Albert Stewart Meek (26 October 1871 – 1 October 1943) was an English

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

collector and

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

. He collected specimens for Lord Rothschild in New Guinea and other islands in South East Asia. He wrote about his adventures in the book ''A naturalist in cannibal land'' (1913).

Biography

Meek was born on 26 October 1871 in

Bow, London Bow () is a district in East London, England and is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is an inner-city suburb located east of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, it became part of the County of L ...

, the son of E. G. Meek, a

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...

in natural history. In 1893 he travelled to Australia and spent some time at George Barnard’s cattle station at Coomooboolaroo, the only place in Australia where the now-extinct

paradise parrot The paradise parrot (''Psephotellus pulcherrimus'') was a colourful medium-sized parrot native to the grassy woodlands extending across the Queensland and New South Wales border area of eastern Australia. Once moderately common within its fairly ...

had occurred. It is not known if Meek ever saw this species. In 1894 he began collecting bird and insect specimens for

Lionel Walter Rothschild Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild, (8 February 1868 – 27 August 1937) was a British banker, politician, zoology, zoologist, and soldier, who was a member of the Rothschild family. As a Zionist leader, he wa ...

; first in England, then in Australia. Later, in the Pacific region (in particular the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

and Bougainville, he was the first naturalist who observed the birdlife). Meek also collected

reptile Reptiles, as commonly defined, are a group of tetrapods with an ectothermic metabolism and Amniotic egg, amniotic development. Living traditional reptiles comprise four Order (biology), orders: Testudines, Crocodilia, Squamata, and Rhynchocepha ...

s for the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, including the

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

and

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype (biology), isotype ...

of the venomous Woodlark Island snake ('' Toxicocalamus longissimus'') from

Woodlark Island Woodlark Island, known to its inhabitants simply as Woodlark or Muyua, is the main island of the Woodlark Islands archipelago, located in Milne Bay Province and the Solomon Sea, Papua New Guinea. Although no formal census has been conducted sinc ...

, off the east coast of

British New Guinea The Territory of Papua comprised the southeastern quarter of the island of New Guinea from 1883 to 1975. In 1883, the Government of Colony of Queensland, Queensland annexed this territory for the British Empire. The United Kingdom Government ...

, and described by

George Albert Boulenger George Albert Boulenger (19 October 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botani ...

in 1896, as the type-species of the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Toxicocalamus ''Toxicocalamus'' is a genus of snakes in the family Elapidae. The genus is endemic to New Guinea. Description Most species of ''Toxicocalamus'' are relatively small, the largest specimen known being the holotype of the recently described ''Tox ...

''. A third specimen collected by Meek, reported to have come from

Fergusson Island Fergusson Island is the largest island of the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, in Papua New Guinea. It has an area of , and mostly consists of mountainous regions, covered by rain forests. There are three large volcanoes on the island. Fergusson Island ...

in the

d'Entrecasteaux Islands D'Entrecasteaux Islands () are situated near the eastern tip of New Guinea in the Solomon Sea in Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. The group spans a distance of , has a total land area of approximately and is separated from the Papua New G ...

also off the east coast of British New Guinea, is also believed to have originated from Woodlark Island. Today this rare snake is still only known from twelve specimens in four museums. Meek became a dealer in

feather Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and an exa ...

s and

insect Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...

s. In 1904 he travelled to Choiseul, where he collected the last specimens of the Choiseul crested pigeon. But, due to the horrible reputation of the islanders as

cannibal Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecology, ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well ...

s, he was protected by an armed escort to bring the skins to his vessel. On an expedition in New Guinea in 1906 he discovered and shot the first specimen of the

Queen Alexandra's birdwing ''Ornithoptera alexandrae'', the Queen Alexandra's birdwing, is the largest species of butterfly in the world, with females reaching wingspans slightly in excess of . This birdwing is restricted to the forests of the Oro Province in eastern Papua ...

(''Ornithoptera alexandrae''), the largest butterfly in the world. While on a visit to New Guinea he estimated that the headdress of a chief needed the feathers of more than 23 killed birds (''e.g.'',

birds of paradise The birds-of-paradise are members of the family Paradisaeidae of the order Passeriformes. The majority of species are found in eastern Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and eastern Australia. The family has 45 species in 17 genera. The members of this ...

), just to create the middle part. His collection of bird skins and insects is held by the Natural History Museum in London. Specimens from Meek's collections can also be seen in the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

. Meek died on 1 October 1943 at his home in

Bondi, Sydney Bondi () is a suburb of eastern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, seven kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Waverley Council. Geography Bondi is a mostly medium and high-d ...

. He had two sons and two daughters: Wilfred, Victor, Gladys and Marie.

Tribute

Species named after Meek include eight full bird species: * Choiseul crested pigeon (''Migrogoura meeki''), *

Meek's lorikeet Meek's lorikeet (''Vini meeki'') is a species of parrot in the family Psittaculidae. It is found on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest and subtropi ...

(''Charmosyna meeki''), * Meek's pygmy parrot (''Micropsitta meeki''), *

Bougainville crow The Bougainville crow (''Corvus meeki'') is a species of bird in the crow family, Corvidae. It is found in on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea and the neighbouring Shortland Islands in the Solomon Islands. Within its range it is ...

(''Corvus meeki''), * white-throated white-eye (''Zosterops meeki''), * yellowish-streaked honeyeater (''Ptiloprora meekiana''), * North Solomons dwarf kingfisher (''Ceyx meeki'') and the * Manus hawk owl (''Ninox meeki''). Also several butterfly and moth species were named after Meek, including *'' Graphium meeki'', *'' Gnathothlibus meeki'', *'' Delias meeki'', *'' Angonyx meeki'', *'' Macroglossum meeki'', *'' Oxycanus meeki'', *'' Bindahara meeki'', *'' Acupicta meeki'', and *'' Udara meeki''. In 1896,

Oldfield Thomas Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for ...

described ''Emballonura beccarii meeki'', a subspecies of the

Beccari's sheath-tailed bat Beccari's sheath-tailed bat (''Emballonura beccarii'') is a species of sac-winged bat in the family Emballonuridae. It is found in New Guinea and in some nearby islands in both Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Taxonomy It was described as a new ...

of which Meek had collected the type series on

Kiriwina Kiriwina is the largest of the Trobriand Islands, with an area of . It is part of the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. Most of the 12,000 people who live in the Trobriands live on Kiriwina. The Kilivila language, also known as Kiriwina, ...

Trobriand Islands The Trobriand Islands are a archipelago of coral atolls off the east coast of New Guinea. They are part of the nation of Papua New Guinea and are in Milne Bay Province. Most of the population of 60,000 (2016) indigenous inhabitants live on the m ...

.Oldfield Thomas: ''On Mammals collected by Mr. Albert Meek on Woodlark Island and on Kiriwina in the Trobriand Group''. In:

Novitates Zoologicae ''Novitates Zoologicae: A Journal of Zoology in Connection With the Tring Museum'' was a British scientific journal devoted to systematic zoology. It was edited by Lionel Walter Rothschild and published between 1894 and 1948 by the Tring Museum ...

Vol. III (1896). p 527 Despite the considerable collections of reptiles made by Meek, including the

and

of the rare elapid snake ''Toxicocalamus longissimus'', only one reptile was named in his honour, a treesnake ''Dendrophis meeki'', by G.A.Boulenger in 1895, this species now being a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''Dendrelaphis gastrostictus''.

Literature by and about Meek

*Rothschild, M. 1983. Dear Lord Rothschild: ''Birds, butterflies and history''. Balaban, Philadelphia. xx + 398 pp. Mentions Walter Rothschild's collectors in New Guinea, including

William Doherty William Doherty (May 15, 1857 in Cincinnati – May 25, 1901 in Nairobi) was an American entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera and later also collected birds for the Natural History Museum at Tring. He died of dysentery while in Nairobi. Tr ...

, Albert S. Meek,

Ernst Mayr Ernst Walter Mayr ( ; ; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher of biology, and ...

, etc. *Rothschild, W., and E. Hartert. 1913. ''List of the collections of birds made by Albert S. Meek in the lower ranges of the Snow Mountains, on the Eilanden River, and on Mount Goliath during the years 1910 and 1911.''

20:473–527. Notes on Lepidoptera collected by Albert S. Meek in Irian Jaya during 1910 and 1911, including descriptions of localities *Barbara and Richard Mearns, ''The Bird Collectors'', Academic Press, 1998, *Albert S. Meek, ''A Naturalist in Cannibal Land'', 1913, Fischer Unwin, London *Tennent, John (2021) The man who shot butterflies – Albert Stewart Meek. Storm Entomological Publications.

References

External links

* A naturalist in cannibal land (1913) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Meek, Albert 1871 births 1943 deaths English naturalists English entomologists English ornithologists People from Bow, London