BIRD STUDY IN EUROPEAN MUSEUMS 



By H. G. DEIGNAN 

 Scientific Aid, Division of Birds, U. S. National Museum 



With the aid of a grant from the American Association of Museums 

 I was enabled to spend over 3 months in Europe studying type ma- 

 terial and other relevant specimens in connection with my work on 

 the birds of Siam. In all the museums visited, Mrs. Deignan assisted 

 by searching the catalogs and records for pertinent entries and by 

 transcribing these data, thereby greatly facilitating and speeding up 

 the work and making it possible to cover as many collections as were 

 actually examined. 



The month of June 1939 was spent chiefly in London, where work 

 was carried out at the British Museum (Natural History) and, to 

 a lesser extent, at the private museum of Dr. C. B. Ticehurst in Kent. 

 By examination of many type specimens of Asiatic birds and, in other 

 cases, of topotypical material, it was possible to identify with cer- 

 tainty a large number of specimens brought over for study from the 

 United States National Museum. Because of the danger of complete 

 destruction of type specimens during the political upheaval (now 

 war) in Europe, wherever possible the United States National 

 Museum specimen most nearly identical with the type was so indi- 

 cated for future reference. Also, certain descriptions originally 

 published in books now very rare and not to be found in any Ameri- 

 can library were copied verbatim, and these copies have been de- 

 posited in the divisional library at the United States National 

 Museum. Some of these were found in the British Museum and 

 others at the library of the Zoological Society of London. 



The first week of July was spent working at the National Museum 

 of Natural History in Paris, where many types of birds from French 

 Indo-China were examined, and old and, in some cases, misidentified 

 records from Siam were checked. Following this a week was passed 

 in Vienna and the next week in Berlin. The Viennese collections 

 contained relatively little pertinent material, but in Berlin the Miiller 

 collection (with types) was studied and it was learned definitelv 

 that the old Schomburgk collection, one of the pioneer sources of 

 Siamese ornithology, is no longer in existence. 



The last week of July was spent at Hannover, where there is an 

 extensive collection from Siam, most of it unidentified and unpub- 



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