History of Ecological Sciences, Part 61A: Terrestrial Biogeography and Paleobiogeography, 1700–1830s
2018; Ecological Society of America; Volume: 99; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1002/bes2.1397
ISSN2327-6096
Autores Tópico(s)Socioeconomics of Resources and Conservation
ResumoBiogeography for the period 1700 to 1960 is divided into three parts: A. terrestrial, 1700–1830, B. terrestrial, 1840–1960, and C. aquatic biogeography and paleobiogeography, 1700–1940. Biogeography was mostly studied without concern for paleobiogeography before Darwin's Origin (1859). The gigantic Foundations of Biogeography: Classic Papers with Commentaries, edited by Mark Lomolino, Dov Sax, and James Brown (2004, xx + 1291 pages), includes 28 of 72 papers on paleobiogeography. Their collection, not explicitly historical, also lacks reprints from the writings of zoologist Zimmermann and botanist Grisebach. Biogeography without paleobiogeography is mainly a descriptive science; adding paleobiogeography can make a dynamic science. German botanist Georg A. Pritzel (1815–1874) compiled the first bibliography on plant geography (1871–1877:458–462). German botanist Adolf Engler (1844–1930) wrote the first detailed history of phytogeography (Engler 1899), though in a venue not widely available. Nils von Hofsten's Zur älteren Geschichte des Diskontinuitätsproblems in der Biogeographie (1916), a book-length article, was the earliest substantial study on history of biogeography (in contrast to Engler's scope); it surveyed ideas on species distributions from antiquity to 1912. Two very important historical articles (not in Lomolino et al. 2004, but Ebach 2015 cited them) are by Ronald Good (1955) and Karl Schmidt (1955), histories of plant and animal geographies, respectively, 1853–1953. Lomolino et al. (2004) also did not mention: Thiselton-Dyer (1909 [also unmentioned by Good 1955]) and Gadow (1909 [also unmentioned by Schmidt 1955]) on histories of plant and animal geographies, respectively, 1859–1909; and unmentioned by Acot, editor, sourcebook, The European Origins of Scientific Ecology (1800–1901) (English edition, 1998; includes Drouin 1998). W.B. Turrill compiled (1953:5) a chronological list of comprehensive books on phytogeography, 1872–1947 (reproduced in 61B). On Turrill's list was Russian botanist Engenii Wulff, An Introduction to Historical Plant Geography, which he revised for English translation (1943). Its chapter 2, 15 pages, is a history of phytogeography, beginning with Willdenow (1792) and ending with Solms-Lanbach (1905), but omitting Grisebach (1872), perhaps because he lacked access to a copy. Davy de Virville's Histoire de la Botanique en France (1954) includes Paul Jovet's very detailed chapter, Flore et Phytogéographie de la France (1954), beginning with Lamarck's Flore Français (three volumes, 1778) and continued until 1950. Supplementing Jovet's chapter is Virville and Schnell's XIXe Voyages et Explorations botaniques (1954). This work appeared too late for Good (1955) to use. Herbert Wendt's book for general readers, Out of Noah's Ark (1959; German 1956), is about explorers and naturalists' discoveries of animals; it contributes a broad context for zoogeography. Botanist Joseph Ewan, with a strong interest in history of American botany, wrote a nine-page "Plant Geography" (1969), covering 1800–1950, with citations part of a general bibliography for a volume on history of American botany. Keir Sterling, historian of American natural history, assembled a collection of 58 volumes on Natural Sciences in America, which Arno Press published in 1974, with a 24-page descriptive pamphlet. Most of the volumes are relevant to zoogeography; it consisted of 13 thematic anthologies, which Sterling compiled, and 45 works reprinted, mostly from the 1800s. Especially valuable for present concerns is his compiled volume, Selections from the Literature of American Biogeography, which contains photographic reprints of 28 articles, 1830–1954 (though not arranged in chronological order), with an 11-page introduction. My own collection of 52 works which Arno Press published in 1977 on history of ecology consisted of 10 thematic anthologies and 42 works reprinted, 1600s to 1900s, with a 17-page descriptive pamphlet. Some of these works are biogeographical: Humboldt and Bonpland, Essai sur la Géographie des Plantes (1807), Meyen, Outlines of the Geography of Plants (1846), Henfrey, The Vegetation of Europe (1852), Drude, Handbuch der Pflanzengeographie (1890), Murray, selections from the Report on the Challenger Expedition, 1872–1876 (1895), Pound and Clements, Phytogeography of Nebraska (1900), Egerton, compiler, Ecological Phytogeography in the Nineteenth Century, and Egerton, compiler, American Plant Ecology, 1897–1917. François Dagognet's Une épistémologie de l'espace concret: néo-géographie has a chapter, Géographie et heuristique (1977:123–168), devoted mainly to Charles Darwin (1809–82) and the epidemiologist Charles Nicolle (1866–1936), both discussed in part 61B. American ichthyologist Gareth Nelson wrote a provocative, theoretical essay, From Candolle to Croizat: Comments on the History of Biogeography (1978), spanning two centuries. He dug deeply into his chosen sources, yet, omitted botanist Grisebach and slighted botanists Alphonse De Candolle and Joseph Hooker, and both Ebach (2015:7–8) and I find significant reasons to disagree with some of his claims. Nelson emphasized Buffon's law (1978:274–275): "…biogeography was conceived, if not born, with Buffon's law, which might be described as the law of allopatric speciation: different areas have different species." He quoted Lyell referencing this law in his Principles of Geology (volume 2, 1832; Nelson 1978:273). If such a law was so important, why did Nelson not indicate it in the title of his paper? Malte Ebach views this article as politically motivated—supporting one side of a then-current debate (personal communication; Mayer agrees). The focus of Ronald Tobey's Saving the Prairies: the Life Cycle of the Founding School of American Plant Ecology, 1895–1955 (1981), is not phytogeography, but his book contains valuable background discussions on American botanists who contributed to phytogeography. Ernst Mayr's thematic The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance (1982) includes some discussion of biogeography. British historian of biology, Janet Browne, wrote the earliest book on the broad history of biogeography, The Secular Ark (1983), which began in mid-1600s and ended in mid-1800s, emphasizing Darwin's contributions. She used Nelson (1978), but not von Hofsten (1916). British geographer P. Stott's 24-page survey, History of Biogeography (1984), is of interest both for its perspective and its citation of sources ecologists and historians often overlook. Robert McIntosh's The Background of Ecology (1985:107–110) does contain a brief history of biogeography, and his book also has valuable background discussions for both plant and animal geography. James Larson wrote a more substantial article than Nelson's, but covering a much briefer period—Not without a Plan: Geography and Natural History in the Late Eighteenth Century (1986)—though he did not explain what the plan was. Drawing upon von Hofsten (1916), Larson showed that progress occurred, 1770–early 1800s, based upon the work of Linnaeus and Buffon, but not limited by the vision of either one (is that a plan?). Larson provided detailed accounts of the work of a few key figures, who are also discussed below. Jean-Marc Drouin wrote a brief survey of literature from Tournefort to Larson in Quelques figures de l'Insularité: Réflexions sur la Biogéographie (1991), with some interpretation and emphasizing important sources. He devoted a chapter of his L'écologie et son histoire (1993:57–85) to history of phytogeography, from von Humboldt et al. (1807) to Suess (1909). Drouin also wrote an essay (English version, 1998) to introduce photographic reprints of four extracts from works published in French, 1807–1878. British historian of evolutionary biology, Peter Bowler, wrote The Norton History of the Environmental Sciences (1993), which devoted eight pages to history of biogeography, but is of interest primarily for providing a broad context for the history of biogeography. Two ornithologists at the American Museum of Natural History, François Vuilleumier and Allison Andors, wrote on Origin and Development of North American Avian Biogeography (1995, 43 pages), beginning with Louis Agassiz and Fullerton Baird. A popular book on the history of biogeography is science journalist David Quammen's Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions (1996, 702 pages). He began discussing Linnaeus, Darwin, and Wallace and ended by interviewing living biogeographers and discussing their contributions. Australian biogeographer Malte Ebach's Origins of Biogeography (2015, 173 pages) covers the period 1770–1890. He argued that the history of ideas is not enough; we need to know also the history of practice. He examined a wide range of sources. His book has no index. American biogeographer Charles H. Smith compiled two very useful web sites: Early Classics in Biogeography, Distribution, and Diversity Studies to 1950; and, in collaboration with Joshua Woleben and Caruble Rodgers, Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches. These websites show that contributions to biogeography during this period, 1700–1840, were more numerous than are included here. A Dutch Protestant minister, Abraham van der Mijle (Myl, 1563–1637), was perhaps first to identify a fundamental biogeographical problem in his De Origine animalium et migration populorum (1667): how to explain the unique species found in the Americas and Australia (von Hofsten 1916:32, Hooykaas 1956, Browne 1983:14, Ebach 2015:27–28). He sorted through the obvious possibilities without finding a plausible answer. His solution was that there had to have been different centers of creation. An English Protestant minister (who had to give up that profession), John Ray (1627–1705), was the main founder of British natural history (Raven 1942, Stresemann 1951:43–45, 1975:43–45, Webster 1975, Browne 1983: see index, Mandelbrote 2004, Egerton 2005, 2012a:60–64). Ray's notable Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (1660, English 1975) was one of the earliest local floras (Raven 1942:81). His Historia Plantarum (three volumes, 1686) was his most important work and was one of the first works to pay attention to distinguishing between species (Magnin-Gonze 2004:99–102). Ray had a patron, zoologist Francis Willlughby (1635–1672), and after Willughby died (Boulger and Hunter 2004), he set aside his botany in order to publish Willughby's Ornithologiae (1676, English 1678), which included much of his own annotations. Ray apparently learned to do two things at the same time: He published Willoughby (and his own) Historia Piscium (1686) in the same year as the first volume of his own Historia Plantarum. Both the ornithology and the history of fishes were well illustrated, though by neither Willughby nor Ray; Willughby had bought illustrations during a tour which they made on the Continent. Ray's Historia Insectorum (1710) appeared posthumously. German traveler-naturalist Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716) studied at three universities and then went to Uppsala and Stockholm, Sweden (Holthuis and Sakai 1970:9–16, Van der Pas 1973). His desire to travel came true with his appointment as physician to a diplomatic mission to Persia in 1683. In 1688–1689, he served as a ship's physician and arrived in Java. In 1690, he went on the annual voyage to Japan, where he remained until October 1692. He returned to Holland in 1693. His Amoenitatum exoticarum (1712) included a description of nearly 500 species of Japanese plants. His History of Japan (two volumes, 1727), which Hans Sloane had translated and first published in English, included observations on the Japanese fauna. Hans Sloane (1660–1753) was a successful London physician interested especially in plants, who became physician to a new governor of Jamaica and sailed there with him in 1687 (Stresemann 1975:52, De Beer 1953, 1975, Desmond 1977:563–564, Rice 1999:14–55). After collecting observations and specimens of plants and animals and recording climate, he returned to London, where he became a prominent scientist, President of the Royal Society, 1727–1741, and published Catalogus Plantarum quae in insula Jamaica (1696) and Voyage to the islands Madeira, Barbadoes, and Jamaica, with the Natural History of Jamaica (two volumes, 1707). These volumes included data for biogeography; Sloane's other contribution to this science came from having the trustees of his will use his collections and wealth to found the British Museum, with his collections as nucleus. Sloane was a sometime patron of the English naturalist Richard Bradley (1688–1732), who was a very productive writer (Egerton 1970, 1973:334–335, 2004aa, 2006aa). Bradley was interested in aspects of natural history now identified as ecological (Egerton 1969), and one of his books, A Philosophical Account of the Works of Nature, used the words "station" and "habitation" as technical terms, though without defining them as such, nor using them consistently (1721;49,53; Ebach 2015:96, note 8). French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708), like Sloane, used a medical degree as a step toward his botanical profession (von Hofsten 1916:231, 243, 245, Becker et al. 1957, Leroy 1976, Greene 1983:II, 938–964, Drouin 1991:211, Magnin-Gonze 2004:117–118). He was the leading botanist in France and Europe in his day, and he explored for plants in Europe, and in 1700–02 in the Levant; his Relation d'un Voyage du Levant appeared posthumously (three volumes, Paris, 1717; edition 2, two volumes, Amsterdam; English, London, 1718). Pierre Guiral's account of that expedition (1957) contains two modern maps; Tournefort's trip interests us particularly because at Mount Ararat he observed patterns of plant distribution at different elevations into zones that matched comparable geographic regions (volume 3, letter 19, as quoted in English translation, Linnaeus 1781:91): …at the foot of Mount Ararat those plants which were common in Armenia, a little further those which I had before seen in Italy; when I had ascended somewhat higher such vegetables as were common about Paris; the plants of Sweden possessed a more elevated region; but the highest tracts of the mountain, next the very summit, was occupied by the natives of the Swiss and Lapland Alps. Linnaeus indicated that this line of reasoning began with Andrea Cesalpino (1519–1603), but gave no reference; he had in mind Cesalpino's De Plantis (1583). Early explorers' reports from North America are of some interest for history of biogeography, but here I only mention prominent examples: Englishman Mark Catesby (1682–1749), who explored eastern Virginia and the Carolinas (Frick and Stearns 1961, Stafleu and Cowan 1976:I, 469–471, Desmond 1977:122–123, Meyers and Pritchard 1998, Egerton 2006bb:345–349, 2012aa:78–79), native-born American botanists, the father and son John Bartram (1699–1777) and William Bartram (1739–1823), who together explored from New York State to Florida and published their discoveries (Bartram 1958, 1996, Stafleu and Cowan 1976–88:I, 132–135, Slaughter 1996, Guerrini 1997a, b, Rice 1999:120–141, Egerton 2007c, 2012a:86–89), and French botanist father and son André Michaux (1746–1803 [not 1802]) and François André Michaux (1770–1855). The father explored in France and Turkey before sailing to America with his son in 1785 (Stafleu and Cowan 1976:III, 456–464, MacPhail 1999a, b, Egerton 2009bb:434–440, 2012aa:125–126). In the 1730s and 1740s, there were explorations in Russia and Siberia, led by German naturalists, who took along Russian students. Also exploring for Russia was the Danish sea captain, Vitus Bering (1681–1741), who discovered that Siberia was not connected to North America (George 1970a, b, Golder 1922, Frost 2003, Egerton 2008:41–42, 2012aa:92–96). During those decades, particularly outstanding were two Germans, Gmelin and Steller. Botanist Johann Georg Gmelin (1709–1755) was the son of an apothecary who taught at the University of Tübingen (von Hofsten 1916:247–248, Kruta 1972, Egerton 2008:41–42, 2012aa:93–94, Jones 2014:index). He began attending university lectures at age 14, and he earned a medical degree in 1727. In 1725, two of his former teachers had gone to St. Petersburg and joined the Academy of Sciences. They invited him to join them in 1727, and in 1731, he became an academician. In July 1733, the Academy sponsored an expedition to Siberia, which Gmelin joined and continued his explorations for 9.5 years (Hintzsche and Nickol 1996), returning to St. Petersburg in February 1743 (Gmelin 1911). There, he worked on his Flora Sibirica (four volumes, 1747), which described 1,178 species. He listed plants in six categories of ranges: In category two, he listed European plants not found in Siberia and Siberian plants rare in Europe; in category six, he listed species in Siberian fields and in European mountains (Larson 1986:459). Gmelin suggested (1747) that there were different centers of creation (Mayr 1982:440), but that was 80 years after van der Mijle did likewise (see above). Zoologist Georg Steller (1709–1746) studied medicine and became a physician with the Russian army in 1734 and traveled to St. Petersburg and met botanists at the botanic garden (Stejneger 1936, Lindroth 1976, Mearns and Mearns 1988:347–356, 1992:409–414, Jones 2014:index). At the Academy of Sciences, he learned of Vitus Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition and volunteered to join it, already long gone. He was accepted and began his nine-year expedition across Siberia to the Pacific. He met and sailed with Bering, and his travels and natural history and geographical observations were many and varied (Ford 1966, Steller 1974, 1988, Hintzsche and Nickol 1996, Littlepage 2006, Egerton 2008:43–50, 2012aa:94–96). When they landed briefly on an island off Alaska, he discovered a jay, now named Steller's Jay. The return voyage was difficult (Steller 1974, 1988). After they landed on what expedition members named Bering Island after he died there, in autumn 1741. Expedition members, including Steller, discovered what is now called Steller's sea cow (Hyadrodamalis gigas), the largest Sirenia ever discovered—up to 30 feet long and weighing 8–10 metric tons (Stejneger 1887, 1936:353–357, Ford 1966:152–165, Mattioli and Domning 2006). During a desperate winter, it became an important resource which helped them survive. When expedition survivors reached Kamchatka in 1742, its existence was among the discoveries reported, and hunting expeditions to Bering Island began in 1743, and they exterminated the species in 1763. Steller's account of sea cow is the only one ever made. In early 1744, he left by dog sled for St. Petersburgh and died on the way, but his "De Bestiis Marinis" (1751, German 1753, 1974, partial English 1899), Journal of a Voyage with Bering (English: Golder 1922, Steller 1988) and his History of Kamchatka (German 1774, 1974, English 2003) reported his adventures and discoveries. In mid-1700s, naturalists of Sweden, Linnaeus, and of France, Buffon, dominated European natural history, and wrote speculative essays, based upon such evidences as Sloane, Tournefort, Catesby, Bartram father and son, Michaux father and son, and others had provided. Lomolino et al. (2004:14–18) began their source-book selections with excerpts from English translations from Linnaeus and Buffon. As a young man, Swedish Carl Linnaeus (1707–78) traveled to Lapland and other rural regions of Sweden, and published his observations (von Hofsten 1916:239–240, 243–248, Linnaeus 1737, 1973, 1979, Stresemann 1951:51–54, 1975:50–52, Blunt 1971, Browne 1983:index, Farber 1982:index, Frängsmyr 1983, Larson 1986:449–451, 456–457, 460, Drouin 1993:40–44, Magnin-Gonze 2004:120–128). Linnaeus began his speculative essay on increase in the habitable earth with the Garden of Eden, which he postulated was a small island; since all species of plants and animals have a reproductive potential to increase their populations, the land mass of the earth gradually increased, and various species expanded in numbers to fill the new lands (1744; English, 1781:71–115; French, 1972:29–55; von Hofsten 1957, Egerton 2007a:80–81). Later, he developed a dynamical, if simplistic, balance of nature concept, in which God created species at particular locations, and they increased in population and spread across land that also increased; some species prevented other species from becoming too numerous—based upon their reproductive potential—by either predation or competition (Linnaeus 1749, English, 1775:37–126; French, 1972:57–101; Egerton 1973:335–337, 2007aa, 2012aa:80–84). Swedish ecologist Einar Du Rietz wrote Linnaeus as a Phytogeographer, with six sections; here I quote from section I. Alpine Phytogeography (1957:161, slightly abridged): Linnaeus introduced the terms (here, in English) "station" and "habitation" to indicate a species' particular environment and its geographic range, in his essay Stationes Plantarum (1754), yet he failed to make completely clear the distinction between the two terms. Comte de Buffon (1749–1770), in his Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (15 volumes, 1749–67 + 7 supplements, 1774–1789) and Histoire naturelle des oiseaux (nine volumes, 1770–1783), developed ideas challenging those of Linnaeus (von Hofsten 1916:237–242, Stresemann 1951:60–61, 1975:57–58, Piveteau 1954, Roger 1970, 1997a, b, Sloan 1976, 2002, Farber 1982:index, Mayr 1982:440–442, Browne 1983:index). One of his original ideas was the suggestion that as species spread, they were changed into different species by new environments which they invaded; he also speculated that humans may have exterminated mammoths and mastodons, known from bones (Egerton 1973:337, 2007bb, 2012aa:84–86). He concluded that no species found on one continent also exists on another continent (Buffon 1761:96, 118, translated in: Nelson 1978:275–276, Ebach 2015:23–24, Larson 1986:451–453). This generalization became known as Buffon's law (Nelson 1978:273–278), though Ebach (2015:25) comments Buffon perhaps lifted it from Aristotle's Historia Animalium (VIII:28–29). Both Linnaeus and Buffon took steps toward a dynamical science of biogeography (but unnamed). One of Linnaeus' former pupils, Pehr Kalm (1716–1779), received support from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1748 to collect useful North American plants that could survive in Sweden (Granit 1973, Egerton 2006b:349–353, 2012a:79–80). His sponsors expected him to spend most of his time in Canada, but he preferred Philadelphia and vicinity. This trip was the great adventure of his life, and after returning to become a professor at the University of Åbo in Finland, he devoted much time to publishing his En Resa til Norra America (three volumes, 1753–1761; translated into German, English, and Dutch; Italian 2016). He added 60 new species to those in Linnaeus' Species Plantarum, and Kalmia (mountain laurel) was named for him. He observed American animals as well as plants. By 1761, Denmark was ready to send out its own expedition, though not as far as Bering's two. Denmark was the first European country to send an expedition to Arabia. A German professor of theology and oriental culture, Johann David Michaelis, had dreamed up the idea and persuaded the Danish Foreign Minister J. Bernstorff to pursue it—not personally, but to find those who would go. Bernstorff convinced King Frederick V, and by January 1761, there were five professional men who sailed from Copenhagen toward Constantinople, then into Egypt before reaching Arabia. They included another of Linnaeus' former outstanding students, Helsinki native Peter Forsskål (1732–1763), whose main interest was botany (Hansen 1964:index, Collander 1965:14, Eriksson 1972), to which he made determined contributions before succumbing to malaria. His work was preserved, and an editor was found who published it (1775). Three world explorations (1768–1779) which Captain James Cook (1728–1779) led are relevant to the history of biogeography because naturalists he took along collected plants and animals and published their observations. On his first voyage was wealthy London botanist Joseph Banks (1743–1820), who had already been on an expedition to Labrador and Newfoundland during summer 1766 (Foote 1970, Stafleu and Cowan 1976:I, 115–118, Desmond 1977:35–36, Rice 1999:142–169, Knight 2004, Magnin-Gonze 2004:154). Also on board was Swedish former student of Linnaeus, Daniel Carl Solander (1733–1782), who was readily accepted by British naturalists (Rauschenberg 1975), and Edinburgh artist-naturalist Sydney Parkinson (1745–1771), who died on the return voyage (Lysaght 1974). Banks planned to return for Cook's second voyage, but he had been so celebrated by British society after the first voyage that he had delusions of grandeur, and withdrew when his entourage of 15 (including musicians) were not allowed on board (MacLean 1972:104–107). Instead, Johann Reinhold Forster (1729–1798) became naturalist, and he insisted that his son J. Georg Forster (1754–1794) be taken along as his assistant and as nature artist (von Hofsten 1916:249, Stresemann 1951:73–79, 1975:70–76, Hoare 1972a, b, Stafleu and Cowan 1976:I, 857–861, Desmond 1977:230–231, Browne 1983:33–38, Mearns and Mearns 1988:155–160, 1992:184–186, Quammen 1996:38–39, Rice 1999:170–197). Although the father was a constant complainer, he was a capable and industrious naturalist, as was his son (Stresemann 1951:73–79, 1975:70–76, 93–94, Larson 1986:464–466, 481). Both father and son published books of observations. Johann's book (1778) is deservedly republished in a critical edition (1966), for the global voyage gave him a global perspective. He was quite interested in geographical distributions of species of plants and animals. His generalizations included the following: "Islands only produce a greater or less number of species, as their circumference is more or less extensive" (Forster et al. 1966:120). On Cook's third voyage, the physician William Anderson, who had been on the second voyage, collected natural history specimens, but neither he nor Cook lived to complete that voyage (Stresemann 1949, 1950). An American marine in the British Navy, John Ledyard (1751–1789), published his account of part of the third voyage in 1783 (reprinted 2005). Welsh naturalist Thomas Pennant (1726–1798) attended Oxford University, but left without a degree due to conflict with faculty (von Hofsten 1916:255–256, Allen 1951:491–494, Urness 1974, Desmond 1977:487, Browne 1983:31, Bircham 2007:87–90, Egerton 2007d:386, Birkhead 2008:index, Jones 2014:index). He became a member of the Royal Society of London and several foreign societies. He and others suggested to Gilbert White that he write letters on his natural history observations, and 44 such letters to Pennant became a major part of White's Natural History of Selborne (1789). Although John Ray believed in bird migration in 1691 (quoted in Birkhead 2008:132), there was a medieval belief that a few song bird species, like bats, hibernate during winter. Albertus Magnus had added his authority to the idea (Egerton 2003a:90, Birkhead 2008:143), and although Gilbert White relied heavily upon his own observations and upon his brother John's observations on migrations at Gibraltar, he remained uncertain about whether swallows migrated or hibernated (Egerton 2007dd:389, 2012aa:89–92, Bircham 2007:100–113, Birkhead 2008:152–153). They are very numerous between the latitudes 66 and 73 north, which is as far as any tribes of Indians go. They live in herds of twenty or thirty. Mr. Hearn [in 1770–1772] has seen in the high latitudes several herds in one day's walk. They delight most in the rocky and barren mountains, and seldom frequent the woody parts of the country. They run nimbly, and are very active in climbing the rocks. Pennant was a very productive and skillful naturalist, but a few times he borrowed from others without acknowledgment (Bircham 2007:89). Pennant and Pallas (discussed below) met before Pallas went to Russia, and they assisted each other (Urness 1974). French naturalist Michel Adanson (1727–1807) and family moved to Paris about 1730, and he was educated at Plessis Sorbon, Collège Royal, and Jardin du Roi (Nicolas 1963, 1970). When Michel was about 20, his father looked around for what to do with a son oriented toward botany, and a friend, a director of the Compagnie des Indes, suggested sending him to Senegal, where his own son had visited (Nicolas 1963:12–13). The company decided it would be useful for a naturalist to learn about territory under its jurisdiction, and Michel was able to get recommendations from prominent Parisian naturalists, so that was where he was sent in December 1748, as a clerk. There was regular commerce between its capital, Saint-Louis, and France. He was possibly the first European naturalist to spend several years in the tropics, where he remained until 1754. He built a garden for conducting breeding experiments on plants, though at first he did not spend a lot of time there, since he explored the surrounding territories in quest of plants and animals. His dried bird skins were quickly rendered worthless by insects. Other members of the Compagnie looked upon him as strange, and so he became friendly with the natives. He had thermometers from a patron, Réaumur, and he described the conditions under which his specimens had lived. He was impressed by his discovery of gigantic baobab trees and drew a map giving their locations. He rejected classifications that used very few traits to indicate relationships. He also reported in September 1751 that there was a fish in Senegal rivers which transmitted an electric shock when touched; it had barbels on its mouth, which distinguished it from electric eels; that trait now indicates a catfis
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