17 William Burchell in Southern Africa, 1811-1815

In: Naturalists in the Field
Author:
Malgosia Nowak-Kemp
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Type:
Chapter
Pages:
500–549
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004323841_018

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Abstract

The English naturalist William Burchell explored the interior of southern Africa from 1811 to 1815, travelling in an ox cart of his own unique design. He devised or adapted numerous techniques for the preservation in the field of different categories of natural history specimens, and collected over 63,000 specimens. He also made many detailed geographical, ecological and ethnographical notes of the regions through which he passed. The expedition exemplified the shift taking place in the scientific world from armchair to field-based investigation of the natural world, in which human populations, animals and plants were to be observed in their native landscapes.


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Naturalists in the Field

Collecting, Recording and Preserving the Natural World from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century

Series:  Emergence of Natural History, Volume: 2
Cover Naturalists in the Field
E-Book ISBN:
9789004323841
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
01 Jan 2018
Preliminary Material
1 Introduction
2 New World and other Exotic Animals in the Italian Renaissance: the Menageries of Lorenzo Il Magnifico and his Son, Pope Leo X
3 The Emperor’s Exotic and New World Animals: Hans Khevenhüller and Habsburg Menageries in Vienna and Prague
4 “Judge by experience and by learninge”: the Fieldwork of William Turner (c.1508-1568)
5 On Northern Shores: Sixteenth-Century Observations of Fish and Seabirds (North Sea and North Atlantic)
6 Collecting and Preserving Fishes: a Historical Perspective
7 Into the Wild: Botanical Fieldwork in the Sixteenth Century
8 “Take with you a small Spudd or Trowell”: James Petiver’s Directions for Collecting Natural Curiosities
9 Linnaean Scholars Out of Doors: So Much to Name, Learn and Profit From
10 “Devilish fellows who test patience to the very limit”: Naturalists in the Pacific in the Age of Cook
11 Catesby’s Birds
12 The Hudson’s Bay Company and its Collectors
13 European Enlightenment in India: an Episode of Anglo-German Collaboration in the Natural Sciences on the Coromandel Coast, Late 1700s–Early 1800s
14 Eight Ways to Catch a Seal: Fieldwork in Siberia in the Age of Enlightenment
15 Face to Face with Nain Singh: the Schlagintweit Collections and Their Uses
16 More Than One Way to Skin a Wombat: the How and Why of Collecting in the South Seas
18 Snapshots of Tropical Diversity: Collecting Plants in Colonial and Imperial Brazil
19 From Tubs to Flying Boats: Episodes in Transporting Living Plants
20 Faunal Collecting, Inventorying and Systematizing in the Marine Environment: a Historical, Mostly British, Perspective
21 Gathering Spirals: on the Naturalist and Shell Collector Hugh Cuming
22 Bat-Fowlers, Pooters and Cyanide Jars: a Historical Overview of Insect Collecting and Preservation
23 Nets, Labels and Boards: Materiality and Natural History Practices in Continental European Manuals on Insect Collecting 1688-1776
24 Collecting Abroad, Preserving at Home: Titian Ramsay Peale Ii, American Entomologist and Collector
25 John Russell Malloch: Amateur Naturalist to Professional Taxonomist
26 Reflections on Some Practical Aspects of Collecting During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
27 Following the Lure: Field Experience and Professional Opportunities in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century American Vertebrate Paleontology
28 Evolving Contexts of Collecting: the Australian Experience
29 Virtual Collecting: Camera-Trapping and the Assembly of Population Data in Twenty-First-Century Biology
30 The Psychology of Finding and Recognizing Wildlife
Appendices: Some Key Texts in the History of Field Collecting
Index

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