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Description

Many of the UK's great natural history institutions can be traced back to the Victorian passion for exploration, collecting and cataloguing. One such Victorian gentleman was on board the ROYAL CHARTER on its first voyage to Australia - the Rev William Scorebsy, who has left us voyage diary full of the sight and studies of the sea.

Scoresby was the son of an Arctic whaling captain. He had accompanied his father on many whaling voyages and began to study the meteorology and natural history of the polar regions. Amongst his discoveries was the fact that the Arctic Ocean has a warmer temperature at depths that it has at the surface.

The young Scoresby was a correspondent of Sir Joseph Banks, the English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences who had taken part in Captain James Cook's first circumnavigation (1768-1771). In 1820, the year of Sir Joseph's death, Scoresby no doubt inspired by Banks, published 'An Account of the Arctic Regions and Northern Whale Fishery', in which he gathered up the results of his own observations, as well as those of previous navigators.

A lifetime's habit of scientific observation and comment is clearly shown in his observation of wildlife during his passage on the ROYAL CHARTER. For example, on 3 March 1855, his records that a variety of minute creatures can be seen, and comments on the frequent flashes of phosphorescence in the wake of the ship caused by phytoplankton. The next day, he notes the shoals of flying fish. On 20 March, he writes with sadness of the sportsmen shooting at albatrosses following the ship - 'there was no chance of obtaining them as specimens for museums, nor any other use, was to my feeling and I believe, the feelings of many others, particularly painful.'

However after an albatross had been caught on a baited line, Scoresby's instinct as a scientist reasserts itself and he notes 'the spread of the wings across the back, from tip to tip, exactly 10 ft; Length from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail, 3 feet 7 inches. Circumference round the body and compressed windspan, 2 feet 9 inches. Length of the bill (as bare of fathers), 8 inches. Web foot 7 inches long and 8 inches broad. These webs are often used for the construction of purses, by being separated betwixt the skin or web, above and below, and leaving the claws as ornamentals. They are flexible, have a fine yellow surface when dry, and are considered at once curious and ornamental.'

His observations of whale behaviour on 16 July, are shown above, noting a whale's curiosity about the ROYAL CHARTER. These observations are similar to whale behaviour seen by modern scientists helping with their conservation.


How many animals does Scoresby mention in his voyage journal? How many are under threat or endangered today according to the International Union for Nature Conservation?
http://www.iucnredlist.org

If you enter a search terms such as 'Albatross' and click on one of the species you'll see examples of the cataloguing or taxonomy that Victorians have bequeathed to us for ordering the natural world.

In which ways have our attitudes to collecting and displaying animals changed since Victorian times?

It is interesting to note that a month after the loss of the ROYAL CHARTER, on 24 November 1859, Charles Darwin published his famous book that suggested populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. 'On the Origin of Species' was the result of more than 20 years of observation and sharing ideas with other like-minded explorers and naturalists such as Alfred Wallace Russell. The work has become the foundation of the science of evolutionary biology.

Follow these links to find out more about these prominent Victorian naturalists:

Charles Darwin
http://darwin-online.org.uk/

Alfred Russell Wallace
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/biographie...

The full text of Rev William Scoresby's 'Journal of
a Voyage to Australia and around the World for Magnetical Research' published in 1859, is available online from Google Books (http://books.google.co.uk/). As is 'The Arctic Whaling Journals of William Scoresby the Younger'.

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