370 



NA TURE 



[February 20, 1896 



•presented by Major Wardlaw Ramsay, to whom it had 

 been bequeathed by his uncle, the Marquis of Tweed- 

 dale. Messrs. Salvin and Godman not only gave their 

 unrivalled set of American birds, but Mr. Godman 

 supplemented this splendid present by employing a staff 

 of collectors to work out the ornithology of Mexico, and 

 presented the results of their expeditions to the Museum. 

 He also purchased the celebrated Henshaw collection, 

 and gave it to the nation. Many other collections have 

 since been acquired by him, and likewise presented to 

 the Trustees of the British Museum. Only lately can it 

 be said that we possessed in England a representative 

 set of North American birds. 



Meanwhile, although the series of Indian, African, 

 Australian, and American birds had become adequate 

 and representative, the ornithology of the Palcearctic 

 region was but feebly illustrated. Through the exertions 

 of Lord Walsingham and other English ornithologists, 

 the nesting-habits of our British birds have been suc- 

 cessfully demonstrated by the well-known series of 

 groups in the Natural History Museum ; but the birds of 

 Europe and Northern Asia were poorly represented 

 in its cabinets. By the splendid bequest of Mr. Henry 

 Seebohm, this vacuum in our Palasarctic collections has 

 been filled, though there is no one in the Museum who 

 •does not feel that this addition to the strength of 

 its ornithological section has been attained only through 

 the loss of one of the truest friends of the institution 

 which his dying wishes have enriched. There has 

 not yet been tinie to register and incorporate the speci- 

 mens of the Seebohm collection, but we know that we 

 have now received the principal collection of Palaearctic 

 birds of modern times. 



A few years ago Mr. Seebohm presented his collection 

 ■of eggs, and, with this as a basis for the work, the entire 

 series of oological specimens in the Museum was set in 

 ■order and arranged under his own supervision by my 

 •daughter, Emily Mary Sharpe, till it was found that, with 

 the Hume and Salvin-Godman collections, the British 

 Museum could boast of a series of 48,000 eggs of birds. 



In the same generous spirit, he freely gave the type- 

 specimens of any birds he possessed, that the value of 

 the " Catalogue of Birds " might be enhanced thereby ; 

 and now, by leaving the contents of his Museum to the 

 nation, the British Museum becomes possessed of several 

 invaluable additions to its ornithological collection. Thus 

 are added : the Swinhoe collection of Chinese birds, 

 the Fryer collection of Japanese birds, the series of 

 specimens obtained by Hoist in the Bonin and Loo-choo 

 Islands, and Formosa ; and last, but not least, his own 

 European and Siberian collections, the result of his 

 travels in all parts of Europe, and of his expeditions to 

 the valleys of the Petchora and the Yenesei. Of his 

 ■collection of Charadriidce, he had already presented 

 hundreds of specimens to the Museum, but by his 

 bequest is added the series which formed his special 

 series of the plovers and snipes, on which, indeed, was 

 founded his great work on the geographical distribution 

 of the Charadriidce. He had, moreover, in contemplation 

 a " Monograph of the Turdidas, or Family of Thrushes," 

 and in pursuance of this object he had amassed a large 

 •collection of thrushes, which now passes into the 

 •ornithological collection of the British Museum. Nests 

 and skeletons of birds are in plenty, and a set of the 

 Layard collection of Oceanic birds and others from the 

 Whitehead expedition to Kina Balu, the Prjevalski and 

 ;Severtzov expeditions in Central Asia, make up one of 

 the most important donations which the Trustees of the 

 firitish Museum have ever received. His series of skins 

 of the Phasianidce was one of the finest in the world, and 

 the value of the osteological collection cannot be over- 

 estimated, as it formed the material on which was founded 

 his many essays on the " Classification of Birds." 



In this necessarily imperfect sketch of the contents of 



NO. 1373, VOL. 53] 



the Seebohm collection, of which a fuller account will 

 only be possible when it has been arranged and regis- 

 tered in the archives of the British Museum, it is im- 

 possible to give a detailed history of the various 

 collections which constitute its importance to ornith- 

 ologists. I feel, however, that I cannot close this article 

 without expressing my opinion of the great loss which 

 ornithology in general, and this country in particular, 

 have sustained by the death of Mr. Seebohm, for, had I 

 space to tell, it would interest naturalists to know how 

 the great collection of birds in the Natural History 

 Museum has been built up, by the help of such men 

 as Henry Seebohm and the other munificent, though 

 unostentatious, donors whose names I have recorded 

 above. I believe, however, that under the enlightened 

 sway of its present Director, the Museum has a still 

 greater future before it than it has enjoyed in the past, 

 and that when the common people have the opportunity 

 to " read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest " the lesson 

 which the Museum is trying to teach, the nation at large 

 will still more fully appreciate the work of such men as 

 Henry Seebohm. R. Bowdler Sharpe. 



MOVEMENTS 



SOME of the results of the researches of M. Marey 

 on the movements of men, horses, and fishes, have 

 appeared from time to time in English papers. The skill 

 and originality displayed by M. Marey in experimental 

 work, involving great difficulties, must have astonished 

 many, at a time when the idea of taking a rapid suc- 

 cession of photographs of a moving object was new. 



The method of determining time-periods by means of a 

 continuous chain of photographs appears to be due to Mr. 

 Jansen, who used it in 1874 to record the transit of Venus 

 across the sun's disc ; he also suggested that the method 

 might be applied to the study of animal locomotion. The 

 subject of intermittent photography was attacked by 

 Mr. Muybridge, who discovered, by means of a method 

 different from that suggested by Jansen, the analysis of 

 the locomotion of men, horses, and other animals. Mr. 

 Muybridge took successive photographs of moving 

 animals, using a battery of cameras and lenses, each 

 plate being exposed automatically at the required instant ; 

 he also produced photographs of pigeons in flight. The 

 end aimed at by Marey was to use a succession of photo- 

 graphs for chronographic purposes : photographs so taken 

 have been called chronophotographs ; his method of pro- 

 cedure is as follows. The object to be chronophoto- 

 graphed performs its movements in full sunlight before a 

 black background of unilluminated velvet. The camera 

 employed is furnished with a slotted disc {disquc fenctre) 

 which can be uniformly rotated; as each slot cuts the beam 

 of light reflected from the moving object, the sensitive 

 plate receives an impression, which gives the exact form 

 and position of the object at the instant, the duration of ex- 

 posure being -Jotl^ of a second, and the interval between 

 the formation of each image Y^^th of a second. A chrono- 

 metric dial is so placed that the position of its revolving 

 pointer is recorded on the same sensitive plate ; this 

 instrument serves to indicate both the time of exposure 

 and the time between successive exposures, the pointer 

 of the chronometric dial being driven at a known uniform 

 velocity. 



Provided with this instrument, and the photographic 

 gun (which is described on pp. 108-115), and certain 

 other special arrangements for the chronophotography of 

 fishes, the excellent results shown in "Movement" have 

 been obtained. 



Mr. Eric Pritchard, assisted by his sister Mrs. Chalmers 



1 " Movement." ByE. J. Marey. Translated by Eric Pritchard, M.A., 

 M.B., B.Ch. (Oxon.) 323 pp., 200 illustrations. (London: William 

 Heineraann, 1895.) 



