Due to popular demand, more
remarkable plates from this work will be on display throughout the year!
The rare book on display from our
collection is: A history of
the birds of Europe including all the species inhabiting the Western
Palaearctic region, by Henry E. Dresser. Volume 5. London: Published by the
author; 1871-1887.
Balfour Library shelf mark: qKZ.4 (1)
The book is open at: Plate 299, Cuculus canorus (Cuckoo). This plate is a hand coloured lithograph
produced by J. G. Keulemans, a renowned ornithological illustrator, and depicts
an adult male and a young cuckoo perching on a branch. Keulemans’ lithograph
displays beautifully the variations between the adult and juvenile birds,
especially in the detailed plumage of the young cuckoo.
Henry Eeles Dresser (1838-1915) was born in Thirsk. After
his schooling in Bromley, Kent and at a German school near Hamburg he entered
his father’s timber-merchant business and travelled extensively in northern
Europe from 1834 to 1862. From his time at school in Germany he began to
systematically collect the eggs and bird skins of Palaearctic birds. He
deposited some 12,000 items at the Manchester Museum from 1899 onwards.
Dresser left England with a cargo for Texas in 1863 and
spent over a year collecting there. Shortly after his return to England he
published his first scientific paper, Notes
on the birds of southern Texas, in Ibis
in 1865. He continued to contribute to Ibis
from then until 1909; and also joined the British Ornithologist’s Union in the
same year. He was also a member and fellow of the Linnean Society and
Zoological Society of London, and was an honorary fellow of the American
Ornithologist’s Union. He was an authority on the birds of Europe and the
author of several important works, including A history of the birds of
Europe. Eight quarto volumes
of this were published between 1871 and 1881, which were illustrated with 633
hand coloured plates, mainly prepared from drawings by Joseph Wolf, J. G.
Keulemans and E. Neale.
After returning from Texas,
Dresser started work in the iron trade in London but continued to travel
extensively throughout the whole of his life.
John Gerrard
Keulemans (1842-1912) provided the plate on display here. He was a Dutch bird
illustrator who worked in London from 1868 and regularly provided illustrations
for Ibis and The Proceedings of the Zoological Society, and many important bird
books such as A history of the birds of
Europe. His illustrations were produced through traditional lithography [a
method for printing using a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate
with a completely smooth surface], allowing for a finished product that depicts
a vivid, life-like figure through depth and tone.
Professor
Alfred Newton subscribed to A History of
the Birds of Europe as it was published in its parts. He has made a note
inside the first volume of the number of subscribers (374), the top three of
whom are “His Majesty the King of Italy, H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh K.G., H.
H. Duleep Singh, Elveden Hall, Thetford”, in that order. Interestingly, the
Newton family lived on the Elveden Estate on the Norfolk-Suffolk border until
Newton’s father died in 1863.
The adult
cuckoo usually arrives in late March or April and departs in July or August. Cuckoos
are famous brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other birds.
Cuckoo eggs hatch earlier and their chicks grow faster so they are able to
evict any eggs or young of the host species to improve their own chances of
survival.
Sources:
Dresser’s
obituary in Ibis 58 (2) 340:342
(April 1916) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-919X.1916.tb07939.x/abstract
Handbook of Texas Online http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fdr12
Wikipedia ‘Cuckoo’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo
Wikipedia ‘John Gerrard
Keulemans’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gerrard_Keulemans
Wikipedia ‘Lithography’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography
