Science Saturday: The Naturalist’s Library
Today we revisit the mid-19th century series The Naturalist’s Library, published in Edinburgh from 1833-1843 by William Home Lizars and edited by Sir William Jardine. The series is made up of 40 volumes, and each volume covers a topic related to one of four groups: birds, mammals, fish, and insects. Every volume in the series includes a short biography of a prominent naturalist. The rest of the text is dedicated to information about notable species, and features 30-35 hand colored steel engravings. Most of the illustrations were done by the artist James Hope Stewart and engraved by the publisher William Home Lizars. What I love most about this series is that is was meant to have wide appeal and it was very affordable compared to other illustrated natural history works at the time.
Today’s volume is a book about mammals, specifically primates! It includes a portrait and biography of the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon.
The introduction of the book reads:
“Natural History of Monkeys: Among the varied races of living beings which inhabit this world, none perhaps have excited so much speculation and general interest, as those to which we have devoted our present little volume. From the shy and retired manners of the animals in a wild state, their habits are of difficult investigation, and would require much patience, and a greater allowance of time, than it is often possible for those individuals who posses the enviable opportunities, to devote to them. The greater portion of the information we possess, is therefore derived from the accounts of travelers, too often collected from hearsay evidence, exaggerated as the fears and superstitions of the natives have been influenced, and which have appeared as ‘dreamy forms.’”
A couple things are notable about this passage. First, that a lot information about animals outside of Europe was coming second hand from explorers to previously unknown places, often made possible by colonialism. It also exhibits the Eurocentric view that indigenous populations were not ‘scientifically’ knowledgeable in their local nature. The animals in these books were often based on specimens brought back to Europe. The editor of The Naturalist’s Library, Sir William Jardine had over 10,000 specimens of birds and other animals in his personal collection. When looking at the last picture of ‘Midas leonina’ [Pygmy marmoset] it seems like an imagined creature! According to the text it was based on a specimen and not a field drawing.
The Naturalist’s Library was found in our sibling department, The American Geographical Society Library, a premier geography research library at UW–Milwaukee. View our first post about it here.
View other Science Saturday posts.
–Sarah, Special Collections Graduate Intern
