Brown Specimens Research Articles

The earliest report of bone-bearing breccia from a Monte Christo Formation cave (South Africa)

A series of historical documents by the 19th-century amateur naturalist and palaeontologist Alfred Brown report the earliest discovery of bone-bearing cave breccia in the former Transvaal (South Africa). The oldest of these reports dates from 1890 and predates the first mention of the existence of bone-bearing breccia at the famous Sterkfontein-Kromdraai caves by five years. The breccia fragment was kept by Brown in his collection, where it was noted to come from the Monte Christo gold mine near Ventersdorp (North-West Province). Brown's specimen is lost, but we could relocate the mine and confirm the presence of breccia deposits. Alfred Brown's notes are the earliest scientific report about the bone-bearing nature of Plio-Pleistocene South African caves and the first to acknowledge them as a potential source of hominin fossils, some 30 years before the discovery of the Taung Child, Australopithecus africanus. The finding strengthens the chronology of the discovery of the South African fossil hominin sites. It also significantly shortens the gap between the gold rush and the first discovery of bone-bearing breccia in the Witwatersrand.

WILMOT W. BROWN: ONE OF THE MOST PROLIFIC COLLECTORS OF THE VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE NEW WORLD

Wilmot W. Brown (1870?–1953) collected birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles from 1890 until his death in 1953, amassing a collection that forms the core of knowledge of the distribution and taxonomy of the terrestrial vertebrate fauna of Central and South America. His collection of more than 18,000 bird specimens is spread over 25 institutions, although his longest collaboration was with Outram Bangs and John Thayer of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. He collected throughout the Caribbean; northern South America, including Colombia and Panama; and principally throughout Mexico, where he was based for more than 40 years, forming one of the most important collections ever amassed for that country. He collected more than 750 specimens now classified as some form of type specimen, and at least eight taxa are named in his honor, including two reptiles, a mammal, and five birds. Although he sent regular, detailed correspondence back to his benefactors in the United States, he never published a single professional article, and no field journal has been located, leaving his legacy obscured. In an era of lax data collection and fraudulent collectors, Brown's specimens and associated data have proven to be of high quality and help form the basis for our current understanding of New World biodiversity, although his legacy is marred by his disregard for the conservation plight of the species he collected.

Diagnoses of hybrid hummingbirds (Aves: Trochilidae). 15. A new intergeneric hybrid (Hylocharis leucotis × Selasphorus platycercus) from the Huachuca Mountains, southeastern Arizona

A hummingbird specimen collected by W. W. Brown in 1917 in the Huachuca Mountains, southeastern Arizona, is a hybrid of Hylocharis leucotis (white-eared hummingbird) × Selasphorus platycercus (broad-tailed hummingbird). Brown's specimen, which exhibits a blended mosaic of plumage characters of the presumed parental species, represents the first known instance of hybridization between species currently placed in Hylocharis and Selasphorus.

The botanical manuscripts of Robert Brown

We consider that the formative episode in the botanical career of Robert Brown (1773-1858) was the voyage to Australia as naturalist with Matthew Flinders (17741814). One outcome of the Investigator voyage (1801-1805) was that a truly vast natural history collection was made. Edwards (1976) notes that 3,600 plant specimens alone were landed in Liverpool in October 1805. Apparently, an equally enormous amount of written work was also produced. Curators of Brown's specimens have their

I.—Evidences of a Mandible of a New Labyrinthodont from the Upper Karroo Beds of Cape Colony (Ptychosphenodon Browni)

I am indebted to Mr. Alfred Brown, of Aliwal North, for the opportunity of describing a small fragment of a lower jaw of a Labyrinthodont which shows some unusual characters in the dentition and in the composition of the mandible (Pl. XIX, Fig. 1). Hitherto the evidence of the structure of the mandible has been imperfectly recorded in these South African reptiles.Mr. Brown's specimen is a small transverse segment, probably from the left ramus, at some little distance behind the symphysis. This position may be indicated by an angular ridge upon the inner side, which is becoming more elevated as it extends forward. There is no suggestion of the original length of the mandible, which may have been eighteen inches. The fragment is little more than an inch and a half long. In section the jaw is subquadrate, somewhat depressed, being two inches wide and an inch and a half deep. The external surface of the bones shows no trace of sculpture. From its slightly water-worn condition the specimen (Fig. 1) was probably obtained from the reconstructed bed at the railway station at Aliwal North, which yields Theriodonts and other fossils.The external bone is apparently vertical, traversed on the lower third by a deep longitudinal groove, in which there is a faintly marked suture. The dentary bone above the groove is slightly convex up to the alveolar margin, and shows what may be a sinuous impression above the groove. The bone below the groove, which may be infra-dentary, is well rounded on to the base.