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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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limosa 84.3 2011
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