Content uploaded by Edward C. Dickinson
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Edward C. Dickinson on Nov 05, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
Systematic notes on Asian birds. 52.
An introduction to the bird collections of
Brian Houghton Hodgson (18011-1894)
E.C. Dickinson
Dickinson, E.C. Systematic notes on Asian birds. 52. An introduction to the bird collections of Brian
Houghton Hodgson (1801-1894).
Zool. Med. Leiden 80-5 (4), 21.xii.2006: 125-136.— ISSN 0024-0672.
Edward C. Dickinson, c/o The Trust for Oriental Ornithology, Flat 3, Bolsover Court, 19 Bolsover Road,
Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN20 7JG, U.K. (e-mail: edward@asiaorn.org).
Key words: biography; labels; drawings; Nepal; Darjeeling; Sikkim; Tibet; Edward Blyth; John Edward
Gray; George Robert Gray; William Jardine; Hugh Strickland; Zoological Society of London; British
Museum; Hon. East-India Company; Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Hodgson spent most of his career in Nepal and several years of retirement in Darjeeling, making collec-
tion in both areas. Dates relating to these periods are clari ed and his collections and donations are
discussed. His drawings, touched upon brie y, are now receiving further study and will be reported
upon in due course.
Introduction
Brian Houghton Hodgson’s career in and out of the service of the Honourable
East-India Company 2, and the controversies about his political life were covered in a
biography by Hunter (1896). More recently, Waterhouse (2004) provided a shorter bio-
graphical sketch that introduced a book bringing together scholarly contributions of-
fering a more modern perspective on Hodgson’s political work, his interest in Bud-
dhism, his zoological contributions and his ethnological studies.
Hodgson has rightly been seen as the earliest and most proli c worker on the orni-
thology in particular of Nepal (see, e.g., Cocker & Inskipp, 1988; Inskipp & Inskipp,
1985, 1991), but more remains to be done to understand the signi cance of the speci-
mens he had collected and drawings he had executed. Several accounts of parts of his
collections have appeared, including those of Gray & Gray (1847, 1863), Sharpe (1906)
and Benson (1999), but none has brought together the full scope of his donations to
scienti c institutions and the entirety of specimens and of drawings involved, indeed
such numbers as have been reported have often been contradictory. In seeking to sort
out these contradictions in the published record, and to rebut them, it has been neces-
sary to construct a chronology of Hodgson’s activities.
His numbered drawings are central to our understanding because, after a certain
time, the numbers become indicative of discovery at later dates. This is particularly
1 Waterhouse (2004) preferred this birth year as it was used by Hodgson himself and because the latter
was christened on 28 Nov. 1801, although Hunter (1896), Cocker & Inskipp (1988) and most intervening
authors accepted 1800.
2 The English Company of that name, not the Dutch.
126 Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006)
important in separating Nepal novelties from those of Sikkim. However no sequential
list of his drawings has yet been published and no mention has been found in Hodg-
son’s own writings or elsewhere of his own list, although he most probably had one.
Inskipp & Inskipp (1982) examined the Hodgson drawings, one set held by the Zoologi-
cal Society of London (ZSL) and the second by the Natural History Museum (BMNH),
but their primary objectives were to check the identi cations of the subjects and to ex-
plore the notes that are found on the back of most of the originals to see what might
have been relevant to their work in progress on the avifauna of Nepal and its distribu-
tion. Sharpe (1906) had observed that the two sets of drawings had not been compared,
and the Inskipps, although examining both, were not able to bring the two sets together
and thus to establish the sequential list that is needed. They did not report, as a direct
comparison would have permitted them to do, what is lacking from each set. Limited
preliminary examinations by the writer have since shown that the two sets are not a full
match for each other, and the necessary detailed comparison is now in hand.
Because the drawing numbers also appear on Hodgson’s original specimen labels
they should play a role in the identi cation of valid type material from amongst Hodg-
son’s specimens. So far, identi cation of Hodgson’s types has lacked rigour, for reasons
explained below, and the development of a rigorous approach will be assisted by this
comparison of the two sets of drawings. There will be two preliminary outputs. First, a
sequential list of the Hodgson numbers, with appropriate annotations; second, the de-
velopment of a list of cases where Hodgson is thought to have used the same drawing
number on the labels of specimens of two or more taxa. These should allow a careful,
history-based validation of Hodgson’s type material.
A chronology of Hodgson’s residences in the subcontinent (1818-1858)
The seventeen year-old Hodgson arrived in Calcutta in 1818 (Waterhouse, 2004) to
conclude at Fort William the studies he had begun at the East-India Company’s Hailey-
bury training college in England; but he soon began to suffer the health problems that
would lead to a succession of postings to the hills. After a year at Kumaon as assistant
commissioner, in 1820 Hodgson was appointed Assistant Resident in Nepal, and stayed
until November 1822 when he was promoted to Deputy Secretary in the Persian De-
partment of the Bengal Civil Service’s Foreign Of ce in Calcutta. But within about a
year in the plains his health had failed again and he returned to Nepal as the Kath-
mandu Residency’s Postmaster (his old job being occupied). He reoccupied the Assist-
ant Resident’s post in 1825 and held this position until 1833, with a two-year stint from
1829 to 1831 as Acting Resident. Too young to become Resident, in 1831 he returned to
the rank of Assistant Resident but at the age of 32 was promoted Resident, a position he
held until December 1843 when disagreements with Lord Ellenborough3, the dif cult
and autocratic Governor-General, led to his removal (Hunter, 1896).
Upset by his treatment, Hodgson refused Ellenborough’s offer of an inferior posi-
tion at Simla and left the employ of the East-India Company. He sailed for England on
3 Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough (1790-1871) was Governor-General of India from 28 Feb. 1842
to 1 Aug. 1844.
Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006) 127
7th February 1844, a day after the Asiatic Society of Bengal had honoured him with a
special meeting (Hunter, 1896: 235) and after having retrieved at least one of the speci-
mens 4 he had sent to the Society in Calcutta (Blyth, 1845: 177).
On returning to England he had found that Lord Ellenborough had been dismissed
as Governor-General, and it is suggested that Hodgson “could well have been rein-
stated” (Waterhouse, 2004), but after 25 years of service he decided to retire and to re-
turn to India in a private capacity. During this time in England he concluded his part in
the presentation of his rst gift of natural history materials to the British Museum
(BMNH 5) (it should be noted that although Cocker & Inskipp, 1988: 30, wrote that
“Hodgson made a gift of all his collections … to the British Museum” this statement is
incorrect and was contradicted on their next page). After just over a year in Europe he
then returned to India, sailing from Cork in July 1845.
Back in Calcutta, he visited Darjeeling which had been recently developed as a hill
station, and decided to live there. This was to be Hodgson’s base until his nal return
to England in 1858. He visited England in 1853 and met Anne Scott and married her
before returning to Darjeeling with her. She remained there until 1857 when her health
gave way and she returned to England, leaving him to follow.
A chronology of Hodgson’s collections of birds (his specimens and drawings)
Hodgson began collecting early. By 1826, in Nepal, he was employing local hunters
to collect for him and was training local artists so that he could develop his collection
of drawings. His main collection of birds and mammals was procured in Nepal. How-
ever, he resumed collecting after moving to Darjeeling and continued to employ native
artists to make drawings (some among them being artists he had employed when in
Kathmandu).
In some ways Hodgson’s drawings, although unpublished in his lifetime and little
published since, are more important than the specimens. He numbered them and used
these numbers to relate each of his specimens to particular drawings. His specimens
originally had a pair of labels (regrettably, at the BMNH these were removed: Sharpe,
1906: 386), one with the date of collection 6 and locality as well as a local name, presum-
ably one known to the collector, and a second carried the drawing number, in red ink
(Gray & Gray, 1847 7, opp. p. 1) 8. By 1837, Hodgson had assigned 721 numbers to draw-
ings and specimens (Hodgson, 1837a: 369). Thereafter, he found fewer birds that were
4 Hodgson’s Buteo aquilinus which Blyth (1845: 176) described.
5 This acronym, which related to the British Museum (Natural History), is still in use today for the
Natural History Museum and is used here throughout, regardless of when the titles changed. This is
purely to provide continuity.
6 Though rarely the year (Cocker & Inskipp. 1988: 33).
7 Usually given as 1846, based on the imprint date, but see Dickinson & Walters (2006; this volume).
8 This label occasionally survives (especially on specimens that did not go to the BMNH during the
Grays’ tenure). Sometimes what is presumably that number is found on the BMNH labels used by
the Grays. Some specimens in the Cambridge University Zoology Museum, where acquired from the
Jardine or Strickland collections, have Hodgson labels numbered in black ink (Benson, 1999; 189, gs.
16 and 17).
128 Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006)
strange to him but by December 1843 when he left Nepal his count was approaching
890. This numbering system appears not to have been chronological, by acquisition.
Rather, the structure of the list suggests that only after collecting several hundred dif-
ferent birds did he arrange numbers for them based initially on a chosen sequence of
families and genera (thus Hodgson, 1836a, dated his use of the MS name Pomatorhinus
ferrugilatus to 1826, but did not tell us of a drawing number 9. From this and other clues
one gains the impression that numbering, and perhaps drawing, began later 10). Then,
as material continued to ow into his collections, the systematic scheme he had ini-
tially planned broke down and his sequence of numbers became illogical. After gaps
had been lled, it must have been solely chronological whenever paintings of new taxa
needed numbering.
By 1826 Hodgson was publishing, and three years later he described his rst new
species, Buceros nipalensis Hodgson, 1829 11. The path to publication was not easy; of
descriptions he sent to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta in November 1829 some were
eventually published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (JASB) in 1832, but at
least three were lost. For evidence, see Editorial notes in the JASB, one inserted just
ahead of the article by Hodgson (1835), and a second footnoted in Hodgson (1836b).
Between 1832 and 1845 his works appeared in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal, the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, Asiatic Researches, and the India
Review and Journal of Foreign Science 12 as well as in some local publications in Calcutta
and Madras 13. In several instances he published descriptions twice, seemingly because
he had had no news from the journal to which he had rst sent his proposed paper. For
instance, he, Hodgson (1837b), ‘described’ Gallinago nemoricola and G. solitaria with the
following footnote added: “Those to whom it went best know what is become of the
paper I sent home with these names and characters af xed.” In fact, the original de-
scriptions had appeared on or soon after 9th April 1836 14 in the Proceedings of the Zoo-
logical Society of London 15. Hodgson (1839: 136) was also of the opinion that some of his
novelties had been either appropriated and described by others 16, or overlooked. It
seems extraordinary that this issue was not brought up and resolved with those with
whom he went on to deal (such as Edward Blyth in Calcutta and the Gray brothers in
London) yet Hodgson seemed to go on suffering from situations, at least partially of his
own making, in which his novelties were described by others. It should nevertheless be
9 In Hodgson (1844) this appears as Pomatorhinus erythrogenys and is drawing no. 237.
10 He could probably ill afford to employ artists while he was still Postmaster.
11 This is the earliest new name by Hodgson that is still in use. Phasianus nipalensis Hodgson, 1827, pro-
posed two years earlier, was a pheasant that had been described much earlier by Latham (1790).
12 Abbreviated in almost all ornithological citations, and in reference lists in successive issues of the
Systematic notes on Asian birds, to just India Review (earlier occasionally Indian Rev., but all Hodgson’s
notices include, below his name, ‘For the India Review’).
13 In 1836 Hodgson described several birds of prey in the Bengal Sporting Magazine under the pseudonym
Parbattiah. The types of some are listed in Warren (1966: 4, 50, 266), who ascribed them to Hodgson.
14 The date these pages were delivered to the ZSL by the printers (Sclater, 1893).
15 Hodgson (1836c).
16 John Gould appears to have been the rst to cause this feeling, probably based on material Hodgson
had sent to the ZSL, but the exact stimulus is not known.
Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006) 129
recalled that, at that period, writers who cited the name of the author of a manuscript
name appeared to believe that that name would continue to be credited to that person
and that they were being entirely fair to their correspondent.
In 1832, Hodgson had been made a Corresponding Member of the ZSL, but presen-
tations of bird specimens by that date are not recorded. Three donations 17 by him to the
Society are known: in 1834, 1835 and 1836 (Wheeler, 1997) 18. Soon thereafter the Socie-
ty’s interest in its museum collection, much affected by problems over premises, began
to wane and in 1841 John Edward Gray was involved in discussions over a proposal
that it should be taken over by the BMNH (Wheeler, 1997). This foundered because of
the Society’s unrealistically high cash valuation 19, and by 1850 the collection was being
broken up, although even before that some specimens, perceived to be duplicates, had
been presented to several provincial museums 20.
Wheeler (1997) quoted the 1856 Annual Report of the ZSL as saying that it had been
decided “to transfer to the British Museum the whole of the types 21 of species described
in the Society’s publications” and that the Museum might purchase “such other portions
of the collection ... as were desirable for the purpose of lling up desiderata in the Na-
tional Museum”. Some specimens that had come from Hodgson may have been includ-
ed, but as these would have been assumed not to include types – the BMNH having by
then received Hodgson’s major donation in 1843-45, which J.E. & G.R. Gray (1847)
thought included his types – it seems unlikely that any would have been bought now.
Benson (1999: 190), discussing Hodgson specimens in the Cambridge University
Zoology Museum (UMZC), noted that Carol Inskipp had checked the sale catalogue of
Sir William Jardine’s collection (Anon., 1886), which had contained 197 specimens from
Hodgson, and seems to have supposed that Jardine’s holdings of Hodgson’s skins had
come to him from his son-in-law, Hugh Strickland. But, in 1837, and this appears to
have been unknown to Benson, Hodgson sent “a box of Nepalese bird skins to William
Jardine who claimed to have found from thirty to fty new species amongst them”
(Datta & Inskipp, 2004: 148). Strickland had had a share of the duplicate material from
Hodgson’s donations to the BMNH in 1843-45 (see Gray & Gray, 1847, p. iv). There is no
reason to suppose, as Benson seemed to do, that when Strickland’s widow gave her
17 Totalling several hundred skins; Wheeler (1997) drew on the Society’s Annual Reports for this infor-
mation, but the Society’s Catalogue of its Museum, listing the accessions, has not survived and smaller
donations could have been made earlier.
18 In 1832 Gould presented 120 bird specimens to the Society. He had obtained these in or before 1831
and they provided models for some of the plates in A Century of birds from the Himalaya Mountains
(Gould, 1830-1833). It might be suspected that these came from Hodgson, but Ticehurst & Whistler
(1924) considered the origin of them, which they believed Gould had deliberately concealed, and con-
cluded that they were not from Nepal, but probably from the Simla -Almora region.
19 In 1840, two valuers, one of them John Gould, estimated its worth at £ 10,965 (Wheeler, 1997).
20 Norwich, Ipswich, Dover, Worcester, Lancaster and Warrington (Wheeler, 1997).
21 A list was given by Sharpe (1906: 514), but comprised only about 50 taxa, and it is apparent that most
of the birds described by Vigors (1831, 1832) were not included. Similarly, others that should have been
found were not included. No taxon named by Hodgson is included. Such as it is, the lists supports the
view that there was then little or no understanding of the meaning or value of types. R. Prys-Jones
(pers. comm.) considers that interest quickened only with the work on the Catalogue of Birds of the British
Museum in the 1870s.
130 Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006)
husband’s collection to Cambridge University in 1867, a portion including Hodgson
material was retained by Jardine, her father. Rather, what Jardine possessed will have
been what Hodgson had sent to him direct and these skins were no doubt included in
the 1886 auction of Jardine’s collection, some of them thereafter coming together with
Strickland’s material in the UMZC.
Between 1841
22 and 1843 23 Hodgson also sent specimens, but apparently not those
in best condition 24, to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta where Edward Blyth had
recently been appointed Curator (Blyth, 1852) 25. At least some of what Hodgson sent to
Calcutta may still be there, in the collection of the Zoological Survey of India, but some
specimens, perhaps considered duplicates by Blyth, may have been passed on to the
East-India Company Museum in London.
Meanwhile, Hodgson was looking for the right home for the bulk of his collection
and having tried the ZSL (Datta & Inskipp, 2004: 140), in 1843 26 approached the BMNH,
via his cousin Edward Hawkins, the Keeper of Antiquities, and in response to John
Edward Gray, Keeper of Zoology since 1840, having “embarked on a massive collec-
tion-building programme.”
Hodgson attached conditions to his proposed donation. The rst was that the mu-
seum should prepare and publish a catalogue of his collection. Hodgson thought of his
drawings as the basis of his collection and at the request of Gray 27 prepared a docu-
ment that appeared in Gray’s Zoological Miscellany 28 under the title Catalogue of Nipalese
Birds, collected between 1824 and 1844 (Hodgson, 1844) 29. This was essentially a list of
drawings and none of the names came with a written description. Some of these names
had been validly published in prior years, but others were nomina nuda. This list served
as a start point for the systematic Catalogue that the museum had agreed to produce.
22 Two specimens of Conostoma aemodium were presented in 1841, and described as new in the Society’s
journal that year (Hodgson, 1841). These, listed by Blyth (1852: 101), may be presumed to be Hodgson’s
types.
23 In May 1843, apparently, Hodgson sent the Asiatic Society of Bengal a paper with descriptions of
some of his new birds. It seems that with it Hodgson sent specimens of most of the forms his draft pro-
posed as new. Due to Edward Blyth’s editorial delays and substantial re-writing, this draft became the
basis of a lasting estrangement between the two men. His 1843 donation may have been Hodgson’s last
gift to the Society, and ‘1848’, given for one among Hodgson’s specimens listed by Blyth (1852) in the
latter’s catalogue of the Society’s collection, may well have been a typographical error for 1843.
24 “Many are in very imperfect condition” Blyth (1842: 788). “In bad order” appears often in Blyth (1852)!
25 Blyth (1852) dated most of the accessions to the Asiatic Society’s holdings from the period of his own
curatorship. Although Hodgson had published in the Society’s journals from 1832, it does not seem that
he presented any specimens before 1841. The rst major gift, representing “270 species”, was recorded
by Blyth (1842: 788) in his report to the July 1842 Committee Meeting of the Society.
26 Datta & Inskipp (2004: 140) concluded, from letters from J.E. Gray to Sir William Jardine in early Feb-
ruary 1843, that Hodgson had offered the collection to the ZSL but that the offer had been declined due
to conditions that Hodgson had wished to attach.
27 Or perhaps of the two brothers (John Edward and George Robert).
28 For further comments on this publication see Kluge (1971).
29 This was compiled at his parents’ home in Canterbury. Hodgson (1855) wrote that it was “substan-
tially my own, but with groups disposed according to the system followed in the National Museum
Catalogue”.
Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006) 131
The opening paragraph of this Catalogue says “the specimens, forming the following
Catalogue, were collected by Mr. B.H. Hodgson … and are the type specimens de-
scribed in that gentleman’s various scienti c papers” 30.
Other conditions agreed, probably in 1844, related to access for Frank Howard, who
was expected to publish Hodgson’s drawings, and restrictions on access to prevent oth-
ers from guring or describing Hodgson’s birds until Howard’s publication appeared 31.
In addition, copies of the Catalogue and duplicate specimens were to be supplied to
thirteen other persons and institutions 32.
This rst large gift from Hodgson to the BMNH comprised 2596 33 birds from Nepal
and Tibet (Sharpe, 1906: 385) and 806 sheets of drawings (Hodgson, 1863 34). Sharpe
(1906: 385) thought that the 2596 specimens that entered the museum registers in 1843-
1845 “were presented by him to the Museum when he left Nepal in 1843”, but Hodgson
was not back in England until about April 1844 and while the accessions in 1844 and
1845 may have been donated in 1844 at least the rst 1302 specimens (BMNH 1843.1.13.1-
1302) were registered in 1843. These, at least, must have been presented before Hodg-
son left Nepal 35. Four more skins were separately accessioned in 1844 (BMNH 1844.
12.27.1-4). Despite enquiries about registers of the period, the dates of accession of the
drawings have so far not been traced.
The 1845 accessions (BMNH 1845.1.9.1-841, 1845.1.12.1-414 and 478-513) connect
two letters. One is Hodgson’s letter from Arnhem 36 in October 1844 to his father asking
that he have the collections stored at the family home in Canterbury sorted, which his
father duly arranged. The other dated 24th December 1844 and addressed to Hodgson
30 This opening statement in the Catalogue gives the impression that the collection held the types of
all Hodgson’s early names but that is next to impossible to verify. Warren (1966) and Warren & Harri-
son (1971) addressed some of the types issues and rightly noted instances where specimens previously
thought to be types of names from Hodgson (1844) do not qualify, because the names were nomina nuda.
31 It is not clear how long this condition was respected, but the Trustees of the Museum rejected Hodg-
son’s appeal for nancial help with this publication and the work never materialised. It would seem that
the descriptions given in the Appendix to the Catalogue that Hodgson had requested were not seen as
breaching this condition, and perhaps by 1847 Frank Howard had advised the Museum that he would
not be publishing. Even so, Cocker & Inskipp (1988: 36) reported an 1859 letter in which Hodgson was
still hoping that the Trustees of the British Museum would agree to a plan for some or all of the draw-
ings to be published.
32 Listed as the museums of: 1) the Hon. East-India Company, 2) the University of Leyden, 3) the Gar-
den of Plants, Paris, 4) the University of Berlin, 5) the Senckenbergian Society at Francfort [sic], 6) the
University of Edinburgh, 7) Trinity College, Dublin, 8) the Natural History Society, Newcastle-on-Tyne,
9) the Canterbury Natural History Society, 10) the Manchester Natural History Society, 11) the Earl of
Derby, Knowsley, 12) Hugh Strickland Esq., Oxford, 13) the Zoological Society [sic, but presumably of
London].
33 This appears to be a mis-count as the accessions he listed total 2597.
34 If Hodgson provided a count of the drawings presented in 1843-45 his information was not reported
by Gray & Gray (1847).
35 Probably, Hodgson’s father made this delivery from material that Hodgson had brought home
earlier.
36 Where Hodgson was visiting his sister Frances, Baroness Nahuys, whose husband was “Governor
of one of the Seven Provinces of Holland”. The husband was also the stepson of her elder sister Ellen
(Hunter, 1896: 10-11, 239).
132 Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006)
by J. Forshall, Secretary to the Trustees of the British Museum, promised a visit to Can-
terbury by a “proper of cer” (Hunter, 1896: 240). Sharpe (1906: 386) wrote that “Mr.
Gerrard, sen., remembers going to Canterbury to pack the collections for transmission
to London” and this transfer appears to have included the “nearly complete series”
(Hodgson, 1844). Hodgson’s words were written in the context of “drawings and spec-
imens”. ‘Nearly’ complete is correct for there were indeed gaps in what Hodgson pre-
sented. Most species were represented by specimens and drawings; however, examina-
tion of Gray & Gray (1847) shows that some were provided only as specimens and some
only as drawings. In a very few cases Hodgson’s serial numbers did not appear at all
(although at least some of these missing numbers may prove to be present on drawings
in the set given to the ZSL) 37.
Of the 2597 specimens, 414 were of skeletal material, so that the net total of skins
was 2183. It is not yet clear whether included duplicates were assigned registration
numbers, and nor has it been established when the duplicate specimens that were to be
shared were distributed. Hunter (1896: 308) implied that Hodgson made donations to a
good number of institutions, but it is not clear whether these were independent of the
BMNH’s distribution of duplicates or were that distribution. Strickland’s specimens,
now in UMZC, carry the date 1845 38 which Benson (1999) suggested was when Strick-
land received them, and which would t with the expected distribution (direct from
Hodgson or via the BMNH). Other than these specimens in Cambridge no con rmatory
details of quantities received or dates of receipt have been discovered from the intended
bene ciaries. Apparently, no records survive relating to what went to Manchester (H.
McGhie, pers. comm., 27 Apr. 2005). Among the other intended recipients, Leiden has
no surviving correspondence relating to such a distribution 39 and since Finsch re-la-
belled the entire collection between 1897 and 1904 it is not possible to say whether the
Hodgson specimens that arrived there had already lost their original Hodgson labels in
favour of BMNH labels.
In 1845, Hodgson made his rst signi cant donation to the East-India Company
Museum (Hors eld & Moore, 1854) 40 and Frederic Moore (who did not remove the
original Hodgson labels, which pleased Sharpe, 1906: 387) described several of the
37 The drawing numbers that appeared in the Grays’ 1863 Catalogue, which is essentially concerned
with additions to the content of the 1847 Catalogue, largely con rm that numbering in Sikkim began
from about 790. However, there are a few early numbers therein and these may represent originals that
that had been held back by Hodgson and not presented in 1843-45, perhaps because they had not at that
stage been copied.
38 I understand this to apply to the 129 Strickland specimens (Benson, 1999: 190) acquired in 1867 and
not to those that came from Jardine (see discussion, above, where I conclude that Jardine received his
specimens directly from Hodgson in, and perhaps after, 1837).
39 The museum (RMNH) maintained no accession register in the 1840s, but a member of staff has agreed
to try to list the Hodgson specimens that remain (many of which it is supposed might be types).
40 There is no mention in Hors eld & Moore (1854: v) of the receipt of material from the BMNH, nei-
ther of the duplicates from the 1843-45 donations by Hodgson, not of a later transfer of duplicates
(mentioned by Sharpe, 1906: 386). It is thus possible that the specimens received in 1845 were not given
directly by Hodgson, but were the duplicates that Hodgson and the BMNH had agreed should go to
the East-India Museum. If this is so then it would make it likely that all transferred duplicates did still
have original labels attached.
Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006) 133
specimens as new to science 41. These birds were from Nepal and Hodgson must have
held them back when making his donations to the BMNH. However, also in 1845,
Hodgson gave the BMNH 301 bird skins from Bihar, and Sharpe (1906) recognised that
they had been prepared quite differently from the Nepal collections.
In 1848 the BMNH received a further 307 skins and registered them from ‘India’
(BMNH 1848.6.4.1-307). Sharpe (1906: 386) was satis ed these came from Sikkim and
Darjeeling (although he noted that George Gray had registered some as from Bihar he
was able to show that their style of preparation was the same as in the Nepal collection.
In the same year the East-India Company Museum also received “several birds from
Sikkim and Darjeeling” (Hors eld & Moore, 1854). These Sharpe (1906: 386) associated
with the 211 duplicates passed on by the BMNH 42.
The East-India Company Museum received a further large collection ostensibly
from Nepal and Tibet in 1853 (Hors eld & Moore, 1854). Some specimens were thought
actually to have come from Sikkim, near to which, in Darjeeling, Hodgson had already
been living for several years. Any genuinely from Nepal 43 must have been retained by
Hodgson for 10 years, or had come to him in Darjeeling from friends in Nepal or from
his collectors who may have entered Nepal from Sikkim and brought back fresh mate-
rial. Datta & Inskipp (2004: 143) suggested that Hodgson’s trappers “could have unwit-
tingly wandered into Nepal”, but they may also have entered Nepal quite deliberately.
The border would have presented no obstacles, and even though Hodgson remained
barred there is no evidence that his collectors had been. Hodgson would have found the
Sikkim avifauna somewhat different from that near Kathmandu and may well have
wished to discover what material from eastern Nepal would tell him. In Hodgson (1848)
there is mention of a specimen from central Tibet “brought back by Bhotias 44 employed
to shoot mammals”, so it is apparent that Hodgson did not feel unduly constrained by
territorial borders.
In May 1858, after his return from Darjeeling to England, Hodgson made his nal
donation to the BMNH. Sharpe (1906) recorded 598 birds from ‘Nepal’ 45, registered in
1859 46. These and a further quantity of drawings became the basis of the second Cata-
logue of Hodgson material (Gray & Gray, 1863). While packing in Darjeeling in Decem-
ber 1857, Hodgson had accounted for 2986 skins, only eight of which he considered still
needed description, and for these he gave his drawings numbers (908, 953, 956, 977, 979,
980, 981 and 982). Of the 598 that the museum selected only about 90 are actually listed
in the 1863 report (the rest presumably being additional specimens of species received
in the 1843-45 donations, including duplicates intended to be used in exchanges).
41 As with Blyth, when Moore described birds to which Hodgson had given a manuscript name he gave
Hodgson the credit before appending a description. See also Dickinson (2004: 152, 159-163).
42 Presumably these duplicates had not been registered by the BMNH. The entry in Hors eld & Moore
in fact seems more likely to relate to a small donation by Hodgson direct.
43 The description of Sacfa hodgsoniae Hodgson, 1857, from Tibet appears to prove that Hodgson had
contact with Tibetan collectors almost to the end of his stay in Darjeeling.
44 Bhotia is a Hindi or Nepali word for the people, or some of the people, of Tibet and Bhutan.
45 Cocker & Inskipp (1988: 29) and Datta & Inskipp (2004: 143) noted that Hodgson corrected ‘Nepal’ to
‘Sikkim’ in his annotated copy of Gray & Gray (1863).
46 Presented in May 1858 (Gray & Gray, 1863: iii).
134 Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006)
Cocker & Inskipp (1988: 27) mentioned a “total bird collection of some 9512 speci-
mens of 672 species” of birds made by Hodgson. This number reappears in Datta & In-
skipp (2004: 143) as the sum of the birds that Hodgson donated to the BMNH 47 and is
attributed to Hunter (1896); but Hunter (p. 307) in fact said that this was the sum of
Hodgson’s two collections from which the museum “made its selection” 48. Archer (1962:
11) wrongly understood this number to be the total of Hodgson’s drawings of birds.
The content of the two reports by Gray & Gray (1847, 1863) is dealt with by Dickin-
son & Walters (2006; this volume).
The specimens Hodgson sent to Blyth
It was common practice in the rst half of the 19th century, and somewhat later, to
credit a name to the person who coined it, and Blyth was attentive to this. Clearly, when
using Hodgson’s names, Blyth anticipated that the credit for the species would go to
Hodgson. Only rarely is there any evidence that Hodgson supplied Blyth with a de-
scription. When Blyth quoted Hodgson, as he did both for the occasional description of
a new species and in footnotes containing the diagnoses of some genera (see, e.g., Blyth,
1844: 379-380), he placed such texts in quotation marks (see for example the description
of Pteruthius melanotis in Blyth, 1847: 448) 49. Unless quotation marks appear Blyth’s
descriptions must be seen to be his own, and Blyth’s were in any case not in the style of
Hodgson. Names attached to such Blyth descriptions are to be attributed to Blyth as the
author of the description (Article 50, I.C.Z.N., 1999).
That nomenclatural rules would be established that required this can have been
foreseen neither by Hodgson nor by Blyth, but they re ect the changes that followed
quickly from the widespread acceptance of the “Stricklandian Code” (Strickland,
1842). Eventually these will have become evident to Hodgson and may have fuelled
his view that he was being deprived of credit for his discoveries (Cocker & Inskipp,
1988: 36).
Acknowledgements
Grateful thanks are extended to Ann Datta and Carol Inskipp for reading an early
draft and commenting on it and to Michael Walters for reading a later one, as well as to
two referees for their extensive and useful comments.
47 Against the 3802 noted by Sharpe (1906).
48 Hunter (1896: 375) suggested that none of these was returned to Hodgson, but that those not retained
made up the duplicates distributed. If this gure is correct it suggests that the birds available for dis-
tribution as duplicates would have numbered several thousand. Limited researches so far suggest that
much smaller distributions occurred.
49 The description cited is of a bird Blyth did not see. He mentioned ‘non vidi’, and thus could not
have described it himself. Deeper analysis is required to see whether Blyth used quotation marks more
widely, or perhaps only began to use them after 1845, as should that be so it might suggest that Hodgson
had by then discussed the issue with him (or that Blyth had taken advice from Strickland, although the
1842 ‘Code’ did not address this question).
Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006) 135
References
Anon., 1886. A catalogue of the birds contained in the collection of Sir William Jardine, Bart. 1-210.—
London. [Not seen.]
Archer, M., 1962. Natural History Drawings in the India Of ce Library. i-ix, 1-115.— London.
Benson, C.W., 1999. Type specimens of bird skins in the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge,
United Kingdom. Occasional Publications, No. 4: i-xiv, 1-221.— Tring, Herts.
Blyth, E., 1842. Report from the Curator.— J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, XI (128): 788-809.
Blyth, E., 1844. Mr. Blyth’s monthly Report for December Meeting 1842, with addenda subsequently
appended (Cont.).— J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, XIII (149): 361-395.
Blyth, E., 1845. Notices and descriptions of various new or little known species of birds.— J. Asiatic Soc.
Bengal, XIV (159): 173-212.
Blyth, E., 1847. Notices and descriptions of various new or little known species of birds.— J. Asiatic Soc.
Bengal, XVI: 428-476.
Blyth, E., 1852. Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum [of the] Asiatic Society. i-xxxiv, 1-403.— Calcutta.
Cocker, M. & C. Inskipp, 1988. A Himalayan ornithologist. i-xii, 1-87.— Oxford.
Datta, A. & C. Inskipp, 2004. Zoology ... amuses me much. Pp. 134-153. In: Waterhouse, D.M. The origins
of Himalayan studies. Brian Houghton Hodgson in Nepal and Darjeeling 1820-1858. i-xxiv, 1-280.—
London.
Dickinson, E.C., 2004. Systematic notes on Asian birds. 46. ‘A Catalogue of the birds in the Museum of
the Hon. East-India Company’ by Hors eld & Moore.— Zool. Verh., Leiden, 350: 149-165.
Dickinson, E.C. & M. Walters, 2006. Systematic notes on Asian birds. 53. The authorship and date of
publication of the “Catalogue of the Specimens and Drawings of Mammalia and Birds of Nepal and
Thibet presented by B.H. Hodgson, Esq. to the British Museum”.— Zool. Med., Leiden 80-5 (5):
137-153.
Gould, J., 1830-33. A Century of birds from the Himalayan mountains. 80 pls.— London.
Gray, J.E. & G.R. Gray, 1847. Catalogue of the specimens and drawings of Mammalia and Birds of Nepal
and Thibet presented by B. H. Hodgson Esq., to the British Museum. i-xi, 1-156.— London.
Gray, J.E. & G.R. Gray, 1863. Catalogue of the specimens and drawings of Mammals, Birds, Reptiles and
Fishes of Nepal and Tibet presented by B.H. Hodgson Esq., to the British Museum. i-xii, 1-90.—
London.
Hodgson, B.H., 1827, [Description of Phasianus nipalensis].— Quart. Oriental. Mag. Rev. and Regist. 8
(Sci.): 44. [Not seen.]
Hodgson, B.H., 1829. On a new species of Buceros.— Gleanings in Science, 1 (9): 249-252.
Hodgson, B.H., 1835. Red-billed Erolia.— J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, IV (44): 458-461.
Hodgson, B.H., 1836a. Notices of the Ornithology of Nepal. VIII. New species of Pomatorhinus, and its
allies.— Asiatic Researches, 19: 179-186.
Hodgson, B.H., 1836b. Description of a new species of Columba.— J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, V (50): 122-
124.
Hodgson, B.H., 1836c. On some of the Scolopacidae of Nipal.— Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond.: 7-8.
Hodgson, B.H., 1837a. On some new genera of Raptores, with remarks on the old genera.— J. Asiatic
Soc. Bengal, VI (65): 361-373.
Hodgson, B.H., 1837b. New species of Scolopacidae. Indian Snipes.— J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, VI (66): 489-
492.
Hodgson, B.H., 1839. On Cuculus.— J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, VIII (86): 136-137.
Hodgson, B.H., 1841. Notice of a new form of the Glaucopinae, or Rasorial Crows, inhabiting the north-
ern region of Nepal. – Conostoma Æmodius, (Nobis type).— J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 10 (119): 856-857.
Hodgson, B.H., 1844. Catalogue of Nipalese Birds collected between 1824 and 1844.— [Gray’s] Zoologi-
cal Miscellany: 81-86.
Hodgson, B.H., 1848. On the buzzards of the Himalaya and of Tibet.— Calcutta J. Nat. Hist., 8 (29): 94-
97.
Hodgson, B.H., 1855. Catalogue of Nipalese Birds, collected between 1824 and 1844.— J. Asiatic Soc.
Bengal, XXIV (7): 572-582.
136 Dickinson. The collections of B.H. Hodgson. Zool. Med. Leiden 80 (2006)
Hodgson, B.H., 1857. On a new Perdicine bird from Tibet.— J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 25 (2): 165-166.
Hodgson, B.H., 1863. Account of the collection. Pp. iii-xii. In: Gray, J.E. & G.R. Gray. Catalogue of the
specimens and drawings of Mammals, Birds, Reptiles and Fishes of Nepal and Tibet presented by
B.H. Hodgson Esq., to the British Museum. i-xii, 1-90.— London.
Hors eld, T. & F. Moore, 1854. A catalogue of the birds in the Museum of the Hon. East-India Company.
1: i-xx, 1-451.— London.
Hunter, W.W., 1896. Life of Brian Houghton Hodgson: British Resident at the Court of Nepal. i-ix, 1-
390.— London.
Inskipp, C. & T. Inskipp, 1982. Annotated list of Hodgson drawings held in the Zoological Society of
London and The Natural History Museum Libraries. Unpublished.
Inskipp, C. & T.P. Inskipp, 1985. A Guide to the Birds of Nepal. 1-392.— Beckenham.
Inskipp, C. & T.P. Inskipp, 1991. A Guide to the Birds of Nepal. 1-400.— London.
I.C.Z.N., 1999. International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. i-xxix, 1-306.— London.
Kluge, A., 1991. J.E. Gray’s the Zoological Miscellany. The Society for the study of amphibians and rep-
tiles reprint. i-viii, 1-86.— Oxford, Ohio.
Latham, J., 1790. Index ornithologicus, sive systema ornithologiæ; complectens avium divisionem in
classes, ordines, genera, species, ipsarumque varietates: adjectis synonymis, locis, descriptionibus,
& c. 1 i-xviii, 1-500.— London.
Sclater, P.L., 1893. List of dates of receipt from the printers of the sheets of the Society’s “Proceedings”
from 1831 to 1859 inclusive.— Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond.: 435-440.
Sharpe, R.B., 1906. History of the collections contained in the natural history departments of the British
Museum. 2: i-vi, 1-782 (Birds: 79-515).— London.
[Strickland, H. E., 1842] 50. Report of a Committee appointed “to consider of the rules by which the No-
menclature of Zoology may be established on a uniform and permanent basis”.— 12th Brit. Ass.
Adv. Sci. Rept., Manchester, 1842: 105-121.
Ticehurst, C.B. & H. Whistler, 1924. On the type locality of certain birds described by Vigors.— Ibis, (11)
6: 468-473.
Vigors, N.A., 1831. Observations on a collection of birds from the Himalayan Mountains, with charac-
ters of new genera and species.— Proc. Commit. Sci. Corresp. Zool. Soc. Lond.: 7-9, 22-23, 35, 41-44,
54-56.
Vigors, N.A., 1832. Observations on a collection of birds from the Himalayan Mountains, with charac-
ters of new genera and species.— Proc. Commit. Sci. Corresp. Zool. Soc. Lond.: 170-176.
Warren, R.L.M., 1966. Type-specimens of birds in the British Museum (Natural History). 1: i-x, 1-320.—
London.
Warren, R.L.M. & C.J.O. Harrison, 1971. Type-specimens of birds in the British Museum (Natural His-
tory). 2: i-vi, 1-628.— London.
Waterhouse, D.M., 2004. The origins of Himalayan studies. Brian Houghton Hodgson in Nepal and
Darjeeling 1820-1858. i-xxiv, 1-280.— London.
Wheeler, A., 1997. Zoological collections in the early British Museum: the Zoological Society’s Museum.—
Arch. Nat. Hist., 24 (1): 89-126.
Final draft: 20.v.2006
Accepted: 1.ix.2006
Edited: D.R. Wells
50 This is a Minute of Council. No authorship is stated, but within the minute the original Committee
appointed is listed and H.E. Strickland is given as its “reporter”.
