Christian Ludwig Brehm

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christian Ludwig Brehm

Christian Ludwig Brehm (born January 24, 1787 in Schönau vor dem Walde ; † June 23, 1864 in Renthendorf ) was a German Protestant pastor and ornithologist who made a name for himself in particular by creating and researching an extraordinarily large collection of bird hides. At the place of his work as a pastor and ornithologist, the rectory in Renthendorf, there is now a museum, the Brehm memorial .

Christian Ludwig Brehm is the father of Alfred Brehm , the author of the animal encyclopedia Brehms Tierleben, and Reinhold Brehm , the pioneer of Spanish ornithology.

Life

childhood and education

Christian Ludwig Brehm was born on January 24, 1787 in Schönau vor dem Walde near Gotha (Thuringia). His father was the Schönau pastor Carl August Brehm , his mother Sophia Christiana Philippa, nee. Heimberger. Early in his youth, at the age of only 4, Brehm developed an interest in the world of birds and collected feathers, eggs and nests. While Brehm was receiving his first school lessons in Ernstroda, Johann Matthäus Bechstein taught natural history at the Philanthropin in nearby Schnepfenthal . This educational establishment with its bird collection as well as the contacts to Bechstein further promoted Brehm's interest in natural history. A brother-in-law of Bechstein also taught him to blow bird eggs, a little later he learned how to dissect, so that at the age of 11 he already had a small collection of eggs and birds. From 1800 to 1807 Brehm attended the Gothaer Gymnasium Illustre , which still exists today under the name Gymnasium Ernestinum . Brehm distinguished himself through very good performance and gave his classmates private lessons as a primary school student while he continued to work on building up his bird collection during the holidays.

After finishing school, Brehm was enrolled at the University of Jena at Easter 1807 to study theology. Here, too, he was soon entrusted with teaching. After 5 semesters, he was able to leave the university with good recommendations to complete his candidate period. He then worked for 2 ½ years as a private tutor for the von Stein family on a manor in Lausnitz near Neustadt / Orla. On March 8, 1812, he was ordained a pastor in Drackendorf in Altenburg , where he worked from April to December. At Christmas of the same year he left the position and worked as a vacancy representative in Renthendorf.

Life in Renthendorf

The rectory in Renthendorf (Thuringia): CL Brehms residence and the current exhibition building of the Brehm memorial

On January 1, 1813, Brehm was introduced in the parish of Unterrenthendorf. The further life of Christian Ludwig Brehm was - in stark contrast to the life of his son Alfred Brehm - characterized by an extraordinary sedentary lifestyle: During his 50 years as a pastor, Brehm only rarely left Renthendorf. He was generally recognized and respected in the surrounding communities, as he always stood up for people in need - often in excess of his official authority. In addition to his duties as a pastor, he invested a lot of time in his scientific work in the field of ornithology, which earned him the nickname "bird pastor". He made a name for himself in particular with his extensive collection of bird hides (> 9000 pieces) and publications on the taxonomy of birds, but also writings on catching, keeping or preparing birds.

Brehm was married twice during his life. His first marriage was on January 15, 1813, with Amalia Wilhelmine Wachter (1790-1826), a sister of the historian Ferdinand Wachter , with whom he had eight children, five of whom died in the first year of life. Known are Ferdinand August Brehm (1813–1814), Amalie Mathilda Brehm (1815–1816), Rudolf Brehm (1816–1878), Mathilda Brehm († 1818), Ida Brehm (1820–1821), Hugo Brehm (1821–1822) , Oskar Brehm (1823–1850) and a stillborn daughter (1826), whose mother Amalia also died during the birth. The widower Brehm had only two sons, Rudolf and Oskar. It was mainly because of her that he was looking for a new partner. Just one year later, Brehm married his new wife, the pastor's daughter Bertha Reiz (1808–1877), who later became Alfred Brehm's mother . In addition to Alfred, the doctor, naturalist and ornithologist Reinhold Brehm (1830–1891), Thekla Klothilde Hertha Brehm (1833–1857), Edgar Theobald Brehm (1835–1900), Arthur Matthias Ludwig Brehm (* 1839) and Alexander Wilibald Johannes Brehm ( 1845–1846) from this marriage. Two of the sons were mentally handicapped, the youngest died at the age of 9 months. For more than 35 years Bertha Brehm was an understanding partner to her husband and a good mother to the children. She contributed significantly to Brehm's ability to cope with his family and financial worries.

Brehm died on June 23, 1864 at the age of 77 in Renthendorf and was buried in the cemetery of the village church. His widow Bertha then had a new house built next to the rectory, which she could move into with her mentally handicapped sons. Today the Brehm memorial in this house and the rectory in Renthendorf provides information about the life and work of Christian Ludwig Brehm as well as that of his son Alfred Edmund Brehm.

Scientific work

Fictional representation of Christian Ludwig Brehm during his scientific work in the rectory of Carl Werner (1859)

Christian Ludwig Brehm began collecting bird hides at an early stage and made it a point to collect not only the attractively colored hides, but also those in youth, breeding or resting clothes. He created entire series, i.e. numerous specimens of the same species, but of different sex, age and from different regions. In the end, with 15,000 labeled bellows, he had a scientifically organized collection that exceeded all comparable of his time in size. Among other things, it served his son Alfred Brehm and Johann Friedrich Naumann as a research object. He also wrote numerous writings that today we would probably ascribe to taxonomy, since he was primarily interested in the determination of the structural distinguishing features of birds. He noticed numerous differences in size, plumage, beak length and skull shape, which prompted him to describe new species and subspecies. So he was z. B. due to his investigations into the first descriptor of the treecreeper , the nightingale , the song thrush , the lesser spotted eagle and the black-necked grebe .

He was also particularly interested in differentiating between geographical subspecies: 55 of the subspecies he described in various regions of Europe were later recognized. In his efforts to describe new species, however, he sometimes went too far and thought he could immediately recognize a new species in every morphological deviation, so that, for example, he described more than 900 species in his "Handbook of the Natural History of All Birds in Germany" and thus a lot Caused confusion in the bird system. It was only later that he confessed to the binary nomenclature that was already familiar.

Christian Ludwig Brehm's preparations for birds, which are still physically present, mean that his collection work is still important for biodiversity research today and can, for example, serve to research the constancy of species in the course of evolution.

Christian Ludwig Brehm himself rejected Charles Darwin's idea of development and so inevitably had to come to wrong conclusions.

Christian Ludwig Brehm was honored several times during his life for his scientific work. These include the admission to the Leopoldina in 1822 and the award of an honorary doctorate by the Medical Faculty of the University of Jena in 1858 .

Throughout his life, Brehm was in close contact with other public figures of the time (a total of 35 correspondents), including Johann Friedrich Naumann , Friedrich Wilhelm Justus Baedeker , Eugen Ferdinand von Homeyer , Salamon János Petényi , Heinrich David Zander , and Johann Heinrich Blasius , Friedrich Boie , Carl Friedrich Bruch , Lorenz Oken , Karl Friedrich August Meisner (1765–1825), Hermann Schlegel , Stanisław Konstanty Pietruski , Colomann Lazar (1827–1874) and Léon Olphe-Galliard (1825–1893).

History of the Brehm bird collection

After Brehm's death, his wife inherited the entire collection and his son Alfred soon tried to sell it. At the same time a directory of the main collection was printed. 6973 copies were listed there. However, the attempt to sell the collection initially failed and the collection remained unused in Renthendorf. Almost forgotten, it was finally rediscovered in 1896 by Otto Kleinschmidt . It was sold to Lord Rothschild's private museum in Tring near London for 15,000 marks. Ernst Hartert , then director of the museum, picked it up himself in 1897 and analyzed it scientifically in Great Britain. Rothschild in turn sold the collection to New York in 1932, where it was edited by Charles Vaurie . In later years 2,826 specimens (mostly songbirds) returned to Germany, to the Alexander Koenig Museum in Bonn. A total of around 7500 birds from Brehm's collection are still preserved today.

Fonts

Among his more than 250 publications (including ornithological, historical, theological and natural history in general), Christian Ludwig Brehm's "Contributions to Ornithology" are now considered to be his most important work. He wrote a total of 9 independent works, and was involved as co-author on 4 other books. He also published "Ornis", one of the first ornithological magazines in the world, which, however, had to be discontinued after the third issue was published. He also published very practical guides on catching birds, keeping birds and preparing them. Other manuscripts are still unpublished and archived in the Brehm memorial .

  • Contributions to ornithology. 3 volumes, from volume 3 in collaboration with W. Schilling. Neustadt an der Orla 1820–1822.
  • Textbook of the natural history of all European birds. 2 volumes, Jena 1823–1824
  • Ornis, or the latest and greatest in bird science. 3 booklets, Jena 1824–1827 (first ornithological magazine in the world).
  • Handbook of the natural history of all birds in Germany. Ilmenau 1831.
  • Handbook for the lover of house and house birds and all birds worth taming. Ilmenau 1832.
  • The catching of birds. Leipzig 1836.
  • The art of making birds as hides. Weimar 1842.
  • Complete bird trapping. Weimar 1855.
  • with Alfred Brehm and Reinhold Brehm: The vulture eagles and their life. A contribution to a better knowledge of the noblest robbers of the high mountains . In: Mittheilungen from the Werkstätte der Natur 1, 1858, pp. 32–41 ( digitized version ), p. 61–66 ( digitized version ).
  • The maintenance, care and breeding of the canaries. Weimar 1855, 2nd edition Weimar 1865, 3rd edition Weimar 1872, 4th edition Weimar 1883, 5th edition Weimar 1893.
  • The natural history and breeding of pigeons. Weimar 1857.
  • with E. Baldamus, John Wilhelm von Müller, JF Naumann: Directory of the birds of Europe. set up as an exchange catalog. Stuttgart 1852.
  • Monograph of the parrots or the complete natural history of all known parrots with true and colored illustrations , published by CL Brehm in association with other naturalists. Jena / Paris 1842–1855.
  • Textbook of the natural history of all European birds. (2 volumes) August Schmidt, Jena ( .pdf )

Honors

Several memorial plaques and memorial sites commemorate the life and work of Christian Ludwig Brehm. These include:

  • The Brehm memorial in the former home of the Brehm family

  • Memorial plaque on the church in Drackendorf

  • Memorial plaque on the church in Schönau vor dem Walde

literature

Web links

Commons : Christian Ludwig Brehm  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Christian Ludwig Brehm  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ludwig Gebhardt: Die Ornithologen Mitteleuropas. Volume 1, Brühlscher Verlag, Gießen 1964, p. 52.
  2. ^ Jürgen Haffer: Christian Ludwig Brehm (1787–1864) on species and subspecies of birds. In: Journal für Ornithologie 144.2, 2003, pp. 129–147.
personal data
SURNAME Brehm, Christian Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pastor and ornithologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1787
PLACE OF BIRTH Schönau in front of the forest near Gotha
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1864
Place of death Renthendorf near Neustadt (Orla)