Charles Darwin considered it to be one of the most formative journeys of his life. His diary and scientific journal of his time aboard the HMS Beagle, now best known as The Voyage of the Beagle, was a bestseller. It was also on this voyage that the first seeds of his masterwork, Origin of Species, were planted. Now thanks to Cambridge University the entire sketchbooks of Conrad Martens, a shipmate of Darwin's on the HMS Beagle, are available online. Martens made the drawings between the summer of 1833 and the early months of 1835. They "vividly bring to life one of the most famous...
Illustrating the Natural World
Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (1667) Last holiday season the American Museum of Natural History published Natural Histories: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History. A book which allowed readers "a privileged glimpse of seldom-seen, fully illustrated scientific tomes from the American Museum of Natural History's Rare Book Collection." From Marcus Bloch's 12-volume encyclopedia of fishes (1782-1795) Now they are following up the book's success with a year-long exhibition, Natural Histories: 400 Years of Scientific Illustration from the Museum’s Library, focusing on images that were created in pursuit of scientific knowledge and to accompany important scientific works in disciplines ranging from astronomy to zoology....
A Natural Selection
This complete set of 108 British natural history books sold recently at Bonhams for over $8200. The New Naturalist, containing topics relevant to the British Isles, is arguably one of the most influential natural history series ever published and has been in continual publication by Collins since 1945.It was first published just after WWII ended and signaled a renewal for the beleaguered Brits at that time. In the editors' words, it was intended to "recapture the inquiring spirit of the old naturalists" and to foster "the natural pride of the British public in their native fauna and flora". The first two titles sold more than 30,000 copies each in their...
Gender-Bending Chickens and the Bookbirder Report
Grrl Scientist at rest.GrrlScientist is the pseudonym of a colorful parrot who writes by typing with her beak. A science/nature/bird blogger in flight, at roost she's an evolutionary biologist//ornithologist and freelance science and nature writer from Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Her Ph.D. is in ornithology, and she spent her two-year postdoc reconstructing the molecular phylogeny of parrots of the South Pacific Islands; somebody had to. Devorah Bennu is strictly for the birds. Based upon her profile pic, she appears to be a Yellow-Bibbed Lory (Lorius chlorocerus).As such, she writes with a brush-tongue full of nectar. I used to keep a...