|
Common Waxbill
The common waxbill (''Estrilda astrild''), also known as the St Helena waxbill, is a small passerine bird belonging to the estrildid finch family. It is native to sub-Saharan Africa but has been introduced to many other regions of the world and now has an estimated global extent of occurrence of 10,000,000 km2. It is popular and easy to keep in captivity. Taxonomy The common waxbill was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his '' Systema Naturae'' under the binomial name ''Loxia astrild''. The etymology of ''astrild'' is uncertain. It may either be from a German or Dutch avicultural term for a waxbill or alternatively it may be a misprint for '' Estrilda''. Linnaeus based his description on the "Wax Bill" that had been described and illustrated in 1751 by the English naturalist George Edwards in his ''A Natural History of Uncommon Birds''. Linnaeus specified the locality as "Canaries, America, Africa" but this was r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
São Tomé And Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe (; pt, São Tomé e Príncipe (); English: " Saint Thomas and Prince"), officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe ( pt, República Democrática de São Tomé e Príncipe), is a Portuguese-speaking island country in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two archipelagos around the two main islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, about apart and about off the north-western coast of Gabon. With a population of 201,800 (2018 official estimate),Instituto Nacional de Estadística de São Tomé e Príncipe, as at 13 May 2018. São Tomé and Príncipe is the second-smallest and second-least populous African sovereign state after Seychelles. The islands were uninhabited until their discovery by Portuguese explorers in the 15th century. Gradually colonized and settled throughout the 16th century, they collectively served as a vital commercial and trade centre for the Atlantic slave trade. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics ( morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two. Subspecies is abbreviated subsp. or ssp. and the singular and plural forms are the same ("the subspecies is" or "the subspecies are"). In zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology, under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, other infraspecific ranks, such as variety, may be named. In bacteriology and virology, under standard bacterial nomenclature and virus nomenclature, there are recommendations but not strict requirements for recognizing other important infraspecific ranks. A taxonomist decides whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sealing Wax
Sealing wax is a wax material of a seal which, after melting, hardens quickly (to paper, parchment, ribbons and wire, and other material) forming a bond that is difficult to separate without noticeable tampering. Wax is used to verify something such as a document is unopened, to verify the sender's identity, for example with a signet ring, and as decoration. Sealing wax can also be used to take impressions of other seals. Wax was used to seal ''letters close'' and later, from about the 16th century, envelopes. Before sealing wax, the Romans used bitumen for this purpose. Composition Formulas vary, but there was a major shift after European trade with the Indies opened. In the Middle Ages sealing wax was typically made of beeswax and "Venice turpentine", a greenish-yellow resinous extract of the European Larch tree. The earliest such wax was uncoloured; later the wax was coloured red with vermilion. From the 16th century it was compounded of various proportions of shellac, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phillip Clancey
Phillip Alexander Clancey (26 September 1917 – 18 July 2001) was a leading authority on the ornithology of South Africa. Background and education Phillip Clancey was born, brought up and educated in Glasgow, Scotland. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art where his artistic skills were developed. Military service Clancey served in the 51st (Highland) Division with the Allied forces in Sicily and Italy during World War II, narrowly escaping death and being deafened in one ear by an artillery explosion. Following his death in 2001, Clancey's military medals, together with his "Gill Memorial Medal" were auctioned by City Coins, Cape Town, in 2006, on behalf of the Clancey Estate. These medals, including the Gill Memorial Medal were purchased on the auction by David R. Bennett - Chairman of the Durban Natural Science Museum Trust, and the medals now form part of the Bennett Military Medal Collection. Clancey's group of six military medals are to (Service Number) 913613 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot
Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist. Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collected himself in the West Indies and North America and South American species discovered but not formally named by Félix de Azara and his translator Sonnini de Manoncourt. He was among the first ornithologists to study changes in plumage and one of the first to study live birds. At least 77 of the genera erected by Vieillot are still in use. Biography Vieillot was born in Yvetot. He represented his family's business interests in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) on Hispaniola, but fled to the United States during the Haitian rebellions that followed the French Revolution. On Buffon's advice, he collected material for the ''Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique Septentrionale,'' the first two volumes of which were published in France beginni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boyd Alexander
Lieutenant Boyd Alexander (16 January 1873 – 2 April 1910) was an English officer in the British Army, as well as an explorer and ornithologist. Early life Boyd was the oldest son (with a twin brother) of Lt Colonel Boyd Francis Alexander. On his mother's side he was the grandson of David Wilson, the founder of the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta. He was born at Swifts Park at Cranbrook in Kent and educated at Radley and Sandhurst. Alexander was commissioned in a Militia battalion of the Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own), and in October 1900 took up a commission in a regular battalion of that regiment. Promotion to lieutenant followed on 22 January 1902. During 1902 he visited the Gold Coast Colony, where he made an ornithological survey of that colony, and in September that year he left for the Bonin Islands to investigate their avifauna. African expedition Lieutenant Alexander was a member of an expedition which travelled across Africa from the Niger to the Ni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Bowdler Sharpe
Richard Bowdler Sharpe (22 November 1847 – 25 December 1909) was an English zoologist and ornithologist who worked as curator of the bird collection at the British Museum of natural history. In the course of his career he published several monographs on bird groups and produced a multi-volume catalogue of the specimens in the collection of the museum. He described many new species of bird and also has had species named in his honour by other ornithologists including Sharpe's longclaw (''Macronyx sharpei'') and Sharpe's starling (''Poeoptera sharpii''). Biography Richard was born in London, the first son of Thomas Bowdler Sharpe. His grandfather, Reverend Lancelot Sharpe was Rector of All Hallows Staining. His father was a publisher on Skinner Street and was best known for being the publisher of ''Sharpe's London Magazine'', an illustrated periodical (weekly but monthly from 1847). His care from the age of six was under an aunt, Magdalen Wallace, widow of the headmaster at Gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Cabanis
Jean Louis Cabanis (8 March 1816 – 20 February 1906) was a German ornithologist. Cabanis was born in Berlin to an old Huguenot family who had moved from France. Little is known of his early life. He studied at the University of Berlin from 1835 to 1839, and then travelled to North America, returning in 1841 with a large natural history collection. He was assistant and later director of the Natural History Museum of Berlin (which was at the time the Berlin University Museum), taking over from Martin Lichtenstein. He founded the '' Journal für Ornithologie'' in 1853, editing it for the next forty-one years, when he was succeeded by his son-in-law Anton Reichenow. He died in Friedrichshagen. A number of birds are named after him, including Cabanis's bunting ''Emberiza cabanisi'', Cabanis's spinetail ''Synallaxis cabanisi'', Azure-rumped tanager ''Poecilostreptus cabanisi'' and Cabanis's greenbul Cabanis's greenbul (''Phyllastrephus cabanisi''), also known as Cabanis's b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Neumann
Oscar Rudolph Neumann (3 September 1867 in Berlin – 17 May 1946 in Chicago) was a German ornithologist and naturalist who explored and collected specimens in Africa. He fled via Cuba and settled in the United States to escape Nazi persecution of Jews. Neumann's starling (''Onychognathus neumanni'') and several other species are named after him. Neumann was born in wealthy Jewish family, the son of Maximilian and Anna née Meyer. A younger sister of his was Elsa Neumann (1872-1902) who became one of the first physics doctorates from Berlin University. Another sister Alice was a sculptor. He travelled to German East Africa across Tanganyika, Uganda and Kenya in 1892 and collected for the Berlin Museum publishing descriptions. In 1899 he accompanied Baron Carlo von Erlanger through Somaliland and southern Ethiopia, collecting birds that went to Lord Walter Rothschild's bird collection in Tring. In 1915 he went to New Guinea and also made an expedition to Sulawesi in 1938 sponso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anton Reichenow
Anton Reichenow (1 August 1847 in Charlottenburg – 6 July 1941 in Hamburg) was a German ornithologist and herpetologist. Reichenow was the son-in-law of Jean Cabanis, and worked at the Natural History Museum of Berlin from 1874 to 1921. He was an expert on African birds, making a collecting expedition to West Africa in 1872 and 1873, and writing ''Die Vögel Afrikas'' (1900–05). He was also an expert on parrots, describing all species then known in his book ''Vogelbilder aus Fernen Zonen: Abbildungen und Beschreibungen der Papageien'' (illustrated by Gustav Mützel, 1839–1893). He also wrote ''Die Vögel der Bismarckinseln'' (1899). He was editor of the '' Journal für Ornithologie'' from 1894 to 1921. A number of birds are named after him, including Reichenow's woodpecker and Reichenow's firefinch. His son Eduard Reichenow was a famous protozoologist. Reichenow is known for his classification of birds into six groups, described as "shortwings, swimmers, stiltbirds, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Robert Ogilvie-Grant
William Robert Ogilvie-Grant (25 March 1863 – 26 July 1924) was a Scottish ornithologist. Early life and education Grant born on 25 March 1863 as second son of Capt. Hon. George Henry Essex Ogilvie-Grant, of Easter Elchies, Craigellachie, Scotland, of the 42nd Highlanders, sixth son of Francis Ogilvy-Grant, 6th Earl of Seafield, and daughter of Sir William Gordon-Cumming, 2nd Baronet. Ogilvie-Grant was educated at Fettes College, Edinburgh, where he studied zoology and anatomy. He also studied at Cargilfield Preparatory School. Career In 1882 he became an Assistant at the Natural History Museum. He studied ichthyology under Albert C. L. G. Günther, and in 1885 he was put in temporary charge of the Ornithological Section under Richard Bowdler Sharpe's visit to India. He remained in that department, eventually becoming Curator of Birds from 1909 to 1918. He also succeeded Bowdler Sharpe as editor of the '' Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club'', a post he held fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Ernest Shelley
Captain George Ernest Shelley (15 May 1840 – 29 November 1910) was an English geologist and ornithologist. He was a nephew of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley was educated at the Lycée de Versailles and served a few years in the Grenadier Guards "Shamed be whoever thinks ill of it." , colors = , colors_label = , march = Slow: " Scipio" , mascot = , equipment = , equipment .... His books included ''A Monograph of the Cinnyridae, or Family of Sun Birds'' (1878), ''A Handbook to the Birds of Egypt'' (1872) and ''The Birds of Africa'' (5 volumes, 1896–1912) illustrated by J. G. Keulemans. (with bibliography of publications by G. E. Shelley) References External links * Illustrations appearing in Handbook to the Birds of Egypt 1840 births 1910 deaths English geologists English ornithologists Grenadier Guards officers Place of birth missin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
