Thomas C. Jerdon
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Thomas Caverhill Jerdon[1] (1811 - 1872) was a British physician, zoologist and botanist. Jerdon was born in County Durham near Jedburgh and studied at Edinburgh University. He became assistant-surgeon in the British East India Company, stationed in India and later Surgeon Major in the Madras Regiment.
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[edit] India
Jerdon started collecting birds shortly after his arrival in India on 21 February 1836.[2] He was in the 2nd Light Cavalry for the next four years posted in the Deccan and Eastern Ghats. After his marriage to Flora Macleod, niece of general L. W. Watson, in July 1841, he was posted to the Nilgiri Hills. Flora had an interest in botanical art and took an interest in orchids. Around 1845 the Jerdon's lived in their Ooty home Woodside, and their children were baptised at the local St. Stephens church.[3][4] This was followed by a posting to Nellore where he interacted with the tribes and obtained information on the natural history. He was frequently at Fort St. George in 1844-47. He was appointed Civil Surgeon at Tellicherry in 1847 and remained there until 1851.[2]
He sent his collections of birds collected during his early travels to William Jardine for identification, but by the time they arrived at Jardine's house in Scotland they had become infested by moths. Jerdon trusted to his own identifications from then on, publishing A Catalogue of the Birds of the Indian Peninsula for the Madras Journal of Literature and Science (1839-40). This included 420 species, almost doubling the list produced earlier by Colonel W. H. Sykes.[5]
In 1852 he was promoted to Surgeon and assigned to the 4th Light Cavalry posted in the Central Provinces. He served in the Narmada and Saugor region during the 1857 mutiny. After peace was established he went on leave to Darjeeling. On his way, he met Lord Canning, the Viceroy and proposed his scheme for a series of manuals on the vertebrates of India.[5] He was later transferred to the Government of India, and was placed on special duty for the purpose of writing his manuals on the vertebrates of India. In 1868 the manuals on Mammals and birds were published and the manuscript of the reptiles sent to press and on the 28th February he retired and went on tour to the Khasi Hills in Assam. In June 1868 he went to England and died at Norwood in 1872. After his death the proofs of the Reptiles volume went home. In 1874 several volumes with his original drawings of reptiles were auctioned by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge.[6]
The want of brief, but comprehensive Manual of the Natural History of India has been long felt by all interested in such inquiries. At the present, it is necessary to search through voluminous transactions of learned Societies, and scientific Journals, to obtain any general acquaintance with what has been already ascertained regarding the Fauna of India, and, excepting to a few more favorably placed, even these are inaccessible. The issue of a Manual, which should comprise all available information in sufficient detail for the discrimination and identification of such objects of Natural History as might be met with, without being rendered cumbrous by minutiae of synonymy or of history, has therefore long been considered a desideratum.
To meet this want it is proposed to publish a series of such Manuals for all the Vertebrated Animals of India, containing characters of all the classes, orders, families, and genera, and descriptions of all the species of all Mammals, Birds, Beptiles, and Fishes, found in India.
Prospectus in his Birds of India regarding the proposed Fauna of British India.
Jerdon's most important publication was The Birds of India (1862-64), which included over 1008 species[5] in two volumes with the second volume in two parts. This work was dedicated to Lord Canning and Lord Elgin who supported the venture.
| “ | It is with no ordinary feelings of regret, that the author has to record here the death of the nobleman to whom this work was dedicated. Thus, two Viceroys under whose patronage this book has been planned and carried out, have, in the short space of two years, gone to their long home. Lord Canning, to whom, he may, this contribution to science owes its existence, ever took a lively interest in its progress, and brought it prominently before Lord Elgin, who warmly seconded his predecessor's views; and the author is glad to see that this liberality has been duty appreciated by the scientific world. He trusts that the next Viceroy will see fit to continue the patronage of Government, to enable the author to go on with the rest of his projected manuals. The volumes on Mammals and fishes are both nearly ready for the press, and if the author's special duty is continued, will be commenced immediately, and finished, he hopes, by the end of 1864. | ” |
He also wrote Illustrations of Indian Ornithology in 1844, which included illustration made by Indian artists, about which he wrote in his later works:
| “ | In 1844, I published a selection of fifty coloured lithographs, chiefly of unfigured birds of Southern India ("Illustrations of Indian Ornithology"); and the excellence and faithfulness of the drawings (the originals of all of which were painted by natives, and half the number, also, lithographed and coloured at Madras) has been universally allowed. | ” |
Other works included The Game Birds and Wildfowl of India (1864) and Mammals of India (1874). He had a wide interest in natural history and his studies include descriptions of plants, ants, amphibians, reptiles, birds as well as mammals. Jerdon was instrumental in the birth of the Fauna of British India series. The need for a work on the Indian fauna was felt and it was finally approved by the Secretary of state and was placed under the editorship of W. T. Blanford.
R. A. Sterndale mentions a note from Jerdon on an otter that he kept as a pet (probably at Tellicherry)[7]
"As it grew older it took to going about by itself, and one day found its way to the bazaar and seized a large fish from a moplah. When resisted, it showed such fight that the rightful owner was fain to drop it. Afterwards it took regularly to this highway style of living, and I had on several occasions to pay for my pet's dinner rather more than was necessary, so I resolved to get rid of it. I put it in a closed box, and, having kept it without food for some time, I conveyed it myself in a boat some seven or eight miles off, up some of the numerous back-waters on this coast. I then liberated it, and, when it had wandered out of sight in some inundated paddy-fields, I returned by boat by a different route. That same evening, about nine whilst in the town about one and a-half miles from my own house, witnessing some of the ceremonials connected with the Mohurrum festival, the otter entered the temporary shed, walked across the floor, and came and lay down at my feet!"
[edit] Writings
- Jerdon, T. C. 1840 Cuculus himalayanus sp. n. Madras J. Literature and Science 11: 12-13
- Jerdon, T. C. 1842 Cuculus venustus sp. n. Madras J. Literature and Science 13: 140
- Jerdon, T. C. 1847 Illustrations of Indian Ornithology 1036 (September 4,1847)
- Jerdon, T. C. 1851 A catalogue of the species of ants found in southern India. Madras J. Lit. Sci. 17: 103-127
- Jerdon, T. C. 1853 Catalogue of Reptiles inhabiting the Peninsula of India. J. Asiat. Soc. 153
- Jerdon, T. C. 1854 A catalogue of the species of ants found in southern India. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (2)13: 45-56
- Jerdon, T. C. 1863 The Birds of India. Volume I 1857 (May 30,1863)
- Jerdon, T. C. 1864 The Birds of India. Volume II, Part I 1895 (February 20,1864)
- Jerdon, T. C. 1864 The Birds of India. Volume III 1931 (October 29,1864)
- Jerdon, T. C. 1870 Notes on Indian Herpetology. P. Asiatic Soc. Bengal March 1870: 66-85
- Jerdon, T. C. 1874 The mammals of India: natural history. John Wheldon, London.
[edit] References
- ^ His obituary in The Ibis 1872 (p. 342) as well as most other works spell his name as Thomas Caverhill Jerdon. This spelling is also found in Hume's Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds Volume 1 (1889); M. A. Smith's Fauna of British India. Reptilia Volume 1. as well as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry by Christine Brandon-Jones. However Dickinson, E.C. & S.M.S. Gregory (2006) note the possibility that Claverhill may be the correct spelling.
- ^ a b Dickinson, E.C. & S.M.S. Gregory. Systematic notes on Asian birds. 55. A re-examination of the date of publication of Jerdon's Second Supplement to the Catalogue of the Birds of southern India. Zool. Med. Leiden 80-5 (7) 21.xii.2006: 169-178.— ISSN 0024-0672. PDF
- ^ Price, F. (1908) Ootacamund: A history. 2002 reprint. Rupa and Co.
- ^ Noltie, H. J. 2007. Robert Wight and the Botanical drawings of Rungiah and Govindoo. Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh.
- ^ a b c Kinnear, N.B., 1952. The history of Indian mammalogy and ornithology. Part II. Birds.— J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 51 (1):104-110.
- ^ Smith, M. A. (1931) Fauna of British India. Reptilia and Amphibia. Volume 1
- ^ Sterndale,Robert A., 1884. Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon
[edit] Other sources
- Elliot, W., 1873. Memoir of Dr T. C. Jerdon.— Hist. Berwickshire Nat. Cl., 7: 143-151.
