One of the botanical ‘giants’ of Victorian Ireland was Henry Chichester Hart (1847–1908) who, according to Praeger, was ‘a man of magnificent physique, a daring climber and a tireless worker, and though his pace was usually too fast for exhaustive work, he missed little, and penetrated to places where very few have followed him’.2 Although Hart did not know any Irish he gathered the names and folklore of plants from country people, the results of which remained in manuscript form until 1953 when they were published by M. Traynor as The English Dialect of Donegal.75,76 Born in Dublin, where his father was Vice-Provost of Trinity College, Hart was of a Donegal landed gentry family and started work on Flora of the County Donegal (1898)77 when aged 17, having been inspired by Cybele Hibernica. It was the beginning of a 35 year task which took him on innumerable walks and hikes during which he collected more than half the many hundreds of records that were to enter his book – a remarkable achievement. In 1887 he published a more modest volume on the Flora of Howth.78 Like many before him, Hart was a naturalist of independent means working on a private basis and not affiliated to any state body.
Zoological natural history
Naturalists have historically focused more attention on Irish botany than on zoology, a fact reflected by the discrepancy between the two bodies of literature corresponding to the two areas. Animals are, however, catching up fast, as naturalists and scientists are spurred on by conservation requirements to discover more about endangered and threatened species. New resources for field studies together with advanced technologies are facilitating their task.
Some of the earliest and most original zoological investigations in Ireland were carried out by John Vaughan Thompson (1779–1847) who was born in Berwick-on-Tweed, England, and stationed at Cork in 1816 as Surgeon to the Forces, later Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, before going on to Australia in 1835. He was a specialist in planktonic larvae. It had been widely believed at the time that the fundamental difference between crustaceans and insects was that the crustaceans did not pass through different stages or forms in their development from egg to adult. Working almost alone, Thompson discovered that the edible crab did in fact undergo a metamorphosis and developed from a larval form called a zoea which had, until then, been classified as a species unrelated to the crab. Thompson was also responsible for the reclassification of acorn barnacles – the small symmetrical sessile barnacles exposed on rocks at low tide – from the Mollusca to the Crustacea, a major break with the accepted Cuvierian system of the classification of animals in force at the time. Cuvier and other contemporary zoologists believed, on the basis of external similarities, that barnacles were aberrant molluscs. Most of Thompson’s work was privately published in Cork in an obscure series of six memoirs bearing the – similarly obscure – title Zoological Researches, and Illustrations; or, Natural History of Nondescript or Imperfectly Known Animals in a Series of Memoirs, issued between 1828 and 1834.79
Stages (a-c) in the development of the shore crab. The discovery of the zoea larva (a) by zoologist John Thompson showed that the crab went thorough metamorphosis in its development from egg to adult, sharing this feature with the insects and uniting both as belonging to the Phylum Arthropoda. From C.M. Yonge (1961). The New Naturalist: The Sea Shore. Collins, London.
West Mayo, and especially the Erris peninsula, was the ‘ultima Thule’ of Ireland where William Hamilton Maxwell (1792–1850) retreated in 1819 from holding the curacy at Clonallon, near Newry, Co. Down, after disgracing himself by riding through his parish naked on horseback following an early morning dip in Carlingford Lough. The wayward curate then became a canon of the Tuam diocese and was appointed to three parishes. He befriended the Marquis of Sligo who gave him the use of his shooting lodge at Ballycroy on the edge of Blacksod Bay where he appears to have spent more time shooting, fishing and writing than administering his parishes. The stories of his adventures and encounters with eagles, otters, seals, grouse and wild geese make Wild Sports of the West, with Legendary Tales and Local Sketches (1832) a vivid read.80 It is an obligatory text, written along semi-fictional lines with many ‘ripping’ yarns which tell a lot about western Ireland, its wildlife and local lore during the early nineteenth century. His capability as a lively raconteur and his easy social manner gave him access to and accommodation with the British garrison in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, whenever he wanted it: ‘Maxwell introduced the officers to capital shooting, dined at their mess; and while draining their decanters drained their memories of those stirring recollections which he turned to account in Stories of Waterloo.’81 In between his fishing, hunting, drinking and socialising, Maxwell mustered enough energy to write 20 books. His ambition in Wild Sports was to ‘record the wild features and wilder associations of that romantic and untouched country’ – a goal he certainly honoured. Amongst his numerous observations, he recorded some of the last indigenous red deer of Mayo which were persecuted almost to extinction during his time with the aid of muskets abandoned by the French in 1798. He lost his ‘living’ of Balla in 1844 through absenteeism which, combined with a self-indulgent lifestyle and increasing debts, forced him into exile in Scotland where, as an alcoholic, he died of broken health aged 58.
In contrast to the wild Maxwell, naturalists in Northern Ireland were a more sedate and collected lot, reflecting a society steeped in Protestant ethics and moral sternness. However, Northern Ireland was about to experience a period of great excitement and ebullience: the golden age of natural history, dominated by the zoologist William Thompson, was just behind the door.
Born into one of the famous Belfast families of linen-makers, Thompson (1805–52) devoted his life to zoology, spurning the loom and the spinning jenny. Thompson’s magnum opus was The Natural History of Ireland.9 The first three volumes were on birds and were published in 1849, 1850 and 1851, before his untimely death in 1852, aged 47. He had intended to produce several more volumes to include all the remaining fauna, but only left a very incomplete manuscript. In accordance with Thompson’s will it fell upon Robert Patterson (1802–72), another eminent Belfast naturalist from a mill furnishing family, and James R. Garrett (1818–55), a Belfast solicitor and keen naturalist, to edit and publish this manuscript, which came out as a fourth variegated volume in 1856. Garrett was responsible for the mammals, fish and reptiles while Patterson handled all other groups. The production of the work must have been fated, for Garrett died before the book was printed. The information contained in the first three bird volumes is of such high standard – due to the accuracy of Thompson’s observations and those of a network of correspondents – that it is still interesting and valuable today.
One of the greatest tragedies of Irish natural history was the premature death of Belfast naturalist William Thompson aged 47.
While Thompson had been labouring away on his bird volumes he realised the need for a much smaller and inexpensive book for the general reader. The necessity was met by The Natural History of the Birds of Ireland (1853)82, written by his friend John Watters (fl. 1850s). A small, almost whimsical, Victorian production, laced with occasional romantic poems, it also contains hard facts on the habits, migrations and occurrences of the 261 listed species – a good antidote to Thompson’s weighty tomes.
Another fine zoologist from Northern Ireland, considered to be one of Europe’s greatest entomologists, was Alexander Henry Haliday (1806–70), a contemporary and friend of Thompson.83 A graduate in law, he never practised and managed the family’s estates in Co. Down, but he was more interested in entomology. He was highly cultured and an able linguist, a facility that allowed fruitful intercourse with continental entomologists. He published 75 entomological papers, including descriptions of several species new to science. He also contributed to Curtis’s British Entomology (1827–40)