularly grateful to Mr Peter Dance (National Museum of Wales), not only for en- couraging me to explore a corner of his domain, but for drawing my attention to the most important of all da Costa sources, the letters in the British Library. For help with the Jewish records, I am indebted to Mr Alfred Rubens (Chairman, the Jewish Library) and Mr R. Finkin (Mocatta Library). Among those who have so kindly mined information for me have been Mr Gavin Bridson (Linnean Society), Dr Helen Brock (University of Glasgow), Mr John Hopkins (Society of Antiquaries), Mr John Mallet (Victoria & Albert Museum) and Mrs Kate Way of our Mollusca Section. Finally, my sincere thanks to Dr Alex Keller (University of Leicester) for his enthusiasm and help.
While this paper was in press, I received a typescript with almost the same title and conclusions by Nora McMillan; with great generosity she withdrew her work and allowed me to use several further references that I had overlooked.
References
Anon. 1786. A catalogue of the Portland Museum, lately the property of the Duchess Dowager of Portland,
deceased: which will be sold by auction . . . London, 194 pp. (compiled by the Rev. John Lightfoot fide
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congregation in London, part 2. - Abstracts of the Ketubot or marriage-contracts of the congregation
from earliest times until 1837. Oxford University Press, 161 pp. Barnett, R. D. 1962. The burial register of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, London 1657-1735. Misc.
Jewish Hist. Soc. England, pt 6 : 1-72. Benezit, J. 1 966. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs . . .
(nouv. ed.), Libraire Grund, 18 vols (Peter Brown - 2 : 162; William Humphrey - 5 : 29; Peter Mazell -
6 : 23 ; James Wicksteed - 18 : 736). Carswell, J. 1950. The prospector: being the life and times of Rudolph Erich Raspe (1737-1794). Cresset
Press, London, 278 pp. Chemnitz, J. H. 1795. Neues systematisches conchylien-Cabinet, 11, Nurnberg, 310 pp. Cockerel!, T. D. A. 1922. Dm Drury, an eighteenth century entomologist. Sci. Monthly (Jan.) : 67-82. Corner, B. C. & Booth, C. C. 1971. Chain of friendship. Selected letters of Dr. John Fothergill of London,
1735-1780. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 538 pp. Costa, E. M. da. 1757. A natural history of fossils, vol. 1, part 1. L. Davis & C. Reymers, London, 294 pp.
(interleaved and annotated copy reported by MacAlister, 1935; in Geological Society library). 1 776. Elements of conchology : or an introduction to the knowledge of shells. Benjamin White, London,
318 pp. 1778a. Syllabus of a course of lectures on fossils. London, 4 pp. (dated 9 October 1778; copy in
da Costa, 1757 in British Museum (Natural History), Palaeontology Library; see also Eyles, 1969). 1778b. Historia naturalis testaceorum Britanniae, or the British conchology; containing the descriptions
and other particulars of natural history of the shells of Great Britain and Ireland: illustrated with figures.
In English and French. Millan, B. White, Elmsley & Robson, London, 254 pp. + index. [Cronstedt, A.] 1758. Mineralogie: eller Mineral-Rikets upstallning. Stockholm (issued anonymously). Cronstedt, A. 1770. An essay towards a system of mineralogy . . . translated from the original Swedish, with
notes by Gustav von Engestrom. To which is added, a treatise on the pocket-laboratory . . . The whole
revised and corrected, with some additional notes, by Emanuel Mendes da Costa. Edw. & Ch. Dilly,
London, 329 pp. (plus an Appendix by M. T. Brunnich, 24 pp.). Dall, W. H. 1889. Report on the Mollusca - Part II. Gastropoda and Scaphopoda. In Reports on the
results of dredging, under the supervision of Alexander Agassiz, in the Gulf of Mexico (1877-78) and
in the Caribbean Sea (1879-80), by the U.S. Coast Survey Steamer 'Blake' Bull. Mus. comp. Zool.
Harvard 18: 1-492. Dance, P. 1962. The authorship of the Portland Catalogue (1786). /. Soc. Biblphy not. Hist. 4 (1) : 30-34. 1966. Shell collecting. An illustrated history. Faber & Faber, 344 pp.
22
Dawson, W. R. 1949. Some eighteenth century conchologists. /. Conch. 23 : 44-47.
1958. The Banks letters. A calendar of the manuscript correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks preserved
in the British Museum {Natural History) and other collections in Great Britain. Trustees, British Museum
(Natural History), 965 pp. Dillwyn, L. W. 1817. A descriptive catalogue of recent shells, arranged according to the Linnaean method;
with particular attention to the synonymy, 1 and 2. John & Arthur Arch, London, 1092 pp. Drury, D. 1770-82. Illustrations of natural history. Wherein are exhibited upwards of two hundred and forty
figures of exotic insects, according to their different genera . . . to which is added a translation into French.
B. White, London, 3 Vols (vol. 1, 130 pp., 50 pis, 1770; vol. 2, 90 pp., 50 pis, 1773; vol. 3, 76 pp., 50 pis,
1782; French translations by da Costa for vols 1, 2 and perhaps also 3). Eyles, V. A. 1969. The extent of geological knowledge in the eighteenth century, and the methods by
which it was diffused, pp. 159-183 in Schneer, C. J. (Editor), Toward a history of geology, M.I.T. Press,
Harvard (p. 178, author has a copy of da Costa's lecture Syllabus of 1778). Farrer, K. E. [1976, but undated]. Letters ofJosiah Wedgewood, 2 (1771-1780). E. M. Morten, Manchester,
605 pp. (reprint of original 1903 edition). Fox, R. D. 1919. Dr John Fothergill and his friends. Chapters in eighteenth century life. Macmillan & Co.,
London, 434 pp. Goodwin, G. 1887. Emanuel Mendes da Costa, pp. 271-272 in Dictionary of national biography, 12.
Smith, Elder & Co., London, 457 pp. Graves, A. 1905-6. The Royal Academy of Arts. A complete dictionary of contributors and their work from
the foundation in 1769 to 1904. Henry Graves & Co., George Bell & Sons, London, 8 vols (Peter
Brown-l:311, 1905; William Humphrey -4: 193, 1906; Peter Mazell-5 : 220; James Wicksteed-
8 : 263). Gray, J. E. 1858. On the families of the Aspergillidae, Gastrochaenidae and Humphreyiadae. Proc. zool.
Soc.Lond.: 307-318. Hoare, M. E. 1976. The tactless philosopher. Johann Reinhold Forster 1729-1798. Hawthorn Press, Mel- bourne, 419 pp. Humphrey, G. 1779. Museum Humfredianum. A catalogue of the large and valuable museum of Mr George
Humphrey; which is presumed to be the most capital of the kind ever offered to public sale in this kingdom.
. . . S. Paterson, London, 168 pp. (only three copies known - British Museum (Natural History), Hope
Department in Oxford and Oslo University). 1794. Account of the gizzard of the shell called by Linnaeus Bulla lignaria. Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond.
2: 15-18. 1797. Museum Calonnianum. Specification of the various articles which compose the magnificent
museum of natural history collected by M. de Calonne in France. London, 84 pp. Iredale, T. 1915. On Humphrey's Conchology. Proc. Malac. Soc. Lond. 11 : 307-309.
1922. Book notes. Proc. Malac. Soc. Lond. 15 : 78-92.
1937. The truth about the Museum Calonnianum. Festschr.fi Embrik Strand, Riga, 3 : 408-419.
Jackson, J. W. 1 937. A letter from George Humphrey to William Swainson, 1815.7. Conch. Lond. 20 : 332-
337. Lyons, H. 1944. The Royal Society, 1660-1940. A history of its administration under its charters. Cambridge
University Press, 354 pp. Lysons, D. 1795. The environs of London: being an historical account of the towns, villages, and hamlets,
within twelve miles of that capital: interspersed with biographical anecdotes, 3, County of Middlesex.
T. Cadell & W. Davies, London, 706 pp. MacAlister, D. 1935. Comment in Nance, E. M. Soaprock licences. Trans. Engl. Ceramics Circle No. 3 :
73-84. Macky, J. 1722. A journey through England. In familiar letters from a gentleman here, to his friend abroad,
2. J. Pemberton, London, xx+239+xxx pp. Maty, M. 1752. [Report on the subscription brochure for da Costa's Natural history of fossils.] Journal
Britannique, The Hague, 7 : 236-238. Maton, W. G. & Racket, T. 1804. An historical account of testaceological writers. Trans. Linn. Soc.
Lond. 7: 119-244. Meteyard, E. 1865-6. The life ofJosiah Wedgewood from his private correspondence and family papers . . .
2 vols. Hurst & Blackett, London, 504 + 643 pp. Nance, E. M. 1935. Soaprock licences. Trans. Engl. Ceramics Circle No. 3 : 73-84. Nichols, J. 1812a. Familiae Mendesianae & Da Costianae. Gents Mag. 82 (1) : 21-24. 1812b. Notes and anecdotes of literati, collectors, &c. from a MS. by the late Mendes de Costa, and
collected between 1747 and 1788. Gents Mag. 82 (1) : 205-207 and 513-517.
23
— 1812-1816. Literary anecdotes of the eighteenth century; comprising biographical memoirs of William Bowyer, printer, F.S.A. and many of his learned friends. . . . Nichols, son & Bentley, London, 9 vols (index in vol. 7, published in two parts, the first covering vols 1-6, the second vols 8 and 9).
1817-31. Illustrations of the literary history of the eighteenth century, consisting of authentic memoirs
and original letters of eminent persons. Nichols, son & Bentley, London, 6 vols. Roding, P. F. 1798. Museum Boltenianum sive catalogus cimeliorUm et trihus regnis naturae. Pars secunda
continens conchylia, etc. J. C. Trapp, Hamburg, 199 pp. (ed. Roding, Preface by M. H. C. Lichtenstein). Rubens, A. 1949. Anglo- Jewish coats of arms, pp. 75-127 in Anglo-Jewish notabilities, their arms and
testamentary dispositions. Jewish Hist. Soc, England, 233 pp. Sarton, G. 1931. [Review]. Isis, 16: 143-145.
Salisbury, A. E. 1945. Work and workers on British mollusca. J. Conch. 22 : 136-145 and 149-165. Savage, S. 1948. Catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of the Linnean Society of London, part 4.
Calendar of the Ellis manuscripts. Linnean Society, London, 104 pp. Schroter, J. S. 1774. Nachrichten von lithologischen und conchyliologischen Schriften. XXVI. Emanuel
Mendes da Costa. J. Liebh. Steinr. Konch. 1 (3) : 154-158. Sherborn, C. D. 1902. Index animalium, sive nominum quae ab A.D. MDCCLVIII generibus et speciebus
animalium sunt, part 1 (1758-1800). Cambridge University Press, 1195 pp.
1905a. The museum Humfredianum, 1779. Geol. Mag. (5) 2 (8) : 379-381.
- 1905b. Note on the 'Museum Humfredianum', 1779. Ann. mag. nat. Hist. (7) 16 (92) : 262-264. 1937. Dm Drury. /. Soc. Biblphy nat. Hist. 1 (4) : 109-111.
Smith, J. E. 1821. A selection of the correspondence of Linnaeus and other naturalists from the original
manuscripts. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, London, 2 vols, 605 -I- 580 pp. Smith, Lady 1832. Memoir and correspondence of the late Sir James Edward Smith, M.D. Longman, Rees,
Orme, Brown & Longman, London, 2 vols, 610 + 610 pp. Swainson, W. 1 840a. Taxidermy: with the biography of zoologists, and notices of their works, in Lardner's
Cyclopedia, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, London, 392 pp. 1840b. A treatise on malacology; or the natural classification of shells and shell-fish. Longman, Orme,
Brown, Green & Longman & John Taylor, London, 419 pp. Urness, C. 1967. A naturalist in Russia. Letters from Peter Simon Pallas to Thomas Pennant. University of
Minnesota Press, Mineapolis, 189 pp. Way, A. 1 847. Catalogue of antiquities, coins, pictures and miscellaneous curiosities in the possession of the
Society of Antiquaries of London, 1847. John Bowyer Nichols, 56 pp. Whitehead, P. J. P. 1969. Zoological specimens from Captain Cook's voyages. J. Soc. Biblphy nat. Hist.
5(3): 161-201. 1973. Some further notes on Jacob Forster (1739-1806), mineral collector and dealer. Min. Mag.
39 : 361-363. & Kaeppler, A. (in prep.). Copies of the Museum Humfredianum in London, Oslo and Oxford.
24
British Museum (Natural History) Monographs & Handbooks
The Museum publishes some 10-12 new titles each year on subjects including zoology, botany, palaeontology and mineralogy. Besides being important reference works, many, particularly among the handbooks, are useful for courses and students' background reading.
Lists are available free on request to :
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London SW7 5BD
Standing orders placed by educational institutions earn a discount of 10% off our published price.
Titles to be published in Volume 6
Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-91) and the Concho logy, or natural history of shells. By P. J. P. Whitehead.
Early mineralogy in Great Britain and Ireland. By W. Campbell Smith.
The Forster collection of zoological drawings in the British Museum (Natural History). By P. J. P. Whitehead.
John George Children, FRS (1777-1852) of the British Museum. Mineralogist and reluctant Keeper of Zoology. By A. E. Gunther.
An account of the rock collections in the British Museum (Natural History), and the historical collections acquired before 1918. By D. T. Moore.
Type set by John Wright & Sons Ltd, Bristol and Printed by Henry Ling Ltd, Dorchester
Bulletin of the
British Museum (Natural History)
The Forster collection of Zoological drawings in the British Museum (Natural History)
P. J. P. Whitehead
Historical series Vol 6 No 2 30 March 1978
The Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), instituted in 1949, is issued in four scientific series, Botany, Entomology, Geology and Zoology, and an Historical series.
Parts are published at irregular intervals as they become ready. Volumes will contain about four hundred pages, and will not necessarily be completed within one calendar year.
Subscription orders and enquiries about back issues should be sent to: Publications Sales, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, England.
World List abbreviation : Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (hist. Ser.)
© Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), 1978
ISSN 0068-2306 Historical series
Vol 6 No 2 pp 25-47 British Museum (Natural History) Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD Issued 30 March 1978
in the
The Forster collection of zoological drawings British Museum (Natural History)
P. J. P. Whitehead
Department of Zoology, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD
GENERAL ^
Contents
Abstract ....
Introduction .
Descriptiones animalium .
The drawings .
The artists
Banksian catalogues of drawings
George Forster's Observations .
The Forster animal drawings in the British
The Forster animal drawings in Gotha, Weimar and Jena
References
Museum (Natural History)
25 25 26 27 29 31 34 34 46 47
Abstract
Almost all the natural history drawings made by George Forster (1754-94) on Captain Cook's second voyage around the world are now in the British Museum (Natural History). The two zoological volumes contain 33 drawings of mammals, 140 of birds, 3 of reptiles, 81 of fishes and 14 of invertebrates, of which 191 are variously completed in watercolour and 80 are pencil sketches. The drawings, for the most part unpublished, are an integral element in J. R. Forster's Descriptiones animalium (1844).
The bird drawings have already been catalogued by Lysaght in an earlier volume of this Bulletin (1959). The remainder are listed here, with all annotations, references to the Descriptiones animalium and citations from a contemporary list and from a notebook of George Forster's observations. In addition, the 26 gouaches in a series at Gotha are listed, as well as the 6 watercolours at Weimar and 2 at Jena.
Introduction
Early zoological and botanical drawings are often essential to the identification of Linnaean and subsequent names because of inadequate original description and/or absence of type-speci- mens. For this reason, the many hundreds of drawings of animals and plants made on Captain Cook's three voyages, almost all of which are now in the British Museum (Natural History), are fairly frequently examined in order to settle taxonomic or nomenclatural problems. Rela- tively few of these drawings have ever been published, yet many are virtual if not actual icono- types.*
The largest series of natural history drawings from Cook's voyages is that by Sydney Parkinson (17457-71), natural history artist on the first voyage (1768-71); it comprises 18 botanical and 3 zoological volumes. Smaller, but equally important is the collection of drawings made on the second voyage (1772-75) by Johann George Adam Forster (1754-94), son of the official naturalist on the voyage, Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-98); the Forster collection comprises 2 botanical
* Iconotype: strictly, an illustration that formed the sole basis for a new species name, not necessarily with a verbal description unless the illustration remained unpublished. An illustration is based directly or at one or more removes on a specimen, but if this or another specimen was used by the author of a new name, then the illustration is not an iconotype but merely an extension of the description. Nevertheless, where type-specimens have not sur- vived, then their illustration, whether published or not, has great importance. Although not in the strict sense semaphorants (i.e. name-bearers), such illustrations often provide more easily interpreted information than many an early verbal description. In this respect, an original drawing is usually superior to a published one, hence the continued value of early drawings to taxonomy.
Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (hist. Ser.) 6 (2): 25-47
Issued 30 March 1978
25
26 p- J- p- WHITEHEAD
and 2 zoological volumes. Fewer natural history drawings were made on the third voyage (1776— 80), but they include a small volume of 115 drawings by William Ellis (17357-85). These Parkin- son, Forster and Ellis drawings are in the British Museum (Natural History), but there are also a few natural history drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, including 46 bv John (William) Webber (199* b 2) and a few by John Cleveley, John Frederick Miller and James Miller (bound together, 199* b 4).
The natural history drawings from the Cook voyages were formerly in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820). Together with the Banksian collection of books, manuscripts and specimens, they passed to the British Museum in 1827 and they were amongst the Banksian and other natural history drawings that in 1881 were transferred (with a few exceptions) to the newly founded British Museum (Natural History) at South Kensington.
There is no published catalogue of all the natural history drawings from the Cook voyages. For zoology, the nearest approach is that by Lysaght (1959) in her excellent study and listing of all the Banksian bird drawings. An account of Parkinson's zoological drawings from the first voyage was given by Sawyer (1950) and some useful information on George Forster's zoological drawings was given by Steiner & Baege (1971) and also by Joppien (1976). Albert Giinther drew up lists of all the fish drawings in the Parkinson and Forster volumes and these lists are now kept with their respective volumes. More important, however, are five contemporary lists of Banksian natural history drawings, the most complete being that made by Jonas Dryander (1748-1810), Banks' second librarian. These lists are of great interest because they were based on information that seems to be no longer available, such as the attribution of 9 first voyage drawings to Herman Diedrich Sporing (1740 ?-71), assistant and amanuensis to Banks on the voyage (7 fishes, 2 crabs). The lists also contain information that must have been supplied by the Forsters, of which the original document is no longer extant. The main Dryander list was used by Lysaght (1959) and all were briefly enumerated by Whitehead (1969a : 186-187); they will be described in more detail below (see p. 31).
The natural history observations made by George Forster during the early part of the voyage are contained in a notebook now in the Bibliotheque Centrale of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Some of the observations are relevant to the drawings listed here and will be discussed below (p. 34).
The catalogue of the Forster zoological drawings given here is a further contribution to the growing literature on J. R. Forster and his son George. The latter has been well served by an East German Forster-Ausgabe justifiably determined to make a hero, resulting in a multi-volume work on his life, writings and letters (Steiner, 1971 ; see also Kahn et alii, 1972 etc.). George has always stolen the limelight, but J. R. Forster, maligned and underrated for much too long, has now been rehabilitated in a full, detailed and superbly documented biography by Michael Hoare (1976). Much information can be mined from Steiner and from Hoare on the circumstances of the voyage and the production and fate of the drawings, and the value of this is enhanced by the publication of J. R. Forster's manuscript Journal of the voyage, in which day-to-day zoological and botanical discoveries are noted (Hoare, in press). Thus, the taxonomist has quite a range of primary and secondary material with which to explore Forster's descriptions of animals.
Descriptiones animalium
The value of the Forster drawings is still immense. Few have ever been published, yet they frequently provide the best means of identifying the species described by Forster or by later workers who used Forster's manuscripts. The zoological drawings have a particular importance because specific reference is made to them in Forster's original descriptions of the animals seen during the voyage, many of which were described and named for the first time. Unfortunately, Forster's descriptions remained in manuscript during his lifetime, being in the form of three quarto and one folio volume (I, 98 ff- from August 1772; II, 134ff-from July 1773; III, 135 ff- from April 1774; IV, 86 ff - from December 1774). These four volumes were subsequently acquired by the Koniglichen Bibliothek (later Preussischer Staatsbibliothek) in Berlin and after the last war were among the manuscripts eventually deposited in the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 27
Kulturbesitz at Dahlem in West Berlin (Ms Lat. qu. 133-136); Forster's manuscript Journal is also in this library (Ms germ. qu. 222-227).
Forster's manuscript descriptions were seen and the ichthyological portions used by J. G. Schneider (1801) for his Systema ichthyologiae, where they were cited by volume and page number (but the drawings not seen). It was not until some seventy years after the voyage that the Forster descriptions were published, being edited by M. H. K. Lichtenstein(1844) as Descriptiones animalium. By this time, many of the species were no longer novelties, having long since been described by Schneider and others, often as a result of further material brought back from the Pacific. Lichtenstein was faithful to Forster's text, merely adding an asterisk and footnote when the species had already been given a name. His additions on the manuscript were made in red ink. They also include a serial number for each species, but there are a few errors in the numbering; 34 is missing and Perca lepidoptera is not numbered. In the published text there is also a careless- ness over numbers; 102 is omitted, two species are not numbered (pp. 363, 388, although the latter is merely a variety or subspecies), while male and female are sometimes numbered separately and sometimes not. Forster occasionally had a change of mind over the name of a species, but in at least one case it appears that the Forster name has been crossed out and Lichtenstein has added another (vol. IV, f. 12 - cyprinoides for setipinna).
For the majority of species there is a reference by J. R. Forster himself to a drawing, cited as 'Fig. pict. G.' etc., and it is clear that the making of a drawing was an integral part of the process of description. According to the Descriptiones animalium, drawings were made for 16 out of 46 species of mammals described, 121 out of 160 species of birds, 1 for the only species of reptile, 67 out of 86 species of fishes, and 5 out of 13 species of invertebrates, making a total of 211 species drawn out of 306 described. This does not take into account species merely mentioned by name, for which no indication of a drawing is given although such in fact exists. Only a few of the earlier drawings are stated to have had a number, given as Fig. picta A.l, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, then x (twice), then A alone, then x alone, thereafter nothing. However, almost all the drawings can be related to a description by virtue of a name and/or locality and date written on the drawing. The drawings would have been better known and used had Lichtenstein added the number of each drawing.
The Descriptiones animalium, although fairly widely used by nineteenth-century zoologists, has suffered from several disadvantages. The narrative sections, as well as the descriptions and Lichtenstein's introduction, are written in Latin. Again, the arrangement is chronological and not systematic and although there is an index, the names are keyed to generic allocations that are not easily recognizable to modern workers ; in any future reprint edition the provision of an index to species names, as well as a table of contents arranged systematically, would be a help. The most serious drawback is the lack of illustrations, for the drawings have hardly been used by non-British zoologists until comparatively recently. For these reasons, and because of the delay in publication of the text, J. R. Forster's most important contribution to zoology has not reaped the credit that it deserves.
The drawings
The Forster collection contains 33 drawings of mammals (Nos 1-31), 140 of birds (Nos 32-168), 3 of reptiles (Nos 169-171), 81 of fishes (Nos 172-251) and 14 of invertebrates (Nos 252-261), making a total of 271 drawings (some folios given as a and b). Some species are represented by more than one drawing and there are also a number that are not formally described in the Descriptiones animalium, hence their added importance. The total might seem small for three years' work, but Hoare (1976 : 104) has pointed out that only 290 days, or just over a quarter of the voyage, was actually spent at anchor or on short landings, so that the Forsters were hard put to collect, record, preserve, describe and draw the wealth of material that they discovered. In addition, one should not forget the botanical collecting and the tedious pressing of specimens, nor the 301 drawings of plants made by George Forster. Forster's Journal gives a graphic account of the wet and cramped conditions of their cabin (see Hoare, 1976 : 87-88) and it is clear that careful draughtsmanship was more easily achieved on shore. Most of the drawings seem to have been made on the spot and while the material was fresh,
28 P. J. P. WHITEHEAD
but a few were evidently worked up afterwards. For example, Lysaght (1959 : 299) noted four bird drawings that are dated after the Resolution had left the Cape of Good Hope (Nos 112, 115, 116, 129) and she concluded that they must have been completed at sea.* Despite the conditions on board, it is still a little surprising that more of the zoological drawings were not worked up in the intervening periods. Only 155 of the drawings can be considered complete, 36 have some colour added (often little more than an indication), but 80 are mere pencil sketches (occasionally with ink or brown crayon as well). Only very rarely did George Forster write an indication of the colours on the drawing, so that it is hard to see how they could have been worked up later (which was surely the intention).
Backgrounds are supplied for a few of the drawings (14 birds, 6 mammals). For the mammals, this usually takes the form of a little hillock on which the animal stands, the colour being beige or brown with rather sharp and dark shadows. For the birds there is often a low and sloping foreground with small and curly lines of green or brown to suggest vegetation, but in two drawings there is a complete background of land and sky (Nos 32, 133), while in some of the sea birds there is an indication of water and sky (e.g. Nos 86, 89). In some of the pencil sketches there is a tentative background (e.g. Nos 39, 90, 120, 143). The number of unfinished drawings suggests that George Forster had no time for such embellishments and he probably also lacked the skill.
The drawings are on fairly heavy cartridge paper, originally of varying sizes but now mounted onto sheets that are trimmed to 64-6 x 46-0 cm, the paper being cut to expose both sides of the drawing. Occasionally there is a pencil sketch on the verso (e.g. No 191 Perca grunniens).] The annotations are almost always on the recto, but occasionally there is a note on the verso (e.g. No 32 Falco serpentarius, No 2 Phoca antarcticd).
The name given to the animal is usually written in pencil immediately below the subject, pre- sumably by George or his father when the description was complete and a name found; the generic name is sometimes in capital letters (of which a few are in ink) and the species name that follows it was probably added later. In many instances another species name follows the first or is written above it, with or without deletion of the first but often with an indication of the source of the name (e.g. Bos Connochaetes Mas., followed by Antilope Gnu S.N. XIII : 189, n. 25, being a reference to the 13th edition of Linnaeus' Systema naturae of 1788-92). Some of the other additional names are qualified by 'Brouss. Ichthyol.', being a reference to Pierre-Marie-Auguste Broussonet (1761-1807), who visited England in 1780 to work on fishes at Banks' house and at the British Museum and whose published Ichthyologia appeared two years later (Broussonet, 1782). Yet another source for names is 'MS Brit. Mus.' or merely 'MS'. This may refer to the manuscript descriptions begun by Daniel Solander (1733-82) as a result of his participation on the first Cook voyage and thereafter expanded, on little slips of paper, to cover the entire plant and animal kingdoms for a revised edition of the Systema naturae. Solander's zoological note- books and slips, all now at the British Museum (Natural History), were listed by Whitehead (1969a : 185). In a few cases an addition to a drawing is followed by the initials 'JB' for Joseph Banks (e.g. No 232 Salmo myops, where the native name Erai is added).
The principal name on the drawings is usually that also used in the Descriptiones animalium and must have been written at the time. The references to the Systema must have been written after 1788-92, when Solander was dead and the Forsters were in Germany; they may have been written by Dryander, but perhaps by Latham, Pennant or other zoologists who studied the drawings. The Forster drawings were bought by Banks for 400 guineas in August 1776 (see Forster to Banks, 9 August 1776 in Dawson, 1958 : 339) and it is unlikely that J. R. Forster sub- sequently annotated them since he did not also change the names in the Descriptiones animalium. He left England in July 1780 and probably did not meet Broussonet, who in any case could not have worked through all the drawings by then. Thus, the references to the Ichthyologia were either by Broussonet himself, or more likely, by Solander who, as Banks' first librarian, would have had the drawings readily available.
* Four of the botanical sketches made at Madeira in August 1772 are stated on the completed drawing to have been painted in February and March 1773, shortly before the ship reached New Zealand (Nos 45, 172, 175, 201).
t Most of the botanical drawings have been pasted directly onto sheets, but on the verso of four drawings where this is not so there are the beginnings of a pencil sketch of a bird (Nos 18, 78, 82, 154).
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 29
The other annotations on the drawings include the locality and date, presumably made at the time (bottom right) ; very occasionally a note on provenance or colours (bottom left or centre) ; a native name, with diacritic marks to show pronunciation (usually bottom left or centre, occasion- ally at the top); a reference in the case of fishes to Schneider's Systema Ichthyologiae (e.g. 'Schn. 178' - bottom left or right) ; a reference in the case of birds to John Latham's General Synopsis of birds, 1781-86 (with or without a reference also to the Systema Naturae); and finally, in ink, the name 'Ge Forster' written by Dryander (extreme bottom left, but sometimes partly or completely trimmed off).
The drawings are now arranged systematically and numbered 1-261 consecutively through the two volumes (top right). It is not clear if they were in this order when Banks received them or at what date they were numbered and bound. Possibly they were still loose and in folders when Lichtenstein edited the Descriptiones animalium, hence he could not cite drawing numbers.
The artists
Nothing is known of George Forster's artistic training, but he seems to have had a natural talent for drawing that was reinforced by whatever encouragement he received from his brief periods at school or from his father. However, his ability to draw seems to have been decisive in the Ad- miralty's appointment of him as official natural history artist on the voyage (see Steiner & Baege, 1971 : 53). Anders Sparrman (1748-1820), the naturalist who was engaged by J. R. Forster at the Cape, later wrote envying George his 'drawing hand' (T. Forster, 1829 : 675).
The earliest drawings from the voyage, dating from August 1772 when George was not yet eighteen, show good observation and neat draughtsmanship. As the voyage progressed, one gets the impression that the pencil work becomes surer and more fluid, although even at the Cape of Good Hope (30 October-22 November 1772) the several pencil sketches of a gnu drawn from life are bold and at times fully confident. On the other hand, his finished and fully coloured mammal drawings from the Cape are often small, restrained and even a trifle wooden, in striking contrast to some (but not all) of his finished and coloured bird drawings. Aesthetically, his most pleasing drawings are the large pencil sketches or the drawings of sea birds where only a wash of colour has been applied. He rarely used pen and ink, but one botanical drawing (No 60) shows that he was quite confident in this medium.
Over half the drawings are of birds and a third are of fishes, and in these groups he drew three- quarters of all the species described. Although the zoology of the voyage was dominated by birds and fishes, as can be seen from the descriptions, there was still plenty of scope for inverte- brate studies. In fact, only 13 invertebrates were described, of which 5 were said to have a drawing, and there are 14 invertebrate drawings. To some extent this may have reflected J. R. Forster's interests and thus his instructions to his son; certain invertebrates, such as crabs, molluscs and insects, could be fairly easily preserved and drawn later, but the paucity of descriptions suggests that this was not the intention. To judge from the success of the drawings, it would seem that George was happiest with birds, interestingly-shaped fishes and plants, excelling at lines and contours but lacking the facility for colour-work so evident in Parkinson's drawings from the first voyage.
Two of the early drawings (Nos 254 Doris laevis, 259a Medusa pelagica) are signed with a pencilled monogram 'GF'. There are also a number of bird drawings, all with a foreground sketched in colour and dating from the stay at the Cape, which also have this monogram (Nos 112, 115, 116, 118, 129).* Thereafter, the drawings are unsigned, but while most are clearly the work of George Forster, there were in fact other hands at work.
Lichtenstein (1844: XIII) seems to have been the first to point out that the formula 'Fig. pict. G.' is not invariable in the Descriptiones animalium, being replaced sometimes by 'Fig. pict. F.'. The first, he stated, referred to 'Georgium filium', while the second 'vero Forsterum ipsum significat'. There are 7 cases of 'Fig. pict. F.' (fishes Nos 191 recto and verso, 229, 231, 241 lower; mammals Nos 17, 18a). All are pencil drawings and although quite competent lack something of
* Nine of the finished botanical drawings are signed in this way (Nos 5, 45, 103, 108, 120, 156, 172, 175, 201). All of them seem to have been completed in New Zealand or shortly before their arrival there in March 1773.
30 P. J- P- WHITEHEAD
the artistic flourish of his son's drawings. The earliest is a fish drawn at the Cape Verde Islands in August 1772, while the two mammal drawings were done at the Cape two months later. Possibly J. R. Forster did these to show his son what was required of a scientific representation. He seems to have attempted no more drawings until their visits to Tahiti and Tanna in mid- 1774, when he drew four more fishes, possibly because of pressure of time. In two cases (Nos 241 lower Trigla asiatica, 191 verso Perca grunniens) George later made a neat copy, probably traced (Nos 241 upper, 214). In three further cases the drawings are given a joint attribution as 'Fig. pict. F. et G.' (fishes Nos 196 Harpurus nigricans, 183 Blennius gobioides; bird No 162 Motacilla seticauda - all 1774). Presumably, J. R. Forster made the original drawing, which was finished and coloured by George.
Another indication, given twice in the Descriptiones animalium, is 'Fig. picta Schum.' and 'Fig. picta Schumacher', which refers to three bird drawings (Nos 69 and 70 Anas montana $ and 6*, 115 Ardea palearis - all from the Cape). It was argued by Lysaght (1959 : 299) that since the last drawing has George Forster's monogram on it 'we can scarcely doubt that he was the artist'. However, there is no reason why George should not have finished off the drawing and, in con- formity with the other bird drawings from the Cape, have put his name to it. I have been unable to find any contemporary reference to the name Schumacher in the documents examined and Lysaght (1959) seems to have had no success either. However, in Catalogue B (see below, p. 32) there is a note against Anas montana which states that 'Mr Forster has a drawing in colour made by a [word begun but deleted] soldier at the Cape'. This evidently refers to Schumacher, who was perhaps an amateur naturalist and artist and possibly a friend of Sparrman's. In fact, a Johannes Schumacher is listed as a Cape artist in the period 1776-77 by Gordon-Brown (1952 : 117) and it is said that 56 out of 66 of his pictures in the Swellengrebel Collection at Breda have been reproduced. This must surely be the same man.
A third and most interesting attribution in the Descriptiones animalium is the single reference to 'Fig. pict. Hodges', which refers to drawing No 109 Larus scopelinus, described on 13 April 1773 at Dusky Bay, New Zealand. This was evidently drawn by William Hodges (1744-97), official artist on the Resolution for landscapes and people. For several reasons this picture is sig- nificant.
In the first place, this Hodges drawing emphasizes an already documented case of cooperation between George Forster and Hodges, for on another bird drawing (No 32 Falco serpentarius from the Cape) Dryander has written on the verso 'Ge. Forster. the background by Hodges'. This is not stated in the Descriptiones animalium, but a note in Catalogue B reads 'The Back- ground by Mr Hodges', which is certainly a statement originally made by either J. R. or George Forster. Joppien (1976 : 10) has argued cogently that this may not have been the only occasion when Hodges supplied a background, since in another Cape bird (No 133 Otis afra) there is a stylistically almost identical background ; unfortunately, there is no confirmation of the latter in Catalogue B. Joppien goes on to suggest that the little hillocks for some of the Cape mammals (Nos 17 Antelope tragulus, 18b Antilope pygarga, 29 Antilope oreotragus) seem to 'exhibit landscape elements in Hodges' familiar style', while the skies in some of George's sea bird drawings also bear a close similarity to those in Hodges' paintings.
Secondly, this drawing by Hodges suggests that the latter, ten years older than George Forster and an experienced draughtsman, took an interest in the boy's work and could well have offered him advice, the drawing perhaps being by way of illustration. In fact, the drawing could well be mistaken for one of George's later drawings of sea birds, so that perhaps he was influenced to adopt this large and rather vigorous technique.
A third point of interest is the bearing that this Hodges' drawing may have on J. R. Forster's inclination to defend his son's natural history territory. George seems to have got on well with Hodges, but in his subsequent account of the voyage he commented a little scathingly that the print from Hodges' drawings of Christmas Sound contained a falcon in the foreground that 'from its supernatural size, seems to resemble the rukh, celebrated in the Arabian tales, more than any bird of less fanciful dimensions' (G. Forster, 1777, 2 : 494). William Wales, astronomer on the Resolution, seized on this in his Remarks and used it also as a means to sneer at J. R. Forster's treatment of so affable and polite a man as Hodges, alluding to an occasion when
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 3 J
Mr. Hodges had once before . . . experienced the Doctor's candour and politeness, on attempt- ing to draw a penguin for his amusement, or, perhaps, for his improvement; I am verily persuaded it was not with any design to rival Mr. George Forster. (Wales, 1778 : 99)
In George Forster's Reply to Wales' Remarks, he allows 'great merit' to Hodges as a landscape painter 'but I think too well of him, to be apprehensive, that he will lay a claim to anything more' (G. Forster, 1778b : 39). George was also critical of Hodges' figure work (G. Forster, 1777, 1 : 427), but the context in the Reply is surely natural history. However, the fact that J. R. Forster gave credit to Hodges in the Descriptiones animalium argues that the Doctor, although careful to preserve his son's official position, was quite prepared to acknowledge a contribution by Hodges. One gets the impression that George, while heeding his father's insistence of scientific accuracy, saw no reason why Hodges should not sketch in a background or offer advice.
Finally, this Hodges drawing, as well as the backgrounds in the other drawings, can be seen in relation to the presentation set of gouaches on parchment which were copied after the voyage from George Forster's drawings and intended as a gift for George III. Only 'about thirty' of these copies were completed before the offer was rejected by the king, but by then George Forster claimed that a hundred guineas had been paid 'to employ a painter to copy my sketches' (G. Forster, 1778a : 7). These gouaches were eventually sold in 1781, through the good offices of no less a person than Goethe, to Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg for eighty louis d'or. The story is documented by Steiner & Baege (1971 : 63), who showed that 24 of these presentation gouaches are now in the Gotha Forschungsbibliothek (2 mammals ; 20 birds, which they reproduce as pis 1-20; and 2 fishes). Two other gouaches, formerly part of the Gotha collection (bird, fish), were sold in 1936 and were on sale again in London forty years later (Joppien, 1976 : pis A, B). In addition to the gouaches, the Gotha library also acquired 6 botanical drawings on paper, possibly part of the collection sold by George Forster's widow Therese to Duke Ernst II in 1797 (Steiner & Baege, 1971 : 66, note 47). There are also six Forster drawings on paper at the Schlossmuseum der Staatliches Kunstsammlung in Weimar (KK 499-504 - all birds, of which three match pis 2, 3, 7 in Steiner & Baege, the fourth is their pi. 23, and two are European birds). In addition, there are two drawings of penguins in the Universitatsbibliothek in Jena (Steiner & Baege's pis 21, 22). A list of all these drawings is given here (p. 46).
The artist employed to make the gouaches has never been identified and his (or her) name was not found by Hoare in all the manuscript and published material that he examined. Joppien (1976: 10-11) has drawn attention to the stylistic difference between the subjects (very finely painted) and the backgrounds (much broader treatment, sometimes carelessly overlapping subject or frame), and he noted that the backgrounds had much in common with Hodges' known style, as well as with some of the backgrounds referred to here. It would seem very reasonable that the Forsters should ask Hodges to lend an authentic touch to the backgrounds since the latter had made numerous studies for his own purposes. The subjects, on the other hand, are very far removed from Hodges' style, at least to judge by the single bird drawing, and he was surely not the copyist employed. However, there were in London a number of talented natural history artists who would have been glad of such employment. E. M. da Costa, for example, had employed William Humphrey, John Wicksteed and Peter Brown a few years earlier to draw shells (White- head, 1977) and there were men like John Frederick Miller, Peter Paillou, Frederick Nodder and others who would have welcomed both the money and the prestige of such a commission.
Although George Forster in no way rivals such masters of natural history drawing as Paillou, Nodder and the Bauer brothers, his achievement is remarkable considering his youth, lack of training and eventual career as a literary man. His father's drawings are careful, even hesitant, as befits a scientific man; by contrast, the best of George's are accurate but vigorous and assertive, as if presaging the scale on which his future literary talents would roam.
Banksian catalogues of drawings
Since Banks' residence at 32 Soho Square served virtually as a natural history museum (and certainly had one of the finest natural history libraries in the country), Banks himself seems to have been very conscious of the need for catalogues. Dryander's monumental Catalogus biblio-
32 p- J- ?• WHITEHEAD
thecae historico-naturalis (1796-1800) has brief references to some of the series of drawings in Banks' collection (Forster drawings in vols. 2:17 and 3 : 69), but there are five contemporary manuscript catalogues now in the British Museum (Natural History) which list the zoological drawings from the Cook voyages. The first and most comprehensive is by Dryander, the second (dealing only with the Forster drawings) is probably by Solander and the third is an abbreviated version of the second ; the fourth, by Dryander, deals only with the third voyage, and the fifth lists specimens related to drawings from the second and third voyages.
Catalogue A
MS. Catalogue drawings of animals Dryander (on spine)
Title page : J. Dryander's manuscript catalogue of the drawings of animals in the library of Sir
J. Banks arranged in systematic order (ink)
251 ff (numbered), 32-5 x 20-3 cm, BMNH., Zoology Library, 89 fd. A second (unnumbered) page gives an alphabetical list of abbreviations used for localities, as well as a list of six symbols used against each entry to denote the state of the drawing, i.e. finished, with (x) or without (+) colour; sketch, with (/) or without (— ) colour; copy upon transparent paper (o) ; from a spirit preserved specimen(s).
The entries are arranged systematically, apparently following the 12th edition of the Sy sterna naturae (1766). Each entry begins with a symbol of its state, followed by the name of the animal and author (but in many cases a generic name only), the abbreviated locality, the artist, and finally in some cases a literature reference.
Attributions are made to the following 37 artists : P. d'Auvergne, J. Backstrom, Barnes, Bolson, P. Brown, A. Buchan, J. Cleveley, N. Dance, T. Davies, G. Edwards, W. Ellis, Engleheart, G. Forster, F. Frankland, S. Gilpin, J. Greenwood, W. King, G. Metz, J. Miller, J. F. Miller, U. Mole, F. P. Nodder, P. Paillou, S. Parkinson, Chev. Pinto, Roberts, J. van Rymsdyk, A. Schou- man, J. E. de Seve, J. Sowerby, Spalding, H. Sporing, J. Stuart, G. Stubbs, W. Watson, J. Webber, G. Wright.
Both Hodges and Schumacher are absent from this list, which suggests that the Forster and other drawings were in folders and Dryander merely took the names from the folders without consulting a list such as the Forsters must have supplied. This is further borne out by the absence of a locality for certain Forster drawings, even though such is entered on the list given in Catalogue B. Dryander had presumably forgotten or felt that it was unnecessary to mention Hodges' contribution to the background of one Forster drawing.
Catalogue B
M.S. Catalogue of Forster' s drawings, Cook's 2nd voyage, 1772-75. (on spine) Title page : nil
28 ff (numbered), 32-0x20-0 cm, BMNH., Zoology Library, 89 f F. The entries are arranged systematically (approximately the same as in Catalogue A). Each entry has the name of the animal, followed by the locality and below this often the common name and a size indication (most often 'Nat. Size'); below this again there are sometimes notes or 'Obs.'.
The list was not written by either J. R. or George Forster since the former is referred to in the third person, e.g. 'Mr Forster has a drawing in colour . . .' and 'The largest Mr Forster saw The writing closely resembles Solander's, but the list appears to have been carefully copied from one supplied by the Forsters.
The list refers to 19 mammals, 127 birds, 3 reptiles, 75 fishes and 14 invertebrates. In some cases more than one drawing is noted, so that the totals are not far short of those of the existing drawings.
The notes are a useful supplement to the data written on the drawings (locality, size, colour). Occasionally there are comments on the method of capture, habits, habitat and the accuracy of the drawing. References to Hodges and Schumacher in this list have already been mentioned (see above, p. 30). Extracts from these notes have been included here where they add data not on the drawing.
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 33
Catalogue C
[Bound in immediately after the preceding] Title page : nil
21 ff (numbered), same size, etc. as before. The first page has a pencil note across the top 'Catalogue of drawings of animals collected on Cook's 2d voyage by Geo. Forster'.
The entries are in the same hand as in the previous list, but they are arranged in a slightly dif- ferent order. Each entry is preceded by a symbol (ticks in one column, crossed dashes in another), followed by the name of the animal and an abbreviation for its locality. The ticks and dashes seem to have been crossed off as if compared with another list or with the actual drawings themselves.
The list refers to 19 mammals, 132 birds, 3 reptiles, 76 fishes and 14 invertebrates; it appears to be directly related to the previous list, the one being derived from the other, or both from the same source.
Catalogue D
Unbound
Title page: (not contemporary) MS. Catalogue of the Birds and Fishes in the Drawings of J.
Webber and W. W. Ellis, made during Capt. Cook's third voyage round the World, 1776-80,
with descriptions and localities.
11 ff (pages numbered), 32-3 x 19-3 cm, BMNH., Zoology Library, 89 fS Sol. Z.6. The first part (pp. 1-16), probably by Dryander, contains 161 numbered entries (and some additions) dealing with birds and 2 mammals. For each is given the number of specimens, the artist, the name of the species and its locality. There are listed 92 Ellis drawings and 37 by Webber, being those respectively in the British Museum (Natural History) and the British Museum, Department of Prints & Drawings (see above, p. 26).
The second part (pp. 17-22), possibly by Solander, contains diagnoses and lists of species for three fish genera (Labrus, Perca and Sparus).
Of specimens listed in the first part, there are 220 birds and 3 mammals, presumably then in Banks' collection.
Catalogue £
Unbound
Title page: 4 MS. Catalogues of the Birds in the Drawings of J. G. A. Forster & W. W. Ellis
[& Webber] from Capt. J. Cook's second voyage, 1772-75, and third voyage 1776-80.
24 ff (in four parts, each numbered separately), 32-3 x 19-3 cm, BMNH., Zoology Library, 89 fSSol. Z.3.
Part 1. 15 ff (numbered), containing 185 numbered entries giving the name of a bird, a brief Latin diagnosis, usually a locality, sometimes a reference as 'Sol. Cat.' to the number of the species in Catalogue D, and finally a number (up to 5, probably being the number of specimens). The first page is headed 'Birds taken from the last voyage to be carried to the end of the Kingfishers'. A whole page containing Nos 115-121 is missing, but these can be found in Part 2 (which is in the same order).
Part 2. 5 ff (10 numbered pages), containing 121 numbered entries (as in previous list).
Part 3. Single page, virtual repeat of the above but with extra entries la, 5a, 6a, 6b, 8a.
Part 4. 3 ff (pp. 4 and 5 numbered), containing 65 entries, similar to the previous lists but the order different.
These appear to be lists, in Dryander's hand, of bird specimens in Banks' collection, not only from the second and third Cook voyages but also from Banks' voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1766 and from Masson's journeys in South Africa in 1772-76.
In addition to these five catalogues, there is a fourth which is a small notebook (17-5 x 1 1-5 cm) kept with the others and containing a list of all the Parkinson, Forster and Ellis bird drawings in the British Museum (Natural History). Each entry contains the drawing number, locality and
34 P- •>• P- WHITEHEAD
name used for the bird by Latham, Gmelin and Forster (and occasionally also by later authors). The paper is watermarked 1859 and the list may have been compiled by J. R. Gray since an in- complete catalogue of his papers occurs at the end, together with a note on exchanges of specimens with the 'Warsaw Museum' in 1874-75.
George Forster 's Observationes
The Bibliotheque Centrale of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris possesses a small notebook (MS. 189) in which George Forster wrote day-to-day notes on the animals and some plants seen on the voyage in 1772 and during their stay at Dusky Bay (26 March-11 May 1773). The book is 18-1 x 11-7 cm and the title page reads:
Observationes / Historiam Naturalem / Spectantes / quas / in / Navigationes Terras Australes
/ instituere / coepit / G.F. / Mense Julio, Anno CI3ID33LXXII The earlier pages are numbered 1-54 (55-72 missing), 73, then 74-101 unnumbered, followed by two further unnumbered pages written in pencil (species 'in insula Ulietea' ; not examined). The itinerary is paged in the following manner :
p. 1 13-22 July 1772 Bay of Biscay
p. 2 24 July Between Spain and Madeira
pp. 3-9 30 July-1 August Madeira
p. 10 2-13 August Madeira to Cape Verde Islands
pp. 11-15 14-16 August St Jago
pp. 16-41 17 August-30 October St Jago to Table Bay
pp. 42-53 22 November-1 January 1773 Table Bay to Antarctic waters
p. 54 (blank)
pp. 55-72 (missing)
pp. 73 [74-101] 26 March-3 May 1773 Dusky Bay
The notes are written in English up to p. 54 and contain mostly fairly brief observations on species seen, sometimes with data or even species not given in the Descriptiones animalium. The longer notes are usually concerned with birds, as for example the swallow that George befriended and kept in his cabin (pp. 16, 18, 19). There is also a long and excited description of Noctiluca (pp. 40-41). In one of the very few personal notes, George records his toothache of October 1772 which 'swelled my gums and cheek prodigiously' (pp. 27-28). Unfortunately, the notebook was set aside at the Cape, so that none of the mammals is mentioned. The Dusky Bay section contains full Latin descriptions which have been crossed out by one or more vertical or diagonal lines, presumably when the information had been transferred to the Descriptiones animalium. The contents of the notebook were recently published in the section 'Fragmente' (pp. 93-107) of the fourth volume in the series Georg Forsters Werke (Kahn et alii, 1972).
One of the few to use this notebook was Dance (1971) in his very thorough paper on the conchology of the Cook voyages. Not only is it a useful document for the supplementary informa- tion that it contains ; it also shows the extent that George Forster participated in the natural history observations, no doubt encouraged and helped by his father, but with a degree of enthusiasm that lends further authority to his drawings.
The Forster animal drawings in the British Museum (Natural History)
The list given here omits the Forster bird drawings since they were very adequately documented by Lysaght (1959 : 280-310). The remainder are placed in major groups (mammals, reptiles, fishes, invertebrates) and thereafter are arranged alphabetically by the original (or principal) name on the drawing ; the latter is usually that given also in the Descriptiones animalium, but where they differ a cross-reference is given, as also for alternative names on the drawing or in Catalogue B. Scientific names have been italicized, but spelling and punctuation have been retained.
The name is here preceded by the folio number of the drawing. All annotations on the drawing are included, with an oblique to separate items apparently written at different times, or in different
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 35
hands, or on different parts of the paper. Unless stated otherwise, the annotations are in pencil. Similarly, at least some colour has been applied to the drawing unless stated 'uncoloured' (i.e. pencil sketch).
The second element in the description begins 'DA' and gives the page number and name in the Descriptiones animalium, as well as any other relevant data, such as date or locality if these are not on the drawing; if an exact date is not possible, then a range of dates is given from the itinerary of the voyage (see Lysaght, 1959 : 362-365). Forster's attribution 'Fig. pict. G.' is omit- ted, but reference is made to 'Fig. pict. F.', 'Fig. pict. Hodges' and to other variants.
The third element begins 'Cat. B' and contains any information from Catalogue B that is not already on the drawing; species names have again been italicized, but spelling and punctuation retained.
The fourth element begins 'Obs.' and gives the page number, date and locality in George Forster's Observationes wherever his notes can be correlated with one of the drawings.
A final element refers to the Gotha gouaches, reproductions, etc.
The fate of the specimens brought back from the Cook voyages is extremely complex (White- head, 1969). Very many have disappeared without trace, while for those that can be located there is often an element of doubt whether they are indeed the specimens described or merely duplicates. For this reason, no attempt is made here to indicate virtual or even actual iconotypes.
Mammals
17. Antelope Tragulus a. Melanotes / redunca S.N. XIII : 184 ? / Greis-bock in Dutch (and on verso
a note of ? locality). DA p. 36, Antelope tragulus F, Fig. picta F, 30 October-22 November 1772; also DA p. 374
(second visit to Cape), 23 March-27 April 1775. Cat. B: Obs The other Variety the [word missing] or the common Antelope Tragulus rupestris of
Forster, has brown ears and no white hairs intermixed; of which a Figure Pict. under the name
of Capra rupestris - by the Dutch called Stein Bock - from generally living on high Hills, &
Mountains. Obs. The Melanota lives on the plains.
Antelope dorcas (see Antilope pygargd) Antelope oryx (see Antilope oreas) Antelope pygargus (see Antilope pygargd) Antilope dorcas (see Antilope pygargd) Antilope gnu (see Bos connochaetes)
30. Antilope oreas S.N. XIII : 190 / Antilope Orix.
DA pp. 33, 379, Antelope oryx F (no drawing indicated; ? first or second visit to Cape).
Cat. B : Elandt. The figured animal was lean & the Belly too strait. 29. Antilope Oreotragus S.N. XIII : 189. n. 26. / Klip Springer (and on verso) . . . from a dead animal
DA p. 382, Antelope oreotragus F, 23 March-27 April 1775.
Cat. B: Fig. fr a wild dead Animal. 18a. Antilope Pygarga S.N. XIII : 187 / Antelope dorcas (and on verso) ... of Good Hope Tame.
DA p. 34, Antelope pygargus Pall., Fig. picta F, 30 October-22 November 1772.
Cat. B: Gregarious 2 Dr. from the Menagerie.
18b. Antilope Pygarga S.N. XIII : 187 / antilope Dorcas.
DA (as above). 19a. Bos Connochaetes. Mas. / Antilope Gnu S.N. XIII : 189.n.25 / from a drawing in the possession of the Governor / at the Cape (and in ink) Copia {uncoloured). DA p. 392, Bos connochaetes F; possibly also DA p. 40, Bos poephagus F, 23 March-27 April
1775. Cat. B : 2 Copies. The other originals.
20. Bos Connochaetes femina. DA (as above).
21 . (no caption ; incomplete ink drawing over pencil ; a copy of the previous one or taken from the
next ?)
36 P- J- P. WHITEHEAD
22. (no caption ; uncoloured, perhaps basis for previous one ?)
23. (no caption; uncoloured, same animal recumbent?)
24. (no caption; uncoloured, same, unfinished)
25. (no caption; uncoloured, same, whole animal, hind quarters, head)
26. (no caption; uncoloured, same, hind leg)
27. (no caption; uncoloured, same, head)
28. (no caption; uncoloured, same, head)
19. (no caption; no attribution by Dryander bottom left; ? the same animal as 19a) Bos poephagus (see Bos connochaetes) Capra rupestris (see Antelope tragulus)
15. Cervus Camelopardalis, Linn. / Camelopardalis Giraffe S.N. XIII : 181 / Hanc figuram factam
ad amusium picturae / apud Generos. Baron de Plettenberg, Gub. Capensis / emendavi in
respectu capitis ex Capite explicato {uncoloured). DA (not included). Cat B : The small figure copied from an oil painting. The large [i.e. the next one] from Nature.
16. Cervus camelopardalis (written twice; uncoloured, head only). DA (not included).
14. Cervus porcinus S.N. XIII : 179 / Hog Deer Tomah (uncoloured, head only).
DA (not included).
Cat. B : Female without horns. Menagerie at the Cape - supposed from India. The head of Natural Size.
31. Delphinus Delphis. © Octob. 9th. 1774.
DA p. 280, as Delphinus delphis Linn. Cat. B: off Norfolk Isld South Seas Female Bottle Nose.
Dipus cafer (see Yerbua capensis)
Equus zebra (no drawing).
DA p. 40, as Equus zebra (no drawing indicated).
Cat. B: Equus Zebra a Var. C. b. Sp. copied [i.e. Cape of Good Hope].
5. Felis capensis S.N. XIII : 81 (and on verso) Cape of Good Hope. DA p. 362, as Felis capensis Penn., 4 April 1775.
Cat. B: Colour a little too bright or yellow. Obs. 2 Drawings Natural size.
6. Felis capensis S.N. XIII : 81 {uncoloured, whole animal and one foot). DA (as above).
10. Fossor capensis Forst. / Mus maritimus S.N. XIII : 140.n.40 / Spalax mordens Linn. fil.
DA p. 32, as Fossor capensis F, 30 October-22 November 1772. Cat. B: C. b. Spei. 3 Drawings Natural Size Burrows in Sand-plaines.
Fossor leucops (see Talpa leucops)
Jerbua capensis (see Yerbua capensis)
Mus capensis (see Talpa leucops)
Mus dentex (see Talpa leucops)
Mus maritimus (see Fossor and Talpa capensis)
7. Mustela galina S.N. XIII : 95 / Viverra amphibia / Le Vansire (and on verso) Madagascar in
the Cape Managerie. DA (not included). Cat. B: Madagascar - seen in the Menagerie at the Cape Le Vansire ? Buffon. Lives also in
fresh Water. Fig. Natural Size.
2. PHOCA antarctica / ursina -potius volans (and on the verso) Dusky Bay / young animal / 8 to 10 feet in length. DA p. 64, as Phoca ursina L, 31 March 1773.
Cat. B: Figure taken from a young animal. Gregarious. The largest in N. Zeld 6 feet. The same species in Sth Georgia & Staten Island 10 feet long.
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 37
4. Phocajubata / Staten Land 2> 2 Jany 1775 (uncoloured).
DA p. 137, as Phoca iubata F. Cat. B : New Year Isld near Statenland Gregarious.
3. Phoco leonina Linn. Jany 17th 1775 {uncoloured). DA p. 313, as Phoca leonina (name only). Cat. B : South Georgia only 2 individuals seen.
Phoca ursina (see Phoca antarctica)
Spalax capensis (see Talpa leucops)
Spalax mordens (see Talpa capensis)
Talpa asiatica (see Talpa versicolor)
11. Talpa capensis Forst. / Mus maritimus S.N. XIII : 140.n.40/ Spalax mordens Linn. fil. / . . .
Comment Petrop Jorn. XIV p. 409 Tab. IX p conf. (and on verso) Cape of Good Hope. DA p. 32, as Fossor capensis F, 30 October-22 November 1772. Cat. B: [see comment under Fossor capensis].
12. Talpa capensis Forst. / Mus maritimus S.N. XIII : 140.n.40 / Spalax mordens Linn. fil. (uncoloured,
sketches of head and feet). DA (as above).
9. Talpa leucops / Mus capensis S.N. XIII : 140.n.39 / Mus dentax / Spalax capensis Lin. fil. (and
on verso) Cape of Good hope. DA p. 364, as Fossor leucops F, 2 March-27 April 1775. Cat. B: C. B. Spei Natural Size Lives in the same manner [as Fossor capensis] common near
the Cape.
8. Talpa versicolor / asiatica S.N. XIII : 111.
DA p. 30, as Talpa asiatica Lin., 30 October-22 November 1772.
1. Vespertilio tuber culatus.
DA p. 62, as Vespertilio tuber culatus F, New Zealand Bat, 22 May 1773.
Viverra amphibia (see Mustela galina)
13. Yerbua capensis (and in ink) Yerbua capensis J. R. Forster in Wet. Acad. Handl. 1778. pag. 108.
tab. 3 (and again in pencil) Dipus cafer S.N. XIII : 159 (drawing lightly squared up in pencil,
perhaps by the artist who copied it for the gouache now in Gotha). DA pp. 365, 368, as Yerbua capensis F, 23 March-27 April 1775. Cat. B: C. B. Spei near Stellen bosch. Larger figure very little less than nature. 2 Drawings.
Burrows in the ground. Note: the gouache copy on parchment is No. 2 in the Gotha series (see below, p. 46). The
second of the two drawings mentioned was presumably that used in the description of the
species by J. R. Forster (1778).
Birds
Reptiles
(see list given by Lysaght, 1959 : 280-310)
Anguis laticauda (see Coluber laticaudatus)
171. Anguis platura. Linn / Toona Tore / Taheite May 10th 1774.
DA p. 229, as Anguis platura. Cat. B: . . .Nat. Size.
170. Coluber laticaudatus $ / Eboohee a-a-oorou / Off Traitor's head in Eromanga $. Aug. 3. 1774 /
232 Scuta 2 Squ ante ... 31 Squa . . . pone a . . . [several words illegible]. DA p. 156, also 256-257, as Anguis laticauda. Cat. B : Coluber laticaudatus Linn. Oceanus pacif. prop. Insulam Eromanga. Nat. Size.
169. Testudo imbricata Linn. / Namoko I.
DA p. 247, as Testudo imbricata (name only). Cat. B: Dr. from a small specimen.
38
P. J. P. WHITEHEAD
Fishes
236.
246. 247.
187.
186.
183.
184.
182. 185.
175. (lower)
175. (upper)
197.
Atherina lacunosa / Brit. mus. / Caledonia. ?. 9th Sept. 1774 {uncoloured, with sketch of head in
ventral view). DA p. 298, as Atherina lacunosa F. Cat. B: Lacuna on top of the . . . [? nose] Silvery Nat Size.
Batistes fimbriatus / oiri / Batistes vidua mss. afilee Tua / Otaheitee. DA (not included).
Batistes scaber j bctddeek / Queen Charlotte Sound / New Zealand {uncoloured). DA p. 152, as Batistes scaber F, 2-25 November 1773. Cat. B: Nat Size.
Batistes vidua (see Batistes fimbriatus).
Blennius capensis / Blenn. Super ciliosus. L. / Cape of Good Hope / Schn 175. DA p. 408, as Blennius capensis F, 22 March-27 April 1775. Cat. B: good Eating.
Blennius cornutus (see Blennius truncatus)
BLENNIUS fenestratus (ink, then in pencil) he Tarova / Dusky Bay / Schn 173.
DA p. 124, as Blennius fenestratus, 3 May 1773.
Note: the gouache copy on parchment, formerly in the Gotha series (see below, p. 46), was on
sale in London in 1976 and was reproduced in the catalogue by Joppien (1976 : pi. B). Blennius gobioides / running fish / Tanna £ 17th Aug1. 1774 : / Schn. 176 {uncoloured, three
sketches). DA p. 283, as Blennius gobioides F, Fig. pict. F. et G. Cat. B: Skips and runs fast. Ob. 6 Natural Size Greyish. Note: in his Journal for 18 August 1774, J. R. Forster wrote 'I drew & described this minute
nimble animal'.
BLENNIUS (ink; then in pencil) littoreus / Labrus gobioides MSS ? (then in ink) S.C.Q.C.S.N.Z.
3) Oct. 24th. 1774 (then in pencil) Kogop / Schn 177. DA p. 127. as Blennius littoreus F, 7 April 1773 ; the dates are anomalous, but no other drawing
exists. Note: reproduced in colour by Whitehead (1969b : pi. 30A).
Blennius superciliosus (see Blennius capensis)
Blennius truncatus. / cornutus ? L. / o-hod-o / Huahine. May 18th £ 1774 / Schn. 172. DA p. 231, as Blennius truncatus F.
BLENNIUS varius (ink, then in pencil) he kdgop / Charlotte's Sound / Nov 9th / Schn 178 DA p. 127, as Blennius varius F, 4 June 1773; the dates are anomalous, but no other drawing
exists. CALLIONYMUS acanthorhynchos. / Q. Charlotte Sound New Zealand. Kogohooee / Schn 41. DA p. 117, as Callionymus acanthorhynchus F, 13 April 1773. Cat. B: Nat Size.
Note: reproduced in colour by Whitehead (1969b : pi. 29).
Callionymus Trigloides j Terra del Fuego. 1774. © 25th December / Schn 44 {uncoloured). DA p. 358, as Callionymus trigloides F.
Callyodon coregonoides (see Sparus pullus)
Chaetodon harpurus (see Harpurus literatus)
Chaetodon lineatus (see Harpurus literatus)
Chaetodon meleagris (see Harpurus inermis)
Chaetodon nigricans (see Harpurus nigricans)
Chaetodon. / Speciosus mss British mus. / Ch. vagabundus / Pariiharaha / Otaheite. DA p. 155, as Chaetodon vagabundus (name only). Cat. B: cfr Fig MS - and probably in Linn.
Chaetodon stellatus (see Harpurus guttatus)
Chaetodon vagabundus (see Chaetodon speciosus)
Clupea cyprinoides (see Clupea setipinna)
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 39
243. Clupea mystacina / setirostris Brouss. ichthyol. dec. 1 / Tanna © 14th August. 1774 (uncoloured) .
DA p. 295, as Clupea mystacina F. Cat. B: Sea fish Nat. Size (and in another ink) Clupea setirostris Brouss. Ichthyol. Dec. 1.
242. Clupea setipinna / cyprinoides Brouss. ichthyol. dec. 1 / Tanna. © 14th August. 1774 (uncoloured).
DA p. 296, as Clupea cyprinoides F. Cat. B : Clupea setipinna Tanna Herring colour Taken by angling in fresh water (and in another
ink) Clupea cyprinoides Brouss. Ichthyol. Dec. 1 (the name also pencilled in). Note: reproduced in Whitehead (1969b : pi. 7).
Clupea setirostris (see Clupea mystacina]
Clupea sinensis (see Mugil salmoneus)
Cobitis gobioides (see Cobitis pacified)
231. Cobitis pacifica / gobioides ms otaheite p. 1 1 1 / o-dboo / Taheitee (uncoloured, lateral, dorsal and
ventral view; inset is an earlier drawing, uncoloured, the same views, entitled) Cobites pacifica.
DA p. 235, as Cobitis pacifica, Fig. picta F, 22 April-14 May 1774.
Cat. B: 2 Dr. Nat Size brownish (and in another ink) Gobioides MS Otaheite p. 111.
Note: the name gobioides is cited from p. 1 1 1 in the Tahiti section of the volume of ms descrip- tions by Solander (BMNH., Zoology Library, 89 o S - Sol. Z 1).
Cobitis pacifica (see also Coryphaena / Gobius strigatus)
189. Coryphaena. / Gobius strigatus Brouss. Ichthyol / Taheitee / Schn 65 (uncoloured, sketches of
whole fish and mouth). DA p. 235, a reference to Gobius strigatus under Cobitis pacifica F, but the description does not fit this drawing and must apply to No 231, which is labelled Cobites pacifica; thus, no descrip- tion can be found for this drawing. Cat. B : . . . finely painted Specimen in Br. Museum (and in another ink) Gobius strigatus Brouss. Ichthyol.
Coryphaena fimbriata (see Coryphaena / Gobius strigatus)
188. CORYPHAENA Hippurus (in ink; and in pencil) Atlantick Ocean.
DA pp. 3, 155, as Coryphaena hippurus (name only), 7 August 1772.
Obs. p. 22, 5 September 1772 (South Atlantic): Caught a Dolphin Coryphaena Hippurus . . . Drew ... an outline of the Dolphin.
248. CYCLOPTERUS pinnulatus / More-adoo / S.C.Q.C.S.N.Z. © 23d Oct 1774 (generic name in ink, rest in pencil; dorsal, lateral and ventral view, the last two uncoloured). DA p. 301, as Cyclopterus pinnulatus F. Cat. B: Nat Size.
172. Echidna variegata / Muraena variegata / Muraena echidna S.N. XIII : 1135 / Pipiro / Taheitee. DA p. 181, as Echidna variegata, 17 August-1 September 1773. Cat. B: Fig. MS. Eatable.
235. Esox alepidotus / he-para / Dusky Bay.
DA p. 142, as Esox alepidotus S; 10 April 1773 in Forster's Journal.
Cat. B : Fresh water fish In general not above J the size of the drawing also in the Rivulet in Ship Cove Totararine.
234. Esox argenteus / Silvery. Fins Blackish, a yellow spot under & at (deleted) in the base of PP &
P.A. / Polynemus ? / Mohee / Taheitee (uncoloured). DA p. 196, as Esox argenteus F, 17 August-1 September 1773; also, p. 257, Tanna (name only). Cat. B : Frequently caught in the seine at Tanna.
233. Esox saurus / he-eeye / N.Z. Dusky Bay (No 1) March 27th 1773.
DA p. 143, as Esox saurus. Cat. B : Willoughby's name. Obs. p. 75, 26 March 1773 (Dusky Bay): (Latin description).
Exocoetus evolans (see Exocoetus volitans)
240. Exocoetus volitans / E. evolans L. / A. 1 / Atlantick (and in ink on verso the finrays are numbered ;
lateral view with below it an uncoloured dorsal view). DA p. 3, as Exocoetus volitans, Fig. pict. A.I.G., 13-19 July 1772; also p. 155, Pacific (name
only).
40 P- J- P- WHITEHEAD
Obs. p. 10, 2-6 August 1772 (Atlantic): Had flying fish (Exocoetus volitans Linn) come flying upon deck and drew it.
180. GADUS Bacchus / Ehdgda / Q. Charl. Sound / Schn. 53. DA p. 120, as Gadus bacchus S, 18 May-7 June 1773.
Cat. B : Night Walkers, because - caught at night with hook.
181. Gadus colias: - New Zeland Coalfish / Perca ? colias / hera-warre / Schn. 54. DA p. 122, as Gadus colias S, 27 March 1773.
Cat. B: Coal Fish - good Eating.
Note: the gouache copy on parchment is No. 28 in the Gotha series (see below, p. 46).
178. Gadus magellanicus / Terra del Fuego $ December 21st 1774 / Schn 10 (uncoloured). DA p. 361, as Gadus magellanicus F.
Cat. B: Nat Size.
179. Gadus rhacinus j mus. Britannic. / Queen Charlotte's Sound {uncoloured). DA p. 304, as Gadus rhacinus F, 29 October 1774.
Cat. B : Dusky blackish.
Gasterosteus glaucus (see Psetta glauca) Gasterosteus rhombeus (see Psetta rhombed) Gobius strigatus (see Coryphaena / Gobius strigatus) Harpurus glaucopareius (see Harpurus nigricans)
198. Harpurus guttatus. / Chaetodon stellatus mss. Brit. mus. / Pa-a-a / Col olivaceo fuscus, postice
puritis albis, oculor irides aurea, subtus corpus pallidus. / Taheitee / Schn. 215 (uncoloured). DA p. 218, as Harpurus guttatus F, about 15 March 1774. Cat. B : Brown with light blue spots.
199. Harpurus inermis. / Chaetodon meleagris mss. Brit. Mus. / Anamocka. / Schn 210. DA p. 286, as Harpurus inermis F, 28 June 1774.
Cat. B : . . . anomalous.
195. Harpurus lituratus. Hasselqu. / Chaetodon Harpurus MSS. British museum / Eooma tarei /
Otaheite / Otaheite Eparaha Chaetodon / Schn. 216 (and on verso) vide Nieuhoff voye in
Churchill. DA p. 218, as Harpurus lituratus, about 15 March 1774. Cat. B : Hasselquist described this fish and of Linnaeus wrongly quoted Ch. nigricans.
194. Harpurus monoceros / unicornis Brouss / Chaetodon Cornutus MSS. British mus / Eooma ootoo /
P.D. yellowish brown P.C. outer edge pale or greyish Scales as in the other species of this new genus / Oteheite / Schn. 181.
DA p. 219, as Harpurus monoceros F, 10 May 173 r4 fide Forster's Journal.
Cat. B: Nov. Genus a Linneo sub Chaetodontidi genere (and in another ink) Balistoides Rhinoceros MS. Chaetodon Unicornis Broussonet.
196. Harpurus nigricans Linn (last two words deleted) / glaucopareius mss / umbra MSS / Parai /
Otaheite / Schn. 212. DA p. 214, as Harpurus nigricans F, Fig. pict. F. et G., 15 March 1774. Cat. B : Chaet. nigricans Linn.
Harpurus unicornis (see Harpurus monoceros)
Labrus gobioides (see Blennius UttoreUs and B. gobioides)
239. Mugil albula ? / Dusky Bay (uncoloured).
DA p. 145, as Mugil albula F; 21 April 1773 in Forster's Journal.
Cat. B: not Linnei.
Obs. pp. 85-87, 12 April 1773 (Dusky Bay): (Latin description).
238. MUGIL cirrostomus / Taheitee / Schn 121 (uncoloured, sketch of head from front).
DA p. 198, as Mugil cirrhostomus F, 17 August-1 September 1773; also, p. 257, Tanna (name
only). Cat. B: also seen at Tanna (forte idem cum M. albula a.).
237. Mugil salmoneus / Clupea Sinensis L. ? / Tanna. 2| 18th Aug* 1774 / Schn. 121. / Licht 299
(uncoloured). DA p. 299, as Mugil salmoneus F.
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 4 J
Cat. B: whitish.
Note: reproduced in Whitehead (1969b : pi. 8).
173. Muraena caeca Linn. ? (repeated) / Para-owtee-Taheitee / Schn. 536 (whole animal and two
uncoloured sketches of head in ventral and lateral view). DA p. 230, as Muraena coeca ? Linn., 22 April-14 May 1774; also p. 247 (name only). Muraena echidna (see Echidna variegatd) Muraena variegata (see Echidna variegatd) Myxine glutinosa (see Petromyzon cirrhatus)
174. OPHIDIUM Blacodes. Licht. Forst. p. 1 15 / Ehokh / New Zealand / Schn 484. DA p. 115, as Ophidium blacodes, 13 April 1773.
Obs. pp. 92-95, 13 April 1773 (Dusky Bay): (Latin description).
219. Perca boops / St Helena / Bull-Eye / E-do - Omai / Mus. Brit. / Licht 411 {uncoloured). DA p. 411, as Perca boops F, 16-21 May 1775. Cat. B : Reddish Omai said to be the same with EOo otaheitensis. Perca colias (see Gadus colias) Perca escarlatine (see Perca urodetd)
213. PERCA fulva ms. / British mus. {uncoloured).
DA p. 193, as Perca fulva, Tahiti; 17 August 1773 in Forster's Journal. Cat. B : Forgot the place.
191. Perca grunniens / Tanna Aug 13 1774 {uncoloured). (verso) DA p. 294, as Perca grunniens F, Fig. pict. F.
Note: this is drawn on the back of Zeus argentarius.
214. Perca grunniens / see the original of this on the back of the drawing of Zeus argentarius / Tanna
{uncoloured) (see previous picture, from which this was neatly copied). DA p. 294, as Perca grunniens. Cat. B : Obs. Fig copied from a drawing on the back of Zeus argentarius.
216. Perca maculata (deleted) variolosa ms. / EHeoa E Heeroa Eroee / Marquesas. DA p. 220, as Perca maculata F, 7-11 April 1774.
215. Perca - polyzonias / mss Brouss. British mus. / vittata Mss / Taape / Marquesas / Licht Forst 225. DA p. 225, as Perca polyzonias S, 7-11 April 1774.
Cat. B: Fig. MS.
218. Perca prognathus / Sciaena gadoides / Pato-t5ra / S.C.Q.C.S.N.Z. <3 Oct. 25. 1774 / Schn 301 {uncoloured). DA p. 309, as Perca prognathus F, 15 October 1774. Cat. B : . . . because long under Jaw.
217. Perca urodeta / escarlatina ms / Terao- Matapoo / Hoa / Marquesas. DA p. 221, as Perca urodeta F, 7-11 April 1774.
Cat. B : . . . from the lines marked on the tail . . . Fig MS.
Perca variolosa (see Perca maculata)
251 . PETROMYZON cirrhatus / Myxine glutinosa ni faller JB. / he Todna / New Zealand Charlottes Sound / Dusky bay / Schn. p 530 (whole fish with half-coloured ventral view of head). DA p. 112, as Petromyzon cirrhatus F, 8 April 1773. Cat. B : Obs. Mr Sparman says he has seen the same fish in False Bay near the C. b. Spei.
Pleuronectes meneus (see Pleuronectes pict us)
192. Pleuronectes pictus / meneus / mss. British mus. / Bode / Anamoka June 29th £ 1774 / Schn 161. DA p. 285, as Pleuronectes pictus F, 28 June 1774.
193. Pleuronectes Scapha / Mohoa / Charlotte's Sound. / Schn 163. DA p. 130, as Pleuronectes scapha S, 30 March 1773.
Polynemus quinquarius (see Trigla asiatica) 229. PSETTA Glauca (in ink, then in pencil) Scomber glaucus. Linn. (3. / A 4 / St Jago {uncoloured). DA p. 5, as Gasterosteus glaucus, Fig. picta A.4.F, 10-14 August 1772. Obs. p. 15, 15-16 August 1772 (St Jago): (name only).
42 p- J- p- WHITEHEAD
Note: another and better drawing made on the return visit in May 1775 - see under Scomber glaucus, No 225 ; also under Scomber maculatus, No 228 (Tahiti).
220. PSETTA rhombea (in ink, then in pencil) Gasterosteus rhombeus / A 5 / St Jago / Licht Forst. 7,
257 / Schn. 33 S. glaucus (uncoloured). DA p. 7, as Gasterosteus rhombeus, Fig. picta A.5.G., 10-14 August 1772; also, p. 257, Tanna
(name only). Cat. B : Gasterosteus Rhombeus St Jago phps a new genus silver colour all over also at Tanna,
Ascension &c. Obs. p. 15, 15-16 August 1772 (Sl Jago): (name only). 250. Raja edentula / Dark Red colour (meaning pelvic fin) / Light (meaning right pectoral fin) / Whai /
Tahaiti. May 10th 1774. DA p. 227, as Raja edentula F; also, p. 256, Tanna (name only). Cat. B: Nat. Size. 232. Salmo myops / MB 14. P.D.12. P.V.18. PP.12. P.C.22./Erai JB. / ground spearing. St Helena.
(uncoloured). DA p. 412, as Salmo myops F, 16-21 May 1775. Cat. B : called Salmo ob pinnam as posam - distinctum forte genus quod a . . . Dentex vocatum.
203. Sciaena argyrea / Tanna d 16th Aug*. 1774 / Schn. 344 (uncoloured). DA p. 291, as Sciaena argyrea F, 15 August 1774.
Cat. B: Natural Size.
208. Sciaena aurata / Spar us pagrus Linn. / Sc. lata . . . / ghoo-parree / N.Z.Q.C.S. Oct. 18th <J 1774
(uncoloured). DA p. 307, as Sciaena aurata F. Cat. B : Obs. The fish that poisoned the Resolution's people at Malacolo was very like this, but
somewhat narrower & of a darker red, bordering on purple. Note: in his Journal for 23 July 1774, J. R. Forster recorded the poisonous fish as 'Spams
erythrinus or Pagrus\ but seems not to have described it apart from its toxic effects (given
under Sparis in DA p. 249).
205. Sciaena ciliaris / salmonea MS / Moghee / Dusky Bay. DA p. 137, as Sciaena ciliaris S, 26 March-11 May 1773.
Cat. B: 2 Dr. The little drawing a little too blue. The larger drawing (i.e. No 209 below) natural large size.
209. Sciaena ciliaris / salmonea ms ? / S.C.Q.C.S.N.Z. S 25. Octo. 1774 (uncoloured). DA p. 137 (see above).
212. Sciaena cultrata / Scomber clupeoides ms / British mus / Norfolk Island <? 11th Oct. 1774 /
Schn. 343 Licht. 292 (uncoloured). DA p. 292, as Sciaena cultrata F, 10 October 1774. Cat. B: whitish.
Sciaena gadoides (see Perca prognathus)
204. Sciaena lineata j Dusky Bay / Schn. 342 (part coloured with grey and yellow washes). DA p. 134, as Sciaena lineata S; 27 March 1773 in Forster's Journal.
207. Sciaena macroptera. / living subject / Spams carponemus Brit. mus. / Queen Charlotte's Sound /
Schn. 342 (an outline of fish on verso). DA p. 136 (as below).
206. Sciaena macropteras j Spams carponemus Mus. Brit. / a dead subject / Taraghee / NZ (No 2)
Dusky Bay March 27th 1773. DA p. 136, as Sciaena macroptera F. Cat. B: 2 drawings, a. fr a dead fish Dusky Bay b. fr a live - Head better Charlotte Sound
(i.e. the previous drawing).
Sciaena mulloides (see Sciaena tmtta) Sciaena salmonea (see Sciaena ciliaris) Sciaena sapidissima (see Sciaena trutta)
210. Sciaena trutta / sapidissima / Sciaena mulloides / S.C.Q.C.S.N.Z. 5) 7. N. 1774 (uncoloured). DA p. 147, as Sciaena trutta S, 18 May-7 June 1773; also, p. 279, October 1774 (name only). Cat. B: 2 Dr Grows to a large size.
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 43
211. Sciaena trutta j Sciaena mulloides ms. / inches 8 £ long 2. broad If head {uncoloured).
DA p. 147 (see above).
226. Scomber adscensionis. Osbeck. / 1. Ascension : May 28th ©. 1775 / Cavalle at St Helena / Licht.
412 {uncoloured). DA p. 412, as Scomber ascensionis F. Cat. B: ascensionis Osbeck - wrongly quoted by Linn, for Scomber glaucus.
224. Scomber1 capensis, Elft : / Scomber saltatrix / Cape of Good Hope {uncoloured). DA p. 413 (name in index, but absent from text).
Cat. B: capensis C b Sp white. Scomber clupeoides (see Sciaena cultrata)
222. Scomber dentex. / Scomber lanceolatus ms / Maga / Q. Charlotte's Sound. / Licht 141 {un-
coloured). DA p. 141, as Scomber dentex S, 18th May-7 June 1773. Cat. B : Pin maker Nantes because the dorsal spines very sharp 3 feet long Bony fish.
Scomber dimidiatus (see Scomber trachurus)
225. Scomber glaucus Linn. / 1. Ascension 28th May. © 1775 {uncoloured).
DA p. 5 (refers only to Gasterosteus glaucus of the previous visit to Ascension Island, in August
1772 - see under Pseta glauca, No 229; see also Scomber maculatus, No 228). Cat. B : a. best Ascension.
p. St Jago (i.e. Psetta glauca, No 229) Silvery colour Linn.
227. Scomber helvolus / 1. Ascension. May 29th. 1775. / Schn 35 {uncoloured). DA p. 415, as Scomber helvolus F.
221. Scomber hippos Linn ? Brit. mus. / Ahee / Otaheite / New Zealand ? {uncoloured).
DA p. 199, as Scomber hippos Linn. F, 17 August-1 September 1773; also, p. 155 (name only)
and p. 413 (diagnosis, comparisons). Cat. B: Hippos ? Linn. Otaheite.
Scomber lanceolatus (see Scomber dentex)
228. Scomber maculatus / glaucus L. {uncoloured).
DA p. 195, as Scomber maculatus, Tahiti and environs, 17 August-1 September 1773.
Note: see also under Psetta glauca No 229 and Scomber glaucus No 225, both from the Atlantic.
Scomber micans (see Scomber trachurus) 230. Scomber Pelamys / Peeraru / A 2. / Atlantick (the finrays numbered in ink on the verso).
DA p. 3, as Scomber pelamys; 12 August 1772 in Forster's Journal.
Obs. p. 10, 13 August 1772 (Atlantic): Struck a Bonito {Scomber Pelamys Linn) and drew an outline of it. Also, p. 22, 3 September 1772: Caught a Bonito . . . finished my drawing of the Bonito. Scomber saltatrix (see Scomber capensis)
223. Scomber trachurus Varietas / Dimidiatus ms Brit. mus. / Brouss. / micans ms / Horsemackerel or
Scad. - / nat size / Dusky Bay {uncoloured). DA p. 155, as Scomber trachurus (name only); also, p. 257 (Tanna, name only) and p. 413
(diagnosis, comparisons). Cat. B: var. Linn. . . . N. Zei Dusky Bay. 190. Scorpaena / SCORPAENA Cottoides / Cardinalis MS / Enohutara / NZ / No 8 Dusky Bay April
1 1773 / Schn 196. DA p. 128, as Scorpaena cottoides F, 30 March 1773.
Scorpaena cardinalis (see Scorpaena cottoides)
Sparis (see Sciaena aurata)
200. Spams - / miniatus / Sparus miniatus Licht. Forst. p. 289 / Ehuroa / Namoka. DA p. 289, as Sparus miniatus F, 27 June 1774.
Sparus carponemUs (see Sciaena macroptera)
Sparus erythrinus (see Sciaena aurata)
201. Sparus ornatus / The green Dark, bluish - purple dirty or greenish cast, the blue spots & lines
to strike out better, upper edge of dorsal fin of the same color as that of anal. / Pa-ow-dura (or perhaps Pa-ovo-dora).
44 p- J- p- WHITEHEAD
DA (no species of this name under Sparus, Labrus, etc.).
Sparus pagrus (see Sciaena aurata)
202. Sparus pullus / an Callyodon Coregonoides mss / Q Charlotte's Sound (uncoloured).
DA p. 306, as Sparus pullus F, 28 October 1774. Cat. B: Blackish Sooty -pullus.
249. Squalus striatus. / vittatus ms. Specim. in mus. Britanic. / Cape of Good Hope {uncoloured,
whole fish and sketches of head in dorsal and ventral views). DA p. 407, as Squalus striatus F, 23 March-27 April 1775.
Squalus vittatus (see Squalus striatus)
245. Tetrodon hispidus. Linn. / Hooe-hooe Kills men / Raietea. June 3d 1774.
DA p. 247, as Tetrodon hispidus (name only). Cat. B: The Inhabitants say he is poisonous and kills Men. 244. Tetrodon scleratus j Lagocephalus ? / 18 PP. 12 P.D. 6.C. 10.A / Poemanghee. 1774. & Sept.
7th / N. Caledonia / Schn 506 (uncoloured). DA p. 282, as Tetrodon scleratus F; also pp. 254, 255, 257. Cat. B : Poisonous. The effect lasted about 3 days - In a few hours a singular symptom took
place viz not being able to distinguish at all of weights - e.g. between a feather & a quart pot. Note: the toxic effects of this pufferfish were more fully described by J. R. Forster in his Journal
for 8 September 1774, as also in DA p. 254. The gouache copy on parchment is No 27 in the Gotha series (see below, p. 46).
241. Trigla asiatica Linn. / Polynemus quinquarius Linn. / dma / Otaheite (uncoloured, a fair copy of
an original sketch pasted below, entitled) Trigla Asiatica / Polynemus qUinarius / Otaheite (uncoloured).
DA p. 236, as Trigla asiatica Lin., Fig. picta F, 22 April-14 May 1774; also, p. 247, Raiatea, 25 May-4 June 1774 (name only); also 20 August 1774 in Forster's Journal.
Cat. B: 2 Drawings Polynemus quinquarius Linn Probably twice described by Linn.
176. URANOSCOPUS maculatus Vid descript. in MSS from new Zealand 1st voyage / New Zeeland
/ Badee / Schn 49 (uncoloured, light brown crayon and pencil). DA p. 118, as Uranoscopus maculatus F, 13 April 1773. Cat. B: 2 Drawings. Note: reproduced in Whitehead (1969b : pi. 28).
177. Uranoscopus maculatus j Q Charl Sound (uncoloured, light brown crayon and pencil). DA p. 118 (see above).
191. Zeus argentarius j Tanna Aug 13 1774 / Schn 96 (uncoloured). (recto) DA p. 288, as Zeus argentarius F, Fig. pict. F.
Cat. B : on the same paper is Perca grunniens - Fine Silver.
Note: on the reverse is the original sketch for Perca grunniens No 191 verso.
Invertebrates
252. CANCER / Otaheite (uncoloured, enlarged but with life-size sketch above, also uncoloured).
DA p. 155 ? (i.e. Cancer squilla, name only); 30 August 1773 in Forster's Journal. Cat. B : In the Rivers 4 little bigger than the small figure.
258a. Clio conchacea / Atlantick (uncoloured, four views). DA p. 29, as Clio conchacea F, 12 October 1772.
Obs. p. 30, 12 October 1772 (South Atlantic): Caught several specimens of a new Clio (Clio conchacea).
261a. CNIDE hyalina (ink, and in pencil) Atlantick. DA p. 12, as Cnide hyalina, 15 September 1772. Cat. B: Dagyra MS.
Obs. p. 22, 8 September 1772 (South Atlantic): Also caught a new Zoophyte, which we called Cnide hyalina.
Dagyra volva (see Thalia lingulata)
254. DORIS laevis (ink, and in pencil) Doris I / Atlantick / Sept. 4th 1772 / GF. (dorsal and ventral
views). DA p. 10, as Doris laevis, 5 September 1772.
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 45
Cat. B: Nat Size. Fig MS.
Obs. p. 22, 5 September 1772 (South Atlantic): Caught . . . Doris laevis . . . Drew the medusa, Doris . . .
Doris radiata (see Glaucus atlanticus)
254a. GLAUCUS atlanticus (ink, and in pencil) Doris radiata S.N. XIII. p. 3015.a.l3. / Atlantick
Ocean ; on the Line. DA p. 11, as Glaucus atlanticus, 15 September 1772. Cat. B : Mimus volutator MS. Fig. Obs. p. 22, 8 September 1772 (South Atlantic): Caught a new genus of Mollusca & called it
Glaucus atlanticus.
256. Holothuria Physalis / Atlantick (uncoloured).
DA (not mentioned); 15 September 1772 in Forster's Journal.
Obs. p. 24, 15 September 1772 (South Atlantic): Caught the Portuguese Man of War, Holo- thuria Physailia Linn. I drew an outline of it.
257. Holothuria tentaculata / tentaculis frondesis, verrucarum ordinibus quinque / Rai'etea May. 27.
1774 {uncoloured). DA (not mentioned). Cat. B: Ularetea Obs. Called Swallow & Berce de la Mer or Beche de Mer in the Moluccae
where dried for Chinese markets. Figure in Forskal.
Medusa passiflora (see Medusa porpita)
259a. MEDUSA pelagica. Linn, (ink, and in pencil) awe-awe Legs anohora Mouth / Atlantick /
Sept. 4th 1772 / GF (dorsal and ventral views). DA (not mentioned). Obs. p. 22, 5 September 1772 (South Atlantic): Caught . . . several Medusa pelagica . . . Drew
the medusa.
258b. Medusa porpita / Atlantick (three views).
DA p. 13, as Medusa passiflora, 27 September 1772.
Obs. p. 25, 27 September 1772 (South Atlantic): Caught . . . another species of Medusa which appeared to be new.
259b. Medusa velella Linn / Hema-hema / Atlantick.
DA (not mentioned); 15 September 1772 in Forster's Journal. Cat. B: Phyllodora velella MS.
Obs. p. 24, 15 September 1772 (South Atlantic): Caught a species of Blubber, by D. Browne called a Sallyman & by Linnaeus, Medusa Velella.
260. Medusa vesia / Medusa orbicularis disco supra conregulari, limbo integerrima multiradiata,
subtus disco concavo, margine villoso. / Poo / off New Zealand (uncoloured, dorsal and ventral views). DA (not mentioned). Cat. B: did eat it.
Mimus volutator (see Glaucus atlanticus)
253. Monoculus Squali / Tierra del Espiritu Santo (uncoloured).
DA (not mentioned).
Cat. B : among the New Hebrides near Terra des Sp. Sat. Note: recorded by J. R. Forster in his Journal for 26 August 1774.
261b. Phosphorescent Animalicule. / a. natural Size b. magnified with No 4 c. ditto with No 1 / Cape of Good Hope (uncoloured, three different sizes).
DA (not mentioned).
Cat. B: see Cooks Voyage, & Forsters Voyage.
Obs. p. 40, 29 October 1772 (off Table Bay): The Sea was illumined around us to a most extra- ordinary degree [then follows a long description].
Phyllodore velella (see Medusa velella)
255. Thalia lingulata j Dagyra volva ms / In Oceano Atlantico / Febr. 16th 1775 (uncoloured, two
views). DA p. 14, as Thalia lingulata. Cat. B: Ocean South fr the Cape b. Sp. high latitude 50° S. Dagyra MS.
46 p- J- ?• WHITEHEAD
The Forster animal drawings in Gotha, Weimar and Jena
The following list has been compiled from the information given by Steiner & Baege (1971) and Joppien (1976). The names used here are those given in the Descriptiones animalium; for the Gotha series these are here preceded by the numbers used by George Forster in a German list of the drawings (dated 17 June 1780 at Cassel - reproduced by Steiner & Baege); Nos 24, 27, 28 do not occur in this list but are numbered according to another Forster list (in French - also now at Gotha).
F folio number of original Forster drawing
DA Descriptiones animalium, page number
S & B Steiner & Baege (1971)
J Joppien (1976)
A. Forschungsbibliothek, Gotha (gouache on parchment)
1. [Antelope] Not seen; possibly based on F 30
2. [Jerbua] Not seen, but evidently Yerbua capensis, on F 13, DA 365
3. *Vultur plancus, on F 33, DA 321, J pi. A
4. Psittacus hysginus, on F 42, DA 159, S & B pi. 1
5. Cuculus nitens, on F 57, DA 151, S & B pi. 2
6. Alcedo cancrophaga, on F 60, DA 4, S & B pi. 3
7. Certhia cincinnata, on F 61, DA 78, S & B pi. 4
8. Certhia olivacea, on F 62, DA 79, S & B pi. 5
9. Sternus carunculatus, on F 144, DA 81, S & B pi. 6
10. Muscicapa dibapha, on F 150, DA 267, S & B pi. 7
11. Muscicapa ventilabrum, on F 155, DA 86, S & B pi. 8
12. Scolopax caffra, on F 118, DA 49, S & B pi. 9
13. Rallus coffer, on F 129, DA 50, S & B pi. 10
14. Tringa pyrrhetraea, on F 120, DA 174, S & B pi. 11
15. Tantalus capensis, on F 116, DA 48, S & B pi. 12
16. Tantalus melanops, on F 117, DA 332, S & B pi. 13
17. Procellaria antarctica, on F 95, DA 60, S & B pi. 14
18. Procellaria nivea, on F 90, DA 58, S & B pi. 15
19. Procellaria similis, on F 86, DA 59, S & B pi. 16
20. Diomedea alhatrus, on F 99, DA 27, S & B pi. 17
21. Diomedea chrysostoma, on F 101, DA 24, S & B pi. 18
22. Diomedea palpebrata, on F 102, DA 55, S & B pi. 19
23. Chionis lactea, on F 125, DA 330, S & B pi. 20
24. *Blennius fenestratus, on F 186, DA 124, J pi. B
27. Tetrodon scleratus, on F 244, DA 282
28. Gadus colias, on F 181, DA 122
* Sold 1936; offered for sale 1976 by Hartnoll & Eyre in London (see Joppien, 1976).
Schlossmuseum, Weimar (watercolour on paper)
KK 449 Charadrius glaucopus, on F 123, DA 176, S & B pi. 23
KK 500 Alcedo cancrophaga, on F 60, DA 4, cf S & B pi. 3
KK 501 Muscicapa dibapha, on F 150, DA 267, cf S & B pi. 7
KK 502 Cuculus nitens, on F 57, DA 151, S & B pi. 2
KK 503-4 [European birds]
Universitatsbibliothek, Jena (watercolour on paper)
1. Aptenodytes antarctica, on F 82, DA 56, S & B pi. 21
2. Aptenodytes magellanica, on F 83, DA 351, S & B pi. 22
THE FORSTER COLLECTION 47
References
Broussonet, P. M. A. 1782. Ichthyologia, sistens piscium descriptiones et icones, Decas 1. P. Elmsly,
London, 41 pp. Dance, S. P. 1971. The Cook voyages and conchology. /. Conch. 26 (6) : 354-379. Dawson, W. 1958. The Banks letters: a calendar of the manuscript correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks.
Trustees, British Museum, London, 965 pp. Forster, J. G. A. 1777. A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded
by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4 and 5. B. White, J. Robson, P. Elmsly & G. Robinson,
London, 2 vols (xviii + 602 pp. and 607 pp.). 1778a. A letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord Commissioner of the Board
of Admiralty, &c. G. Robinson, London, 25 pp. + Appendix 6 pp.
1778b. Reply to Mr. Wales's remarks. B. White, J. Robson & P. Elmsly, London, 55 pp.
Forster, J. R. 1778. Beskrifning pa djuret Yerbua Capensis, med anmarkningar om genus Yerbuae.
K. Vetensk Akad. Handl. 39 : 108-119 (translated from the original Latin). Forster, T. 1 829. Johann Georg Forsters Briefwechsel. Nebst von seinem Leben. Edited by Th. H. [Huber]
geb. H. [Heyne], Leipzig, 2 vols. Gordon-Brown, A. 1952. Pictorial art in South Africa. Charles J. Sawyer, London, 159 pp. Hoare, M. E. 1976. The tactless philosopher. Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-98). Hawthorn Press, Mel- bourne, 419 pp.
(in press). The 'Resolution'' journal of Johann Reinhold Forster, 1772-75. Hakluyt Society.
Joppien, R. 1976. Drawings from Captain Cook's voyages. An unrecorded collection of fourteen ethno- graphical and natural history drawings relating to the second and third voyages [Catalogue of exhibition
and sale, 13 September-1 October 1976]. Hartnoll & Eyre, London, 57 pp. Kahn, R. L., Steiner, G., Fiedler, H., Popp, K.-G. & Scheibe, S. 1972. Georg Forsters Werke. Sdmtliche
Schriften, Tagebucher, Briefe, 4 — Strietschriften und Fragmente zur Weltreise. Inst, deutsche Sprache
Literatur, Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, (Vol. 1, 1968; vol. 2, 1965; vol. 3, 1966;
vol. 5, not published; vol. 6, not published; vol. 7, 1963; vol. 8, not published; vol. 9, 1958; an as yet
incomplete attempt to publish all George Forster's writings, of which Steiner, 1971 is a compressed
version). Lichtenstein, M. H. K. (ed.) 1844. Descriptiones animalium quae in itinere ad maris australis terras per
annos 1772, 1773 et 1774 suscepto collegit observavit et delineavit Johannes Reinoldus Forster. Dummler,
Berlin, xvi + 424 pp. Lysaght, A. 1959. Some eighteenth century bird paintings in the library of Sir Joseph Banks. Bull. Br.
Mus. nat. Hist. (hist. Ser.) 1 (6) : 251-371. Sawyer, F. C. 1950. Some natural history drawings made during Captain Cook's first voyage round the
world. /. Soc. Biblphy nat. Hist. 2 : 190-193. Schneider, J. G. 1801. M. E. Blochii . . . Sy sterna ichthyologiae iconibus ex illustratum. Post obit urn
auctoris opus inchoatum absolvit, correxit, interpolavit. Berlin, 2 vols. (LX + 584 pp.). Steiner, G. 1971. Georg Forsters Werke in vier Banden. Vol. 1 Reise urn die Welt, Vol. 2 Kleine Schriften zur
Naturgeschichte, Lander- und Volkerkunde. Ansichten vom Niederrhein, Vol. 3 Kleine Schriften zu Kunst,
Literatur, Philosophic, Geschichte und Politik, Vol. 4 Briefe. Leipzig. & Baege, L. 1971. Vogel der Sudsee. 23 Gouachen und Aquarelle nach Zeichnungen Georg Forsters,
entstanden wahrend seiner Weltumsegelung 1772 bis 1775. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig, 79 pp., 23 pis. Wales, W. 1778. Remarks on Mr. Forster's account of Captain Cook's last voyage round the world, in the
years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775. J. Nourse, London, 110 pp. Whitehead, P. J. P. 1969a. Zoological specimens from Captain Cook's voyages. /. Soc. Biblphy nat.
Hist. 5 (3) : 161-201. 1969b. Forty drawings of fishes made by the artists who accompanied Captain James Cook on his three
voyages to the Pacific 1768-71 1772-75 1776-80, some being used by authors in the description of new
species. Trustees, British Museum (Natural History), London, xxxi pp., 36 pis. 1977. Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-91) and the Conchology, or natural history of shells. Bull. Br.
Mus. nat. Hist. (hist. Ser.) 6 (1) : 1-24.
British Museum (Natural History) Monographs & Handbooks
The Museum publishes some 10-12 new titles each year on subjects including zoology, botany, palaeontology and mineralogy. Besides being important reference works, many, particularly among the handbooks, are useful for courses and students' background reading.
Lists are available free on request to:
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Titles to be published in Volume 6
Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-91) and the Conchology, or natural history of shells. By P. J. P. Whitehead.
Early mineralogy in Great Britain and Ireland. By W. Campbell Smith.
The Forster collection of zoological drawings in the British Museum (Natural History). By P. J. P. Whitehead.
John George Children, FRS (1777-1852) of the British Museum. Mineralogist and reluctant Keeper of Zoology. By A. E. Gunther.
An account of the rock collections in the British Museum (Natural History), and the historical collections acquired before 1918. By D. T. Moore.
The entire Historical series is now available
Typo set by John Wright & Sons Ltd, Bristol and Printed by Henry Ling Ltd, Dorchester
V. 5 i
Bulletin of the
British Museum (Natural History)
Early mineralogy in Great Britain and Ireland
W. Campbell Smith
Historical series Vol 6 No 3 29 June 1978
The Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), instituted in 1949, is issued in four scientific series, Botany, Entomology, Geology and Zoology, and an Historical series.
Parts are published at irregular intervals as they become ready. Volumes will contain about four hundred pages, and will not necessarily be completed within one calendar year.
Subscription orders and enquiries about back issues should be sent to: Publications Sales, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, England.
World List abbreviations: Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (hist. Ser)
© Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History), 1978
ISSN 0068-2306 Historical series
Vol 6 No 3 pp. 49-74 British Museum (Natural History) Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD Issued 29 June 1978
Early mineralogy in Great Britain and Ireland
W. Campbell Smithy
Department of Mineralogy, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD
Contents
Early natural histories and catalogues 49
Eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century mineral collections 53
Other important collections made in the nineteenth century 54
Early mineral analysts 56
The influence of Werner on the classification of minerals 58
Systems of mineralogy and text-books 59
The teaching of mineralogy in the nineteenth century 62
The development of crystallography 64
Acknowledgements 69
References 69
Early natural histories and catalogues
Minerals, apart from their use as charms and as materia medica, had attracted little attention among scientifically-minded men in Britain before the last quarter of the seventeenth century. An early work published in Oxford in 1661 was Robert LovelPs Panzoologico-mineralogia, or a compleat history of animals and minerals containing the summe of all authors both ancient and modern, galenical and chymical, touching earths, metalls, semi-metalls, with their natural and artificial excrements, salts, sulphurs and stones, more pretious and less pretious, etc. The part dealing with minerals is chiefly devoted to their 'medicinal' uses with the sketchiest indications of where they are to be found. The list, under Lithologia, of 'stones or jewels more pretious' is quite extensive beginning with Achates, Amethyst, Berill, Bezoarstone and ending with Topaz; while the list of 'stones less pretious' runs from Alabaster to Unicorne-stone and Whetstone, and includes Load-stone of which Lovell's account is quoted by Miss Jessie M. Sweet (1935) in her description of Sir Hans Sloane's Materia Medica.
Another of the early works which were brought to my attention by Dr Roy Porter is Christopher Merret's Pinax rerum naturalium Britannicorum continens vegetabilia, animalia, et fossilia in hac Insula reperta inchoatus; published in London in 1666, with another edition in 1667. Here the author is more concerned with their uses and, to some extent, with localities where some of the 'fossils' are to be found. Thus he records that lead and manganese occur in the Mendip Hills, and under Diaphani, the first entry is 'Adamantes quos vocant Bristoll stones'. Irish slate (Lapis Hibernicae) is listed but its use is described, not as in Lovell, 'often used against bruises etc.', but for 'writing down things to be remembered'.
Another seventeenth century work, John Webster's Metallographia: or an history of metals, etc. 1671, treats of metals and their ores and mines with a chapter on 'other stones' including chryso- colla, Magnes, the Load-stone, Blood-stone, Schistum, the Lazul-stone, etc., and a final chapter on the transmutation of metals.
There is some mention of minerals in Robert Plot's Natural history of Oxford-shire (1677), and in his later work, The natural history of Stafford-shire (1686), both of which are referred to below, but of more particular interest, because of its detailed treatment of minerals, is the cata- logue of the minerals (and fossils) in the Royal Society's Collections by Dr Nehemiah Grew
Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (hist. Ser.) 6(3) 49-74 Issued 29 June 1978
49
50 W. CAMPBELL SMITH
(1681). This collection was commenced very early in the history of the Royal Society, founded in 1660. Robert Hooke was appointed curator in 1662. His chief duty was to furnish the Society with experiments at their meetings, but he was himself very wishful to have 'as full and complete a collection of all varieties of Natural bodies as could be obtained'. The use of such a collection is 'for the most serious and diligent study of the most able proficient in natural philosophy' (Edwards, 1931 : 56).
The whole collection was transferred to the British Museum in 1781. Some of the fossils are still identifiable but none of the mineral specimens with any certainty. However, Grew's Cata- logue shows something of the state of the knowledge of minerals as it was in England nearly three hundred years ago. The catalogue of the 'Minerals' is divided into three Sections: of Stones; of Metals; and of Mineral Principles and each Section is divided into chapters.
In Section I the first three chapters deal with fossils, as now understood, and then follow three more : of Gems ; of Regular Stones ; and of Irregular Stones.
The first entry under Gems is 'Diamonds' but whether the specimen really contained diamonds seems doubtful. Then come: Crystal, including Amethyst, both pale violet and white are men- tioned; The Granate; Topaz, Smaragdus, Agate, Calcedony, Onyx, Sardonyx, Jaspis [a 'geo- metric jaspis', figured in pi. 20, appears to be chiastolite], the Nephritic Stone, and Turcois. They are briefly described and their medicinal properties are frequently mentioned.
Chapter V, of Regular Stones, deals with a great variety : here are some Stalagmitic Stones, Eagle Stones, Toadstones, Belemnites, a flint arrow head, and also various Spars. A 'Silver Spar' figured in plate 21, is a group of quartz crystals 'composed into the figure of a great bud of the colour of grey crystal'. Talk, and the 'foliated Talk' (figured in pi. 21), are gypsum, but 'a great crystalline Talk-spar' sent by Dr Erasmus Bartholinus is Iceland Spar 'dug out of a very high mountain in Island, one whole side of which consists of this Spar'. Another 'Spar' is 'a rhomb of Muscovy Glass. By most called Selenites, used in Saxony and other places in Germany in Windows'.
Grew also describes several kinds of Septarian nodules, which he names 'Waxen Veins'. One of these is the 'Starred Waxen Vein' that was given by Sir Rob. Moray (a founder member of the Royal Society) 'Found in the Isle of Sheapy'.
The starred waxen vein is a name for the radiating groups of crystals of baryte found on the septa of some of the septarian nodules 'waxen veins', from the Isle of Sheppey. Grew noted that 'This star is of quite different nature from the stone on which it grows, as making no effervescence with acids . . .'.
Another name for these radiating barytes was Astrapia. They were so described by the Rev. Dr John Walker, Jameson's predecessor as professor in Edinburgh. Jameson mentions having seen specimens so labelled in the Leverian Museum on his visit to London in 1793 (Sweet, 1963).
Chapter VI, of Irregular Stones, includes a great variety of minerals not exhibiting any regular form. So here are brought together: Emery; Flint; Serpentine Marble, called Ophites; Lapislazuli, i.e. 'blewstone'; 'Loadstone' from Magnesia 'a country between Thessaly and Macedonia'; Soapstone, Pumis Stone, and a 'cynder' from Etna.
Section II, of Metals, is treated in three 'Chapters': Of Gold, Silver and Copper; Of Tin, Lead and Iron; Of Antimony, Mercury and other Metallic bodies. In this last are found Cinnabar, Marchasite, Mundick, and Pyrites.
Section III, Of Mineral Principles, includes: Chapter I, Of Salts (Sal-ammoniac, Salt, Blue and Green Vitriol) ; Chapter II, Of Ambers and Sulphurs, under which head are also : Bitumens, and also 'Flake Stone Coal, by some called Black Amber', [Jet], 'found in Misnia, Bohemia'. Lastly, Chapter III, Of Earths, includes various Boles (Lemnian, Armenian, etc.) Volcanic Ash from Vesuvius, presented by J. Evelyn Esq., and 'earth which rained lately upon Teneriff' ['Blood Rain'; see Bannerman, 1922]. This Catalogue, then, gives an indication of the nomenclature and of some of the ideas in vogue with such persons, doctors and others, as had any knowledge of minerals in those days. The names and ideas were derived no doubt in part from Theophrastus, Pliny, Agricola, and Aldrovandi and, of seventeenth-century writers, Boetius de Boodt and John de Laet, to all of whom Grew refers.
At the very end of the seventeenth century there was published Edward Lhuyd's Lithophylacii
EARLY MINERALOGY 51
Britannici Ichnographia . . . (1699). It is chiefly of importance to palaeontologists but its first chapter is a catalogue of the mineral specimens in the collection at the Ashmolean Museum, made in part at least by Richard Dyer and labelled by Lhuyd who was Under-Keeper in 1684 and became Head-Keeper in 1690 (Gunther, 1945 : 222).
The entries are in Latin and the catalogue lists various specimens of quartz (crystallus and iris), including 'Iris vulgaris, Adamas Bristoliensium vulgo dicta' (pi. I, fig. 15), a doubly terminated crystal of quartz; and a much larger crystal, from Snowdonia; 'Crystallus maxima Britannica, . . . Invenimus Alpibus Arvoniae juxta lacum Fynnon Vrech, . . .'. There are also listed several varieties of 'Fluor' of which some called Fluor triquetrus appear from their figure (pi. I, fig. 34) to be dolomite or calcite. Other specimens are numerous Stalagmites, Selenites, and Talcum (gypsum). The collection contained ninety specimens.
References in the catalogue are made to Aldrovandi, Agricola, Dr Greb [i.e. Grew] and to Plot. The last mentioned reference is to Robert Plot's Natural history of Oxford-shire (1677 : 96), referred to above, in which he describes a few minerals encountered in the county. They include: 'Chrystals, Selenites, and Spars' of which some are 'by the Miners called Cawke and the Latins, Fluor es; which (say they) yet retain so much fluid, that with the heat of fire, like Ice in the Sun, they melt and flow'.
In his later work, The natural history of Staffordshire (1686), Plot wrote at length on the coal and iron-stone of the county. Of crystals he describes Selenites of several kinds of which one (pi. xi, fig. 1) is a cleavage rhomb of calcite 'of a cubico-rhomboidal form, all the pieces being constantly Hexaedra of equal obliquangular sides, or oblique angled Parallelopipeds'. He gives a good description of quartz crystals 'sometimes stained a violaceous colour . . . found in digging in Barrow-hill in Pesnet-Chase' (pi. xi, fig. 8); also of a group of scalenohedra of calcite 'from limestone rocks near Dudley'.
In addition to his notes on these minerals in the two county 'natural histories' Plot has two short papers in the Philosophical Transactions. One is on the sand in the brine of the salt works in Staffordshire (1683); the other, 'on Black-Lead, found only at Keswick and there called Wadt or Kellow' (Plot, 1699).
Two other county natural histories a little later than Plot's Stafford-shire are Charles Leigh's Natural history of Lancashire, Cheshire, and the Peak in Derbyshire, published in 1700, and the Reverend Thomas Robinson's Essay towards a natural history of Westmorland and Cumberland, published in 1709.
Leigh's work, illustrated with many plates of antiquities and some 'fossils', gives some account of numerous 'Spars of several sorts', Fluor in Derbyshire, Salt Rocks in Cheshire, Iron ores, Lead ores, Copper ores, Vitriol, Pyrites and Potters' Clay, and many others, listed in an extensive index.
Robinson's book gives some account of 'several mineral and surface productions' of the two counties but perhaps its interest is more theological than mineralogical, for to it is annexed 'A Vindication of the Philosophical and Theological paraphrase of the Mosaick system of Creation'.
There were some 'minerals, stones and earths' in the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, commenced probably about 1690, and also 'Pretious stones, agates, jaspers, etc' and 'Vessels' of the same, probably from the still earlier collection of William Courten (or Charlton) which was bequeathed to Sloane in 1702; this collection contained over 10 000 items listed under Mineralogy in the synopsis prepared after Sloane's death in 1753. Such specimens from Sloane's collection as can be identified in the Department of Mineralogy of the British Museum (Natural History) have been recorded and described by Miss J. M. Sweet (1935), formerly of that Department, with illustrations of several of the bowls and rings in agate, mocha-stone, carnelian and jasper, and two beautiful pieces in jade (nephrite); a two-handled bowl and a carved mirror-frame.
Another collection of about the same period but devoted entirely to 'minerals and extraneous fossils' was started about 1696 by the remarkable Dr John Woodward, Professor of Physic in Gresham College in London. This collection was bequeathed to the University of Cambridge in 1728 together with a sum of money to found a Professorship, now the Woodwardian Professor- ship of Geology. The collection has been retained in its original arrangement, and with it is kept Woodward's own catalogue.
52 W. CAMPBELL SMITH
Most valuable to the study of this collection and its classification is a book, published in two parts in 1728 and 1729, after Woodward's death, which comprised A catalogue of the English fossils in the collection of John Woodward and lists also of the foreign minerals and fossils therein. Earlier, 1695, Woodward had produced An essay toward a natural history of the Earth and in 1696 a remarkable pamphlet which gave detailed instructions for making scientific observations and for ''Collecting, preserving, and sending over natural things', in fact instructions for collectors of geological, botanical and zoological material.
Something of the same kind with particular reference to mines and quarries appears in chapters of another book by Woodward published in 1728 entitled Fossils of all kinds digested into a method. The 'method' classifies the minerals into 1, Earths; 2, Stones; 3, Salts [Fossil salt; Salammoniac, and tincal (borax)]; 4, Bitumens [liquid naptha, Barbadoes Tar]; 5, Minerals; and 6, Metals. The Earths are subdivided into (i) 'Those found in Strata'; and (ii) 'Those found in smaller masses', which are again subdivided, the first division being 'such as do not exceed marble in hardness'. These are 'Bowlder stones, clay-stones and stony nodules'. Most of the semi-precious stones are referred to this division.
Dr Y. A. Eyles in an article on John Woodward remarked that Woodward was the first British author to publish a work solely devoted to the classification of minerals (Eyles, 1965). A more nearly contemporary comment is made by Thomas Pennant who, in a letter to Edward Rawstone in 1753, wrote that he favoured Woodward's System and considered it now 'generally esteemed the most plausible' (Smith, 1913).
Another 'classification' not much noticed, perhaps in consequence of its truly remarkable nomenclature, is that of John Hill, the King's gardener at Kew, who published a general Natural History in three folio volumes (1748-1752), the first of which is devoted to 'The history of fossils'.
Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717-1791), curator of the Royal Society's Collections, also attempted A natural history of fossils but only the preface and the first volume was published owing, da Costa implies, to lack of sufficiently numerous subscribers. The published volume (1757) deals only with Earths and Stones: Marbles, Marmora profer a (basalts, etc.) and Granites. It is chiefly notable for its description (with a plate) of the Giant's Causeway, quoting observa- tions by Dr Richard Pococke, Bishop of Ossory, and Mrs Susannah Drury.
John Morton, who published A natural history of Northamptonshire in 1712, treats of minerals on somewhat similar lines to Woodward ; Chapter I dealing with Earths, including the Earths of the Lower Strata; Chapter II with Stones; and, Chapter II, part 2, with 'Stones in lesser masses'. Here are included Pyritae, Sparry Nodules, Belemnites, Bezoar, Aetites (Eagle Stones), Geodes, and Enhydros, and Selenitae. He remarks that 'Selenitae, found at Worthrop [WORTHROP = Wothorpe 1 mile west of Stamford-Baron, Northants] in the lane leading to Stamford are there called 'Worthrop diamonds'. With an eye to possible economic uses for the minerals in the county he opines that Selenitae are composed of the same matter as Talc ['Laminated gypsum' was sometimes called 'Talc' ; see p. 4] and 'we may fully make use (in medicine) of the Selenitae our County affords in plenty instead of the Talc of Italy and other foreign countries'. He also suggests that if the silver-coloured 'pyritae, which are generally stored with vitriol particularly of the copperas kind, are found in sufficient plenty a copperas work for making of ink might be set up in the County' (Morton, 1712).
Another county natural history and one which deals mainly with rocks, minerals and mining is The natural history of Cornwall by William Borlase, Rector of Ludgvan, published in 1758. Here again are chapters on Earths, Clays, Steatites or Soapstones, and then: Stones of use, Stones of ornament and curiosity, and Stones of profit. Spars and crystals of various kinds are described and there are plates of several. Borlase distinguished between crystals plain (i.e. massive), in- crustations, stalactitic forms, etc., and figured crystals (i.e. showing crystal form). Stones of profit are the products of the mines. Here are described : Bismuth, speltre, naptha, antimony, manganese, loadstone, molybdaena, cobalt, and Mundic, ... a long account of this last. Chapters on metals deal with: tin, iron, copper, silver, lead and quicksilver, and gold, as they occurred in Cornwall. Borlase had made a considerable collection of antiquities, fossils, and minerals, which, during his lifetime, he had given to the (old) Ashmolean Museum. It seems that none of them has survived (Gunther, 1925 : 223).
EARLY MINERALOGY 53
Eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century mineral collections
Here may be mentioned also several other mineral collections made in the eighteenth century, and the early part of the nineteenth, by various gentlemen in Cornwall, some of whom were adventurers in the Cornish mines, and with them I shall mention also Thomas Pennant, zoologist and author, of Whiteford in Holywell, Flintshire, who, while an undergraduate at Oxford, visited Borlase in Cornwall in 1746 or 1747, and started to make a collection of minerals from that time.
Most of our knowledge of these early collections we owe to Sir Arthur Russell, who in the course of time incorporated parts of the Cornish ones into his own collection which with his manuscript notes he bequeathed to the British Museum (Natural History) (Kingsbury, 1966).
These collections were being made at a time when splendid specimens were obtainable from the higher levels of the mines of Cornwall and Devon. One of the earliest was that of Philip Rashleigh of Menabilly (1729-1811), to which I shall refer again. Others, slightly later, were the collections made by John Hawkins of Trewithen (1761-1841), Edmund Pearce (1788-1856), and the three members of the Fox family of Falmouth: George (1784-1850), Robert Were Fox (1789-1877) and Alfred (1794-1874). Still others were those of John Williams of Scorrier (1753- 1841), Sir John St Aubyn (1758-1839), and Joseph Carne of Penzance (1781-1858).
John Williams of Scorrier was principal agent for the North Down and Gwennap mines. Charles Hatchett visited him in 1796 and records in his diary that at that time Scorrier was said by C. S. Gilbert to 'contain the most valuable variety of mineral specimens of any house in Europe' (Raistrick, 1967). The collection was added to by John Williams' son, John Michael (1813-1880) and by his grandson, John Charles of Caerhays Castle (1851-1939), who in 1893 presented 550 selected specimens to the British Museum (Natural History). In 1948 a further selection of 585 specimens was purchased by Sir Arthur Russell.
The St Aubyn Collection, one of the many catalogued by Bournon (see below), was in 1876, according to Sir Arthur Church, in the Town Hall at Devonport and it was then accompanied by Bournon's catalogue (Church, 1877). All that now remains of it is in the Plymouth City Museum, where it is being carefully curated by the Keeper of Natural History. Two of the original volumes of Bournon's catalogue have been saved, though both Plymouth and Devonport suffered severely from bombing in the 1939-1945 war: xerographic copies are in the Mineralogy Library, British Museum (Natural History).
The Carne Collection now forms part of the mineral collection of the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology at Cambridge. Also in the same collection is that made by Sir Abraham Hume (1749-1838) which, together with his collection of diamonds (see p. 59), was presented to the University by Viscount Alford in 1841. The Mineral Collection in the British Museum