The Formal Social World of British Egg-Collecting
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n Cole, Edward (2016) Handle with care: historical geographies and difficult cultural legacies of egg-collecting. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7800/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Handle With Care: Historical Geographies and Difficult Cultural Legacies of Egg-Collecting Edward Cole Submitted for the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) School of Geographical and Earth Sciences College of Science and Engineering University of Glasgow Abstract This thesis offers an examination of egg-collecting, which was a very popular pastime in Britain from the Victorian era well into the twentieth century. Collectors, both young and old, would often spend whole days and sometimes longer trips in a wide variety of different habitats, from sea shores to moorlands, wetlands to craggy mountainsides, searching for birds’ nests and the bounty to be found within them. Once collectors had found and taken eggs, they emptied out the contents; hence, they were really egg shell collectors. Some egg collectors claimed that egg-collecting was not just a hobby but a science, going by the name of oology, and seeking to establish oology as a recognised sub- discipline of ornithology, these collectors or oologists established formal institutions such as associations and societies, attended meetings where they exhibited unusual finds, and also contributed to specialist publications dedicated to oology. Egg-collecting was therefore many things at once: a culture of the British countryside, from where many eggs were taken; a culture of natural history, taking on the trappings of a science; and a culture of enthusiasm, providing a consuming passion for many collectors. By the early twentieth century, however, opposing voices were increasingly being raised, by conservation groups and other observers, about the impact that egg-collecting was having on bird populations and on the welfare of individual birds. By mid-century the tide had turned against the collectors, and egg-collecting in Britain was largely outlawed in 1954, with further restrictions imposed in 1981. While many egg collections have been lost or destroyed, some have been donated to museums, including Glasgow Museums (GM), which holds in its collections over 30,000 eggs. As a Collaborative Doctoral Award involving the University of Glasgow and GM, the project outlined in this thesis aims to bring to light and to life these egg collections, the activities of the collectors who originally built them, and the wider world of British egg- collecting. By researching archival material held by Glasgow Museums, published specialist egg-collecting journals and other published sources, as well as the eggs as a material archive, this thesis seeks to recover some of the practices and preoccupations of egg collectors. It also recounts the practical activities carried out during the course of the project at GM, particularly those involving a collection of eggs newly donated to the museum during the course of this project, culminating in a new temporary display of birds’eggs at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 2 List of Tables and Text Boxes ............................................................................................. 6 List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... 7 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 10 Author’s Declaration ......................................................................................................... 12 Abbreviations and Conventions ........................................................................................ 13 Chapter 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 15 Map of thesis .................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 2. Egg as ‘Almost-Animal’, Collectable, Specimen and Museum Object: Thematic Review ................................................................................................................ 23 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 23 Egg as ‘almost-animal’ ..................................................................................................... 23 The symbolic and aesthetic allure of eggs ........................................................................ 28 Collecting and collectors: types, motivations, studies ...................................................... 30 Histories and geographies of science and natural history ................................................ 40 Histories and geographies of ornithology and oology ...................................................... 46 The field ............................................................................................................................ 51 The laboratory .................................................................................................................. 53 Collective spaces of science ............................................................................................. 56 The museum ..................................................................................................................... 58 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 70 Chapter 3. Archive, Collaboration and Practice: Methods and Sources ...................... 72 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 72 Methodological concerns in historical geography ............................................................ 72 Collaboration with GM ..................................................................................................... 75 Research on the archive of oology ................................................................................... 84 Recovering past oological practices ................................................................................. 91 Other activities at GM ...................................................................................................... 92 Contact with other museums, organisations and individuals ........................................... 95 Limits set and routes not taken ......................................................................................... 97 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 99 3 Chapter 4. The Field ........................................................................................................ 101 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 101 Field notes of the GM collectors .................................................................................... 102 The field collecting process: place, duration, weather and pitfalls ................................ 114 Finding nests ................................................................................................................... 116 Reaching nests ................................................................................................................ 119 Excursus : ‘climmers’ ...................................................................................................... 124 Taking and transporting eggs ......................................................................................... 125 Solo and accompanied collecting ................................................................................... 130 Trespass and transgression ............................................................................................. 132 Conclusion: the importance of fieldwork ....................................................................... 133 Coda: Cross and Trotter eagle-watching ........................................................................ 135 Chapter 5. The Individual Collector and the Collection at Home ............................... 141 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 141 Preparing eggs for the collection ................................................................................... 142 Data ................................................................................................................................. 153 The geographical and taxonomic range of collections