Surveying the surveyors

Abstract

All Creatures: Naturalists, Collectors, and Biodiversity, 1850–1950 by Robert E Kohler Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA 380 pp, $35/£23 ISBN 0691125392 You might wonder how the history of biological field surveys could fill a whole book; however, these endeavours—and the biologists behind them—provide fascinating reading. In All Creatures: Naturalists, Collectors, and Biodiversity, 1850–1950 , Robert E. Kohler describes just what ‘creatures’ were involved. A certain type of person—typically middle‐aged men in comparatively well‐paid positions with lots of vacation time—formed a loosely organized, national volunteer group to survey nature. Kohler describes who these surveyors were, where they came from and why this guild of workers emerged in North American society. He also details their knowledge, experiences and the skills they needed to perform successful surveys. Importantly, Kohler distinguishes between explorers—collectors who hunted for curiosities to exhibit—and surveyors—naturalists who collected and numbered species in the pursuit of natural history and science. Kohler focuses on North …