I mentioned in my last post the extensive collections made by the captains and assistant surgeon of the Royal Navy’s survey ship Sulphur, a small bomb ship (i.e. equipped with deck-mounted mortars for long-range fire rather than cannon) together with the fact that the Assistant Surgeon, later Surgeon, Richard Brinsley Hinds FRCS, took on the responsibility of editing and superintending the publications arising from that epic voyage around the world. The Lords of the Admiralty met the costs of publication - not the only occasion, I submit, to thank the Navy.
The section on mammals in the Zoology volume, published in 1844, was written by John Edward Gray FRS. Keeper of Zoology at the Natural History Museum in London from 1840 until 1974.
I cannot resist showing some of the illustrations from that volume. They are by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins (1807-1894) best known for sculpting the dinosaurs at Crystal Palace. Bear in mind that he had not seen the living animals and was working from the skins and skulls sent back to London.
The mammals are shown under their present names, not those used by Gray.
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| Golden-faced and White-faced Saki Pithecia chrysocephala and P. pithecia, South America |
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| Rio Tupajós or Gray's Saki, Pithecia irrorata |
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| Crowned Lemur, Eulemur coronatus, northern Madagascar |
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| Wrinkle-faced Bat, Centurio senex, Central America |
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| Long-tailed Weasel, Mustela frenata, the Americas |
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| Raccoon, Procyon lotor psora. California subspecies |
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| Black-tailed Jackrabbit, Lepus californicus |
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