Allan Octavian Hume - Contribution To Ornithology and Natural History

Contribution To Ornithology and Natural History

From early days, Hume had a special interest in science. Science, he wrote:

...teaches men to take an interest in things outside and beyond… The gratification of the animal instinct and the sordid and selfish cares of worldly advancement; it teaches a love of truth for its own sake and leads to a purely disinterested exercise of intellectual faculties

and of natural history he wrote in 1867:

... alike to young and old, the study of Natural History in all its branches offers, next to religion, the most powerful safeguard against those worldly temptations to which all ages are exposed. There is no department of natural science the faithful study of which does not leave us with juster and loftier views of the greatness, goodness, and wisdom of the Creator, that does not leave us less selfish and less worldly, less spiritually choked up with those devil's thorns, the love of dissipation, wealth, power, and place, that does not, in a word, leave us wiser, better and more useful to our fellow-men.

During his career in Etawah, he built a personal collection of bird specimens, however it was destroyed during the 1857 rebellion. Subsequently he started afresh with a systematic plan to survey and document the birds of the Indian Subcontinent and in the process he accumulated the largest collection of Asiatic birds in the world, which he housed in a museum and library at his home in Rothney Castle on Jakko Hill, Simla. Rothney castle originally belonged to P. Mitchell, C.I.E and after Hume bought it, he tried to convert the house into a palace expecting it to be bought by the Government as a Viceregal residence since the Governor-General then occupied Peterhoff, a building too small for large parties. Hume spent over two hundred thousand pounds on the grounds and buildings. He added enormous reception rooms suitable for large dinner parties and balls, as well as a magnificent conservatory and spacious hall with walls displaying his superb collection of Indian horns. He hired a European gardener, and made the grounds and conservatory a perpetual horticultural exhibition, to which he courteously admitted all visitors.

Rothney Castle could only be reached by a troublesome climb, and was never purchased by the British Government and Hume himself never used the larger rooms except for one that he converted into a museum for his collection of birds, and for occasional dances.

He made several expeditions to collect birds both on health leave and where work took him. He was Collector and Magistrate of Etawah from 1856 to 1867 during which time he studied the birds of that area. He later became Commissioner of Inland Customs which made him responsible for the control of 2,500 miles (4,000 km) of coast from near Peshawar in the northwest to Cuttack on the Bay of Bengal. He travelled on horseback and camel in areas of Rajasthan to negotiate treaties with various local maharajas to control the export of salt and during these travels he took note of the birdlife:

The nests are placed indifferently on all kinds of trees (I have notes of finding them on mango, plum, orange, tamarind, toon, etc.), never at any great elevation from the ground, and usually in small trees, be the kind chosen what it may. Sometimes a high hedgerow, such as our great Customs hedge, is chosen, and occasionally a solitary caper or stunted acacia-bush.

— On the nesting of the Bay-backed Shrike (Lanius vittatus) in The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds.

His expedition to the Indus area was one of the largest and it started in late November 1871 and continued until the end of February 1872. In March 1873, he visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. In 1875 he visited the Laccadive Islands. And in 1881 he made his last ornithological expedition to Manipur. This was made on special leave following his demotion from the Central Government to a junior position on the Board of Revenue of the North Western Provinces.

He used this vast bird collection to produce a massive publication on all the birds of India. Unfortunately this work was lost in 1885 when all Hume's manuscripts were sold by a servant as waste paper. Hume's interest in ornithology reduced due to this theft as well as a landslip caused by heavy rains in Simla which damaged his personal museum and specimens. He wrote to the British Museum wishing to donate his collection on certain conditions. One of the conditions was that the collection was to be examined by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe and personally packed by him, apart from raising Dr. Sharpe's rank and salary due to the additional burden on his work caused by his collection. The British Museum was unable to heed to his conditions. It was only after the destruction of nearly 20000 specimens, that alarm bells were raised by Dr. Sharpe and the Museum authorities let him visit India to supervise the transfer of the specimens to the British Museum.

Sharpe wrote of Hume's impressive private ornithological museum:

I arrived at Rothney Castle about 10 am on the 19th of May, and was warmly welcomed by Mr Hume, who lives in a most picturesque situation high up on Jakko…From my bedroom window, I had a fine view of the snowy range. Although somewhat tired by my jolt in the Tonga from Solun, I gladly accompanied Mr. Hume at once into the museum…I had heard so much from my friends, who knew the collection intimately,…that I was not so much surprised when at last I stood in the celebrated museum and gazed at the dozens upon dozens of tin cases which filled the room. Before the landslip occurred, which carried away one end of the museum, It must have been an admirably arranged building, quite three times as large as our meeting-room at the Zoological Society, and…much more lofty. Throughout this large room went three rows of table cases with glass tops, in which were arranged a series of the birds of India sufficient for the identification of each species, while underneath these table- cases where enormous cabinets made of tin, with trays inside, containing species of birds in the table cases above. All of the rooms were racks reaching up to the ceiling, and containing immense cases full of birds… On the western side of the museum was the library, reached by a descent of three steps, a cheerful room, furnished with large tables, and containing besides the egg-cabinets, a well-chosen set of working-volumes. One ceases to wonder at the amount of work its owner got through when the excellent plan of his museum is considered. In a few minutes an immense series of specimens could be spread out on the tables, while all the books were at hand for immediate reference…After explaining to me the contents of the museum, we went below into the basement, which consisted of eight great rooms, six of them full, from floor to ceiling, of cases of birds, while at the back of the house two large verandahs were piled high with cases full of large birds, such as Pelicans, Cranes, Vultures, &c. An inspection of a great cabinet containing a further series of about 5000 eggs completed our survey. Mr. Hume gave me the keys of the museum, and I was free to commence my task at once.

Sharpe also noted:

Mr. Hume was a naturalist of no ordinary calibre, and this great collection will remain a monument of his genius and energy of its founder long after he who formed it has passed away...Such a private collection as Mr. Hume's is not likely to be formed again; for it is doubtful if such a combination of genius for organisation with energy for the completion of so great a scheme, and the scientific knowledge requisite for its proper development will again be combined in a single individual.

The Hume collection of birds as it went to the British museum in 1884 consisted of 82,000 specimens of which 75,577 were finally placed in the Museum. A breakup of that collection is as follows (old names retained).

• 2830 Birds of Prey (Accipitriformes)… 8 types
• 1155 Owls (Strigiformes)…9 types
• 2819 Crows, Jays, Orioles etc.…5 types
• 4493 Cuckoo-shrikes and Flycatchers… 21 types
• 4670 Thrushes and Warblers…28 types
• 3100 Bulbuls and wrens, Dippers, etc.…16 types
• 7304 Timaliine birds…30 types
• 2119 Tits and Shrikes…9 types
• 1789 Sun-birds (Nectarinidae) and White-eyes (Zosteropidae)…8 types
• 3724 Swallows (Hirundiniidae), Wagtails and Pipits (Motacillidae)…8 types
• 2375 Finches (Fringillidae)…8 types
• 3766 Starlings (Sturnidae), Weaver-birds (Ploceidae), and larks (Alaudidae)…22 types
• 807 Ant-thrushes (Pittidae), Broadbills (Eurylaimidae)…4 types
• 1110 Hoopoes (Upupae), Swifts (Cypseli), Nightjars (Caprimulgidae) and Frogmouths (Podargidae)…8 types
• 2277 Picidae, Hornbills (Bucerotes), Bee-eaters (Meropes), Kingfishers (Halcyones), Rollers(Coracidae), Trogons (Trogones)…11 types
• 2339 Woodpeckers (Pici)…3 types
• 2417 Honey-guides (Indicatores), Barbets (Capiformes), and Cuckoos (Coccyges)…8 types
• 813 Parrots (Psittaciformes)…3 types
• 1615 Pigeons (Columbiformes)…5 types
• 2120 Sand-grouse (Pterocletes), Game-birds and Megapodes(Galliformes)…8 types
• 882 Rails (Ralliformes), Cranes (Gruiformes), Bustards (Otides)…6 types
• 1089 Ibises (Ibididae), Herons (Ardeidae), Pelicans and Cormorants (Steganopodes), Grebes (Podicipediformes)…7 types
• 761 Geese and Ducks (Anseriformes)…2 types
• 15965 Eggs

The Hume Collection contained 258 types. In addition there were nearly 400 mammal specimens including new species such as Hadromys humei.

The egg collection was made up of carefully authenticated contributions from knowledgeable contacts and on the authenticity and importance of the collection, E. W. Oates wrote in the 1901 Catalogue of the collection of birds' eggs in the British Museum (Volume 1):

The Hume Collection consists almost entirely of the eggs of Indian birds. Mr. Hume seldom or never purchased a specimen, and the large collection brought together by him in the course of many years was the result of the willing co-operation of numerous friends resident in India and Burma. Every specimen in the collection may be said to have been properly authenticated by a competent naturalist; and the history of most of the clutches has been carefully recorded in Mr. Hume's 'Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds', of which two editions have been published.