The rare book on display from our collection is: Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d’Afrique, par François Levaillant. Tome cinquième. Paris: Delachaussé , 1804.
Balfour Library class mark: q Strickland 400.
The book is open at: Planche 210. Le coucou didric, mâle. The bird is from the genus Chrysococcyx (bronze-cuckoos), species Chrysococcyx caprius (Diederik cuckoo).
This splendid green, bronze, black and white coloured male bird is depicted perching on a branch. This is a high quality hand coloured metal engraving. The adult birds of both sexes actually have striking red irises and eye-rings (as seen in photographs online), whereas those of this bird are painted as brown. Its distribution is sub-Saharan Africa, also Saudi Arabia. The bird gets its name from its call “dee-dee-dee-diederik”, and it is a brood parasite. Le Vaillant visited Africa personally to observe the habits and collect specimens of the birds there.
François Le Vaillant (1753-1824) was born in Surinam but returned with his family to Europe in 1763. According to the François Le Vaillant: traveller and ornithologist website, he lacked formal training but was an enthusiastic field ornithologist and a skilful and prolific hunter. Le Vaillant’s voyage to South Africa in 1781 was sponsored by Jacob Temminck and he returned with collections of over 2,000 birds, insects, mammals, plants and ethnological objects. On his return to Paris he began working on his books of travels.
Le Vaillant has always been controversial. His travel books are considerably fictionalised and his bird books include conspicuous falsehoods and fabrications, but recent research has apparently begun to rehabilitate his reputation.
Le Vaillant is most famous for his 6 volume work Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d’Afrique, 1799-1808 which contains sumptuous bird engravings.
Sources:
Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2008. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed May 27, 2010 at http://animaldiversity.org
Internet Bird Collection http://ibc.lynxeds.com/species/diederik-cuckoo-chrysococcyx-caprius Accessed May 27, 2010
del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J. eds. (1997) Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 4: Sandgrouse to Cuckoos. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. Balfour Library classmark: qK (51)
Beautiful birds: masterpieces from the Hill Ornithology Collection, Cornell University Library http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/ornithology/ Accessed May 27, 2010
François Le Vaillant, traveller and ornithologist http://web.slais.ucl.ac.uk/2004/p036/p036slc/ Accessed May 27, 2010
Further reading:
François Le Vaillant and the birds of Africa, by L. C. Rookmaaker ... [et al.]; translator, F. M. Webb. Johannesburg : Brenthurst Press, 2004. Balfour Library classmark: q KZ .6 (49)
