Birds from Gabon and Moyen Congo

-"L I E) RAR.Y OF THE UN IVLR5ITY or ILLINOIS 590.5 FI V.41 cop. 3 NAiUhAL HISiuiSY SURVEY ,3 birds from Gabon and Moyen Congo AUSTIN L. RAND HERBERT FRIEDMANN MELVIN A. TRAYLOR, JR. fjMnoisiniiiiuHfiis FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY VOLUME 41, NUMBER 2 Published by CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM NOVEMBER 25, 1959 HIST-: birds from Gabon and Moyen Congo AUSTIN L. RAND Chief Curator, Department of Zoology Chicago Natural History Museum HERBERT FRIEDMANN Curator of Birds, United States National Museum MELVIN A. TRAYLOR, JR. Associate Curator, Division of Birds Chicago Natural History Museum FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY VOLUME 41, NUMBER 2 Published by CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM NOVEMBER 25, 1959 This paper is dedicated to PROFESSOR ERWIN STRESEMANN on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-15918 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PRESS V.HI Ot? I/O , o Contents PAGE Introduction 223 Aschemeier's Itinerary 228 Beatty's Itinerary 231 Faunal Relationships 233 Acknowledgments 238 List of Birds 239 References 405 List of Families 411 221 Introduction In introducing a new study of the birds of Gabon we are mindful of the fact that the beginnings of our knowledge of the bird life of that portion of western Africa were connected with an American museum, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. However, there cannot be said to be any connection between that historical fact and the present study, as the intervening century has seen little active interest in Gabon on the part of American ornithologists. Even the early interest in Gabon at the Philadelphia institution was not due to any advance planning on the part of the Academy. In the middle of the last century the collections there were being augmented by the extensive purchases made in Europe by Dr. Thomas B. Wilson, who obtained from the Verreaux brothers many lots of specimens, includ- ing the bulk of the Gabon material they had then just received from a young collector in that country, Paul Belloni Du Chaillu. A few years later the Philadelphia collections were greatly enriched by addi- tional very important collections made in Gabon by the same collector, on the basis of which John Cassin was able to describe for the first time no less than 48 species of birds new to science. Du Chaillu (1835-1903), the rediscoverer of the gorilla, who became a celebrated, and for a time a much discussed, explorer, is the real pioneer figure in Gabon ornithology. While it is true that the Academy of Natural Sciences did implement and sponsor Du Chaillu's later work in Gabon, this, in itself, was the result of an accident. Du Chaillu was born in France, but while he was a small child his father was appointed to a minor colonial post in the French settle- ment on the Gabon River, and there the future explorer and collector went at an early age and there he was educated by the Jesuit mis- sionaries. He became interested in the exploration and natural history of western Africa, and in this way established his contacts with the great dealers in natural history specimens in Paris, the Verreaux brothers. According to Sharpe (1906, p. 340), who got the story direct from Jules Verreaux, the young Du Chaillu, after his first efforts at scientific collecting, "... was entrusted with money for a second expedition into the interior of Gabon by certain French zool- ogists. Du Chaillu's second collection was lost in a shipwreck, and 223 224 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY, VOLUME 41 when he afterwards arrived in Paris with another consignment, he made known his arrival to Jules Verreaux, and announced his inten- tion of surrendering the collection he had brought with him for the benefit of the former subscribers. The latter, however, were unrea- sonable, and wanted to prosecute Du Chaillu for the loss of the money contributed towards his second venture, and he therefore sailed away to America; and thus Cassin was able to describe the wonderful novel- ties which Du Chaillu had brought back from Gabon. He afterwards went back to the latter country under the auspices of the Academy of ." Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and continued his researches. Du Chaillu's first collecting in Gabon was done before 1855; his second term of field work was from 1855 to 1859; his third from 1863 to 1865. Scattered notes on birds are to be found in several of his books (Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, 1861; The Country of the Dwarfs, 1872; My Apingi Kingdom, 1871). From the days of Du Chaillu (who in 1855 became an American citizen) to the work of Charles R. Aschemeier (1917-19) and of Harry A. Beatty (1951-52), the collectors of the specimens reported on in this paper, no American seems to have been actively concerned in ornithological work in Gabon, the few intervening naturalists hav- ing been French (as was Du Chaillu originally) or German. We can find no completely satisfying record of dates or itinerary of the Verreaux brothers in the field in Gabon, although the title of one of their papers. Observations sur les moeurs des oiseaux exotiques (1855), gives the impression that the observations might have been, at least partly, their own. Sharpe (1871) lists many Gabon specimens with Jules Verreaux given as the collector. Reichenow (1900, p. xiii) writes that Du Chaillu and the Verreaux brothers collected the birds of Gabon and made rich new discoveries, and that the de- scriptions of the Verreaux brothers, who had also gathered observations on the habits of the birds, were largely written by themselves. Such of these notes as do apply to Gabon birds may have been theirs, but some may have been sent them with specimens by Du Chaillu, Aubrey-Lecomte, Franquet, Guislain, Gujon, and Avinine, all of whom were in Gabon and all of whom collected birds which found their way to the Paris museum, where they were studied by Oustalet (1879). Many of these notes are unfortunately erroneous; they are observations that have never since been duplicated or are in direct opposition to subsequent knowledge. Consequently they cannot be accepted as presented. No such element of doubt clouds the actual specimens, however. When Dr. Wilson purchased some of the first Gabon collections, Verreaux turned them over to Strickland to iden- 10 Knbi" MAP SHOWING LOCALITIES MENTIONED IN THE TEXT RAND, FRIEDMANN AND TRAYLOR: GABON BIRDS 225 tify before shipping them on to Philadelphia. Two short papers by Strickland (1851), and two others by Jules and Edward Verreaux, describing new and little-known species, also published in 1851, in- augurate the literature on Gabon ornithology. In the next four years the Verreaux brothers published four or more papers, while another group of four papers by Cassin was issued between 1857 and 1860. In 1859 D. G. Elliot described several species of birds on the basis of Du Chaillu's collections. These publications made known to the world the remarkable series of ornithological discoveries that resulted from Du Chaillu's explorations. In 1861 the collector published Ex- plorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, a book which set off a heated and prolonged controversy, but which finally weathered the storms and took its place in the literature of African travel and adventure. Aside from the spectacular rediscovery of the gorilla, Du Chaillu's adventures and exploits were written in too exciting and too popular a vein to be acceptable to the savants of his time until they had at least registered a modicum of skepticism. Further- more, it was a time when skepticism was healthy, as Africa was still a vast blank in the records. It may help to point up the state of knowledge by recalling that it was suggested in all seriousness in the discussions prior to Du Chaillu's 1863 trip that the mountains he had sighted earlier in Gabon were connected with the Atlas range, that the rivers he had explored were connected with the Congo, and that a native tribe he had described extended its sway across to the Nile! Fortunately, these wild speculations have long since been laid away, and the work accomplished by Du Chaillu remains as a firm founda- tion for subsequent additions. These additions were not long in coming. In 1857 Gustav Hart- laub published his System der Ornithologie Westafrica's, which presented the knowledge of the birds of western Africa, from Senegal to Angola, in a convenient and accurate book. An earlier version of this work was actually published, in parts, as early as 1853 and 1854 (Journal fiir Ornithologie). This book made it relatively easier for anyone to work on west African birds and stimulated others to "fill in" blank or weak spots. A German expedition to Loango was in the field from 1873 to 1876, with its headquarters at Chinchoxo, just north of Landana, north of the mouth of the Congo. Falkenstein was the ornithologist of the party, and the birds he collected were described by Cabanis and Reichenow. A more general account of this expedition was published over many years, the parts of interest to us being by Eduard Pechuel-Loesche (1882; 1907). , 226 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY, VOLUME 41 In his catalog of his collection of African birds, Sharpe (1871) lists a few Gabon specimens taken by two men named Walker and Skertch- ley, of whom nothing further seems to be recorded. Alfred Marche and Victor de Compiegne, accompanied by Savor- gnan de Brazza and Dr. Ballay, made a notable visit to Gabon during their voyage to west Africa from 1872 to 1874, the ornithological results of which were described by Bouvier in 1875, and by Oustalet in 1879.

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