William Burchell's South African bird collection, 1810–1815

Abstract

William John Burchell (1782-1863) was an early 19th century explorer and natu­ ralist. He undertook two extensive journeys, during which he collected widely, the first in southern Africa between 1810 and 1815, the second in Brazil between 1825 and 1830. Burchell's account of his South African journey, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, was published in two volumes in 1822 and 1824, but his account closes on 3 August 1812. An account of Burchell's life was published by Poulton(1905) . By his own statement in the Travels, during his stay in Cape Colony and his sub­ sequent trek into the interior, Burchell collected 540 birds of 264 different species, some of which he described as new to science. His journey, accomplished by ox waggon, took him beyond the Cape boundary and into the hitherto unexplored territory north of the Orange River. Two years after Burchell's death in 1863, his collections, with the exception of his botanical material, were presented to the Oxford University Museum by his sister Miss Anna Burchell. The bird skins now form part of the general series within the Zoological Collections of the University Museum. Although various books, documents, paintings, etc. belonging to Burchell's Collection are kept in the Hope Library of the Museum, there is among these documents no catalogue of the skins. Though Burchell in the Travels makes reference to his ornithological catalogue, this has never come to light. The skins themselves, mostly sun-dried unfilled study skins, remain in reasonably good condition, although it is clear that many have been lost. Very many of the South African skins bear small labels noted by Burchell with his serial catalogue number, but none carry labelling to indicate locality and date of collection, though in the case of suspected type material, ascer­ tainable data have been added since the mid-1950s. On Burchell's return from South Africa in 1815 a few of his bird skins were set up as mounted specimens, but subsequently all his bird skins were placed in storage boxes which were then sealed over with paper, to be stored in a large room at the rear of Burchell's house in Fulham. J. E. Gray recorded that in 1834 he, together with Edouard Ruppell who had returned from Abyssinia and had expressed a wish to see Burchell's ornithological collection, visited Burchell in the hope of seeing his material; after some hesitation, Burchell agreed to show Ruppell some of his African types, but said there was some difficulty in opening the boxes. As a result, Gray and Ruppell returned a few