“Journal of the Avicultural Society”, Bird-keeping enthusiasts since 1894.

BEING THE JOURNAL OF THE AVICULTURAL SOCIETY FOR the STUDY OF FOREIGN AND BRITISH BIRDS IN FREEDOM AND CAPTIVITY.

The journal's aims are to study, conserve and maintain viable populations of native and non-native birds in the wild and in captivity. The magazine was the first journal devoted to cage-birds along with notes of native birds.

Each issue contains a report of the council for the appropriate year, a list of contributors, list of members, rules of the Avicultural Society, and numerous articles.

The 1911 edition is edited by Reginald Innes Pocock, a British zoologist; Herbrand Arthur Russell, Marquess of Tavistock, an English politician, peer, and noted naturalist; and David Seth-Smith, a British zoologist, wildlife artist, nature broadcaster and author.

“British Museum Catalogue of Birds”

The Catalogue of the birds in the British Museum is a monumental work published in 27 volumes between 1874 to 1898. Its aim was not only to document the British Museum of Natural History's bird collection, but to discuss all then-known "species" of living birds. 

Reference:

John White's “A Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, 1790”

John White was an Irishman who entered the Royal Navy as a trainee surgeon in 1778, and in 1788 was appointed Surgeon-General of the new British penal colony in New South Wales. An energetic and sympathetic medic, he worked to improve the conditions for the convicts on the transport ship Charlotte, as well as founding the settlement’s first hospital.

Aside from his medical duties, White had an abiding love of natural history, and the Journal contains many of the first descriptions of Australian species known to western science. The book has 65 engraved plates, produced in England based on specimens and descriptions sent home by White only 10 months after he arrived with the First Fleet in NSW. Many of the illustrations are thought to be based on the work of the British natural history illustrator, Sarah Stone.

White was particularly interested in the medicinal properties of the native flora and fauna, and is reported to have been among the first to distil eucalyptus oil from plant samples in 1788.

Plates include pictures of dingoes, lizards, birds, insects, fishes, kangaroos and plants such as eucalypts and acacias as well as native implements.

Reference:

Transactions of the Zoological Society of London is considered to be the most beautifully illustrated zoological journal ever published and of especial interest to ornithologists. The first 10 volumes have 822 lithographs many of which are beautifully hand-coloured by such illustrators as Wolf, Gould, Lear, Smit and Keulemans.