In the years following the middle of the Nineteenth Century, Godeffroy
and Sons, of Hamburg, opened branches of its trading firm in Micronesia.
Representatives of the company including Heinsohn and Peters, who were
ship captains, obtained collections of birds at Palau and Yap. These
were deposited in the Godeffroy Museum at Hamburg and reported on by
Hartlaub and Finsch (Hartlaub, 1868; Hartlaub and Finsch, 1868a and
1872). Tetens became representative of Godeffroy and Sons at Yap in 1869
and obtained birds. Perhaps the most famous collector in this period was
Johann Kubary. He went to Ponapé at the age of nineteen and traveled in
Micronesia for many years for Godeffroy and Sons. He obtained birds at
many of the islands of the Carolines, spending fourteen months at Truk.
In 1873, one of his collections of some 200 birds was lost in a
shipwreck. Hartlaub and Finsch, (Hartlaub and Finsch, 1872; Finsch,
1876a) described much of his material; Nehrkorn (1879) reported on nests
and eggs which he obtained. Hartlaub and Finsch (1868b) also reported on
birds obtained at Palau by Doctor Semper, which were deposited in the
museum at Altona. Otto Finsch (1880b, 1880d, 1881b, 1881c) traveled in
Micronesia about 1880, observing birds in the eastern Carolines and in
the Marshalls.
One of the largest collections from Micronesia was made by Alfred Marche
in the Marianas. He arrived there on April 22, 1887, and stayed until
May, 1889. He obtained approximately 732 specimens of birds, nests, and
eggs at Guam, Rota, Tinian, Saipan, Pagan, and Alamagan, which were
deposited in the Paris Museum and reported on by Oustalet (1895-'96).
Shortly after Marche's visit, Japanese collectors in the hire of Alan
Owston, a professional collector of Yokahama, obtained birds in the
Marianas and at Truk in the years 1894-'97. These went to the Rothschild
collection at Tring and were reported on by Hartert in 1898 and 1900.
At the turn of the Twentieth Century, several ornithologists were
visiting Micronesia. Alvin Seale (1901) obtained a collection of birds
at Guam in the summer of 1900 which was deposited in the Bernice P.
Bishop Museum in Honolulu. The U. S. Fish Commission steamer "Albatross"
visited Micronesia from August, 1899, to March, 1900; birds obtained by
the expedition were reported on by Townsend and Wetmore (1919). Paul
Schnee (1901) spent approximately one year, 1899-1900, at Jaluit in the
Marshalls and obtained records of birds. In 1899, Brandeis, on board the
German ship "Kaiserland" visited many of the islands in the Marshalls
and recorded birds. William Safford (1905) resided at Guam in the early
part of this century and reported on the bird life in the course of his
studies of the botany and native life. Bartsch (Mearns, 1909) also
obtained a small collection of birds at Guam, this is in the United
States National Museum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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