Flower, William Henry, 1831-1899; Zoologists -- Great Britain -- Biography
In addition to these is a series of photographs of heads enlarged to
natural size, and including, whenever possible, a full face and a profile
view of each individual represented. Flower took great interest in these
photographs (as in the anthropological series generally), and made
several experiments before finally deciding as to the scale to which
they were to be enlarged. As facilities for photographing in the museum
itself were at the time very limited, Flower enlisted the assistance
of Dr. H. O. Forbes, Director of the Liverpool Museums, who entered
enthusiastically into the project, and under whose superintendence the
great majority of the reproductions from photographs now exhibited was
produced; the arrangement being that Liverpool should have a copy of
every photograph forwarded for reproduction.
The races of mankind were arranged in the gallery according to Flower’s
own scheme, fuller reference to which is made elsewhere in the present
volume. Flower himself did not survive long enough to see the arrangement
he had plotted out fully installed. Of late years, although some progress
has been made in this direction, the series of coloured casts of the
various human races has not increased so rapidly as Flower had hoped they
would; but, nevertheless, a fairly representative series had been brought
together, and there is, at present, ample space for additions when
opportunities of acquiring new specimens occur. It should be added that
Flower inaugurated the plan of making a collection of photographs of the
various human races to be kept in the study series.
It must not, however, be supposed that Flower, during his too brief
tenure of the office of Keeper of the Zoological Department, by any means
confined his attention to the mammalian galleries. On the contrary, he
had with his own hands rearranged two of the cases in the bird gallery,
namely, those containing the humming-birds and the woodpeckers; and
shortly before his resignation he was planning the rearrangement of all
the cases in this section; a work which since his death has been carried
out to completion on the same lines. In this connection it is, however,
only fair to state that in the obituary notice of Flower, published in
the “Year-Book” of the Royal Society for 1901, full justice has not been
done to his predecessors. The passage in question runs as follows:—
“Every effort was made to give the specimens natural postures and natural
surroundings. Thus, for example, the tree on which the woodpecker was at
work, was cut down, the foliage modelled in wax, and all the surroundings
carefully kept. Hovering birds were suspended by fine wire or thread.
Birds making nests in holes, such as the Manx shearwater, sand-martin and
kingfishers, either had the actual parts or a model of these beside them,
just as the nests of the gannets and guillemots on the Bass Rock were
shown with their natural environment.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account