Alfred St Alban Smith: Donor of Animals and Zoological Society of London Silver Medallist in 1931. Part One: Matters Zoological

In a recent article I described how Reg Lanworn, a keeper at London Zoo, had been sent out to bring back a collection of animals from Singapore that had been assembled by Alfred St Alban Smith, a rubber planter. For his support between 1926 and 1930 St Alban Smith was awarded the rare honour of a Silver Medal by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in 1931. He continued to send shipments until 1936. His main interest was in the reptiles of the Malay Peninsula and there is no doubt that he sent a sufficient number to fill a zoo’s reptile house several times over.

St Alban Smith (as he was usually termed although Smith was his surname) and his donations attracted a great deal of coverage in newspapers both in Britain and in what was then Malaya.

The following is a list of his donations to the zoo or ones which he facilitated together with some notes from the media coverage.

The lists have been taken from the annual reports of ZSL. Many of the common names used are difficult to match to names both common and scientific in use nearly a hundred years later. For some years species or subspecies new to the collection were deemed worthy of special mention and in those cases the scientific name was given.

1926

2 Javan Adjutants

1927

1 Malayan Palm-Civet, 2 Prevost’s Squirrels, 3 Two-banded Monitors, 1 Rusty Tiger Cat, 1 Slow Loris

1928

This collection from St Alban Smith was brought to London by Walter Goodfellow (1866-1953) the well known collector. Goodfellow was being paid by John Spedan Lewis (1885-1963) of John Lewis department stores and noted aviculturist to collect birds in the Far East.

1 Malayan Palm Civet, 3 Plantain Squirrels, 2 Prevost’s Squirrels, 2 Hamadryads, 1 Binturong, 1 Slow Loris, 1 Oriental Eagle-Owl, 1 Malay Fish-Owl, 8 Java Sparrows, 1 Indian Cobra, 1 Three-marked Palm Civet, 1 Malaccan Civet, 1 Yellow-throated Marten, Fin-tailed Lizards, 1 Rough-necked Monitor, 1 Red-marked Burrowing Snake, 2 Dog-faced Water Snakes, 1 Painted Tree Snake, 1 Eight-lined Snake

1929

One of the Hamadryads (King Cobra) was over 11 feet long. 

Much was made in the newspapers, occidental and oriental, of the tiger in this collection. It (‘Charlie’) was, the newspapers reported, ‘the only man-eating tiger the Zoo has ever possessed’. Reports are a little garbled but one states that the tiger was tracked and caught by St Alban Smith himself. All reports agree that it was a Sumatran Tiger.

The collection also includes a large number of monitors lizards, one of which is a giant, approaching in size the “dragons” of Komodo. These monitors indulged in fighting during the voyage, and they will have to be kept in the reptile house sanatorium for some time while their scars are being dressed.

1 Binturong, 4 Prevost's Squirrels, 3 Slow Loris, 2 Black Apes, 3 Indo-Malayan Palm Civets, 2 Leopards, 2 Pallas's Squirrels, 1 Sun Bear, 1 Masked Palm Civet, 1 Tiger, 1 Silvery Gibbon,

2 Great Barbets, 4 Nicobar Pigeons, 2 Purple-capped Lories, 3 Forsten's Lorikeets, 2 Blue-streaked Lories, 2 Grand Eclectus, 2 Violet-necked Lories, 2 Wrinkled-billed Hornbills, 1 Brahminy Kite, 1 Indian Pied Hornbill, 1 Javan Hawk-Eagle, 2 Red Lories, 2 Black-capped Lories, 4 Ornate Lorikeets, 1 Blue-collared Parrakeet, 1 Racquet-Tailed Parrot, 2 Blood Pythons, 18 Black-and-Gold Tree Snakes, 4 Reticulated Pythons, 7 Two-banded Monitors, 22 Common Asiatic Toads, 5 Painted Tree Snakes, 1 Spiny Terrapin, 20 Yellow Monitors, 1 Bell's Lizard, 4 Orange-striped Snakes, 3 Rare Elaphes, 2 Tail-lined Tree Snakes, 1 Fordonia Water Snake, 2 Hamadryads, 1 Wagler's Temple Viper, 15 Gray's Temple Vipers, 1 Common Malayan Tree Frog, 1 False Sea Snake, 1 Red-marked Burrowing Snake, 1 Eight-lined Snake, 3 Emerald Tree Snakes, 2 Cerberus Water Snakes, 43 Malayan Bull Frogs, 1 Ornate Tree Snake,1 Iridescent Snake, 1 Red Big-toothed Snake, 1 Emma's Lizard, 1 Cerberus Water Snake, 1 Green Pit Viper, 1 Sumatran Pit Viper, 2 Flattish Soft-shelled Turtles, 1 Doria's Water Snake, 1 Sumpah-sumpah, 1 Spotted Callugar

1930

The 1930 shipment which Keeper Lanworn was sent out to bring back from Singapore was the big one, well two because a second ship left Singapore a month after the first. On 26 April, St Alban Smith launched an appeal in the Straits Times to augment his own collection that was to be sent to London:

This article is an appeal, but before the impoverished reader turns away hastily let us reassure him that it is not his money we want; neither do we want his old clothes nor his signature to a petition praying for an improvement in the rubber and tin markets. We want animals, birds and reptiles!

At present, the London Zoo, in which Malaya was almost unrepresented for many years, contains 285 specimens of the wild life of this country. The collection is not nearly representative and the London Zoological Society, in a laudable attempt to improve this state of affairs, has already dispatched one of the ablest keepers in its employ, Keeper Lanworn, who is due in Singapore shortly. It should be understood that Keeper Lanworn is rot coming to Malaya to spend money.

He is coming to take charge of a collection made by Mr. A. St. Alban Smith at Seletar, and anything else he can lay his hands on….

This is a much larger matter than may appear at first glance. We hear repeated complaints that people at Home are content to remain in blissful ignorance of the various aspects of life in different parts of the Empire. Here is an opportunity to teach them something in a pleasant way; to provide interest and amusement for the thousands of Londoners who flock to Regent's Park on every Bank Holiday; to perform a still greater public service by making available for study by the scientists living specimens of the wild life of the Peninsula… Snakes, frogs and other reptiles are wanted as well as tigers and the larger beasts. In no case will any expense be incurred by the donor if he or she will arrange for delivery of the contribution to Mr. A. St. Alban Smith at Seletar, Singapore. From that point all transport charges to London will be met, Messrs. Alfred Holt and Co., Ltd., having generously agreed to forego their charges in the case of animals intended for the London Zoo, while the Zoological Society has expressed its willingness to put up a card giving the name of each person presenting a specimen. In addition, the Straits Times is prepared to acknowledge all contributions received at Seletar…

Hitherto, the Zoological Society has had to rely upon the enthusiasm of the few for contributions to its Malayan section. That the specimens already received are appreciated is evidenced by the Society's willingness to send a keeper half way round the world to take charge of the collection of one man. The visit provides an opportunity for making this appeal to a wider section of the public and we commend it to the earnest consideration of all lovers of animal life. Particularly would we ask those who have visited the Zoological Society's Gardens in Regent's Park to recall the thrill and pleasure that attended an experience which could not have been enjoyed but for the generosity of people living in the remoter parts of the world. Now is the chance to pass on, at little or no expense, some of that pleasure to others, only a very small percentage of whom are ever likely to have an opportunity cf seeing the wild animals of the tropics in their natural surroundings.

Apart from the recreation provided for many thousands every year by the London Zoo, the educative and scientific value of the institution entitles it to the sympathetic support of all who are in a position to give assistance. Another claim which the Zoological Society has to the consideration of the people of Malaya is that its founder and first President was Sir Stamford Raffles, the most assiduous worker, the most enthusiastic collector of everything which could advance the cause of knowledge and of science.

A reminder: if you are reading this other than on the Zoology Jottings site, it has been stolen.

The newspapers took a great interest in the the collection. On 20 June 1930, the Straits Times provided a list of the donations, together with those animals bought by ZSL from dealers, which had left Singapore on the Alfred Holt steamer Eumaeus in May. The article also warned:

Mortality on a long voyage is always heavy, especially among reptiles, so unless keeper Lanworn is specially fortunate the consignment he will deliver at the Gardens will probably be considerably less than that which left Singapore.

From the same report we learn that Reg Lanworn was ‘was laid up for two weeks as a result of undue familiarity with a large temple viper’ and thus unable to gather some of the animals promised by government departments.

A further shipment from Singapore, including, presumably, those left behind because of Reg Lanworn’s snake bite, followed:

A final shipment will leave on June 29. in this will be included a fine male tapir purchased by the Zoo, a three-year-old tame Orang Utan presented by Mrs. Cochrane, of British North Borneo, a bear from Major Peake, Johore, several rare birds, wild cats, civets, a leopard, a large collection of tortoises and terrapins, and over 100 poisonous snakes.

1 Jelerang Squirrel, 1 Large Indian Civet Cat, 1 Marbled Cat, 2 Leopard Cats,1 Hardwicke's Civet Cat, 1 Dusky Langur, 4 Slow Loris, 1 Pig-tailed Monkey, 2 Rusty Tiger Cats, 7 Asiatic Chipmunks, 5 Chinese Squirrels, 1 Grizzled-Grey Tree Kangaroo, 1 Rusty Tiger Cat, 2 Crab-eating Monkeys, 1 Feather-tailed Phalanger, 2 Racket-tailed Parrots, 1 Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, 3 White-billed Hornbills, 26 Malay Orange-bellied Flower-peckers, 1 White-breasted Niltava, 1 Friar Bird, 5 White-collared Kingfishers, 2 Malayan Yellow-vented Bulbuls, 1 Malay Serpent Eagle, 7 Green Sunbirds, 1 Occipital Blue Pie, 1 Black-winged Grackle, 2 Yellow-crowned Bulbuls, 2 Great Barbets, 3 Indian White Eyes, 4 Dwarf Turtle Doves, 1 Ferruginous Wood Partridge, 1 Great-headed Maleo, 2 White-rumped Lories, 6 Ornate Lorikeets, 1 Aru Island Parrakeet, 9 Painted Tree Snakes, 3 Emerald Tree Snakes, 5 Cerberus Water Snakes, 1 Hamadryad, 2 Blood Pythons, 10 Indian Cobras, 45 Gray's Temple Vipers, 15 Tail-lined Tree Snakes, 1 Greater Indian Rat Snake, 4 Eastern Rat Snakes, 6 Black and Gold Tree Snakes, 23 Wagler's Pit Vipers, 1 Indian Wolf Snake, 2 Spiny Terrapins, 3 Iridescent Snakes, 4 Orange-striped Snakes, 3 Rare Elaphes, 5 Red-marked Burrowing Snakes, 1 Boie's Cat Snake, 3 Grass Green Tree Snakes, 3 Two-banded Monitors, 1 Baska Water Tortoise, 7 Elephant Water Snakes, 3 Eight-lined Snakes, 5 Ornate Tree Snakes, 1 Striped Blind Snake, 4 Fin-tailed Lizards, 1 Sun Lizard, 1 Olive Skink, 1 Reticulated Python, 26 Broad-headed Water Snakes, 1 Sealing Wax Snake, 2 False Sea Snakes, 1 Red-banded Snake, 1 Jasper Tree Snake, 1 King Gecko, 2 Peron's House Geckos, 3 Sun Skinks, 1 Sumpah Sumpah, 2 Two-banded Monitors, 2 Dumeril's Monitors, 8 Oldham's Terrapins, 11 Spiny Terrapins, Spotted Callagurs, 2 Reeves's Terrapins, 3 Three-banded Terrapins, 3 Common Asiatic Toads, 9 Gold-lined Frogs, 2 Long-nosed Tree Snakes, 4 Malayan Giant Frogs, 8 Common Sea Snakes, 5 Amboina Box Tortoises, 1 Starred Tortoise, 7 Japanese Newts, 10 Bridled House Geckos, 5 Schlegel's Gharials, 1 Yellow Monitor, 3 Great Moluccan Skinks

Stirling WG. 7 Common Seasnakes, 1 Black-necked Grackle, 2 Malayan Giant Frogs

Neale Mrs. 2 Slow Loris, 4 Domestic Cats

Burleigh A. 1 Sun Bear

Glenister AG 2 Tigers, 1 Sun Bear (with Mrs Glenister and Mrs Evans)

Edwards, Major A. 1 Pig-tailed Monkey

Mian, Goh Keng.  6 Broad-headed Water Snakes

Smediey, Norman. 6 Cerberus Water Snakes

1931

3 Amboina King Parrakeets, 2 White-rumped Lories, 1 Aru Island Parrakeet, 2 Fishing Cats, 1 Long-nosed Tree Snake, 16 Black-and-gold Tree Snakes, 4 Gray’s Temple Vipers, 1 Broad-headed Water Snake, 3 Madagascar Weaver Birds, 5 Green Sunbirds, 1 Malay Orange-bellied Flower-pecker, 1 Brahminy Kite, 1 Javan Fishing Owl

1933

2 Blood Pythons, 1 Black & Gold Tree Snake, 3 Red-marked Burrowing Snakes, 4 Orange-striped Snakes, 1 Tail-lined Tree Snake, 2 Indian Cobras, 2 Speckled Water Snakes, 2 Geckos, 3 Painted Tree Snakes, 1 Peron’s House Gecko, 4 Bridled House Geckos, 2 Hamadryads, 2 Common Big-toothed Snakes, 1 Flat-tailed Gecko, 5 Common Malayan Frogs, 1 Common Malayan Tree Frog, 1 Dog-faced Snake, 7 Emerald Tree Snakes, 2 Black & Gold Tree Snakes, 1 Reticulated Python, 1 Eight-lined Snake, 1 Sealing Wax Snake, 1 Frog, 2 Malayan Grass Snakes

1934

39 Hamadryads, 44 Black & Gold Tree Snakes, 11 Orange Striped Snakes, 7 Emerald Tree Snakes, 1 Sealing Wax Snake, 9 Common Malayan Tree Frogs, 2 Wagler's Pit Vipers, 3 Gold-lined Frogs, 5 Broad-headed Water Snakes, 8 Gray's Temple Vipers, 2 Red-marked Burrowing Snakes, 1 Iridescent Snake, 6 Common Malayan Frogs, 1 Edeling's Grass Snake, 4 Reticulated Pythons, 2 Fordonia Water Snakes, 6 Painted Tree Snakes, 2 Malayan Grass Snakes, 2 Black Cobras, 6 Cerberus Water Snakes, 2 Boie's Cat Snakes, 1 Tail-lined Tree Snake, 1 Ganjam Snake, 1 Eight-lined Snake, 2 Indian Wolf Snakes, 2 Reddish Rat Snakes

1935

The size of the larger of the two Reticulated Pythons donated by St Alban Smith was of particular interest to the press. It was 28 feet long and needed 14 men to wrangle it out its crate.

14 Emerald Tree Snakes, 28 Gray’s Temple Vipers, 11 Waglers Pit Vipers, 2 Malayan Grass Snakes, 5 Tail-lined Tree Snakes, 4 Black Cobras, 8 Orange-striped Snakes, 3 Hamadryads, 6 Reticulated Pythons, 1 Iridescent Snake, 1 Malayan Grass Snake, 4 Red Big-toothed Snakes, 6 Banded Kraits, 9 Painted Tree Snakes, 12 Black and Gold Tree Snakes, 2 Ornate Tree Snakes, 1 Red-ringed Tree Snake, 1 Schneider’s Water Snake, 2 Sealing Wax Snakes, 1 Indian Wolf Snake, 1 Red-tailed Tree Snake,12 Bridled House Geckos, 2 Common Malayan Frogs, 2 Common MalayanTree Frogs, 2 Reddish Rat Snakes, 1 Cerberus Water Snake, 5 Gold-lined Frogs, 3 Blood Pythons

1936

Straits Times 26 April 1936

St Alban Smith kept snakes at his estate while awaiting shipment. In January 1936 a Mr E.A. Chard, manager of the estate at Peradin, Johore, was bitten on the left hand by a ‘big black cobra’. Chard caught two other snakes in danger of escaping and then sought treatment:

Tourniquets were applied, the wound scarified with a razor blade, and permanganate crystals rubbed in. Mr. St. Alban Smith, who has had long experience with snakes, having sent many shipments to the London Zoo, also injected 50 c.c. of cobra anti-venene [sic] which he had got from the Kasauli Institute, India, and Mr. Chard made a rapid recovery.

This shipment was taken was to be to taken to London by St Alban Smith. However, he postponed his trip. It included two baby Orang-utans from Sarawak. They may be the ones attributed to a donation by E. Banks CMZS that year. The report in the Straits Times noted that they were being looked after by St Alban Smith on his estate at Peradin, Johore.

Other newspapers noted the large size of the Hamadryads as well as St Alban’s Smith’s capture of the white snakes in the Batu caves of Johore:

Mr. St Alban Smith writes that the present specimens were caught, by the aid of electric torches, a mile and a half from the entrance and separated from it by an underground river. It is thought that they feed on the "devil" bats, which inhabit the caves in such huge numbers that their guano has accumulated in places to a depth of 10ft., though how the snakes are able to catch such active prey in the complete darkness is unknown.

The News Chronicle of 23 October 1936 had on article on new gibbons at the Zoo. They were, it was noted, brought to Singapore from an area beyond Bangkok through the efforts of St Alban Smith and then to London by Walter Goodfellow.

6 Ornate Tree Snakes, 1 Eight-lined Snake, 2 Indian Wolf Snakes, 4 Boie's Sea Snakes, 2 Black & Gold Tree Snakes, 1 Malayan Grass Snake, 7 Sacred Cave Snakes, 1 Eastern Rat Snake, 1 Indian Changeable Lizard, 1 Island Gecko, 1 Bridled House Gecko, 1 Well-spotted Snake, 4 Emerald Tree Snakes, 14 Painted Tree Snakes, 4 Red-Marked Burrowing Snakes, 1 Red Big-toothed Snake, 1 Lesser Indian Rat Snake, 5 Tail-lined Tree Snakes, 3 Reticulated Pythons, 3 Orange-striped Snakes, 32 Gray's Temple Vipers, 13 Wagler's Pit Vipers, 13 Black Cobras, 2 Hamadryads, 1 Reddish Rat Snake, 1 Branded Krait, 1 Blood Python, 1 Common Malayan Tree Frog, 2 Common Malayan Frogs, 154 Cerberus Water Snakes, 1 Triton Cockatoo, 1 Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, 1 Iridescent Snake, 9 Siamese Fighting Fish, 2 Gouldian Grass Finches, 7 Yellow-breasted Buntings, 3 Malay Orange-bellied Flowerpeckers, 1 Japanese Waxwing, 1 Green Sunbird, 2 Malaccan Sunbirds, 2 Van Haselt's Sunbirds, 5 White Eyes

Snake Venom Research

St Alban Smith also sent snakes to the Staten Island Zoo, New York City, that was in 1935 and probably beyond. In 1939 The Straits Times noted that cobras he had sent had been used at Mount Sinai Hospital to make a preparation of serum for the cure on intense pain and that venom had been used to treat haemophilia. Now these were of course the interests of Burgess Barnett, Curator of Reptiles at London Zoo, until his removal from the job by ZSL’s Council in 1937. St Alban Smith was clearly in constant touch and I suspect was in close rapport with Barnett and I suspect was asked by the latter to send venomous snakes to New York. Bartlett wrote an article for the London Evening News in 1933 explaining how the Reptile House dealt with shipments of snakes from St Alban Smith in Singapore. Warily was the method.

The End

St Alban Smith’s donations to London Zoo slid out of view after his death in 1940. On 28 September the Straits Times included a snippet from its London correspondent. ‘Goliath’, the 28-foot Reticulated Python sent by St Alban Smith in 1935, ate a whole goat—horns included. But then, on 23 November 1942, Craven Hill, the zoo correspondent for the London Evening Standard, reported that Goliath had died.

Part Two will cover the life and times of Alfred St Alban Smith.

...and what on earth are sumpah-sumpahs?

Thomas Henry Huxley’s message to the USA in his address at the opening of Johns Hopkins University in 1876

Darwin's bulldog was invited to give an opening address at the opening of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on 12 September 1876. The address included:

I am not in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur; territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs a true sublimity, and the terror overhanging fate is - What are you going to do with all these things?…The one condition of success, your sole safeguard, is the moral worth, and intellectual clearness of the individual citizen.

 

Thomas Henry Huxley
Photograph by Lock & Whitfield
Wellcome Collection

Hong Kong: A Crake and IKEA

Sometimes birds turn up in unusual places. Birders in Hong Kong were out in force in February--not to some remote parts of the New Territories but to a landscaped building in the heart of Kowloon. There, in the patches of garden around Kowloon Bat Sports Centre, was a crake, a Slaty-legged Crake (Rallina eurizonoides) to be precise, going about the business of searching for food, moving around a bit and having a nap.

In recent years these crakes which are summer visitors to shrubland in the New Territories and passage migrants have been seen occasionally in Hong Kong's parks behaving rather like this one and ignoring the human inhabitants. Those in shrubland make their presence known by calling at night but are extremely difficult to spot. My guess is that a tired passage migrant will drop down on any bit of flat land in order to recover and stock up its reserves. Tired birds, desperately hungry, can appear to be very tame. In a game of die of starvation or risk predation, the former course wins.

AJP, having photographed the bird, then walked the short distance to IKEA to get what he needed there. There was no report on the consumption, or not, of Swedish meatballs.

Black-winged Cuckooshrike in Hong Kong

 This male Black-winged Cuckooshrike (Lalage melaschistos) posed for AJP in Hong Hong. A bird of south and southeast Asia it is classified as a scarce winter visitor and passage migrant in Hong Kong. However, we have seen at least one on our stay in and visits to Hong since the 1960s. There are early records of this species breeding in Hong Kong but that no longer seems to be the case. It preys on invertebrates.

Pygmy Marmosets in Colombia. The smallest monkeys in the world

Last November we saw these Pygmy Marmosets in Putomayo, a department in south-west Colombia. We flew to Villagarzon from Bogota, staying at the Portal del Sol, an ecolodge owned by a family rewilding the farmland which runs down to the river. And it was by the river that the troop of marmosets appeared. We had already seen the holes they had gnawed in the trees and which they visit to gather the material the tree has extruded.

The shape of their lower incisors is a clear adaptation to gnawing holes in trees. The exudate the marmosets eat is said to be mainly gum rather than sap and to comprise their main source of carbohydrates. Fruit, flowers, buds and nectar also feature in their diet. For protein they catch insects and other small invertebrates as well as small lizards which they search for in the vegetation.

Pygmy marmosets inhabit forests along rivers, spending a great deal of their time gnawing the holes in trees, exhausting it and then moving on.

Both troops had a couple of young. Only one female in the small troop breeds.

These Pygmy Marmosets were of the species originally named and when only one was recognised. Cebuella pygmaea. Those south of two large rivers were considered a subspecies. But the splitters rife in mammalian taxonomy who ignore the biological species concept erected it as a separate species. Cebuella niviventris. To confuse matters further the one we saw has two common names: Northern or Western Pygmy Marmoset as does the other: Southern or Eastern. Taken as a whole or, if you will have it that way, as the two species together Pygmy Marmosets occur in amazonian Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. In Colombia it only occurs in the extreme south of the country.

Both groups we saw were low in the trees and made no attempt to flee. They did though carefully inspect us as we did them.

Holes gnaws in trees

Lots more monkeys from Colombia to come.

Edith Durham: from drawing Surinam Toads to Balkan anthropology and supporting Albania

In 1901, a book appeared which is still worth reading or simply for looking up what was known at the time. It is remarkable because the author was not known for his research on reptiles and amphibians but for birds in particular and vertebrates in general. He was Hans Gadow who was born in Prussia in 1855. After working with the big names in German zoology, he arrived in London to take a job at the Natural History Museum. From there he moved to Cambridge as Curator of Birds in the university’s zoology museum but after two years he was also appointed Lecturer in Vertebrate Morphology at which time he became a naturalised British subject. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1892 but the weird world of Cambridge only promoted him to a Readership in 1920, only eight years before he died.

Gadow's biographer for the Royal Society, David Meredith Seares Watson FRS (1886 –1973) palaeontologist and professor of zoology in University College London wrote:

…and he was greatly interested in the problems of animal colour and of geographical distribution.

In order to have first-hand knowledge of these matters, he travelled extensively in Spain and Mexico, observing amphibians, reptiles, and birds in their natural environments. The results are recorded in two books of travel, and in many papers.

In some ways, the best and certainly the most characteristic work which Gadow published was the volume on Amphibia and Reptiles in the ‘Cambridge Natural History.’ In this book, morphology holds a subordinate place, the greater part of it consisting of short and often most entertaining accounts of individual species regarded as animals living in the world.

It is full of observations of habits of all kinds—food preferences and the capture of food, locomotion, breeding habits, colour changes, the musical appreciation of Tortoises—many of them original, and most confirmed by his own observations of animals which he kept in his house outside Cambridge. Indeed, the whole book well displays the real love and understanding he had of these beasts.

The success of Gadow’s book which appeared in 1901 can also be attributed to the illustrations. Gadow in the preface explained: 

The drawings on wood were, with few exceptions, made by Miss M.E. Durham, mostly from living specimens—a procedure which has to a great extent determined the selection of the illustrations.

Why Edith Durham got the commission for illustrating Gadow’s book I do not know, other than, of course, her undoubted talent in drawing living animals that looked like living animals. Her father was a well-connected London surgeon. She was the first of nine children, a number of whom became well known in fields from science from suffragism.

A reminder that if you are reading this article other than on 'Zoology Jottings' it has been stolen from me.

Having used one of Miss Durham’s drawings of Tuataras to illustrate an article, I wondered what else she had produced and was surprised to discover that she had become famous in another field entirely.

Edith Durham

A great deal has been written on Mary Edith Durham (1863–1944) and what follows is a brief outline of her life. She was a student at Bedford College and then the Royal Society of Arts. Some of her works are held in galleries and museums. After her father’s death in 1895 she looked after her ailing mother. Utterly exhausted by this role her doctor advised a holiday. That advice taken she travelled by ship from Trieste to Kotor and then inland in Montenegro. That trip changed her life. She learnt Serbo-Croat on her return and delved into the history of the Balkans. After further extensive travel in the region she published her first book in 1904. Then she concentrated on Albania. Over twenty years she championed the Albanian people. The Balkans were a major cause of interest and indeed political obsession in Britain in the early decades of the 20th century. Edith Durham was known to be eccentric and ‘difficult’ getting up the noses of both London intellectuals and the Foreign Office for her advocacy of the people of Albania, particularly those who lived under dire conditions in the north of the country. She published her studies in anthropological journals and books; she was involved in aid organisations; she drew and painted the areas she studied, and she collected costumes, jewellery, textiles and artefacts. She was the first woman to be elected vice-president of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Dubbed the ‘Queen of the Highlanders’ Edith Durham is still celebrated as a national heroine in Albania.

Why snakes lost a hormone. A ‘just so’ story or a ‘quite so’ story?

An interesting paper has appeared that shows that a gene present in most vertebrates is absent in snakes. The gene is responsible for the production of the unpronounceable peptide ghrelin. Discovered in 1999, ghrelin is produced by a number of organs in the body and has a multitude of actions, sometimes acting as a true hormone via circulation in the blood and sometimes, it would seem, locally on cells in close proximity. The main source of ghrelin is the lining of the stomach and a major target for its action is the brain.

There are a lots of hormones acting within the body that have an effect on such physiological processes as appetite, satiety, metabolism and gut motility. There is what is perhaps best described as a control network rather than simple cause and effect pathways. There is clearly a great deal of redundancy in the sense of safety-net measures, parallel signalling, cross-talk and feedback that ensure a chemical signal gets through to its intended target, enable effects to come into play in response to  changes in food intake, reproductive state etc, and for key variables, like blood glucose concentration to be regulated. One agent of this control network is Glucagon-like Peptide 1 (GLP-1), with which the obese and those who think they are obese are stuffing themselves, is one of those agents. Ghrelin is another. Ghrelin has been called the ‘hunger hormone’ because it promotes the desire to eat when injected. It also seems to have effects on the gut associated with food intake, on glucose metabolism as well as other functions in the brain like learning and memory. It also stimulates the storage of fat.

The authors of the paper pin the reason for the absence of ghrelin in snakes to their ability to go for very long periods without food. Although some snakes may lack that ability, the argument is still valid since the ancestors of snakes may have found selective advantage—or at least found no disadvantage from—a mutation that obliterated the ability to produce ghrelin. Thus it can be argued that all snakes, even those that can, do, or must, eat regularly inherited the condition from a common ancestor.

However, interpretation along those lines gets more complicated because the authors found the gene for ghrelin to be absent in the four species of chameleon examined and in two species of agama. In other words, the loss of ghrelin has happened independently at least three times in the snake-lizard lineage. The authors suggest that chameleons and the particular agamas (two species of Phrynocephalus) have similar lifestyles to the snakes as ‘sit-and-wait’ predators. That may be so but the chameleons do not sit and wait for that long, as anybody who has kept, bred  and reared chameleons knows. Therefore, I am not convinced that the loss of ghrelin in particular lizards is necessarily connected with the ability to go without food for long periods.

In a similar vein, members of other groups that go without food for long periods do not lack ghrelin, the crocodilians coming immediately to mind.

A reminder that if you are reading this article other than on ‘Zoology Jottings’ it has been stolen.

Defining with any degree of certainty what ghrelin does in mammals also seems problematic. Mice in which the gene for ghrelin has been knocked out seem to get along fine with only seemingly minor physiological changes, sometimes in unexpected ways. The general view seems to be that in terms of appetite control, for example, it is part of a signalling pathway with a great deal of redundancy.

Ascribing presumed function to biologically active substances found in extant animals to what may have happened in evolutionary history falls into the category of a ‘just-so story’ after Rudyard Kipling’s book of children’s stories including such gems as ‘How the leopard got its spots’. In living animals I have long railed against assumptions that biologically active substances found in milk have a particular or, indeed, any function in the infant, and have suggested the evidence that must be obtained to test each hypothetical function. When applied to evolutionary matters the task is even more difficult or impossible. Fossils, infuriatingly, are not amenable to experiment.

I would argue that it is a pity the authors of the paper on the absence of ghrelin in snakes have written their account almost as a test of the hypothesis that the phenomenon can be explained by the ability to go without food for long periods. Other just-so stories could be plausible: the short alimentary canal with long transit times for digesta, with all that implies for digestion, absorption of nutrients, and gut motility, could be another. Or was loss of ghrelin in their early evolution of no selective consequence to snakes and chameleons; in other words just neutral?

Studies in comparative molecular endocrinology are extremely valuable in stimulating the sort of questions that need to be answered in extant snakes. In short, is the rest of the control network similar to that of other vertebrates, minus grhelin, 

‘My conclusion on the  story at present: ‘Just so’ but not ‘quite so’.

Pinto RR, Ruivo R, Stiller J, Oliveira D, Castro LFC, da Fonseca RR. 2026. Ghrelin and MBOAT4 are lost in Serpentes. Open Biology. 16: 250162.

‘Sit-and-wait’ is the name of the game for these Common Boas (Boa constrictor)
on Cayos Grande, one of the islets of the Cayos Cochinos archipelago off
the Caribbean coast of Honduras. They lie on the branches waiting for a bird to
land within striking distance since there are no mammals on the island.
Our guess was that they were most likely to get the chance of a feed during
the migration of large numbers of birds from and to North America. In the shade
the boas are difficult for the untrained eye to spot. Once you eye is ‘in’ they are
easy to spot in the undergrowth behind the beach. Their coloration is distinctive
compared to those on the mainland and the pinkish hue gives rise to their local
name of ‘pink’ boa. And if you are staying for lunch the fish and chips are
excellent.