William Swainson

William Swainson

Lithograph of a black-winged parakeet drawn by Swainson for the first volume of Zoological Illustrations

William John Swainson (born October 8, 1789 in St. Mary Newington, London , † December 6, 1855 on his Fern Grove estate in Hutt , New Zealand) was an English ornithologist , malacologist and artist .

Live and act

Swainson developed an interest in natural history through studies of the mussel and insect collections of his father, John Timothy Swainson (1756-1824). He was drafted into the army and sent to Sicily , but had to resign due to health problems.

Swainson traveled through Brazil from 1816 to 1818. When he returned to England, he brought with him a collection of over 20,000 insects , 1,200 plants , drawings of 120 fish and about 760 birds . His friend William Elford Leach encouraged him to experiment with lithography for his book Zoological Illustrations (1820-23) .

When Leach was forced to resign from the British Museum due to illness , Swainson applied to replace him, but the post went to John George Children . Swainson went on to write, the most influential work being the second volume of Fauna Boreali-Americana (1831), which he wrote with John Richardson . He also produced a second series of Zoological Illustrations (1832-33), three volumes from Jardines Naturalist's Library and 11 volumes from Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia .

In 1841 he emigrated to New Zealand to become a farmer, but failed due to competition with the local Māori . In 1851 he sailed to Sydney and took over the post of botanical appraiser for the Victorian government. However, this also failed due to his lack of botanical knowledge. He returned to New Zealand in 1855, where he also died.

From Swainson comes the first description of the Ophioglossolambis violacea (as Pterocera violacea ), the genus of Mitra snails Sabricola (and subfamily Mitrinae) and the genus of mussels Brachidontes (1840).

His friend John James Audubon named the Swainson Warbler his honor, Charles Lucien Bonaparte called the Swainson's hawk ( Buteo swainsoni ) after him, and the English name of the dwarf throttle ( Catharus ustulatus ( Nuttall , 1840)) "Swainson's Thrush" is. The Swainson's toucan ( Ramphastos swainsonii ), the Hispaniolas emerald hummingbird ( Chlorostilbon swainsonii ) and the Swainson sparrow ( Passer swainsonii ) also bear his name.

The Australian flowering plant genus Swainsona is not named after him, but after the physician Isaac Swainson (1746-1812).

Web links

Commons : William John Swainson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Swainson, William, from 1789 to 1855 . In: Alexander Hare McLintock (Ed.): An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . Wellington 1966 ( online [accessed December 13, 2015]).
2. ↑ Bo Beolens, Watkins, Michael: Whose Bird? Men and Women Commemorated in the Common Names of Birds . Christopher Helm, London 2003, p. 205.