ROSELAAR K & VLEK R (2011) Bird collectors of the Club of Dutch Ornithologists and their collections. LIMOSA 84 (3): 97-116.
This paper presents an overview of bird collectors who were
member of the Club of Dutch Ornithologists (Club van Nederlandsche
Vogelkundigen CNV; founded 1911). Collecting birds
was the primary reason for founding this club, because some
members feared that the new bird protection law of 1912
would severely restrict their collecting activities. More than 100
members (one out of six) in the 20th century were active in bird
collecting. Twenty members started collecting in the period before
the foundation of the club, but most (> 40% in this
overview) started new bird collections in the 1920's and 1930's.
Apparently the bird protection law, still allowing for scientific
collecting of birds under a license system, was no serious obstacle
in forming such collections until 1940.
Some of the larger private collections met scientific criteria,
such as properly labeling of study skins and eggs, and series of
specimens. They allowed for morphological and biometric
analyses, used for avifaunistic and taxonomical research. Private
collections of Snouckaert van Schauburg, Hens, Eykman,
Sillem-Van Marle, De Vries and several other CNV members
formed the basic reference material for the Dutch ornitholo -
gical handbook De Nederlandsche Vogels (Eykman et al. 1937-
1949, 3 volumes), a major publication of the Club.
From the 1950s onwards almost 90% of the private collections
have been donated or sold to the National Natural History
Museum RMNH in Leiden and the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam
ZMA. Several collections of stuffed birds were donated
to regional natural history museums in Rotterdam, Enschede,
Leeuwarden and Maastricht. In this way the CNV and
its collectors had a major contribution in the formation of
Dutch museum collections of birds. It is estimated that one fifth
of the total bird collection of the recently formed Dutch Centre
for Biodiversity NCB Naturalis (the merger of the natural history
museums of Leiden and Amsterdam) has been collected
by CNV members.
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