Sword-billed Hummingbird. Colombia, November 2025

I have just realised that it is exactly a year since we woke to a freezing-cold morning in the Colombian Andes and spent the morning enjoying a cornucopia of avian delights, as a Victorian novelist might have described the experience.

This male Sword-billed Hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) did not stay in one place for long when visiting a feeder at Hacienda El Bosque, a popular birding lodge at an altitude 11,000 feet (3,350 metres) almost at the highest point of a pass over the Cordillera Central of the northern Andes. This is a spectacular hummingbird. It is big for a hummingbird and has the longest bill at 13-14 cm, longer than the rest of the body excluding the tail. The sword-bill co-evolved with the long corolla of a species of passion-flower. The male is slightly larger than the female but has the shorter bill. Individuals are said to have a regular beat (‘trap line’ feeders) during the day, visiting flowers in a set order over and over again. As well as nectar they do eat insects and are reliant on insects to supply sufficient protein to their young.

The development of a very long bill during co-evolution with a plant that supplies the nectar and has its pollen spread in return came with one problem: it cannot preen its feathers with its bill. Instead it uses its feet for that essential process.

The Sword-billed Hummingbird occurs along the Andes from Venezuela in the north to Bolivia in the south. The altitude of Hacienda el Bosque is about the maximum throughout its range.

The light was not easy for high-speed photography but I did get a few shots while pondering how this bird manages to fly and hover while it takes in the large amount of sugar it needs each minute just to stay alive.

We moved on with the feeling that, as with other spectacular birds of the high forests that can be seen at Hacienda el Bosque, the sword-bill was something a bit special.

Incoming! A Buff-winged Starfrontlet (Coeligena lutetiae) (left) also heads for the feeder

Indian Moon Moth in Hong Kong

The pavement outside grand-daughter’s school is not the ideal place for a moon moth to choose to spend the day. But this one did. The Indian Moon Moth (Actias selene) is recognisable by the pink patches on the trailing tails of the hindwings. The other species that can also be found in Hong Kong, the Chinese Moon Moth (A. ningpoana) does not have the pink.

The large antennae—female pheromone detectors—on this one indicate that it is a male.

Only comparatively recently have the two species been split, the Chinese being considered a subspecies of the Indian. The fact that the two distinct forms breed in Hong Kong suggests that there  is a reproductive barrier between the two and that the ‘split’ into two species is valid. They must both breed in Hong Kong because the adults are very short-lived. They lack mouth parts and thus die a few days, up to a week as the maximum, after emerging from the chrysalis.

This one survived its stay on the pavement. Later in the day AP found it had made its way onto some nearby herbage. Perhaps it was ready for another night, perhaps its last night, on the tiles.

John Lewis James Bonhote 1875-1922. Gentleman Scientist. Mammalogist and Ornithologist with an Ardent Interest in the Science of Heredity

When I look for information on people who were zoologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries I can often find an outline of their lives and of what they did. However, it is more unusual to see an outline of their backgrounds and how they came to pursue their interest in zoology. I am attempting to shed such light on John Lewis James Bonhote as an example of a ‘gentleman scientist’. Such men in Britain were those able to pursue their scientific interests without having to find the financial means to do so. They were wealthy individuals and some achieved great things and very great things, with Charles Darwin of course being the prime example.

J. Lewis Bonhote

The Bonhote family, of French ancestry, made its money as part of a consortium of European families producing and exporting sugar and other commodities from the Dutch East Indies mainly to the Netherlands but also to Britain and elsewhere. The Bonhotes originally had one brother based in Java, the other in London. John Lewis James Bonhote’s grandfather, also John Lewis, ‘formerly of Java’ died in London in 1867, leaving an estate of ‘under £120,000’. Had he left, say, £100,000 that would represent a fortune of over £14 million in 2026.

John Lewis James Bonhote (he usually omitted the ‘James’ but published as J. Lewis Bonhote) was born on 13 June 1875 in London, the son of John Bonhote (1851-1920) and Christian Grace Mitchell (1851-1898). In 1870-73 John Bonhote was a professional soldier, serving as Ensign and Lieutenant in the 57th and the 84th Regiments of Foot. In 1977 he joined the militia (3rd) battalion of what became the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment as a captain. He worked his way up to become Colonel of that regiment.

John Lewis James was educated at Harrow and, from 1893, Trinity College Cambridge. He had though been gazetted as a subaltern in his father’s regiment of militia in 1893—a popular route of getting a career as a regular officer—but he then cancelled the appointment a month later. It looks like it was Cambridge or the army and Cambridge won. He graduated with an Ordinary degree in zoology in 1897, the most popular route to a degree amongst the affluent students. Cambridge being Cambridge that degree was upgraded to an M.A. in 1901 by means of an appropriate fee. At Harrow he showed great interest in natural history and in conjunction with his friend, Nathaniel Charles Rothschild (1877-1923) who became an avid amateur entomologist and father of two famous zoologists, wrote a pamphlet on the butterflies and moths of Harrow.

Alfred Newton (1829-1907) was then—and the first—Professor of Zoology at Cambridge. Newton was an ornithologist and spanned the backgrounds of British ornithologists of the day, from wealthy amateurs devoting a great deal of time, enthusiasm and resources to their often full-time hobby to the few professional zoologists in the universities and museums. It is not surprising that Newton had a great influence on Bonhote and helped with his student’s research and activities until he died in office.

Bonhote was drawn to studying birds in captivity and built an aviary in a field near Cambridge. I can find no information on where that was sited. Bonhote joined the Avicultural Society immediately on its formation in 1894 and eleven months later used the pages of the magazine to describe the aviary and its inhabitants—and they were not the usual ones one might associate with amateur aviculture:

The size of my aviary is 15 feet by 8 feet by 6 feet high, having a pond 3 feet by 2 feet, I foot deep at one end. It is provided with two good broad perches.

In this aviary I have kept for some eighteen months, one Bittern (Botaurus stellaris), one Night Heron (Nycticorax griseus ) and three Purple Herons (Ardea purpurea). I should, however, not advise anyone to keep more than one species in an aviary, as they are very much given to fighting. My birds have their respective portions of the aviary, and any intrusion beyond these imaginary limits is at once strongly resented. The Purple Herons own one end, the Bittern the other, and the Night Heron one perch. The food of these birds in confinement is fish; it is best procured by arranging with the fishmonger for him to let you have the cuttings and cleanings of the fish, for which he will probably make you no charge.

Bonhote’s address in 1895 was 27 Trinity Street, Cambridge. A year later it was simply Waterbeach, Cambridgshire, six miles to the north and I wonder if that is where his aviaries were—aviaries because it was clear from a report in Avicultural Magazine on the 1896 breeding season that he had others built. That report shows he was keeping Black-headed Gull, Herring Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Green Plover (Lapwing), Beared Tit, Barn Owl, Greenfinch, Tree Sparrow, Great Tit, Quail and Corncrake. He succeeded in breeding the corncrakes.

Birds in the wild were not ignored. There was a collecting trip to Norway in 1895 and around Britain in search of birds.

Next came a complete shift. He left Cambridge for the Bahamas in 1897 on his appointment as Private Secretary to the Governor. He was 22. I have found no explanation for his move into such a role which was often the presage of a life in public administration. Was it parental pressure and influence to get a real job? Or did it present an opportunity to pursue his real interest in somewhere exotic?

In the Bahamas he lost no time in travelling around to study and collect the fauna, including spiders (one of which is named after him), but particularly the birds. He travelled back there 1901-02. Also in the Bahamas he acquired a wife, the daughter of the rector of Nassau cathedral who was formerly a vicar in Cornwall. She was Mary Baxter Meeres (1876-1951) and the wedding was in the cathedral on 27 December 1898.

Ditton Hall is an extended medieval manor house, now grade II listed, on the outskirts of Cambridge in Fen Ditton. It would seem that he rented the property since it was bought by Caius College in 1898 for letting to academics. It was there that the newly married couple set up home and where they built aviaries and pens, most notably for the breeding experiments on ducks for which Bonhote became well known. The grounds already had ponds and was probably an ideal place to keep ducks. His breeding experiments ran for at least five years.

After arriving in Cambridge he became a member of all the key societies for those with interests in the life of birds and other animals. In addition to the Avicultural Society, he was a Member of the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) (Alfred Newton was a founder in 1858), a Fellow of the Linnean Society and a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. He published in all their journals. He also became known for running society affairs. He was elected to the Council of the Avicultural Society at the age of 20, subsequently becoming secretary and treasurer. The BOU elected him to its committee in 1903 and by 1907 was treasurer. He was secretary of the Migration Committee of the British Ornithologists’ Club from 1905 and became a council member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

In his early years as a member of the Avicultural Society he was an avid contributor to its Avicultural Magazine. He wrote frequent articles on new bird arrivals at London Zoo and reported on bird shows which were frequented by all levels of society, from the canary fancier in his terraced house to the aristocrat in the conservatory or on the lake of his stately home. He also bred for the first time in Britain the African Spotted Eagle-owl (now Bubo africanus) and was awarded a medal by the Society for having done so.

The Bonhotes are shown at Ditton Hall in the 1901 census along with Mary’s brother, a ‘student of classics’. They had three servants in residence: cook, housemaid and parlour-maid. In 1904 Bonhote was caught driving a motor tricycle and trailer without a number plate on the latter; fined 2/6d (£20 in 2026).

Given Bonhote’s rapid rise in ornithological circles and his willingness to take on administrative tasks it is perhaps not surprising that he was made joint secretary of the Fourth International Ornithological Congress which was held at the Imperial institute in London in June 1905. The other joint secretary was Ernst Hartert (1859-1933), Lord Walter Rothschild’s in-house ornithologist at his museum at Tring. The two men also had the job of editing the proceedings which were published in 1907.

At the Congress Bonhote presented a long paper on his experiments on duck hybridization. He made it clear that it was done at the suggestion and keen interest of Alfred Newton. In fact there was sufficient material there for a PhD had that degree been awarded by Cambridge at the time. He began with:

The following notes are the first fruits of a series of experiments which I have been carrying on during the last few years. To many, hybrids convey an idea of uninteresting mongrels, or possibly those, who may have heard of the work being at present carried out in this country by Mr. Bateson and others, will expect to read of a further series of experiments in Mendelism. In my experiments I have purposely avoided the question of the Mendelian Laws, nor have I hitherto made any attempt to prophesy as to the results of any particular cross, but my object has been rather to try and effect many crosses with a view of testing their fertility, and by very carefully watching the results, to attempt to throw further light on some of the great and fundamental problems that underlie and permeate every branch of the science of Zoology, such as variation, heredity, reversion, and so forth.

Although it is as yet far too early, in the course of these experiments, to attempt to enunciate any laws or lay down any definite theories with regard to these problems, yet these notes will, I hope, show that the first five years’ study has not been wholly without result.

Five species (modern names) were used: Mallard (now Anas platyrhynchos); Indian Spot-billed Duck (Anas poecilorhyncha) (iii) Pacific Black Duck (Anas superciliosa), Meller’s Duck (Anas melleri) and the Northern Pintail (Anas acuta). So complicated were the crosses which sometimes resulted in hybrids involving all five species that Newton asked the Professor of Anglo-Saxon and philologist Walter William Skeat  (1835–1912) to suggest a suitable terminology. Skeat came up with, later to be highly appropriate root gen, with digen, trigen, tetragen and pentagen for hybrids between two and five species.

Most of the crosses were produced by Bonhote himself. However, he did receive a pair of Pintail x Mallard—a digen—from John Henry Gurney (1848 -1922) another noted ornithologist who kept birds on his estate at Norwich. Gurney was from the family of bankers who had merged their extremely wealthy bank into Barclay’s in 1896. W.S. Gilbert immortalised the family as his judge in Trial by Jury became  ‘as rich as the Gurneys’.

These plates showing hybrid ducks in eclipse and full plumage illustrated Bonhote's paper in
the Proceedings of the Congress of Ornithology

These were the very early days of the science of genetics and many of Bonhote’s observations on the coloration of the feathers in the various hybrids could not be interpreted in any meanigful way. However, some results were clear. Surprising at the time, hybrids involving all five species were found to be fertile thus demonstrating that where these species meet in the wild mechanisms other than major genetic differences form a barrier to their mating. When isolated with ducks of another species, the drakes will mate with whatever duck comes to hand. Bonhote showed that although the sex ratio at hatching was 1:1, the female hybrids were more likely to die at an early stage of life, suggesting some small degree of genetic incompatibility. A hundred and twenty years on from Bateson the genetic differences between different duck species and the effects of hybridisation are still being studied by means of genomic analysis. Sadly, and reflecting the fact that those doing biological research in the 21st century are often completely unaware of the history of their own subjects, in the three relatively recent papers I looked at Bonhote is not even mentioned.

Bonhote developed a life-long interest in the heritability of coat colour in mammals and of feather coloration and pattern in birds.

Mary Bonhote was also a member of the Congress and indeed a visit to Ditton Hall was on the programme:

On Tuesday an excursion was made to Cambridge. Prof. Newton, assisted by Dr. Gadow, received the Members at the Museum, where many rare books, and specimens of birds and eggs, were on exhibition. Luncheon was served at Magdalene College…After luncheon most of the members drove to Fen Ditton, while some who had not been to Cambridge before went round the Colleges. Mr. and Mrs. Bonhote received the party at their residence, Ditton Hall, showing them the aviaries containing a fine collection of British birds, as well as the hybrid ducks used in Mr. Bonhote’s experiments. After tea the party returned to Cambridge in time to catch the special train for Bridlington.

Mammals were a major interest. I have previously described his work on the rodents of China with the first part appearing in 1905, the year of the Congress of Ornithology. He worked at the Natural History Museum and his output on the taxonomy of mammals, particularly rodents and small carnivores, was considerable, with more than 35 papers published over 12 years.

By the time the proceedings of the Congress were published in 1907 the Bonhotes had moved house and had left Cambridge. They moved to Gade Spring Lodge or simply Gade Spring, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. As far as I can determine the house is 109 Piccott’s End. Bonhote also had a house in London at 113 Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill. They were sufficiently settled in Gade Spring by July 1906 for the Avicultural Society to be invited for its bi-annual meeting. Writing continued apace. In 1907 his book, Birds of Britain, was published.

In the winter of 1908-09 Bonhote spent three months at the Giza Zoo in Egypt, as the guest of the Assistant Director, Michael John Nicoll (1880-1925). This visit was the first indication of a major change for Bonhote in the future.

On 2 April 1911, the day of the census that year, John Lewis Bonhote was one of only two guests staying at the Belle Vue Hotel, Royal Avenue, Lowestoft. The other guest was Bonhote’s birding friend and later executor, Claud Buchanan Ticehurst (1881-1941), another Alfred Newton protege, who was medically qualified and then working in a partnership in Lowestoft and as a surgeon at the local hospital. In his paper to the Ornithological Congress in 1905 Bonhote had described tracts of feathers or of hairs as ‘poecilomeres’. I think he must have been winding the hotel manager up when he described his occupation for the census as ‘poecilodermatologist’. Mrs Bonhote was at Glade Spring, seemingly the only person in the house that night.

The Strand magazine published an article on bird migration written by Bonhote in 1912. He was secretary of a special committee on migration of the British Ornithologists’ Club and described the historical background yo current knowledge, how ringing was enabling the routes and patterns to be established and then raised the question of how birds navigate.

In 1913 Bonhote left the country for Egypt resigning from the various roles he had in the societies, as editor and treasurer of the Avicultural Society, for example. He joined Nicoll as an assistant to Major Stanley Smyth Flower (1871–1946) at the Giza Zoo which a museum, an aquarium at Gezira, the zoological survey of Egypt and a role in conservation. The work became more demanding on the outbreak of war because Flower was recalled to the army and command of the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps. Bonhote published little over this period and I suspect he was doing most of the administration. Claud Ticehurst noted that he had done a great deal of good work on re-establishing egret colonies after the depredations of the feathers for hats trade and collected in the Nile Delta for the Giza museum in his spare time.

We do know that Bonhote continued to work on breeding and heredity, this time in domestic chickens. While away he remained on the electoral register with his address as 50 Piccott’s End. Whether that is Gade Spring or the cottage now shown as number 50 on the opposite of the street I do not know. In 1915 his book, Vigour and Heredity, which he says was in the hands of the publishers before the end of 1913, was published. At the time genetics was in its infancy with opposing views raging and evolutionary theory was in a mess. The ‘modern synthesis’ had not yet arrived. Unfortunately—and with the benefit of 110 years of hindsight—Bonhote’s book did nothing but create further confusion. There just was not the knowledge then to interpret, for example, his hybrids between species or to enable him to realise that his notion of ‘vigour’ was just wrong.

Bonhote returned home in 1919 and before long had set himself up at Park Hill House, Carshalton, a large house now broken into flats. Very quickly Bonhote found himself back as secretary and treasurer of the Avicultural Society. But then in November 2020 the local newspapers carried news of a scandal—and divorce in 1920 was a scandal—but an opportunity for newspaper editors to provide salacious details of the marital offence, like cruelty, desertion and especially adultery, which was necessary for a divorce to be granted. Thus the Mitcham Advertiser of 26 November reported:

CARSHALTON DIVORCE.

DECREE FOR AN INJURED WIFE.

The President of the Divorce Division (Sir Henry Duke) on Thursday heard the suit of Mrs. Mary Baxter Bonhote, for a decree to dissolve the marriage with Mr. John Lewis James Bonhote, formerly a civil servant in the Bahamas, because of his desertion and adultery. The misconduct was alleged at an address in Park Hill-road, Carshalton.

The suit was not defended.

Mrs. Bonhote said the marriage was on December 27th, 1898, in the Bahamas. She had afterwards lived out there and in Eton-square, London, and at Cambridge. Diferences arose between them and they separated. In March last she obtained a decree for the restitution of conjugal rights, which respondent did not comply with. math.

Mr Frederick William Smalley, of Blackheath, had known the petitioner and respondent for 19 years. He had visited the respondent at Park Hill House, Park Hill-road, Carshalton, and a lady was living there with him. Witness had stayed the night there on several occasions, and one evening respondent told him he had been served with the papers in the suit.

A decree nisi, with costs, was granted the petitioner.

Such divorces of course were often settled by the two parties with the connivance of their lawyers. It is clear that this is the case here with Bonhote supplying his friend as ‘witness’ to his misconduct.

The cause and date of the separation are not known. One can only guess that a move to Egypt in 1913 might have had something to do with it.

From 1918, when some women were allowed to vote, Mary Baxter Bonhote (née Meeres) can be found on electoral registers living at 8 Westbourne Street (later renamed Bourne Street) in Belgravia. Then in 1927 she married Augustus Andrews-Uthwatt (1879–1949) an Australia-born barrister who became a High Court judge in 1941 and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1946; he thus became a law lord as Baron Uthwatt. Lady Uthwatt, the former Mrs Bonhote, died in 1951.

The 1921 census taken on 19 June provides us with further information on the lady ‘living there with him’. She was Grace Nevinson, shown as aged 30 but more likely 32), born in London and who Bonhote described as a ‘Secretary of Societies’ and ‘working at home’. Bonhote described himself as ‘Zoologist. Student of Heredity. Poultry Farmer’ and as an ‘Employer’. The couple had a cook and a parlour maid.

A year later, in June 1922, came news from the Avicultural Society that Bonhote had been obliged to resign from his honorary posts because of ill health. That news was followed three months later by notice of his death.

John Lewis James Bonhote, aged 47, ‘of independent means’ died on 10 October 1922 in a nursing home, Earls Court, Gervis Road in Bournemouth, of pulmonary and abdominal tuberculosis. Present at the death and informant of the Registrar was Grace Nevinson.

Bonhote was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.

I have been unable to find out out long John Lewis Bonhote and Grace Nevinson had been together or if she was with him in Egypt.

Nearly 50 years after Bonhote, Grace Nevinson died on 8 March 1973, her death registered under the name of Nevinson-Bonhote. She was living at 14 Palliser Court, Palliser Road, London W14 and left £8,259 (£130,000 in 2026); her date of birth was given as 6 April 1889. That date indicates that she was the daughter of Edmund and Louisa Nevinson who in 1901 were living at 29 Berners Mews, St Marylebone; Edmund was a foreman packer for a perfumier. Then in 1911 we find she was staying at a house in Walthamstow. She and the daughter of the house are shown as ‘stage artists’. The only newspaper report I have found is from the Derbyshire Courier of 20 May 1905. In a description of a show at the Corporation Theatre in Chesterfield Grace Nevinson is described as a ‘toe dancer’, i.e. a dancing act performed entirely on the tips of the toes. If that is ‘our’ Grace she would have been 16 at the time.

In his will, Bonhote left Grace £200 plus £600 a year and ‘certain furniture’; that would be an annual income of about £44,000 in 2026. His other bequests were: ‘his scientific collections, including mammal and bird skins and birds’ eggs, to Frederic William Smalley and Dr. Claud Ticehurst, his birding friends.

The residue of the £16,275 (about £1.2 million in 2026) was left in trust for the ‘forwarding of the Science of Heredity and "I especially desire that the benefit of the trust fund shall in no sense be confined to adherents of any particular school of thought," and he desired the trustees to act upon the advice so far as it may be available of the Professors of Biology at Oxford and Cambridge and the Director of the Natural History branch of the British Museum.

The executors of his will were Smalley and his solicitor, Michael Stileman Dawes. I do not know how much money ended up destined to support the science of heredity since the executors were obliged to provide an income of £600 per annum to Grace. That would either be done by using all or part of the capital to provide sufficient interest  over Grace’s lifetime, with the capital going to the trust on her death, or by buying an annuity outright. While I do not know the sum involved I do know where the trust fund went. It formed the Bonhote Fund of the Linnean Society. In recent years it has been merged with other bequests and its funds still used to support research in systematic biology by means of small grants.

His executors deposited notebooks, including a studbook of his pigeon breeding experiments, at the Natural History Museum in London. The Museum’s archives also include a number of letters to and from Bonhote as well as published papers and books. A perusal of those could well enable a fuller biography of this gentleman scientist who worked hard on his zoological interests.

Claud Ticehurst wrote an obituary for The Ibis that was published in 1923. It began:.

By the death of Mr. J. L. Bonhote the British Ornithologists’ Union has lost one of its most ardent supporters and one of its most original thinkers. Suffering for seven months, he fought with hope and great courage to the last

against the dread malady which had struck him down and finally he passed to rest at Bournemouth (whither he had gone for a change) on the 10th of October last…

And ended with:

As a man, to know him was to love him; he was broad-minded and original thinker, and, though open to conviction

on any suhject, he never accepted anyone’s ipse dixit unless proof was forthcoming, and even when convinced, he loved to continue an argument for sheer love of looking at the point from a different angle. Though recognizing the fine distinctions of geographical races, he was far more interested in the general and wider questions of heredity, environment, vigour, and coloration. A man of ceaseless energy and methodical in his habits, lie was a great acquisition any committee, and the success of the Fourth Ornithological Congress in 1905 was largely due to his organizing capacity as joint secretary, and he was one of the best Secretaries the Union ever had. Our loss is great indeed!

Mountain Wren. Colombia November 2025

 

This Mountain Wren (Troglodytes solstitialis) appeared from a thick bush at Hacienda El Bosque, a popular birding lodge at an altitude 11,000 feet (3,350 metres) in the Cordillera Central of the Colombian Andes.

This wren occurs as its common name implies along the Andes from Venezuela in the north to northern Argentina in the south up to the tree line.

Hong Kong: Not just a Cobra—a King Cobra

AJP went for a walk up Tai Mo Shan four days ago. He saw this snake in the grass from a long way away because its scales were reflecting the early morning sunlight. The temperature on Tai Mo Shan had been 14ºC during the night and the snake was probably warming up. He approached with caution until about 15 metres away and took the photographs. He estimated the length to be around 2.5 metres or 8 feet. The snake sensed his presence and then slithered off into a bush. AJP walked in the opposite direction, leaving the world’s largest venomous snake in peace. This was a good spot because the King Cobra is one of Hong Kong’s least common snakes. The largest recorded in Hong Kong was 4 metres.

King Cobras (Ophiophagus hannah) are diurnal, fast and agile In fact they resemble in movement the mambas of Africa with which they have a common ancestor and to which they are more closely related than the ‘true’ cobras. They largely prey on other snakes but will take mammals and birds.

Huang’s Rat. There was no Mr Huang, Mrs Huang, Miss Huang or Master Huang. Back to Mr Bonhote

I was reminded that I should write this article by the reprinting of recollections in the Rodentia* Newsletter (No. 7, Summer 2026). The editors reproduced an article written by the late Clinton Keeling for the now defunct Rodent Appreciation Group. He had kept a number of species of rodents from 1944 until his death in 2007. He wrote:

Does anyone remember the lovely Huang Rat (sometimes mis-called the Huang's Rat) which was a beautiful deep yellow? (In fact "huang" Is Chinese for "yellow" - c.f. Huang Ho" = yellow river.) Come to that, does anyone recall Henry Berman who taught, back in the 1960s, at St. Ivo School in St. Ives, Huntingdonshire (yes, Huntingdonshire, not Cambridgeshire)? Because he obtained the first ones ever seen in this country, and our stock came via him.

I am by no means certain that last sentence is correct since I had some of these rats in the early 1960s. Mine were either the offspring of, or some of the original, animals sent to London Zoo from Hong Kong by the late Ken Searle which I picked up from the Zoo in 1964. The Annual Report shows 13 were bred that year, with Ken having sent one in 1959 and a further five in 1964. The one in 1959 was the first of the species to have been received at the Zoo and is listed in the Annual Report as:

Rattus huang (Bonhote). Huang’s Rat (Southern China)

My bet is that Henry Berman obtained his the same way as I did—directly from the Zoo. In those days all one had to do was to write to the Curator of Mammals, then Desmond Morris. He would write back with what stock was available gratis and all the recipient of his letter had to do was to take it to the head keeper who would catch and box the animals. The South Mammal House contained a treasure trove of small cages and it was evident that the keepers were very glad to see excess stock gone since the place was full to the gunwales. The casual visitor though would be lucky to see much since most of the animals were nocturnal.

Incidentally, until I read the above account I had never heard of Henry Berman. I am pleased to say that I have now found a lot of information on this estimable schoolteacher. He will be the subject of a future article.

In London, as the ZSL Annual Report shows, the animals were known as Huang’s Rats. That was also the case in Hong Kong as we discovered when we arrived in November 1965. The lab colony established by Patricia Marshall was in full swing and I am pretty sure that the ones sent to London Zoo in 1959 and in 1964 were all from the same founding stock. I also suspect that the common name was copied by London Zoo from correspondence with Searle. Huang (the Mandarin version of the Cantonese Wong) is a common name in Hong Kong. It is easy to see how the specific name huang was taken to be an eponym. Perhaps we should have questioned whether that specific name did indicate that the species had been named to honour somebody called Huang. The biggest clue was that huang has no genitive ending, i, ii or ae, to the word.

The species was named as Mus huang in 1905 by John Lewis James Bonhote. That date refers to the abstracts of a meeting of the Zoological Society of London. The abstracts were published before or on the day of the meeting and it is the date of that publication which was used in any dispute over priority in naming a new species. The proceedings of the meeting were published later and Bonhote’s full account there shows why he named it Mus huang. 

I have called this species from its Chinese name “Huang mao shu,” meaning yellow-haired rat.

Huang/Wong simply means yellow in Chinese.

There is only one problem. The rat is not yellow and Clin Keeling must have misremembered what his animals looked like. This is how Bonhote described the type specimen (in the Natural History Museum in London) which was caught on 24 April 1898 at Kuatan, a village in Fujian Province.

General colour rufous (ochraceous-rufous, Ridgw.), darker along the dorsal area. The underfur is slate-coloured at its base with a rufous tip, thickly intermixed, especially on the back, with black bristles or spines. On the flanks the bristles become much less numerous and many of them have rufous tips. The colour of the head resembles that of the upper parts. The feet are whitish, with the rufous colour running down the centre of their upper surface. Under parts pure white, the line of demarcation being sharply defined. Tail rather longer than the head and body, clothed with short hairs and bicoloration. Hairs moderately long and sparsely covered with very close, short, dark brown hairs.

Bonhote was using Robert Ridgway’s A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, and Compendium of Useful Knowledge for Ornithologists. published in 1886 by Little, Brown, and Company of Boston. Ridgway was Curator, Department of Birds, United States National Museum.

Below is the illustration of the species from The Handbook of the Mammals of the World Volume 7 Rodents II. 2017 (Barceona: Lynx Edicions). There the common name is given as South China White-bellied Rat. But Huang Rat is much shorter and reflects Chinese usage according to Bonhote’s source who could have been none other than the famous ornithologist and collector of the type specimen John David Digues La Touche (1861-1935) of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service.

Since Bonhote’s time, the species has been moved into the genus Rattus and then, along with other white-bellied rats into Niviventer. Early on it was lumped into Rattus fulvescens but is now recognised as a separate species by some authorities but not others. There is much more information in my earlier articles (HERE, HERE, HERE) since this one was just concerned with killing off the common name Huang’s Rat while pointing out that Huang Rat or Huang Niviventer are both acceptable.

* Rodentia Website 

Bonhote JL. 1905. The mammalian fauna of China.—Part I. Murinae. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1905, 384-397.

Equatorial Antpitta in the Colombian Andes

A pair of Equatorial Antpittas can be bribed with mealworms to appear at Hacienda El Bosque, a popular birding lodge at an altitude 11,000 feet (3,350 metres) in the Cordillera Central of the Colombian Andes. 

This bird is found in damp forest in three isolated populations. All three populations occur in Colombia but only one of these extends south to Ecuador and northern Peru.

As a recognised species (Grallaria saturata) separate from the Rufous Antpitta (G. refula) it comes and goes with ‘splitters’ appearing at the moment to be pulling the case in their direction. 

Antpittas are small birds feeding mainly on the forest floor and some do follow follow ants. There are more than 60 species in South and Central America and since the early 2000s have been placed in their own family, the Grallariidae.

The resident pair
The one in the front hopped into frame while the camera focus was locked on the one ar the back

Grey-tailed Tattler: en route from Siberia to Australia with a stopover in Hong Kong

On the mudflats of Siu Hau on Lantau island AJP saw this Grey-tailed Tattler (Tringa brevipes). In autumn they leave their breeding grounds of stony riverbeds in eastern Siberia and head south for the coasts of southeast Asia and Australia.

High tide at Siu Hau

Willoughby Lowe (1872-1949). Collector of specimens for the Natural History Museum in London. Part Six: 1912-13 - East Africa, the Cosens Expedition

Willoughby Lowe (1872-1949) was a highly-praised collector for the Natural History Museum in London as well as an all-round naturalist. Counting just birds he added over 10,000 specimens to the Museum. Lowe wrote two books on the various expeditions of which he had been part and there are summaries available online on what he did and where he went. However there is little of his life and background. He travelled with interesting, important and infamous people in pursuing the zoology of the day. In an endeavour to provide a fuller picture of Lowe I have scoured family trees (often inaccurate or incomplete), original material available on genealogy websites (again thanks to clerical errors sometimes inaccurate), newspapers and the like. There are still important gaps and I hope readers will contact me if they have more information. To make that job more manageable, I am splitting Lowe's life into parts. This is the 6th part. Links to the other articles can be found at the end.

Willoughby Lowe set off for East Africa on 12 August 1912. On 15 September he arrived at Mombasa on a German ship. While on board the Captain had predicted that before long Germany and Britain would be at war and “we shall take all your colonies away from you”. That evening Lowe took the sleeper train to Nairobi, getting up early the next morning to see the vast numbers of mammals and birds alongside the track.

On arrival at Nairobi I found Captain Cosens with Mr Wm. Judd, the celebrated big game hunter, who had shot as much game as, or more than, any other white man. He was to be one of our party and his services were invaluable, as he had a through knowledge of the natives and their languages, and on safari nothing was an obstacle.

They met at the Norfolk Hotel.

It would seem that this was the first of what would become a familiar arrangement to Lowe. The expedition was financed by a wealthy individual, in this case, Cosens. That person would be in contact with the Natural History Museum in London who would suggest a collector, in this case Lowe. The specimens would then be presented to the Museum by the financial sponsor. This was an admirable arrangement as far as the Museum was concerned since it brought in new specimens at minimal or possibly no cost. What I have not found out is whether Lowe was paid at all or by whom. In this case, Judd would have been engaged by Cosens.

But who was Captain Cosens and how could he afford to fund this collecting expedition through East Africa ?

Captain Cosens

Gordon Philip Lewes Cosens was born on 14 October 1884 in London. He was the son of Philip John Cosens (1862-1919) and Alice Manuelle (1860-1891). His grandfather, Frederick William Cousens, co-founded Silva & Cosens, port producers in Portugal and merchants in London, in 1862.  Philip John followed his father into the business which was highly successful and expanded. A member of the Warre family joined in 1868 and the company merged with the smaller Dow & Co in 1877. The merged companies decided they would be known as Dow’s—and the name lives on in 2026. The success of the company can be judged by the will of Frederick. In 1889 he left an estate of £203,000; that is around £33 million in 2026 terms.

Educated at Eton, Gordon Cosens began his life in the army as a part-time subaltern in the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, a militia regiment, in October 1902 at the age of 18. Two years later he transferred to the 1st (Royal) Dragoons, a regular army regiment that in 1969 was amalgamated with the Royal Horse Guards to become the Blues and Royals, the second most senior regiment in the army. In 1908 he was promoted to Lieutenant and in April 1914 to Captain. Therefore in 1912 when Lowe met him in Nairobi, Cosens was Lieutenant Cosens. and he is so described in short newspaper articles covering the expedition.  It seems to have been Lowe’s habit when writing in his book to use the rank he had known the individual to have risen to. Cosens would have travelled to Nairobi from South Africa where his regiment was stationed at the time.

Because the expedition headed north to Khartoum I wonder if Cosens knew that he was to be seconded to the Egyptian Army, the British-officered and British-controlled organisation. He was still there in April 1914 when he was promoted. On his medal card from Army Records he is shown as being in Egypt as a theatre of war from November 1914. From then the records show him to have been a General Staff Officer on the Headquarters Staff of 53rd Division as Captain and then Brevet Major (from 1915), then back to the Royal Dragoons (Brevet Major) and then again on the Staff at Headquarters of the 3rd Cavalry Division and the Cavalry Corps. The 53rd Division took part in the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign of 1915 and was evacuated back to Egypt. He was unusual in that he (nor 53rd Division) fought in France during the war.

The final entry is HQ  ‘L of C’ and then HQ Aldershot Command as temporary Lieutenant Colonel. He was awarded the DSO in January 1918. From announcements in the London Gazette it can be seen that he rose in the grades of Staff Officer From GSO3 to GSO1 seemingly in the Adjutant General’s branch which managed personnel matters like discipline, medical and sanitary services.

In August 1920, aged 35, he married Gwladys Ethel Mawer (1890-1962) daughter of Mrs. Oswell MacLeay, of Ascot Lodge, Ascot, and the late Captain F. G. Mawer, Welch Regiment. Also in August came the news that Cosens had retired from the army after 16 years as a regular soldier, retaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Thanks to working with working with two retired officers I learnt enough of the arcane practices to interpret that at a regimental level Cosens was still a captain and brevet (temporary) major while holding a post on the General Staff two grades higher.

In his short retirement Colonel and Mrs Cosens travelled to Japan in 1921 via the Panama Canal and the USA and to Tangier and Lisbon in 1924. After that we know that illness supervened. He died on 29 March 1928. His death notice in The Times: ‘result of an operation, following four years of illness, courageously borne…of 34 Hans-road, S.W., aged 43’. He suffered heart failure after the operation to remove a brain tumour. From his estate of £60,832 (worth about £5 million in 2026) he left £100 to the Royal Dragoons' Aid Fund, £100 to St Dunstan's Hostel, one year's wages to each of his servants who had been in his service for two years.

William Judd

William ‘Bill’ Charles Ernest Judd was a well-known big game hunter based in Kenya. His entry in the website Europeans in East Africa contains accounts of his activities by the writers of books, including Willoughby Lowe. Judd was born in Portsmouth in 1872. His father, William Archibald Judd, was a petty officer in the Royal Navy and can be found in the 1861 Census as ‘Captain of the Main Top’ on board HMS Sidon, a paddle frigate driven by steam or sail. He retired on a pension in 1882 but in 1881 was already working as a boatman and living in Greenwich. In the 1891 census William senior was a ‘barge owner and lighterman’ while William junior was his apprentice.

Sometime in the early 1900s young Bill went to South Africa where he  fought in the 1993-4 Matabele War and is said to have worked as ‘an intelligence agent’. He must have returned to life on the River Thames because in 1897 he married Eleanor Jane Maslen Gostling of Loughton, Essex. In the same year William senior died and it would seem that Bill took over the business. In the 1901 Census he was living in Northfleet in Kent with his wife, daughter and son; he was a ‘barge owner and lighterman. 

The date shown for his arrival in East Africa is 1902 but he was not South African as suggested. We know from Lowe and others that he had a coffee farm near Kikuyu. That would be the historic Fort Smith he bought in 1908, the year his family joined him. He also owned a ‘ranch’ at Naivasha and a trading store on the Amalo River.

Judd was killed by an elephant he was hunting on 21 December 1927.

Accounts of the safaris

The two safaris are described by Lowe in chapters 4 and 5 of The Trail That Is Always New. They are also described in an account in the first of three papers written by Claude Henry Baxter Grant (1878–1958) using notes provided by Willoughby Lowe on the bird specimens that reached the Natural History Museum in London. All three papers were published in the same volume of The Ibis in 1915. Unfortunately, in the first paper G.P.L. Cosens is referred to as G.S. Cozens. Lowe was clearly disappointed that a fourth paper on the passerines never appeared.

The map prepared for the Ibis paper was printed in two halves; I have joined them the best I can and added in colour the route of the two safaris. The Ibis paper also contains a detailed itinerary.

Routes in Red (1st Safari) and Blue (2nd)

In Nairobi Lowe employed a trapper, who had just finished working for Theodore Roosevelt on the latter’s well-known safari, and a man to do the skinning. After shooting a few birds for the collection at Judd’s coffee farm, between 21 and 23 September, the party set off for Kijabe where they gathered extra porters. Safaris in these pioneering days of the industry had the reputation of being vast affairs, involving lots of porters, wagons, ox-carts, mules, horses, camping gear and camp staff. Nowhere have I found how many people in all were involved in either stage of this one, although there are comments such as how many camels, how many porters, and the like, at some stages of the journeys. The days seemed to consist of travel, camp, shoot, skin and prepare specimens, pack up and continue. I will therefore pick up a few snippets from Lowe’s account. He praised Jubb highly:

…his services were invaluable, as he had a thorough knowledge of the natives and their languages, and on safari nothing was an obstacle.

First Safari

Our plans were to move south-west to as far as the then little known Amala River, thence passing south-cast along the German East African boundary to Mount Leganisho, and eastward to the great soda lake Magadi, after which we were to return to Nairobi, crossing the Mau Escarpment by the southern end of the beautiful Lake Naivasha, and thence on to the railway. Judd had some splendid large black dogs which he used when shooting; they were cross-bred between Collie, Retriever, and Airedale. They were still very plucky in spite of having been nearly torn to pieces by lions and leopards, as could be seen by the scars of wounds which had been sewn up. These dogs, if well trained, are invaluable to the big game hunter, especially if he wishes to follow up a dangerous wounded animal, for they will hold the quarry at bay by barking and so allow the sportsman to give the coup de grâce. We also took some natives armed with rifles to guard our camp at night, but I fear they often went to sleep until awakened by a lion's roar.

The water at Mount Suswa was very bad, being taken from a water-hole in the rocks, which was badly contaminated by baboons and other animals; but with the aid of alum, boiling and filtering, it made a fairly good whisky-and-soda, and almost anything seemed palatable in such a dry spot!

By Ist October we were on the southern Guaso Nyiro, and passed on to the Loita Plains and Lemeck Valley to the real game section of the Amala River. In this lovely park-like country one saw literally thousands of Zebras, Gnus, Kongoni, Impala, Grant's and Thompson's Gazelles, Reedbuck, Giraffes and Ostrich, whilst smaller animals, such as Dik-dik and Steinbuck haunted the patches of bush. I could not have imagined that such troops of animals existed. The outstanding feature was their tameness. I always thought that people who had been to Africa and brought back so many trophies must of necessity be mighty hunters; but now I formed quite a different opinion, though some beasts are difficult to come by on account of their habitat, whilst others are dangerous, but the bulk of game in Kenya at that time was not more difficult to shoot than cows would be in an English field!

…I was interested to find an animal here resembling the small skunk of North America, and having the same dreadful smell; it is scientifically known as Ictonyx….[Ictonyx striatus, Zorilla]

Our camp at night looked very picturesque, with the white tents surrounded by a circle of brilliant fires, and the dark figures of our boys squatting round cooking chunks of zebra meat. An African night is always very impressive, with its wonderful blue-black sky, illuminated by the myriads of radiant stars…

On 2Ist November the Rhino was at last secured, a fine old bull, shot at fifteen yards' range. His head-skin entailed a lot of work in paring down. We cooked his tongue and tail; the former, well boiled, was excellent eating, whilst the tail made very good soup.

…we proceeded northwards for Naivasha station, following the southern Guaso Nyiro River, where one morning we were surprised by seeing a lady riding in her pyjamas. We spoke to her as we passed, and she told us that she had been sitting up for lions over a killed zebra, and that she had been very successful, having shot eight with the aid of a flash-light from her thorn zereba. She told us that she and her friends were camped nearby, and very kindly asked us to meet them. We accepted the invitation and lunched with Mr Greswolde-Williams and his family.

I suspect Lowe included that reference because Francis Wigley Greswold Williams (1873-1931) had a scandalous reputation (HERE). In 1928 he was carried from the Muthaiga Club in Nairobi under the arm of another member for offering cocaine (which he imported to sell to the Happy Valley Set) to the Prince of Wales between courses at the dinner table. The future King Edward VIII (until his abdication) was on a Royal Tour. His response to the offer appears to have gone unrecorded. Greswolde-Williams’s solecism of course came in two parts: the offer of cocaine was one; that it was made before the loyal toast was the other.

Lowe noted that the water at Naivasha ‘none too good here, tasting strongly of Hippo, of which we saw quite a number’. That line brought back memories of a lakeside hotel in Naivasha in 1991. The water from the bathroom taps had the a powerful odour and was we suspected more than capable of being used as liquid plant fertiliser.

From Naivasha the party travelled back to Nairobi by train, arriving on 9 December 1912. There they were busy packing the specimens collected thus far (615 birds, 124 mammals plus reptiles and insects) for shipment to London.

Captain Lambert, a brother officer of Cousens, had been busy in Nairobi making arrangements for the trip north in which he also took part.

Captain Lambert

Henry McLaren Lambert was born on 25 July 1879 at Sevenoaks, Kent, the son of Edward Tiley Lambert, a hydraulic and gas engineer, and Janie McLaren. Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, he like Cosens, served in the local volunteers until being gazetted as a subaltern in the 1st (Royal Dragoons) in 1899. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1900 and Captain in 1907. He served in the Boer Way in 1899-1902 and was then ADC to two successive Viceroys of India. He retired from the army in 1908 thereafter spending most of his time in East Africa and with his brother owned an ostrich farm. He was an early member of the Muthaiga Club (founded in 1913). On the outbreak of the First World War he rejoined his regiment and went to France in October 1914.

Captain Lambert was killed on 13 May 1915 at the Second Battle of Ypres, aged 35. He left £26,085 (approximately £3.5 million in 2026 terms).

Second Safari - One-way via Uganda to the Sudan, and home

The second journey turned out to be tough. The four plus their staff of unstated number set off by train, with ox-wagons and a dozen porters by road, on 16 December for Nakuru where Lambert joined the party. On Christmas Day they reached Lake Hannington (now Lake Bogoria) where they transferred the bags to six camels under the charge of eight armed Somalis. By the time they reached Baringo they realised that six camels were not enough and succeeded ‘with great difficulty’ in buying two more plus a couple of donkeys. Lowe’s two accounts of the journey, one in notes given to Grant and the other in his book, vary slightly in respect of where the donkeys and camels came from but the upshot was that they considered they did not have enough camels to pass through country infested by tsetse flies. At the last outpost of British administration, N’gabotok, the District Commissioner, a Captain Booth (Raymond Mitchell St. John Booth (1879-1955) King’s African Rifles) organised more water bags since he was concerned they had insufficient. One camel had already died, perhaps suggesting they were not in the finest condition. The only sources of water were wells in dry river beds.

Lowe had a frightening encounter with a large Black Mamba which passed at high speed through deep leaf litter five feet away from him. He plucked up courage to see where it had gone, spotted it in a bush and shot it. Another one for the museum.

At their last camp on the Turkwell River before turning west into Uganda they were met  by a number of Turkanas who seemed excited to see the camels. It turned out that these very camels were ones they had given to the Uganda government in lieu of payment of a tax. They had also been placed under an obligation not to molest the neighbouring Karamojana but who they, claimed, were raiding them from the mountains to carry off their cattle and women. Since the expedition had ‘their’ camels its members should fight the Karamojans or grant permission for the Turkana to do so themselves, went the demand. Talks went on for hours until it was agreed that a list of grievances should be written down and the document then handed to the first government official the expedition came across. The fact that the first meeting would probably be on the Nile was possibly not mentioned. After a lengthy drafting process and a display of intimidatory fighting prowess by the Turkana the party quickly moved on. A rapid tactical withdrawal was decided upon and the expedition set off during the moonlit night to put as many miles between them and the Turkana as they could before dawn.

After that local difficulty, conditions became really tough for a simple reason. They were fast running out of water and as they pressed on as quickly as possible to find a well some the camels were falling by the wayside with exhaustion and fly-bite. More weight was put on the surviving camels on a long climb towards Mount Maroto. The camels once down could not get up and moving again and so were shot. At one stop and with no water left, a party was sent ahead to try and find water with instructions to light a fire if and when they were successful. That evening the supper was tinned food and the champagne kept for medicinal purposes but Lowe found that did not quench his raging thirst. He also had birds to skin but could not use arsenical soap  as prservative since he no water to wash his hands. He used powdered tobacco instead. Near dawn a fire was spotted. Water had been found.

Sketch map sent by Cosens to the War Office
British Library

A two-day camp was agreed to eat, drink and rest. They also added to the map of the country through which they had passed. That map Sketch Map (Plane Table) of Country from "Ngabotok to the Nakwai Hills", Shewing Route followed by Expedition - Jan. & Feb. 1913.' Signed by 'G.P.L. Cosens Lt. The Royal Dragoons.’ was sent to the War Office in London. The map is now in the British Library.

Cosens and Lowe climbed Maroto, an extinct volcano of 10,115 feet. At the peak they buried a message in a bottle. Has that been found? On the way down they found a very narrow path which led to a Karamojan village where the men were friendly and showed a great interest in fire-arms which were used to shoot baboons and klipspringers on the surrounding rocks.

On the track again, camels continued to die and water could only by obtained by digging ‘often to a considerable depth’. Eventually they came across a village where they camped for two days. The old chief came to watch Lowe preserving skins and asked about the white powder. When told it was arsenic the chief asked for and then begged for some, offering Lowe everything from houses to women for sufficient arsenic to kill his enemy.

Signature on the sketch map

With too many of the pack animals dead, some local men were recruited as porters with payment in brass wire, cloth, salt and tobacco carried for that purpose. Another mule died on the first leg, leaving only Lowe’s. At  Kittagoom, an outpost of the King’s African Rifles, they reduced their kit to the essentials and recruited just enough porters to get them to the Nile. At Nimule they found fresh porters and parted with the last few camels.

Along the river bank and beyond they were plagued by tsetse flies and they moved north well away from the river since they had been told of ticks in old encampments which could cause serious illness or even death. They marched 112 miles to Gondokoro in southern Sudan. Lowe described that last lap as the worst. It was very hot and the soft hot sand made progress difficult and tiring.

At last on 5th March we reached a small rest-house near the river and sank exhausted on the floor. We rested, had a good meal, and slept. Early the next morning we found some old scissors and cut off our beards. How unpleasant shaving is after a long growth of hair. My razor had been sent by water with the rest of our kit to meet us at Khartoum so I borrowed a "safety," the worst thing possible for such an occasion; and I vowed never to use this modern convenience again, but to continue with my old-fashioned "cut-throat," which is cheaper and never fails to give satisfaction…

The steamer to carry them north the 750 miles to Khartoum arrived at 3 pm..

What a relief to be on board with all our belongings, and to receive months of mail. This was my first trip down the Nile, and I much looked forward to it…We all enjoyed the ease and comfort of the boat, with nothing to trouble us, watching the scenery of the Nile with its many interests in animal and bird life, with one's feet on the taffrail, enjoying a cold glass of beer and a pipe of good tobacco…

Lowe described the large herds of ‘game’ which gradually gave way to vast flocks of water birds. In Khartoum they had two nights at the Grand Hotel. Then he and Judd continued down the Nile by steamer and then by rail. At Luxor Judd met an old acquaintance on boarding the train and introduced him to Lowe. That was Abel Chapman and with both returning to Britain on a P&O ship from Port Said, the two plotted another collecting trip. How and to where Cosens and Lambert travelled after Khartoum were not mentioned.

On this second trip, from Nairobi to Gondokoro, Lowe had approximately doubled his collection of specimens. The grand total was over 1200 birds, 227 mammals besides reptiles and insects.

He ended his account of what proved to be an arduous trip after a comparatively easy one in southern Kenya with:

Travelling via Cairo and Port Said, we landed in England after nearly seven and a half months' absence, during which time not one of us had had a day’s illness.

Of the four members of collecting expedition only Lowe survived beyond 1928. Lambert was killed in 1915 aged 35, Judd was killed by an elephant in 1927, aged 55, and Cosens died of natural causes in 1928 aged 43.

Specimens

As described above some of the birds (474 species or subspecies in all) sent to the Natural History Museum were identified by Grant in his three papers.

The mammals that reached the museum were the subject of a report by Guy Dollman in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in 1914. Dollman listed 69 species or subspecies. He wrote:

In working out this collection I have found it necessary to describe six new forms, the most interesting of which, the new Gerbil (Gerbillus cosensi), I have named in honour of the generous donor. Another interesting novelty, Taterillus lowei, I have called after Mr. Willoughby Lowe, the collector.

Taterillus lowei is now regarded as a junior synonym of T. harringtoni. The case of Cosens’s Gerbil is more interesting. It has been and is currently shown as a synonym of the Agag Gerbil, Gerbillus agag. However, I read that there is considerable opinion that it really is a separate species but that more work is needed.

The specimens presented by Cosens and currently in the catalogue can be found in the Data Portal of the Natural History Museum simply by searching for ‘cosens’. They are often shown with scientific names accepted as valid at a time after Grant and Dollman published their papers.

But what about the rhino

One noticeable absentee from the list of mammals is the rhinoceros, the one which provided rhinoceros-tail soup. Did the skin and skeleton leave Kenya and if so where did they end up?

Since my earlier articles appeared an article in English on Willoughby Lowe has been published on Wikipedia (HERE). Some of my articles are cited but it contains a number of serious errors.

Dollman G. 1914. Notes on a Collection of Fast African Mammals presented to the British Museum by Mr. G. P. Cosens. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1914, 307-318.

Grant CHB (with Field Notes by the Collector, Willoughby P. Lowe). 1915. On a Collection of Birds from British East Africa and Uganda, presented to the British Museum by Capt. G. S.Cozens.—Part I. Struthioniformes—Pelecaniformes. Ibis 3 (10th Series), 1-76.

Grant CHB (with Field Notes by the Collector, Willoughby P. Lowe). 1915. On a Collection of Birds from British East Africa and Uganda, presented to the British Museum by Capt. G.P. Cosens.—Part III. Accipitriformes—Cypseli. Ibis 3 (10th Series), 235-316.

Grant CHB (with Field Notes by the Collector, Willoughby P. Lowe). 1915. On a Collection of Birds from British East Africa and Uganda, presented to the British Museum by Capt. G.P. Cosens.—Part III, Colii—Pici. Ibis 3 (10th Series), 400-473.

Lowe WP. 1932. The Trail That Is Always New. London: Gurney and Jackson.

A view from the Mau Escarpment into the Rift Valley
Kenya 1991

LINKS

Part 1: Willoughby Lowe (1872-1949). Collector of specimens for the Natural History Museum in London. Part One: Early Life in England and Farming in Colorado

Part 2: Willoughby Lowe (1872-1949). Collector of specimens for the Natural History Museum in London. Part Two: To the Philippines; his first collecting trip with a sea snake spectacular on the way there

Part 3: Willoughby Lowe (1872-1949). Collector of specimens for the Natural History Museum in London. Part Three: In the Philippines on his first collecting trip with John Roberts White

Part 4: Willoughby Lowe (1872-1949). Collector of specimens for the Natural History Museum in London. Part Four: 1909-A live Monkey-eating Eagle from the Philippines

Part 5. Willoughby Lowe (1872-1949). Collector of specimens for the Natural History Museum in London. Part Five: 1910-11—Off the coast of Africa in HMS Mutine

Miss Waldron's Red Colobus. Finding Miss Waldron

Alala Sister: An Andean Butterfly in Colombia

This butterfly was on the track through the Otún Quimbaya reserve on the western side of the Cordillera Central of Colombia. The Alala Sister (Adelpha alala) is found along the Andes from Venezuela to north-west Argentina at altitudes between 400 and 2,600 metres.

The ‘sister’ in the common name is said to refer to the white wing bars resembling a nun’s habit. Somebody must have had a vivid imagination and possibly not entirely pure thoughts in coming up with that one.

Far Eastern Curlew: Endangered species on passage in Hong Kong

Two days ago AJP spotted this Far Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) on the tidal flats of Shiu Hau, a village on the south coast of Lantau island. This species of curlew is now classified as Endangered having suffered a large fall in population which IUCN attributes mainly to the loss of mud flats by land reclamation around the Yellow Sea in China and Korea. This is a juvenile which would have been on passage from the breeding area of northeast Asia,  Siberia to Kamchatka and Mongolia, to where it will spend the northern winter in Australia, southern Indonesia or even New Zealand. Juvenile curlews have short but still growing bills. The bill of the adult is the longest of any curlew.

The specific name, madagascariensis, is the result of a 1760s cock-up. It was first used by Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723– 1806) for this species. His latin names did not correspond to the binomial system of Linnaeus but the latter adopted and adapted many of them. Unfortunately, in naming the bird Brisson thought the site of collection of his specimen to be Madagascar. It was in fact Makassar, now in Indonesia.

Torrent Ducks: Rio Otún, Colombia, November 2025

Torrent Ducks. Male on the left; female on the right

An iron bridge to a property crosses the Rio Otún at a right angle to the road, Via la Suiza, leading into the Otún Quimbaya reserve. All birdwatching group stop there to see what they can see in the river. The river flows westward from the peaks of the Cordillera Central into the valley of the Rio Cauca. The Cauca flows northwards between the Cordillera Occidental and the Cordillera Central to join the Magdalena and then into the Caribbean.

The Torrent Duck (Merganetta armata) occurs) along the Andes with pairs holding territories. It does indeed  live in and beside torrents. We first saw them along the Urubamba River which flows alongside the railway track from Cuzco to Macchu Picchu in Peru neasrly 25 years ago.

It is a matter of luck where the ducks may be out of the water during a brief stop. This pair was nowhere to be seen  at first but then the male was seen climbing onto a faraway rock with the female following a short time later. Not an ideal spot for a photograph given the rocks that were nearer the bridge but never than no ducks at all.

Francis Downes Ommanney: Becoming a zoologist in MacBride’s department at Imperial College and beyond

Earlier this year I wrote about Francis Downes Ommanney (1903-1980), universally known as ‘Dick', his short period as head of the fisheries research unit at the University of Hong Kong and his account of that period of his life in his book Fragrant Harbour. The last major book he wrote, The River Bank, was an autobiography of that part his life after leaving school up to the start of the Second World War. It was a follow-on from The House in the Park, an account of his very early life where his family lived in the ‘grave and favour’ house in Richmond Park on a lease given to his great-grandfather, Richard Owen by Queen Victoria.

The River Bank, subtitled An Autobiography of the 1920s, published in 1966 reflects on his seemingly sad life, observing but never quite fitting in, succeeding but never quite so well as expected and haunted by the realisation of his homosexuality that was hinted at but never overtly acknowledged in his earlier books.

Ommanney was a very good writer as the awards for several of his books testify but when I read the book I found it also cast a great deal of light on that powerful, opinionated but woefully wrong character in academic zoology of the early 20th century, Ernest William MacBride FRS (1866-1940) who held the chair of zoology—Thomas Henry Huxley’s old chair—at Imperial College, London, I have written on MacBride previously HERE and quoted some of the  trenchant views of those who worked with him as a man obsessed with still promoting the Lamarckian means of evolution, of his opposition to Mendelian genetics and denial of the existence of genes, and his promotion of eugenics which he saw as a natural extension of Lamarckism.

Ommanney’s account of student life at Imperial College provides interesting information on what student life was like in the 1920s but also on the nature of MacBride’s interactions with his students and his lasting effect on them.

After a miserable time in a job in the City of London, Ommanney’s father thought the time had come for young Dick to be set on the course towards a proper, well-paid job. Surely with Richard Owen as a near ancestor something like entomology would provide a proper job in somewhere like the tropics went the argument. The financial state of the family had declined under Ommanney senior thus ruling out Oxford or Cambridge. Imperial College was deemed the place for Ommanney junior to study biology but the first step on the way to a biological income was the matriculation exams for London University. Crammers had the sole aim of success in the various examination papers. A pass in all papers of six subjects at a single sitting was required for matriculation. Ommanney had great difficulty with mathematics but was relieved to find his name on the pass list that was pinned on the notice board on the appointed day in August 1921, He was in.

For anybody keen to get to biology in 1922, the Royal College of Science component of Imperial College did not make it easy. He have to try to fit into life as a student, noting the division that existed in the student body along class lines:

On the one hand there were the middle-class boys, mostly from public schools, who for one reason or another had not gone on to one of the senior universities on leaving school, and on the other hand there were the working-class boys who, usually through hard work at a grammar or secondary school, had come to the Imperial College determined to make good and complete their technical education. The two groups looked down upon each other with dislike and contempt.

Furthermore, for aspiring biologists the first year was only chemistry, physics and maths. He managed chemistry (but cut his finger to the bone when trying to push a piece of glass tubing through a rubber bung—almost a beginner’s rite of passage) and physics but failed the compulsory maths. He therefore had to repeat a year with additional tuition, another expense for his father. In that year he had time on his hands and therefore sought the advice of MacBride on how to fill it.

I suppose Ernest MacBride (known to his friends, his enemies and his students as MacB.) would have been in his middle fifties at the time I first met him, but he seemed to me to be much older. His round bald head was fringed with a short stubble of white hair and his large furrowed brow jutted over a pair of small, shrewd, blue eyes. He wore a white bristly moustache. His round, tubby frame was compounded of a series of intersecting circles but he had a dropped shoulder which caused him to carry himself slightly lopsidedly. He had a flat-footed walk and a rasping cough which could be heard a long way off. His zoology department was at the top of the Victorian building and students, waiting in his lecture theatre, could hear the Professor arriving on the ground floor by his cough and his clear precise voice as he entered the lift eight floors below.

Although on analysis MacBride presented an eccentric, even odd, appearance, it never occurred to me at that first meeting, or at any time afterwards, that he was in the least an ugly man. The fire of his spirit burnt in those small blue eyes and there was a warmth in his manner that made even a humble student such as I was, coming to ask him how I should spend time before beginning his course, feel instantly comfortable and at ease. He was a pugnacious Ulsterman who, during his scientific career, made many enemies because of the directness and incisiveness with which he put forward his unpopular views, and in his seamed face there shone a keen, combative intellect. It is often said by the irreverent that scientists, especially zoologists and botanists, who develop a passionate life interest in a particular group of animals or plants, grow by degrees to resemble the objects of their lifetime study in appearance. MacBride's special and lifelong interest lay in the great group of five-rayed animals, 'nature's pentagonal experiment, the group that includes the sea-urchins, the sea-cucumbers and the sea-lilies. His rotund figure, large round head fringed with a short stubble and his prickly disposition where his own particular subject was concerned, caused the irreverent to compare him with one of the thorned, rounded sea-urchins about which he became so lyrical and eloquent in his lectures.

Ernest McBride
in
The Radio Times

Then, having started the course in zoology:

No two people could have been more different than my two zoology teachers. One, the Professor, was Ernest William MacBride, then at the height of his fame and pugnacity. The other, the Senior Lecturer, was Graham Cannon, at that time a young man of twenty-five but a rising star in the zoological fırmament. Later he became professor first at Sheffield and then at Manchester. When he was teaching me he was laying the foundations of his future fame with a series of beautiful and meticulous papers describing the filtration feeding mechanisms of very small crustaceans. These were masterpieces of technique and draughtsmanship and I remember thinking them magnificent but uninspiring.

The Professor himself, as seemed to be the custom in all departments of the college, lectured every morning to his elementary students, most of whom would go on to take degrees in other sciences after their preliminary zoology course. Cannon lectured to more advanced second and third year zoology students who were reading for a degree in zoology. There were seldom more than three or four of these in any one year. I was one of them because I had to graduate in zoology before I could go on to the insects (on the very top floor of the building) in my fourth year. As it turned out, owing to setbacks in mathematics, I did not in fact get there until my fifth year.

The teaching methods and approach to their subject of my two teachers were as different as their two characters. MacBride was all fire and poetry and he could strike sparks out of the most recondite subject. His discourses were a delight, peppered with quotations and apt allusions, often literary, because, like many of the great men who held chairs at South Kensington at that time, his head was among the stars. Unfortunately, however, the stars are not a very suitable vantage point from which to impart knowledge to elementary students struggling to acquire a first grasp of the subject, so that while the Professor's audience listened with rapt attention, they rose from their seats at the end of the lecture with their heads filled with ringing phrases but their notebooks blank. Cannon, on the other hand, attempted no flights to the stars. His lectures were pedestrian and unexciting to listen to, but admirably concise and clear and accompanied by splendid diagrams on the blackboard in coloured chalk which he gave his audience time to copy down, their heads buried in their notebooks. Whereas we rose from the Professor's lectures slightly dazed but enchanted, we rose from Cannon's feeling we had filled our magazines with ammunition for the exam which loomed ahead.

The students did have an outing:

The Professor was Vice-President of the London Zoo and Chairman of its Aquarium Committee. The aquarium was new in those days and once a year the Professor took his students on a conducted tour round the tanks. He was enormously proud of his aquarium which he had played a large part in bringing into existence. The tour was always a most enjoyable occasion for the Professor's vociferous eloquence often attracted quite a crowd of the general public. They were amazed to see this stout, white-haired old gentleman holding forth in stentorian tones and with such a proprietary air.

'I reckon 'e must be somebody,' said a woman on the out-skirts.

Another member of the paying public was less impressed. "This fellah's just a bloody nuisance," I heard a voice growl.

An apocryphal story relates that one year the Professor was conducting round the aquarium a party of students which included a lady research worker who was studying the breeding habits of small sharks and dogfish. In one tank two speckled dogfish were caught in the very lists of love on the sandy bottom while their fellow inmates glided unnoting to and fro. The Professor became quite transported with joy at this spectacle. 'For God's sake!' he stormed, shouting as usual at the top of his voice. 'For God's sake, where's Miss Smith? They're copulating!’

There was also the field course in marine biology at Plymouth where he found himself eating alongside Julian Huxley and Carl Pantin.

Then, of course, there were the seminars:

Once a month there were larger and more formal occasions than these which were more like serious scientific meetings. These, known as MacBride's tea parties, became famous, almost notorious, functions in the lively zoological world of London. They became so popular, attended by visitors from all over London, that tea became quite elaborate and was served in one of the laboratories. The old laboratory attendant put on a white coat and clumped around in his enormous boots with plates of cakes. The Professor and Cannon waged war over him.

Cannon wanted him got rid of and said so, but the Professor, who was a soft-hearted, kindly man, refused and sheltered the old scoundrel under his wing. After tea we all trooped up to the main zoology lecture theatre to hear a distinguished member of the company read a paper on a zoological subject. 'Read' was the operative word in many cases, for on the whole zoologists seem to be extraordinarily bad speakers and often have the gift of making the most interesting subject tedious beyond description. Many a scientific meeting have I slept through…Much of the floor space behind the seating was occupied by human and animal skeletons, stuffed apes, mammals, birds and reptiles. It must have been fifty years since that red stag was shot and now it stands there with glass eye and moth-eaten fur. There were dusty, scruffy birds and fishes hanging from the ceiling, poised for half a century in a moment of flight or swimming. But these grim spectators did not in the least inhibit the discussions that took place after the lectures, and the Professor could be relied upon to ginger things up. I used to experience a kind of thrilling embarrassment at seeing the sparks fly among these giants of science. It was the same sensation as that which I had experienced years before when, as a child, I found myself present at squabbles between my grandmother and my mother or my aunts. I wondered if I ought to be there and tried to make myself as small as possible lest they should suddenly remember me and send me out of the room. I remember feeling rooted to my seat when a famous professor from another college, whose name was a household word, an Olympian figure to me, stormed out of the lecture theatre, saying, 'Well, if that's your attitude there's no point in continuing the discussion.' Or when another irascible but renowned zoologist said he thought the Professor was talking absolute poppycock'.

The storms nearly always arose around the imperturbable figure of MacBride who, when the light of battle was in his eye, had the peculiarly Irish gift of infuriating his adversaries. His views were extremely controversial and he advanced them with all the provocative punch at his command…

The effect of a charismatic, opinionated but wrong-headed professor on the naive mind of his or her students is a worrying in the 2026 as it was a hundred years ago. There were only three students in Ommanney’s year on the advanced zoology course. He wrote: 'Naturally I was a Lamarckian like my professor'. Another, Thomas Arthur Manly Nash who worked mainly on Africa and became the expert on the tsetse fly, agreed. The third, an Egyptian, remained neutral. But all these students faced a oncoming problem. Internal examinations for a diploma were set by MacBride and Cannon. After the final year though they all sat for the London honours degree:

…and here was an agonising dilemma. If a question on evolution were set, as it almost certainly would be, would it be set by MacBride or by one of his opponents? What was a poor student to do who only wanted to please the examiners?

Ommanney’s time with MacBride was coming to an end; his final year was to be spent with the entomologists on the top floor. He passed the college finals ‘with flying colours’ and ‘over 95% marks’. It was he wrote, ‘the first real success of my life’:

…’My dear boy!’ said MacBride, ‘a masterly paper! My heartiest congratulations. You will go far.’

The next year dampened Ommanney’s enthusiasm for entomology. The year after that saw him in the job of Assistant Lecturer at the East London College, later Queen Mary College, on the Mile End Road. He was paid £300 a year:

The zoology department of the East London College was fairly new in those days and was housed in a corrugated-iron building tucked away behind the college near some tennis courts and overlooking the back-yards of a long row of little black houses. It contained a lecture room, a laboratory and several other smaller rooms, including one all for me with a large desk and a work bench along the window, so that I felt very much coming up in the world.

The majority of the students to whom I dispensed my so recently acquired learning were first year medicals doing elementary zoology. They had to do a preliminary biology course at the college before going on in their second year to the medical course at the London Hospital in Whitechapel. In the cause of medical science, and so perhaps in that of suffering humanity, these boys and a few girls, mostly from the east end of London, eviscerated each year several dozen earthworms, crayfish, dog-fish, frogs and rabbits. While they did this I walked up and down the laboratory behind their bent backs and occasionally helped them on by applying a needle or a scalpel myself, hoping not to make their confusion worse confounded by doing so. Sometimes, indeed, the butchery was so frightful that the only thing to do was to sacrifice another earthworm or frog in the cause so that a fresh start might be made.

I did not really like teaching very much and found it difficult to get into the minds of the young men peering in sad puzzlement or faint, amused scorn at the mangled specimens pinned out in their dissecting dishes…I am afraid I found most of the students rather dull and slow-witted. Some of them were plainly uninterested and unable to understand why a course in elementary biology should be necessary as a preliminary to medicine…

I suppose it would be churlish to ask how many of these incompetent dissectors (and do not ask me how I ran out of patience while digging out the cranial nerves of my school dogfish) made it into the Royal College of Surgeons.

Ommanney had only one academic colleague, the senior lecturer in charge of the tiny department, John Henry Dobb*. He only attended on three mornings a week; he also lectured at a polytechnic institute in the West End of London. Dobb confessed to knowing little zoology and yet Ommanney noted he had the reputation of being one ‘of the finest, most successful and most experienced teachers of elementary zoology in London’. There was, however, a problem; a large and embarrassing problem. Dobb was a loud, confrontational anti-semite. He hated the Jews—and they constituted half his class. He often launched into a tirade at the top of his voice while students were waiting in the lecture theatre. Ommanney wrote:

For some mental or psychological trauma, acquired perhaps during the First World War, in which his only son had been killed, had implanted in his mind an idée fixe which, in the course of years, had grown into the proportions of a mania. He believed, with all the conviction of which a simple man is capable, that all the evils of the world without any exception, both temporal and spiritual, must be ascribed to a single basic cause, a worldwide Zionist plot. To the machinations of world Jewry he attributed every misfortune in modern society, the last war, mounting unemployment, the rising cost of living, high income tax and any other circumstance you might like to mention….

These cracked beliefs took the form of a continuous outpouring of racial hatred which, ten years later, the most ardent Nazi could hardly have surpassed. Every Jew, it appeared, was guilty from Lord Reading and Lord Rothschild to the humblest bespectacled student in the zoology practical class.

Ommanney found that in his classes the Jews and the Gentiles got on fine. But when standing in for a sick Dobb, he found the lecture theatre occupied in a peculiar way. All the non-Jews were in the front rows, there were then empty benches until the back benches had all the Jewish students. When he asked what was the reason he was told Dobb had instructed them to be so segregated. Ommanney told them to sit in alphabetical order from the front. Things came to a head when Dobb returned and exploded at the revised seating. The whole thing ended in a melée with Dobb sat upon by two Jewish students who were, in turn, pulled off by two of the Gentiles. A full brawl developed and then those made to sit at the back went off to report the whole affair to the Principal.

Ommanney was reluctant to join in a condemnation of Dobb since he was normally friendly and helpful. Those running the college treated Dobb leniently, seeming to recognise he was hopelessly adrift, but on written instruction from the Principal Ommanney’s seating arrangement was imposed. Within a year Dobb retired and died a few years after that.

London Adventures and Family Life

Very slowly, after becoming a student at Imperial, Ommanney was persuaded into taking part in student social life. Living in London his social circle spread and even for a while became a deb’s delight; he was obviously if not perhaps to his dancing partners ‘safe in taxis’. He also describes happenings in his family. His father became odder and odder, the family fortunes thus declined further while the standard of housing they could afford plummeted. He also started to have homosexual encounters and it is clear that he participated, if sometimes more an observer than an active player, in what would now I supposed be called the gay scene in London, with its meeting places and meaningful phrases. He described one gathering place as a large tea-room not far from Piccadilly Circus. Around five pm but not at any other time the “men of a certain character” made their entrance via a raised dais, nicknamed the ‘Lily Pond’. Other venues were the promenade at the back of the dress circle of the Alhambra Theatre and the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street, a pub with which I became familiar when in need of a break from meetings of the Society of Endocrinology being held in the old Middlesex Hospital Medical School in the late 1960s and 70s.

Ommanney also commented on the change in meaning or acceptance into daily use of terms between the 1920s and the 1960s; ‘camp’ and ‘send up’ were two examples he gave. It is also clear, though perhaps Ommanney did not realise it, that ‘man-about-town’ has en entirely different meaning now compared with the 1920s. Then it referred to those ‘men of a certain character’.

That chapter of The River Bank ends with:

In my case at any rate few permanent relationships resulted from my casual contacts, though I still count among my friends a few people whom I met all those years ago. Usually telephone numbers and addresses were exchanged. My temporary friend smiled, shook my hand and faded into the blurred and dusty picture which is the memory of troubled youth.

Moving On: The Discovery Committee Expeditions

Ommanney became disillusioned and discontented. He could see no escape from the emptiness and lack of direction. He had completed three years and the prospect of starting all over again on the standard ‘types’ of the zoology course for first M.B. students depressed him. Because he find time on his hands he had early on asked MacBride for advice on a research project that he could do. But nothing of value emerged from the conversation. MacBride had moved on to next year’s brood. He did get a topic from D.M.S. Watson at University College: the development of the ear in the frog. That involved rearing tadpoles through metamorphosis but like many before and since he found that they died in the final stages. Although making piles of serial sections he never took to the task and he abandoned it, unable at the end to remember what the problem was he was meant to be solving.

Then he saw a job advertised in The Times. It was to join the scientific staff of the Discovery Committee which used Scott’s old ship for research expeditions in the Antarctic. He applied, supported by a glowing reference from Dobb, not thinking he stood a chance of being successful. But he was and off he went to South Georgia for the season, then in the southern winter to Durban to continue working on whales and then back to South Georgia. He returned home in summer 1931 to find the ‘Lily Pond’ and the Alhambra still in full swing and a further decline in his parents’ fortunes. Two further trips, each of two years, to the Antarctic followed. Between the cruises and until war broke out in 1939 he worked on specimens collected in the Natural History Museum, passing each day the statue of his great-grandfather. In 1938 he also headed north in a trawler and all these activities were the topics of the books which made his name as an author.

Dick Ommanney’s legacy that of a writer rather than as a zoologist. However, I suspect that he was a much better zoologist than he considered himself to be. And MacBride was probably right. Ommanney did go far but not in the way that either expected.

A website about the Ommanney family provides the following caption:
From The River Bank. Back L to R: Francis Downes Ommanney,
Francis Frederick Ommanney, Rupert John Ommanney,Theoroda
Ommanney. Front L to R: Olive Ommanney (nee Owen), Olive Mary
Ommanney and Lorne Currie. The wedding was that of Olive and Lorne
(2 September 1904 - 29 May 1941) on 29 August 1929.
FDO had just heard of the success of his application to join the Discovery II.
 'I went down to Mary's wedding with excitement and adventure before me
and new a joy and hope almost as great as, though different from, hers.'

*I can find no trace of a John Henry Dobb that matches the dates and details, nor of a son killed in the First World War. Perhaps Ommanney was using a pseudonym.