History of a confusion (3)

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An European species?

Johann Andreas Naumann (1744-1826), the namegiver of some birds like lesser kestrel, Falco naumanni, was a farmer and amateur ornithologist who started an important collection of birds which is still preserved. He was also father of Johann Friederich (1780-1857) and Carl Andreas (1786-1854) who continued and enlarged the family collection. The elder is considered the father of European ornithology and is the author of Naturgeschichte der Vögel Mitteleuropas, one important work on the birds of Central Europe. 

In this work, Otto Kleinschmidt illustrated a pair of Northern Bald Ibis with an alpine landscape in the ground.
By this time, the species was extinct in Europe. Two years before the publication, in 1899, of Naturgeschichte der Vögel Mitteleuropas a trio of naturalist had published one important paper.
The threesome was formed by Lionel Walter Rothschild, Ernst Hartert and Otto Kleinschmidt. Rothschild was a member of the Rothschild financial dynasty, one of the wealthiest families in the world. He wanted to run a zoological museum since his childhood, and he amassed the largest zoological collection ever owned by a private person, with millions of insects and hundred of thousands of vertebrate specimens. Hartert was a German zoologist who held the ornithological curator position during almost 40 years at Rothschild museum and was also responsible of the museum's quaterly publication Novitates Zoologicae. Kleinschmidt was a German pastor, theologist and ornithologist who was precursor of the idea of Formenkreise or superspecies.
The paper was entitled Comatibis eremita (Linn.), a European bird. Why should be this a surprise? We have seen that Northern bald ibis was a species well known in Europe. Besides the different works that described the species since 16th century, illustrations, legal documents and popular names prove that the species existed.
Since the first descriptions by Gesner or Belon, many authors have quoted previous ones while the species was probably declining. Most of them never saw the species and just compiled information previously published.

Decline and fall into oblivion 

As we already show, most of 17th century authors just used images already published (see parts 1 and 2 of this series).

Eleazar Weiss was a German professional painter who settled in England in 1707, where he married and raised a family, changing his name to Albin. He earned his living by making watercolours of the collections of wealthy patrons. The Natural History of Birds was done late in his life and was the first large English work on ornithology. The copper plates were hand-coloured by himself and his daughter Elizabeth and published initially in London from 1731-1738. Eleazar Albin was probably one of the last to describe an European northern bald ibis from a stuffed specimen, from the collection of Sir Thomas Lowther, a landowner from Yorkshire. 
He doesn't mention any of the confusing previous works, gives new information about the bird and writes in present tense, suggesting that most of the information was, to his knowledge, recent. Albin writes they build for the moſt part in high Walls of demoliſhed or ruinous Towers which are common in Switzerland and later The young ones are commended for good Meat and county a Dainty; their Fleſh is ſweet and their Bones tender and, again, ... deſert places; where they build in Rocks and old forſaken Towers.
Even if Thoſe that take them out of the Neſts, are wont to leave one in each, that they may the more willingly return the following Year this wasn't enough to reduce the decline of the species. 

In 1760,  Mathurin-Jacques Brisson in his Ornithologie introduces again new information about Coracia cristata, specially about the feathers and their greenish gloss under the sun, having probably a direct knowledge of the bird. He still includes our species among crows. 
In 1776, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count of Buffon, describes still the Coracias huppé or Sonneur (Bell ringer, due to the call made by this bird who some persons find similar to the sound of cowbells). He stills have no doubt about the presence of the bird in Switzerland and he even talks about a dissection of its stomach to find mole-crickets inside.

John Latham (1740 – 1837) in his work A general synopsis of birds published in 1781, describes our species among corvids, following the tradition, but showing the similarity with ibis. It seems that the author uses indirect references.
There's no illustration of the species, but the work was translated into German by Johann Matthäus Bechstein (1757-1822) who called it Allgemeine Übersicht der Vögel (1791–1812). This author includes a plate with a Waldrapp. The illustration could be inspired by Albin's, but it's much more simple and added some water besides the bird, maybe influenced by other descriptions that considered it as an aquatic bird. On the same page we can see a cuckoo's rufous phase adult female.

In 1789, a series of letters from William Coxe to William Melmoth compilled into Travels in Switzerland, and in the country of the Grisons, says that This bird is entirely unknown to M. Sprungli, though said to be a native of the Swiss mountains. He took great pains to discover it, but in vain; and suspects, after all, that if it does really exist, it is only a variety of the preceding (talks about Corvus Graculus, Red-legged Crow, currently Pyrrhocorax graculus, Alpine chough). 
It seems that, between the realistic descriptions of the bird done by Albin or Buffon and the letters from Cox, the bird became extinct or extremely rare. 

A French dictionnary on Natural Sciences published in 1818 doubts the existence of the species and describes how the names where used for other species. Some authors started thinking that it was a legendary creature, an animal that never existed.

Read part 4

History of a confusion (2)

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Belon, 1555

Pierre Belon
(from Wikimedia)

Let’s come further back to the past, again to 1555. Pierre Belon, wasn’t a typical naturalist of his time. He did one of the firsts scientific trips in history, to the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, including Greece, Turkey, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt … between 1546 and 1549.

He was killed in Bois de Boulogne, in Paris, when he was returning to Chateau de Madrid, where he lived.

L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux is a great work but, unfortunately outshined by its contemporary and more complete Historia animalium by Conrad Gesner.

He describes the cormorant very clearly, giving data on its behaviour and habitat. For instance, he mentions that it is among the few web-footed birds that can roost on a branch. Nevertheless, the illustration cannot be more confusing.

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Posture is atypical for a cormorant or any related species, but, more importantly, it has no webbed toes. Besides the lack of feather tuft, it resembles a compact NBI.  However, Belon says: Phalacrocorax & Coroni thalassios en Grec, Corvus aquaticus en Latin, Cormarant en Francoys. That is, bald raven (phalacrocorax) and sea crow (coroni thalassios) became synonyms to cormorant. There was always some confusion, apparently, between descriptions of Northern Bald Ibis and Cormorant, which caused, apparently, the transfer of the name Phalacrocorax from the one to the other. Some authors, like Gesner, or later, Aldrovandi, tried to clarify, but the statement by Belon started a deeper confusion.

Aldrovandi tried to correct the incongruence between the description and the image and “retouched” the illustration, with a position closer to a cormorant, and new legs and feet. If we reverse the plate, we can see that the head is almost identical with the body just in a different in position..

So, what is Phalacrocorax bellonii? A chimera, a hybrid animal with parts of several different birds?  But, which bird is depicted in the original plate by Belon? Probably, this author was over confident with the identity of the two separate species and he therefore took an image of a bald ibis and removed the tuft which he maybe assumed to be just an embellishment.

Jonston, 1657

Jan Jonston (from Wikimedia) Jan Jonston was born in the  Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (the biggest European state at its time) from Scottish parents. After his studies in many Polish establishments, being a Calvinist he could not be admitted in the celebrated Jagiellonian University, in the very Catholic Cracovia, and so he had to go to Scotland to study in the less ancient but also renowned Saint Andrews University. He continued his training in several of the Holy Roman Empire’s Universities (today in Netherlands and Germany) finishing his studies in Botany and Medicine in Cambridge. He published Historiae naturalis de avibus libri VI cum aeneis figuris in 1657 in Amsterdam, and the copperplates were made by Matthäus Merian, the elder who also copied previous images. In fact, Merian died in 1650, after a long illness, thus the plates should have been ready well before their publication. This work replicated the previous confusion about synonyms and identities, but at least Phalacrocorax Bellonii disappeared. Again a virtual library, in this case from Strasbourg Universities, allows us to see the whole text.

On this detail from plate 47 we can see, again, the images taken from Gesner and Aldrovandi. Both are taken from the originals (and both are mirror images from the original prints). The text confirms the confusion. Aldrovandi’s bird is described as if it was a cormorant, even though it does not have webbed feet, and Jonston accepts to include it among web-footed birds.  He also criticised the inclusion of Gesner’s bird among web-footed species, even though it remains there.

The same virtual library in Strasbourg contains another work called Recueil de Différens Oyseaux, Reptiles et Insectes being just a collection of plates from Merian.

There is a short text in French, probably also included in one French edition of Historiae naturalis (up to the 18th century). If checked carefully, we can see that the copper plates have been retouched or even redone, because there are some minor differences in feather detail.

Whoever prepared the plates, added between both NBI drawings, the name Corbeau Hupe (in current French would be corbeau huppe, crested raven). Maybe the author  could identify both images as the same species? The first name given by Linnaeus to Northern bald ibis was Upupa eremita. As Upupa are hoopoes, maybe the author of the short text was familiar with Systema naturae, or maybe the Swedish naturalist just took a popular name  for the bird.

A whole  century later, a curious François-Alexandre Aubert de La Chesnaye des Bois  was devoted to compiling and publishing a large number of  works in different fields. His Dictionnaire raisonné universel des animaux, ou le règne animal, consistant en quadrupèdes, cétacés, oiseaux, reptiles, poissons, insectes, vers, etc. published in 1759 includes corbeau de bois, forest raven, and records, almost verbatum, previous authors. His corbeau hupé (that is, crested crow) is not the same that appears in the Recueil. There are no images, but the description is unmistakable. He mentions the confusion of some concerning this species and former authors’ Phalacrocorax..

Read part 3

History of a confusion (1)

Gesner, 1555

Conrad Gesner
(from Wikimedia)

Conrad Gesner or Geßner was a Swiss naturalist very respected in his time and in the centuries that followed. Many consider him the father of modern zoology due to his Historiae animalium, more than 4500 pages in five volumes. The first four, devoted to mammals (Quadrupedes vivipares), herps (Quadrupedes ovipares), birds  (Avium natura)  and aquatic fauna (Piscium & aquatilium animantium natura) were published between 1551 and 1558, and the last, dedicated to snakes and scorpions was posthumous. The first four volumes were translated into German in 1563 under the title Thierbuch. It’s one of the first natural history works that include colour illustrations of animals and their environment and the first that includes fossils.

Gesner studied in many European towns: Strasburg, Basel, Montpelier or Bourges, in addition to Zurich. He’s the first author to give a unequivocal and clear depiction of Northern Bald Ibis. 

Gesner’s engraving represents a young NBI in a realistic way. We can here see reproductions of the Latin and German editions.

Conrad Gesner died of plague at the age of 49 during one of the epidemics that followed the great pandemic called the black death.

Those interested in Gesner’s work can find his work scanned in the web. The third volume, Avium natura, is here.

Aldrovandi, 1603

Pope Gregory XIII will always be remembered for commissioning and being the namesake for the Gregorian Calendar, conceived to avoid Christmas being celebrated in summer.  During his time, he was better known for his political activity, being behind many religious plots, including  St. Bartholomew's Day Massacres of Huguenots (August, 24th, 1572) and wars involving most catholic kingdoms against Othoman Empire and England. 

Ulisse Aldrovandi
(from Wikimedia)

Nevertheless, his cousin was Ulisse Aldrovandi’s mother, and this allowed this naturalist from Bologna to be reinstated in his public offices (he was suspended for a dispute with the official University authorities) and to request financial aid to help him publish his books. In the volatile religious atmosphere of his time, he was also arrested for heresy. He didn’t travel too much and spent most of his life in Bologna, where he died at the age of 82.

Among his works, stands Ornithologiae, published in several volumes which we can consult on line at the virtual library from Bologna University. The third volume (1603), devoted to  birds with webbed-feet, includes, in chapter LVI, the Phalacrocorace, or aquatic ravens of Pliny. The previous chapter, devoted to the cormorant, Corvo aquatico, clarifies how this differs from the following group. Sheet 268 shows the very famous and fine image of Phalacrocorax ex Illyrio missus, that is the "bald raven from Illyria"..

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Turning the page we find a surprise. Aldrovandi took the image from Gesner’s Corvus sylvaticus, as if it was a different species. The print is a mirror image of the original, which is normal when you copy to a woodcut or a copperplate, that is printed in turn the other way round. 

Obviously, the inclusion of two versions of NBI in a volume, particularly one dedicated to web-footed birds is really quite odd.

Keeping in mind the means available at that time, it’s logical that authors copied each other and that, in some cases, they tried to guess whatthe previous author was describing. Aldrovandi identified Gesner’s ibis as another species, probably because this was a juvenile, with its feathered face, which presumably caused the mistake. But Aldrovandi cites also Bellonius, who is no other than Pierre Belon. This French naturalist published, also in 1555, L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux considered one of the first works of comparative anatomy. Among other quotations of Belon, Aldrovandi includes in chapter LVI another Phalacrocorax , this time Phalacrocorax Bellonii. However, this time it is a web-footed bird. The illustration is quite confusing. 

Which bird is this? Many other illustrations in the book are difficult to identify, but this one is particularly puzzling. We should reject cormorants and mergansers, which are well illustrated in other chapters. What is, then, Phalacrocorax Bellonii? 

Read part 2

Sankt Gallen, 1562

The wonderfull collection of digitalized codices from Sankt Gallen Abbey library, in Switzerland, one of the oldest and richest medieval libraries in the world, offers us a very special work of great interest to know about Northern Bald Ibis historical distribution.

The manuscript includes Four-part vocal pieces for holy days of the church year, and it's numbered 542 in the catalog.

Prince-bishop Diethelm Blarer ordered Italian composer Manfredo Barbarini Lupo, from Correggio, composed these challenging vocal pieces, Father Heinrich Keller (1518-1567) wrote the text, and the manuscript illustrator Kaspar Härtli from Lindau on the northern side of the Bodensee illuminated the first pages with the important holy days of the church year.

Some of the sheets show an important number of birds, not to scale.

Page 5 shows, among goldfinches, crossbills, wagtails, robins, wrens, bullfinches, and some other birds difficult to identify, probably the finest, most accurate image in the group, a young northern bald ibis, proving a familiarity of the artist with the bird.

Source: Cod. Sang. 542, page 5, Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen / Codices Electronici Sangallenses http://www.cesg.unifr.ch

The Little Ice Age

Attempts to attribute historical events to variations in climate are often criticised but there is no doubt that climate has always had a huge impact on humans, affecting the success of harvests, disease epidemics and many other events.

In the not too distant past, Europe experienced a remarkable number of climate changes. From the tenth century, warm temperatures in the North Atlantic region allowed vineyards to be cultivated in England and the Vikings were able to migrate northwards and colonise parts of Greenland and Newfoundland.

Ruins of the Hvalsey church in Norse Greenland. The Viking settlement had disappeared by the early fifteenth century.

This Medieval Warm Period allowed humans to cultivate areas further north and at higher altitudes. The milder climate and the expansion of crops and pastureland probably resulted in other species expanding their ranges as well.

The name of  Waldrapp  (forest crow) seems to link the northern bald ibis to woodlands, an ecosystem that now seems shocking, but maybe in the medieval warm period NBI was not uncommon in the clearings of the alpine forests.

The climate in Europe then became cooler, and from the second half of the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century there was a period of intense cold, referred to as the Little Ice Age. This led to massive changes in agriculture and to the abandonment of crops at higher latitudes and altitudes, in addition to the loss of pastureland, as it was replaced by forests. Weather conditions would also have become more severe and it would have been much more difficult for birds to have crossed the Alps on their migration routes. The loss of the northern bald ibis from Central Europe has been attributed, at least in part, to this cold period.

The Mer de Glace from the Montenvers, Mont Blanc region. On the left is a painting done shortly after the maximum of the Little Ice Age and on the right is a photo from 2000. The arrows allow you to compare the different levels of ice at the same two points. Painting from the Gugelmann Collection, Swiss National Library, Bern. Photo by MJ Hambrey (2000).

There were other events which occurred over this period, such as the constant wars and the Black Death of the fourteenth century, which would also have resulted in population declines over large areas. The picture above shows a physician dealing with the plague, wearing a birdlike mask. Could it represent some kind of crow? Maybe, but the beak is too long and curved….

Informative scientific documentation for these periods is abundant, detailing changes in glaciers, sedimentology, floods, droughts, heavy snows, famines and the price of grain, all indicative of weather conditions at the time.

Waldrapp by Gesner

Unfortunately, there is less information about changes in wildlife but it seems that apart from the disappearance of the bald ibis, there was a reduction in the range of the Alectoris partridge (called Steinhuhn in German). This species was apparently common in the Rhine Valley in the 16^th century but it now has a much more southerly distribution.