Cauca Guan. What a corker!

 

Cauca Guan

Cauca Guans (Penelope perspicax) were common as we drove and walked along the road through the Otún Quimbaya Fauna and Flora Sanctuary in Colombia last November. Their less than elegant scramblings along the branches with occasional trips to the ground can easily be spotted. Above them in the trees were Red-ruffed Fruitcrows (Pyroderus scutatus), a dull name for a cotinga, which seemed determined to avoid being photographed.

The Cauca Guan is exactly what its name says it is: a guan found in the Cauca Valley. Classified as ‘Endangered’ by the IUCN Red List until a few years ago, it is now in the ‘Vulnerable’ category. Only 40 years ago it was thought to have become extinct. The forests have been fragmented over the years but in the small areas the guan does occur the population is dense and it can easily be found.

The track through Otún Quimbaya Reserve

Turtles or Terrapins - a surprising usage

For common names in chelonians we have a situation in that a common name used in the USA. a bastardised version of an Algonqiuin word, came back to Britain, while that term was then largely dropped in the USA except for a small number of species that live in brackish water. The word of course is ’terrapin’. Every schoolboy of my day knew that tortoises live on land, terrapins in or around freshwater and turtles in the sea. Modern American usage is to group three groups into two: turtles and tortoises.

The term ‘turtle’ for all aquatic and semi-aquatic chelonians seems to becoming universal in English-speaking countries. The adoption of American usage in Britain dates from the introduction of vast numbers of captive hatched ‘turtles’ (mainly red-eared) from ‘turtle farms’ in the southern USA from the late 1950s and then of course the ‘mutant ninja turtles’ appeared on screen.

There has though always been great variation and inconsistency. Thus in English usage we have ‘pond tortoise’ and ‘water tortoise’ often used instead of ‘terrapin’. And fully-aquatic chelonians like the softshells and the matamata were often called turtles rather than terrapins. In the USA freshwater turtles have other names like ‘slider’ and ‘cooter’ while they have ‘box turtle’ and ‘box tortoise’.

With the apparently clear divide divide between American and British usage I was very surprised to see ‘terrapin’ used by Raymond Bridgman Cowles (1896-1975) in his autobiographical Desert Journal published in 1977 after his death.  He wrote:

The little aquatic terrapins may, however, void excrement containing Salmonella. (p 176)

Cowles was born in Natal to American missionary (and part-time animal collecting) parents but soon moved to the USA. The question is how common was the word ‘terrapin’ in the USA of Cowles’s day? In that respect I am reminded of a conversation at a conference in the USA in 1973. My colleague, born in 1921, who had worked for  short time as a veterinary surgeon in England, and an American dairy scientist realised that obsolete terms used on farms in England and New England were the same. I wish I could remember what they were. In that vein, was ‘terrapin’ alive in well in the country areas for longer than we thought?

As for me I still cannot say ‘Red-eared Turtle’ without a visible shudder.

This pile of chelonians in Portugal comprises introduced North American and native species

Cowles RB. 1977. Desert Journal. Reflections of a Naturalist. Berkeley: University of California Press

What on earth is a Sumpah-Sumpah?

In recent articles I described the activities of Alfred St Alban Smith who sent a large number of animals, particularly reptiles, from south-east Asia to London Zoo between 1927 and 1936. The Annual Reports of ZSL listed them all the species by common name. But some of those common names are not ones we may recognise nearly 100 years later. One was Sumpah-Sumpah. I had no idea what a sumpah-sumpah is. Some digging found it on a 2005 Malaysian postage stamp, one of four is a set of ‘rare reptiles’.

The Sumpah-Sumpah is Gonocephalus grandis which goes under three common names in English: Giant Forest Dragon; Great Anglehead Lizard; Malayan Crested Lizard. They are mainly arboreal, living along forest streams of peninsular Malaya including Singapore, Sumatra and nearby islands, and Borneo. They are agamids, as one would expect from the distribution, but are sometimes in the Malay region called chameleons which just adds to any confusion. The IUCN has them classified as of ‘least concern’.

Giant Forest Dragon. Brinchang, Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia
By Bernard Dupont 2013

Hong Kong: Indochinese Yuhina

AJP spotted this bird in the New Territories at the end of winter there. In our time in 1960s Hong Kong it would have caused a sensation amongst the birdwatchers for the simple reason it remained unrecorded there for at least another two decades.

The latest Field Guide to the Birds of Hong Kong and South China (9th edition, 2022) describes it as “mostly an irruptive and uncommon winter visitor increasing, scarce and localised in summer’.

This bird is just one example of the vastly increased number of birds and reptiles now known to occur in Hong Kong compared with 60 years ago. The question then has to be asked: was it an erratic winter visitor to Hong Kong in the decades it was not recorded or was it simply not being seen by the relatively small number of birdwatchers?

When it first appeared in Hong Kong it was known as the Striated Yuhina (Yuhina castaniceps torqueola). That species was split comparatively recently with torqueola being re-raised to a species proper, as Robert Swinhoe described it in 1870. In 2019, as a result of a wide-ranging phylogenetic analysis both species were lifted from the genus Yuhina and placed in the genus Staphida.

Staphia torqueola now has the common name of Indochinese Yuhina. The species occurs from south and south-east China to north Indochina; it reaches  its southerly limit around Danang in Vietnam.

 

Alfred St Alban Smith: Donor of Animals and Zoological Society of London Silver Medallist in 1931. Part Two: Life, Times and Family

A rubber plantation in Malaya in the 1920s

What do we know of the life of Alfred St Alban Smith, a rubber planter in the Malay States who generated such praise for his efforts to send animals, particularly reptiles, to London zoo in the 1920s and 30s?

By searching genealogical sites, including a family tree, and newspapers available online I have managed to build up a timeline of Alfred St Alban Smth’s life, albeit with some gaps. Although there is information that he kept reptiles at what must have been his various homes on the rubber estates he worked on, I have failed to uncover what stimulated his great and abiding interest in reptiles and why he developed into such a major donor of reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals to London. As always in wading through material these searches comes up one finds errors which need to be followed up together, though, with surprises in family connexions—as will become evident below.

Smith and his family were often referred to as ‘St Alban Smith’. They lived in an era when a double-barrelled surname, even when unhyphenated, was thought to bring a social cachet. It also distinguished the family from the many other Smiths that were around. In official registration documents and the like the surname is usually simply ‘Smith’. 

Alfred St Alban Smith was a son of the Raj. He was born on 11 June 1880 in Calcutta to the Rev Alfred William Lewis Smith and Clara Virgina Pyne (née Armour). His father was River Chaplain to the Port of Calcutta at the time.

Aged 11 he appears in a newspaper report of a concert held in February 1892 at Christ Church Girls' School in Nellore (now in Andhra Pradesh). He performed an ‘instrumental duet’ with his mother. ‘The little man's touch and precision promise well for his musical future’, the reporter concluded. And it those musical abilities which were being celebrated in 1893, not in India but in Cornwall, passing the piano test in the primary division in the Trinity College London’s examinations at Truro under the tutelage of a Miss F. Clyma. His presence at Truro suggests he was a boarder at one of the schools there.

We then jump to the late 1890s. in 1898-99 when he was 18-19 Alfred seems to have held a junior teaching posts at schools in the south of England. At Woolston College, Southampton in 1898, he was a steward at a sports day. He was also at Castle College, Guilford, Surrey in 1898. At a concert to raise funds for a hospital, St Alban Smith sang ‘Cock of the Walk’ which ‘was vociferously encored, and in response he gave 'He didn't go to work next morning’’. A similar concert was held in Aldershot in April 1899: ‘Mr. St Alban Smith's song was a very up-to-date one indeed, and was received with many hearty rounds of applause. It was a song which told England's foreign affairs in a nutshell, and it brought forth many a laugh as well’.

Surrey newspapers show him playing football, the round ball variety, for Guildford in 1888-99.

The next records I have found show he was back in India by 1902 and aged 21.

On 19 April 1902 St Alban Smith (5’ 9¾”, 144lb, brown hair, pale complexion, hazel eyes, scarred on both cheeks and above the left eye) enlisted in the British Army for the Boer War. He did so in Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and joined the Ceylon Volunteer Company, Gloucestershire Regiment. I can only think that this unit of volunteers was attached to the Glosters was because the 1st Battalion of that Regiment was in Colombo guarding Boer prisoners who had been shipped there. Newspaper reports show a number of expats in India had sailed to Colombo in order to join up. Amongst his contingent to travel south at their own expense, St Alban Smith was shown as from Tundla a railway town now in Uttar Pradesh. His father had been Chaplain there since 1901. He departed for South Africa on 21 April but only stayed until 22 June. By the time he arrived the war was in its last days. Back in Colombo Private Smith was discharged on 12 August.  His service before the end of the war on 31 May qualified him for the Queen’s South Africa Medal.

Later in 1902 he was installed as a teacher at La Martiniere College, Lucknow. The headmaster reported: ‘…his place was taken at the beginning of Christmas Term by Mr. St. Alban Smith. who, in addition to some previous experience as a teacher, had gained experience of another kind in the late war in South Africa, where he served as a volunteer in the Ceylon Contingent’.

In 1905 , the year of his father’s death, his job and location had changed again. In Trichinopoly (Tiruchirappalli) then in the Madras Presidency St Alban Smith became a Freemason in the Lodge of the Rock. He was also playing cricket for the town side. 

In December 1905 the Madras Weekly Mail reported:

Princess Janaky of the Chinna Aramsnai, Pudukottha, gave a delightful Garden Party on Monday, the 27th, in honour of her brother H. H. the Rajah of Pudukottha's birthday. The Band of the 86th C.I. played a charming selection of music during the evening, and games were arranged for the guests. In the potato and bucket race, instead of Jill madly clutching at potatoes, whilst Jack looked on, a new element was introduced. Jill held the pail whilst Jack tried to get the potatoes up from the ground on a little tea spoon, a most difficult accomplishment, was won by Miss Savage and Mr. St Alban Smith…

Later that year, in August, was the report:

I regret to state that Mr. St, Alban Smith had a nasty fall from his horse last week, but the injuries are not so bad as was at first feared and he is expected to be able to get about before long.

On 14 February 1906 he married Lena Margaret Cicely Savage in Trichinopoly. Lena Savage (she of the potato and bucket race) was from Boscombe, Bournemouth. At the time Smith was employed in the traffic department of the South India Railway Company which had its headquarters in Trichinopoly.

Prowess at hunting Blackbuck, that gorgeous Indian antelope, was next in the Madras Weekly Mail in May 1906:

Messrs. Smythe and St. Alban Smith went out shooting on Saturday morning and returned before breakfast time with three black buck, which I am informed were dropped with one shot each. One of the buck was the famous one-horned buck that we have all been after for several years now, and I hear on examination no less than eleven scars, the results of old bullet, wounds, were found on its body. An air of mystery is lent to the whole proceeding by the persistent way in which these sportsmen refuse to give any information as to where their happy hunting ground is, and as I understand this is the third time they have gone on an "after chota hari, will return to breakfast" shoot, and have returned with two or more buck, I think we should have their movements watched so that we may be able to stock our larders with venison on the third Saturday in each month, as they regularly do.

And yet more venison later that month:

Again has venison been scattered broadcast all over the station, but this time an additional charm was added to it, inasmuch as a lady shot some of it. Mr. and Mrs. St, Alban Smith were out shooting on Sunday morning and each of them bagged a buck. Mrs St. Alban Smith's was a particularly fine one and was, I understand, dropped with a single shot at 150 yards. It is seldom one hears of a lady shooting black buck in Southern India in the month of May.

In 1907 the Madras Weekly reported a move from ‘Assistant Secretary to the Agent of the South Indian Railway’ to the ‘Assam-Bengal Railway as Senior Assistant Traffic Superintendent’. 

A daughter, Mercy Stella Margaret, was born in Chittagong in 1907.

Shipping records show that in 1909 St Alban Smith travelled from London to Lagos. The London Evening Standard of 13 May show that he had been appointed ‘traffic inspector’ for the Lagos Railway. He cannot have been in Nigeria for more than a few months because in 1910, aged 30, Smith moved to Malaya to work for Malacca Rubber Plantations. There he was member of the Malay States Volunteer Rifles. In 1914 he was on leave in Britain. On 31 August, 27 days after the declaration of war, and giving his address as Manor Hotel, Lydford, Devon, he joined the Honourable Artillery Company, that renowned ‘gentlemen of the City of London’ regiment. There he served in the 1st Battalion which was despatched to France on 16 September. There he would have fought in the First Battle of Ypres which began on 19 October. However, he was back in Britain on Christmas Day and then medically discharged on 25 March 2015. The reason is given as ‘trench foot’ in his obituary in the Straits Times; his army records show ‘cardiac dilatation and emphysema’ of unknown date of origin. ‘Condition probably aggravated by frostbite in trenches. Is still very feeble nervous and shaky’. On his pay and disability pension (7 shillings per week for one year) Smith wrote to point out the Army’s calculations did not include the bounty he was due. He also pointed out that he ‘purchased all my own uniform and kit except rifle, webbing equipment and waterproof sheet’. The HAC records, separately from the Army, all former members of the regiment. Smith’s address is shown as 92 Paisley Road, Bournemouth.

His discharge papers noted that he was returning to the New Amherst Estate, Kuala Lumpur, and that he had a snake bite scar on his left calf. Was the latter gained through his work in the field or was it an indication of pursuit of his herpetological interest?

His commanding officer signed off his papers with:

This man’s character during his service with the colours has been exemplary.

Alfred St Alban Smith lost no time in returning to Malaya. He left on the Japanese ship Hirano Maru on 3 April 1915 to disembark at Penang. 

His return to Malaya was marked by a acrimony. In September he had Mr E.H. Scott before the police court in Kuala Lumpur charged with ‘criminal breach of trust’ over $100 (about £12). The prosecutor ‘said that at first sight it might appear that $100 was too trivial a sum on which to bring Mr. Scott into court, thus making the charge out to be one of a vindictive nature. Counsel mentioned that discrepancies had been discovered when Mr. St Alban Smith, the manager of New Amherst Estate, had returned from leave, and referred to accused's adopting a defiant attitude. That was why the charge was pressed'. Scott was acquitted but then had St Alban Smith prosecuted. On 11 October:

Mr. Scott prosecuted Mr. St Alban Smith, manager of the New Amherst Rubber Estate, for having, as he stated, (I) attempted to screen an offence (criminal breach of trust), and (2) used criminal intimidation towards him (Mr. Scott). These proceedings were the outcome of the recent prosecution of Mr. Scott by Mr. Smith for criminal breach of trust, which resulted in an acquittal. In the course of the trial it was shown that Mr. Smith had threatened the prosecution unless Mr. Scott resigned and joined the army, in which contingency there was to be no prosecution. Mr. Robinson, for the defence, at the outset took the point that as no offence had been committed, as was subsequently shown by the acquittal, there could be no screening. The magistrate adopted this view, and Mr. Pooley, prosecuting, had nothing to say against it. Mr. Pooley then announced that he would withdraw the charge of criminal intimidation, although he contended that there had been some attempt to intimidate. Mr. Robinson did not want a withdrawal. He demanded an acquittal, and this the Court allowed. The accused was found not guilty of both charges, and discharged. This, counsel observed, would be the end of the litigation between the parties.

With that the invalided-out St Alban Smith was soon back in the Army—this time with a commission. The London Gazette announced that Smith was to a temporary (i.e. wartime) Second Lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment with effect from 27 November 1915. I can find no army records for this period but the Straits Times reported that he was present at the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916. Records indicate that St Alban Smith must have been in the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, and to have been part of the initial response since they were stationed in the city, at Richmond Barracks. Only a few weeks later, on 4 May, St Alban Smith relinquished his commission ‘on account of ill-health’.

The Financial News of 2 October 1917 recorded that at a general meeting of the Mengkibol (Central Johore) Rubber Co Ltd at Winchester House, Old Broad Street, London, the chairman spoke:

To turn now to the report, you will. I know, share the deep concern with which we heard of the murder of our much esteemed manager (Mr. Willson), and our sympathy with his family. It is at least satisfactory to know that the murderer paid the penalty of his life. Mr. St. Alban Smith was appointed on probation to succeed Mr. Willson as manager, and it is now proposed to confirm him in his appointment. I am glad to say he was very successful in his recruiting mission to India, and thus solved the labour problem that for a time caused us all some anxiety.

I do not know when Smith’s first marriage ended in divorce. However the 1921 Census in England shows Lena St Alban Smith was ‘divorced’ and working as a ‘nurse (domestic)’ in the house of the American manager of the Palmolive Soap Company at 11 Hoop Lane, Golders Green. The daughter, Mercy, was with her and in full-time education.

Alfred St Alban Smith’s second marriage was on 15 November 1923 at the Kensington Register Office in London. He was shown on the marriage certificate as the divorced husband of Lena Cicely Margaret Smith and aged 43. The bride was a spinster, aged 39, Olive Winifred Easby*, the daughter of William Easby MD (deceased). The address of both was given as 88 Queens Gate, London SW7.

Olive was born in Wandsworth in 1884. In the 1901 Census she was a ‘copyist’ in London while In 1911 she was a ‘masseuse’, living in Hemel Hempstead. Hertfordshire. In both censuses she was living with her widowed mother. I cannot find her in the 1921 Census and it would seem that she was in India living as ‘Mrs Smith’ in India. Indeed on 20 September 1923 the London and China Express informed its readers that Mr and Mrs St Alban Smith had left for ‘home’ but that while in England he intended to visit Munich for ‘medical treatment for a trouble resulting from his war experience’. This return ‘home’ matches the marriage of Alfred and Olive in London after the voyage.

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

In 1925 British newspapers show that St Alban Smith was involved in the launch of new rubber plantations. In one prospectus he was the agent reporting on the prospects of a new plantation in Borneo. Nearly all rubber plantation companies in the Straits Settlements were registered in London or Glasgow. From the late 1920s until 1941 he can be found in the rubber trade directories, first as manager of a particular estate in Singapore or in other Malay states nearby, then as general manager and finally, from 1935, as proprietor of two estates in Sungei Tiram, Johore. 

In the years from 1920 shipping records and newspaper reports show that St Alban Smith was in Britain in 1923, 1925, 1926, 1931, 1932, 1937 and 1938. Those dates do not mean he travelled in other years since not all routes into or out of UK are covered. Foreign ships could come from the Far east to Mediterranean ports with the passenger travelling quickly onwards by rail to a channel ferry. His second wife sometimes travelled with him, sometimes not with her travelling back to Singapore later than him. My guess is that some of these long voyages were for business, with the companies registered in London, and others for long leave. 

Two of his stays in England on leave brought the attention of the police.  On 27 May 1932 he was ordered to pay costs after having been found driving an unlicensed motor vehicle. His address was Brook Cottage, Poulner (Ringwood, Hampshire). In October 1937 he was staying at The Mount, Redlynch, at the north of the New Forest. In Salisbury he was fined £1 with 5 shillings costs; his licence was endorsed. According a constable on the beat Smith ‘came in his car at a high speed from the Canal, and out in front of the lorry into High Street, missing it only by inches. The lorry driver, in order to avoid a collision, had to brake hard and pull hard to the near side. The car gave no warning of its approach and continued into Bridge Street at the same speed’.

The last collection of animals for London Zoo was in 1936 when, as noted above, St Alban Smith was the proprietor of two rubber plantation in Johore. In 1937 he was in London and the Daily Herald had a short piece:

In sparsely-furnished bachelor quarters in the heart of the Malayan jungle, a rubber planter sat at a table writing furiously; writing against time and describing the feelings experienced by a man apparently dying of snake bite.

Half an hour previously he had been bitten by a 13 feet hamadryad, the deadly King Cobra,

The only antidote he took was whisky—a means to allay the slow poison creeping through his body. and to stay the pain and feeling of numbness enveloping his system.

That was in February. A week or so ago that man, Mr. A. St. Alban Smith, pioneer in the study of snake venom in its relation to medicine, walked into London unknown, unheralded.

He is convinced now that he must be immune from the harmful properties contained in snake venom.

On 12 March 1939 The Straits Times reported that St Alban Smith had decided to retire in this country (i.e. Malaya) ‘owing to war injuries’. He had clearly changed his mind because in the report on his taking a shipment of animals to London in 1936, he had indicated in February 1937 he was considering returning to England to ‘settle down permanently’. Another article followed up with:

Last week, the veteran planter and zoological collector took over Pangkor House, a holiday bungalow on lovely Pangkor Island. The island is one of the beauty spots of Malaya, with bathing from the kind of beach that one sees in the films about the South Seas but rarely finds on the west coast of the Peninsula. There are, however, some lovely beaches on the east coast, but they are too far off the Malayan beaten track to be known to the Singaporean who wants a real seaside local leave.

Pangkor's bays provide good fishing and sailing and there are some delightful walks, with the ruins of an old Dutch fort for those who are historically inclined.

Blue Funnel Line's Glaucus

In June 1940 St Alban Smith set off from Singapore ‘with the object of trying to serve in some capacity during the present war’ as The Straits Times put it. He reached Liverpool on 13 August on board Blue Funnel Line’s cargo ship Glaucus. He gave his address as the East India & Sports Club, St James’s Square, London and his occupation as ‘Retired Army Officer’. The Straits Times reported: ‘But he was far from fit and soon after arrival he had to enter a nursing home where he died last Sunday at the age of 60’.

The nursing home was the Victoria Institute in Bournemouth. Alfred died on 15 September 1940, a month after he disembarked in Liverpool. Alfred’s address was that of his brother-in-law, Frederick Samuel Wilkinson (1890-1978), 54 Pearce Avenue, Poole, Dorset, who informed the registry office of his death. Wilkinson was married to Alfred’s sister, Violet Muriel Smith (1891-1959). The certified cause of death was 1a Cirrhosis of the liver, 1b Recurrent malaria.

Siblings

Smith’s mother died in 1916. Thereafter all his siblings, four brothers and a sister according to an online family tree, left India at some stage in their lives. One settled in Australia, the others  in England. Several served as members of volunteer regiments in India before they left. One of the brothers, Wilfred Arthur Smith (1881-1972), had a son, Group Captain Wilfred George Gerald Duncan Smith DSO & Bar, DFC & Two Bars, AE (1914 –1996) an RAF flying ace of the Second World War. His son is Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP and former leader of the Conservative Party—and Alfred St Alban Smith was his great-uncle.

Aftermath

In the announcement of Alfred’s death The Straits Times of 20 September 1940 noted: ‘Mrs St Alban Smith is at present in Singapore’. 1941 was not a good year to be left in the Malay peninsula. I can find no mention of her in available passenger lists in or after 1940. I also found no mention of Olive Winifred after that time other than the record of her death at the age of 84. She died as Olive Winifred St Alban Smith (St Alban Smith as the surname on her death certificate) on 19 October 1968 at Rush Court Nursing Home, Brightwell cum Sotwell, near Wallingford, then in Berkshire but now South Oxfordshire. The ‘widow of Alfred St Alban Smith, rubber planter’, the cause of death was: 1a Bronchopneumonia, 1b Arteriosclerosis.

Alfred’s first wife, Lena Margaret Cicely Savage died on 19 October 1942, aged 67 and exactly 26 years before Olive Winifred, of ‘coronary occlusion’ at Lighthouse View, Highcliffe-on-Sea, Hampshire, the house of her daughter and husband. Her death certificate had the same wording as that Olive Winifred, ‘widow of Alfred St Alban Smith, rubber planter’. At the time of the 1939 Register, the emergency census taken in anticipation of war, she had a house at 27 Hamilton Road, Bournemouth. With her were seven other occupants including her grand-daughter, born in 1930, and three probable relations, possibly siblings or cousins. Earlier in the 1930s the first Mrs St Alban Smith lived in Woolmer Green, Hertfordshire, as did her daughter and son-in-law. Mother and daughter were successive chairmen of the local Women’s Conservative Association.

The Smiths’ daughter, Mercy Stella Margaret (1930-1970), married Herbert Rossiter-Angell (1884-1962) in 1929. Their daughter, Charlotte Anne Margaret, was born in 1930 and died in 2001). Mercy married, secondly, Allan Pratt in 1963. Alfred St Alban Smith has living descendants from Mercy and Herbert Rossiter-Angell.

Any more information?

Thus far I have been unable to locate a photograph of Alfred St Alban Smith and have found no reference to letters or articles he might have written which would go some way to explaining how his interest was sparked, how his activities developed and of what he did to study reptiles in the field and in captivity. If anyone has such information I would be very please to hear from them.

*A family tree gives the name of his second wife as Olive Winifred Lascelles without further details.

NOTE: There is another St Alban Smith in the records. A Canadian family with one, Henry Denne St Alban Smith DSO, serving as an engineer in the First World War. I have not looked for a family connexion but it is easy to imagine there is one.

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

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

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

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

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

1926

2 Javan Adjutants

1927

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

1928

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

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

1929

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

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

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

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

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

1930

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neale Mrs. 2 Slow Loris, 4 Domestic Cats

Burleigh A. 1 Sun Bear

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

Edwards, Major A. 1 Pig-tailed Monkey

Mian, Goh Keng.  6 Broad-headed Water Snakes

Smediey, Norman. 6 Cerberus Water Snakes

1931

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

1933

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

1934

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

1935

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

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

1936

Straits Times 26 April 1936

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Snake Venom Research

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

The End

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Thomas Henry Huxley
Photograph by Lock & Whitfield
Wellcome Collection

Hong Kong: A Crake and IKEA

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

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

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

Black-winged Cuckooshrike in Hong Kong

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

Pygmy Marmosets in Colombia. The smallest monkeys in the world

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holes gnaws in trees

Lots more monkeys from Colombia to come.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edith Durham

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Minivet on a Hong Kong Winter’s Day: a spot of red in a blue sky

AJP saw this minivet while having a 6-hour walk in the New Territories of Hong Kong last month ‘from Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve up to Leadmine Pass, up to Grassy Hill, then along and up to Needle Hill and down down down to Shing Mun Reservoir’.

On a clear day in Hong Kong minivets are a stunning sight. This one is a male Grey-chinned or Grey-throated Minivet, Pericrocotus solaris. The female is yellow. The scientific name is remarkable since it has not been changed since its description by Edward Blyth in 1846. It is now regarded as a locally common resident with numbers perhaps increased in winter. In Geoffrey Herklots’s time in Hong Kong, the 1930s and 40s, it was marked down as a ‘vagrant’ with very few records. Even in the 1950s and 60s sightings were unusual; two in 1957 and two in 1960.

Although there are a lot more—an enormous lot more—birdwatchers in Hong Kong now than there were in the 20th century, there seems little doubt that the population of this species has increased dramatically. It occurs from the Himalayas eastwards as far as Taiwan and southwards to northern south-east Asia. In much of its range it lives in montane forest.

Lord Moyne’s Expedition Cruise of 1935-36: Reg Lanworn of London Zoo was on board

Reg Lanworn

By contrast with Lord Moyne’s expedition cruise of 1934-35 on board his large motor vessel, Rosaura, in which live Tuataras from New Zealand, Komodo Dragons from what was then the Dutch East Indies and Kagus from New Caledonia were brought back to London Zoo, I know who looked after the animals on board during his next expedition in 1935-36. And what’s more as a 16-year old reptile (and amphibian)-mad schoolboy I spoke at length to the man himself.

I found an account by Nick Stanley which focused on the ethnographic aspects of the 1935-36 cruise through south-east Asia to southern New Guinea. Ethnography was another of Moyne’s abiding interests. Those on board Rosaura spent some time in the Asmat region of New Guinea, part of the western half of the island, West Papua, now controlled by Indonesia. Nick Stanley also included information on who accompanied Lord Moyne on his expeditions:

The trip in 1935/6 was more ambitious in scope, with zoological exploration as a further objective, for which amateur zoologists Anthony and Alvi[l]da Chaplin were responsible, assisted by Keeper Reg Lanworn of the reptile house at London Zoo who took Komodo dragons back to London with him.

However, here I think he is mistaken. The Komodo Dragons were collected on the 1934-35 trip, not the 1935-36 one.

This cutting on Keeper Lanworn’s exploits is from Reynolds News, a  now defunct Sunday newspaper owned by the Co-operative Party, of 26 April 1936:

The list of animals received at the Zoo, the gift of course of Lord Moyne, is shown in the Annual Report for 1936: 1 Matschie's Tree Kangaroo, 1 Australian Crane, 7 Keeled Papuan Boas, 7 Fierce Papuan Boas, 5 Common Asiatic Toads, 1 Indian Bull Frog, 3 Greater Indian Rat Snakes, 3 Death Adders, 1 Nicobar Pit Viper, 2 Brown-spottedPit Vipers, 6 Amethystine Pythons, 6 Papuan Cat Snakes, 2 Bocourt's Water Snakes, 2 Broad-headed Water Snakes, 2 Indian Cobras, 1 Indian Python, 1 Moon Snake, 1 Estuarine Crocodile, 1 Parachute Gecko, 1 Peron's House Gecko, 1 Lace Monitor, 4 Helmed Lizards, 4 Fin-tailed Lizards, 8 Indian Monitors, 2 Two-banded Monitors, 5 Great House Geckos, 1 Banded Soft-shelled Terrapin, 4 Ceylon Terrapins, 5 Amboina Box Tortoises, 2 Phayre's Tortoises, 4 Siamese Terrapins, 1 Starred Tortoise, 5 White's Tree Frogs.

The 1935-36 trip was not the first time Reg Lanworn had been sent abroad by the Zoo. On 29 March 1930 he sailed from Liverpool on board the Blue Funnel Line’s passenger/cargo ship Teiresias bound for Singapore. He was aged 22 and travelling first class. 

The China Express and Telegraph of 3 July 1930 reported why had been to Singapore:

ARRIVALS AT THE ZOO

GIFTS FROM SINGAPORE

Keeper Lanworn has returned to London from Singapore in charge of a large collection of mammals, birds and reptiles for the Zoo. Through Messrs. Alfred Holt and Co., the consignment, which included 99 crates and cages, was conveyed freight-free. The collection is due to Mr. A. St. Alban Smith, managing director of the Seletar Plantations, who persuaded friends to make gifts, superintended the purchases from dealers, and himself obtained and presented most of the reptiles.

The largest animals are a pair of tigers and a bear, the former presented by Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Glenister and the latter by Mrs. Glenister and Mrs, E. L. D. Evans, of Ipoh, Perak. Two young orang-utans, four tree-kangaroos, four crowned pigeons, and two young cassowaries are additions which were very much wished for. The assortment of reptiles is a very fine one.

The list of animals in this shipment donated by Alfred St. Alban Smith (1880-1940) takes more than a whole page in the Annual Report for 1930. The reptile collection was indeed a fine one and Smith, a rubber planter in Johore who also sent collections of reptiles to zoos in the USA, was awarded the Society’s silver medal in 1931.

On 20 June 1930, the Straits Times provided a list of the donations, together with those animals bought by ZSL from dealers, which had left Singapore on the Alfred Holt steamer Eumaeus in May. In addition we learn that Reg Lanworn was ‘was laid up for two weeks as a result of undue familiarity with a large temple viper’ and thus unable to gather some of the animals promised by government departments. A further shipment from Singapore, including, presumably, those left behind because of Reg Lanworn’s snake bite, followed:

Reg Lanworn, arriving back in London in charge of the 99 crates, had shown that he could be ‘let out’.

Arthur Reginald Lanworn† was born in Kentish Town on 13 March 1908. I do not know when he became a keeper at the Zoo but  most likely on or shortly after his leaving school in 1922 (the school-leaving age was 14). Several tragedies can be found in the records of Lanworn’s life. In 1939 his sister and her boyfriend were found dead in a gas-filled room. Her parents had refused consent to their marriage. Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the famous forensic pathologist reported to the also famous coroner, Bentley Purchase, most recently seen portrayed in the film Operation Mincemeat, who recorded a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind. Reg Lanworn appeared as a witness at the inquest and stated ‘it would have been satisfactory to both parties if they had got married. They were very fond of each other’.

Personal tragedy again struck in 1942. Having married in 1933 and with a daughter, his new-born son and his wife died. He married again in 1948. Then, in 1960, tragedy struck the Reptile House. Workmen returned to the Reptile House after Christmas to continue servicing the artesian well which supplied both the Reptile House and the Aquarium via a pit in the floor. On removing the cover a natural accumulation of carbon dioxide gushed forth. The workmen employed by an outside contractor were immediately overcome and fell into the narrow pit. Two keepers trying to rescue the men were also rendered unconscious; one died immediately, the other eleven months later. The first was Lanworn’s Head Keeper, Frederick Dexter, aged 46, who had worked at the Zoo for 32 years. The other was Anthony Hodgson, 22, only recently returned from National Service. Keepers made heroic efforts to save the men earning commendations from the coroner. Ten employees of the Zoo were recognised by the Royal Humane Society for their prompt and gallant efforts in both the rescue and the attempts at resuscitation.

As he rose through the ranks in the Reptile House, Reg Lanworn often found himself in newspaper reports and on the cinema newsreels. Anything to do with snakes or crocodiles is always good for column inches and Keeper Lanworn being bitten by a newly-hatched python was good a story in the Daily Express as was the Common Boa arriving in cargo as a stowaway at London docks not turning out to be the as reported to the Zoo a feared Fer-de-Lance. Two ’22 ft’ pythons made the newspapers in 1949 when they both grabbed a chicken at feeding time and fought tenaciously. Lanworn, then Head Keeper, and Jack Lester, Curator of Reptiles, pulled at either end of the tangle.

A newspaper report quoted  in an article by Nick Thompson suggests Reg Lanworn was called up to serve in the forces during the Second World War.

London Zoo like most institutions had a strict hierarchy. Keepers were one class and curators and above were the other. In military terms, keepers were private soldiers and non-commissioned officers; curators were the officers. Keepers could make it up the promotion ladder to reach the pinnacle of Overseer, of which London Zoo had around five. They were the sergeant-majors—and they had a uniform to match their status. Keepers had short jackets but overseers had long coats similar to those worn by the guards regiments in winter. When on public duty, keepers wore their uniforms including summer when they must have broiled. I had a long talk one summer with Reg Lanworn who was keen to move out of the Reptile House to stand by the old reptiliary. His uniform in the heat of the Reptile House in summer must have been rather uncomfortable.

I do not know when he was promoted to Overseer of Reptiles but I have found a record showing him in that grade by 1955.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Reptile House had the reputation of being a place friendly to amateur herpetologists as I reported HERE. At that time Jack Lester was curator and Margaret Southwick was also on the staff. Margaret married Reg Bloom, then also employed at Regents Park having been an animal collector withJohn Seago in East Africa, in 1953. The newly married Blooms then left for East Africa before returning to UK where he was involved in starting and/or running a  number of zoos. Lester, Lanworn and Southwick were founder or early members of the British Herpetological Society after it was formed in 1947.

 Reg Lanworn retired after more than 40 years at the Zoo in 1968, aged 60. By then he was listed as ‘Herpetologist’. I seem to recall he  was given that title in recognition of his work and the simple fact that at the time he was the only member of the Zoo staff, apart from his own juniors, who knew anything about reptiles after the death of  Jack Lester in 1956. In his new role he must have been sitting on that cusp between ‘keeper’ and ‘curator’. A year earlier he was awarded the Society’s Bronze Medal ‘for outstanding service in the Reptile House’.

On occasion I have come across articles written by Reg Lanworn but did not make a note of them. One turned up recently on eBay. It was on the care of terrapins and seems to have been cut from a Zoo publication, possibly the magazine of the XYZ Club. He was described as the Zoo’s herpetologist so must date from the mid-1960s.

After retirement he wrote a popular book on reptiles and was co-author of a series on animal life in different parts of the world. 

In retirement Reg and his wife moved out of London, to the village of Barton Mills near Mildenhall in Suffolk, and later into Mildenhall. He died on 29 January 2005, aged 96.

Reg Lanworn served in the Reptile House from the regime of Joan Proctor as Curator of Reptiles, through the periods when Burgess Barnett and Jack Lester were in charge to a time in the 1950s and 60s when he effectively ran the whole show. He also witnessed the periodic upheavals that the Zoological Society still brings upon itself, including the unfortunate removal of Burgess Barnett, the Cansdale affair plus of course the untimely death of Jack Lester. He operated during the period when the London Zoo’s Reptile House, despite its many problems that became more apparent over the years, and the reptile collection was in its heyday. I am pleased to have met him  and to recognise the success the Zoo had in taking boys from north London and producing the devoted, highly capable and knowledgable members of staff who stayed at Regents Park until they retired.

BRITISH PATHÉ NEWSREEL  FILMS

Baby Alligators 1949

Snakes 1950

Mrs Olive Parton Dutta (1915-1994) was the wife of Reginald Sirdar Mohammed Dutta (1914-1989), a well-known owner of an aquarium shop on Blandford Street, Marylebone. He wrote a number of books on aquaria and fish keeping.

Cobras 1953

Alligator Scrubbing  1953

In this film Ted Dexter, the Head Keeper killed in 1960 when trying to rescue two workers from the well pit in the Reptile House, is seen working with Reg Lanworn.

*Anthony Freskyn Charles Hamby Chaplin, 3rd Viscount Chaplin (1906-1981) was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1952 to 1955. He was married to Alvilde Bridges (1909–1994) from 1933 until divorce in 1950.

†At birth he was registered as Arthur Reginald but in other official records he is Reginald Arthur.

Cooper A, Ellis M, Guggisberg CAW, Lanworn R. 1968. Animals of the World. Europe. London: Hamlyn.

Lanworn RA 1972. The Book of Reptiles. London: Hamlyn.

Stanley N. 2016. 'Some Friends Came to See Us’: Lord Moyne's 1936 Expedition to the Asmat. London: British Museum ISBN 978 086159 206 7 ISSN 1747 3640.

Wheeler A, Christie D, Cohen E, Jarman C, Lanworn R. 1970. Animals of the World. Europe. London: Hamlyn.

Daily Mirror 4 May 1948