Whitney South Sea Expedition

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Whitney South Sea Expedition
Location
Sponsor
Affiliation
Participants
Watercolour of South Pacific island.
"Whitney Island", 11 miles east of the Shortland Islands. Watercolour by F P Drowne, 1927

The Whitney South Sea Expedition (1920 - 1941[1]) to collect bird specimens for the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), under the initial leadership of Rollo Beck,[2] was instigated by Dr Leonard C. Sanford and financed by Harry Payne Whitney, a thoroughbred horse-breeder and philanthropist.

The expedition visited islands in the south Pacific region and eventually returned with over 40,000 bird specimens, many plant specimens and an extensive collection of anthropological items and photographs.

Using the 75-ton schooner France,[3] with many different scientists and collectors participating over more than a dozen years, the expedition visited thousands of islands throughout Oceania, Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia.[1] The expedition collected many specimens from Bougainville Island.[4] It was administered by a committee at the AMNH and became a focus for attracting funds for research on the biota of the Pacific islands.

Specimens from the expedition were displayed in a hall at the AMNH funded by Harry Whitney.

watercolour of birds.
Birds from Bougainville Island. Watercolour by F P Drowne.
Watercolour of hornbill bird
Hornbill, Solomon Islands. Watercolour by F P Drowne.

Expedition members

The expedition was led by Rollo H. Beck (1920-1928), Hannibal Hamlin (1928-1930), William F. Coultas (1930-1935), Lindsay Macmillan (1935-1940), and G. Reid Henry (1941).[1]

Beck, an expert bird collector himself, hired Ernest H. Quayle[5] and Charles Curtis to assist with collecting, including the botanical specimens collected by the expedition.

Dr Frederick P Drowne joined the Whitney Expedition as a field researcher in December 1926.[6] He was a medical doctor and ornithologist from Rhode Island, with connections to the AMNH. He had taken part in several scientific expeditions previously, and had first met Beck during an expedition to the Galapagos Islands. Drowne left the expedition in 1928 due to illness. He died in June 1930.[7]

Ernst Mayr joined the expedition when Hamlin[8] replaced Beck as leader on one of the later stages of the expedition, to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in 1929–1930. Mayr was hired by the AMNH to curate the Rothschild collection in 1933, and he continued to work up the material that returned to the AMNH from the Whitney expeditions. He continued at AMNH until 1953 as curator of birds.

The France

The France was a 75 gross ton schooner with a 60 hp motor, built in Papeete around 1918[9] and previously used in the copra trade. The ship was 71 feet long, 25 feet wide and had a draught of 6 feet. Between 1922 and 1932, the expedition used the France to travel all over the Pacific.[1] There were up to seven crew members from around the Pacific, plus the captain.[10]

Captains of the France during the expedition included E A Stenbeck (1924-1926);[11][12] J W R Richmond;[13] Henry (W A?) Burrell (Nov 1929-July 1930)[14][15] and A J D McArthur (1930-1932).[16]

By 1935 the France had been sold to WR Carpenter and Co.[17] Renamed Dawaun, she was wrecked when she ran aground on a reef off the Carteret Islands on 29 October, 1936.[18]

Timeline of expedition

date location
1920–1923 Expedition is based at Papeete in Tahiti, and specimens are collected from the Society Islands, Tuamotu, the Marquesas and Pitcairn Island.[19]
1922 Expedition buys schooner France at Papeete.
Dec 1923 Expedition shifts its base to Samoa.[19]
23 Apr 1924 Arrival at Apia, Samoa.[20]
28 May 1924 Expedition departs for Fiji, arriving at Suva on 7 June 1924.[21]
1 Jul 1924 Departure from Suva for Tonga, returning to Suva on 19 July 1924.[21]
Jul–Oct 1924 Visiting many Fijian islands, returning to Suva on 29 October 1924.[21]
4 June 1925 France leaves Suva for Tonga, while Beck stays a little longer in Fiji.[22]
26 Oct 1925 France departs Suva for New Zealand, via Kermadec and Norfolk Island.[23][24]
11 Dec 1925 Arrival at Auckland, New Zealand.[25]
12 Jan 1926 Departure from Auckland on a loop around New Zealand, stopping at Chatham, Bounty, Antipodes, Campbell and Auckland Islands.[26]
27 Jan 1926 France visits Lyttelton for supplies, ignoring international code signals.[10][9]
3 Feb 1926 France departs Akaroa for Stewart island, but due to gale force winds cannot reach there and instead goes to the Chatham Islands.[27]
25 Mar 1926 France arrives at Auckland and the ship is overhauled.
20 Apr 1926 Departure from New Zealand for Norfolk Island and the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).[28]
1926–1928 Based in Solomon Islands for 17 months[19]
early 1928 To Bismarck Archipelago. [19]
June 1928 Beck leaves the expedition at the Solomons in June 1928 and is en route to the United States when he receives a message asking him to collect specimens In Papua New Guinea.[29]
9 Dec 1928 France arrives at Port Moresby under the leadership of Hannibal Hamlin.[30]
1929 Beck returns to the US.[19]
Jul 1930 France travels from the Solomons to Samarai. Coultas replaces Hamlin as expedition leader. 18 month trip to Carolines planned.[31][32]
Aug 1930 Hamlin returns to US.[33]
mid 1935 Coultas returns to New York.[34]
1935-1940 Expedition is led by Lindsay MacMillan, who with his wife sources specimens in New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, Papua New Guinea and Queensland, Australia. Macmillan leaves the expedition in 1940 to serve in World War 2.[35]
1941 The expedition pauses for a time due to the war, then is led by G Reid Henry, based in Australia, until it officially ends in 1941.[1]

Controversy in New Zealand

Early in 1925, the New Zealand Government declined a request by the expedition to collect bird specimens from the Cook Islands, saying that although the government supported the aims of the expedition, it believed that "the interests of science are being better served by a policy of strict preservation of the living birds".[36]

In July 1925 the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society warned the government that the expedition's goal of observing New Zealand's birds actually meant observing "over the sight of a shot gun".[37] The Society asked the government to put an observer on board the France, but the government went ahead and issued a permit for the expedition to collect 846 birds, without requiring that an observer to be present. This was vigorously protested by Val Sanderson of the Native Bird Protection Society. He stated that he had heard that Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology believed that all New Zealand's native birds were "doomed" and should therefore be collected before they became extinct. After the Society protested, a museum officer was sent to accompany the expedition. Sanderson wrote to the Minister of Internal Affairs:

That an extensively equipped foreign collecting expedition on such a scale and with permission to kill the extravagant number of birds allowed should be given entirely unrestricted liberty, except by a few valueless written conditions, amongst our birds, some of which are on the verge of extinction, is unthinkable, a slur on the regard which the people of New Zealand are evincing in the welfare of their heritage, the care of which is entrusted to your department. Your action is also a slight to the operations of this society, and it seems idle and hypocritical for us to continue further work and collect subscriptions from school children and others in the face of such departmental lassitude. We think, moreover, it would only have been courtesy had you consulted us before issuing permits to destroy any of the extremely rare species included in the list to be killed, as, for instance, the Chatham Island bell bird, Auckland Island duck, Chatham Island fern bird and pigeon, sand plover (ten is out of all reason), Chatham Island snipe, Southern Merganser, and half a dozen other species which are on the verge of extinction and should not have been allowed to be killed under any circumstances whatever. Some little scientific information of interest to a few may he gleaned, but at the possible extermination of some species the skins of which will be then of more monetary value to the Americans, in whose possession they will be. The numbers permitted to be destroyed are quite in excess of scientific requirements, and clearly indicate the purpose for which they are required.[37]

The Minister later decided that in future permits would only be issued on the condition that an official would accompany any expedition collecting native birds. Beck responded to criticism that the expedition was a commercial enterprise that was killing rare birds.[38] He noted that all the specimens collected were sent to the non-profit National Museum of Art and History in New York, where students from all over the world could study them. Regarding suggestions that rare birds were killed, he stated: "All this talk about exterminating rare and protected birds is not new to me. I have heard it all before, in different places, and notably in my own country, California. The average layman never seems to be able to appreciate the fact that specimens of birds are most valuable from a scientific point of view. There is a very great deal yet to be discovered concerning the habits of the birds, and it is only by means of the facts ascertained and the specimens obtained by an expedition such as this, that scientists can arrive at the truth".[39]

In April 1926, a list of 385 birds taken by the expedition in New Zealand waters was published. Most of Beck's specimens were collected on the 'high seas', and he claimed that he could take any birds as long as he was more than three miles from land and did not bring the birds to New Zealand. However, as Walter Oliver from the Dominion Museum pointed out, Beck had also discovered during the expedition that birds that breed in New Zealand may migrate as far as Chile or California. Such species had been collected from all over the Pacific, so any list of New Zealand birds taken did not represent the total number of New Zealand-breeding sea birds collected by the expedition.[40]

Legacy

In 1929, Sanford asked the Whitneys to fund a new wing for the American Museum of Natural History, which would house the many specimens being collected by the South Sea expedition and other expeditions in Africa and South America. Construction of the Whitney Wing began with ground breaking in 1931, but was interrupted by World War 2.[41] The Whitney Hall of Oceanic Birds finally opened in the new wing in 1952, with 18 windows showing dioramas of over 400 species of birds from the Pacific region in their natural habitats. In 1998, 10 of the 18 dioramas in the Whitney Hall were covered up to make way for the installation of a butterfly conservatory.[42] The butterfly exhibit was supposed to be temporary but has remained in place, and most of the bird displays are not viewable.[43]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "American Museum of Natural History Research Library: Whitney South Sea Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History (1920-1941) (amnhc_2000164)". data.library.amnh.org. Retrieved 2018-07-10.
  2. ^ Whitney South Sea Expedition. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
  3. ^ Murphy, Robert Cushman The Whitney South Sea Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History, Science, pp. 701-2. Science. Retrieved 22 December 2014.
  4. ^ "Mapping The Birds Of Bougainville Island : Short Wave". NPR.org. Retrieved 2021-09-29.
  5. ^ Quayle, Ernest H., 1891–1956, Social Networks and Archival Context, socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu
  6. ^ "South Sea Specimens". The Sun. No. 5013. New South Wales, Australia. 30 November 1926. p. 14 (FINAL EXTRA). Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ^ "American Museum of Natural History Research Library: Drowne, Frederick P. (amnhp_1002469)". data.library.amnh.org. Retrieved 2024-08-10.
  8. ^ "Dr. Hannibal Hamlin, Former Neurosurgeon". NY Times. 29 June 1982.
  9. ^ a b "Code signals ignored by schooner". The Press. 28 January 1926 – via Papers Past.
  10. ^ a b "Friendly call from South Sea Expedition". Star [Christchurch]. 27 January 1926 – via Papers Past.
  11. ^ "AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION". The Brisbane Courier. No. 20, 730. Queensland, Australia. 2 July 1924. p. 16. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. ^ "Pacific bird life". New Zealand Herald. 12 December 1925 – via Papers Past.
  13. ^ "SOUTH SEA ISLANDS". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 27, 727. New South Wales, Australia. 16 November 1926. p. 12. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  14. ^ "EVERYDAY AND EVERYBODY". The Labor Daily. No. 1857. New South Wales, Australia. 14 November 1929. p. 4. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  15. ^ "PERSONAL". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 28, 871. New South Wales, Australia. 17 July 1930. p. 10. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  16. ^ "A world cruise". The Press. 1 September 1932 – via Papers Past. Captain McArthur, who has spent two or three years in the East...
  17. ^ "BUTTER SHIPMENTS". The Courier-mail. No. 430. Queensland, Australia. 14 January 1935. p. 3. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  18. ^ "Ocean voyage in open boat after island wreck". The Sun News-pictorial. No. 4410. 6 November 1936. p. 15. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  19. ^ a b c d e "The Pacific Voyages of Rollo Beck". 2010-12-05. Archived from the original on 2010-12-05. Retrieved 2024-08-05.
  20. ^ "Bird-survey vessel at Apia". Samoanische Zeitung. 2 May 1924 – via Papers Past.
  21. ^ a b c Evenhuis, Neal L, ed. (April 2007). Field Notes of E.H. Bryan, Jr. on the Whitney South Seas Expedition (February–November 1924): Technical Report 37 (PDF). Honolulu, Hawaii: Pacific Biological Survey, Bishop Museum. ISSN 1085-455X.
  22. ^ "Fijian Affairs". Auckland Star. 11 June 1925 – via Papers Past.
  23. ^ The Pacific voyages of Rollo Beck states that this section of the trip took place in 1924, but other sources show that it was 1925.
  24. ^ "Studying bird life". Auckland Star. 11 December 1925 – via Papers Past.
  25. ^ "Whitney Expedition". Evening Star. 11 December 1925 – via Papers Past.
  26. ^ "Yacht France returns". Auckland Star. 25 March 1926 – via Papers Past.
  27. ^ "Safety of Schooner". Taranaki Daily News. 6 March 1926 – via Papers Past.
  28. ^ "Shipping News". Auckland Star. 20 April 1926 – via Papers Past.
  29. ^ "BIRDS OF PARADISE". Townsville Daily Bulletin. Vol. LII, no. 20. Queensland, Australia. 23 January 1930. p. 3. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  30. ^ "Local and General News". Papuan Courier. Vol. 18, no. 50. 14 December 1928. p. 8. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  31. ^ "SAMARAI NEWS". Papuan Courier. Vol. 20, no. 29. 18 July 1930. p. 10. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  32. ^ "YACHT MISSING". The Maitland Daily Mercury. No. 18, 548. 17 August 1930. p. 5. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  33. ^ "Personal". The Sydney Morning Herald. 18 August 1930. p. 8. Retrieved 6 August 2024 – via National Library of Australia.
  34. ^ "Adds new chapters to natural history". The New Holland Clarion. 26 July 1935. p. 7 – via Newspaper Archive.
  35. ^ "American Museum of Natural History Research Library: Macmillan, Lindsay (amnhp_1002475)". data.library.amnh.org. Retrieved 2024-08-07.
  36. ^ "Despatches from the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs to the Governor-General of New Zealand". Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives. Session 1, A2: 4. 16 February 1925 – via Papers Past.
  37. ^ a b "Good-bye to our birds". Evening Star. 16 March 1926 – via Papers Past.
  38. ^ "American bird-collecting expedition". Otago Daily Times. 15 March 1926 – via Papers Past.
  39. ^ "N.Z. bird life". Evening Post. 27 March 1926 – via Papers Past.
  40. ^ "The France expedition". Otago Witness. 13 April 1926 – via Papers Past.
  41. ^ "American Museum of Natural History Research Library: American Museum of Natural History. Whitney Memorial Hall of Oceanic Birds. (amnhc_4000088)". data.library.amnh.org. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  42. ^ Meiburg, Jonathan (22 August 2013). "Inside the American Museum of Natural History's Hidden Masterpiece". theappendix.net. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  43. ^ "Whitney Hall of Oceanic Birds, 1945, New York, NY, United States — Google Arts & Culture". artsandculture.google.com. Retrieved 2024-08-04.

Bibliography

  • Chapman, Frank M. (1935). The Whitney South Sea Expedition. Science 81: 95–97.
  • Murphy, R.C. (1922). Science 56: 701–704.
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