Archibald Menzies, First Collector of California Birds

Abstract

History of Archibald Menzies' biological collecting in California 1792-1793; description of the California condor type specimen: “By 1790, Menzies had attained some fame as a botanist, and as a result the British Government at the instance of Sir Joseph Banks appointed him Naturalist as well as Surgeon, to accompany Captain Vancouver in the voyage of the ship “Discovery” around the world…. The ship “Discovery” arrived first in the harbor of San Francisco on the evening of November 14, 1792, and anchored about where most shipping now docks. Anchorage was soon changed to a place near the present Marina, and ten days were spent in the vicinity. Then the vessel proceeded to Monterey where it remained at anchor from November 26, 1792, to January 14, 1793, a period of 50 days, very much more time than was spent at any other point on the California coast. Then the “Discovery” went out into the Pacific, to the Hawaiian Islands, returning to California on the first of May. May 2 to 5, 1793, the ship was at Port Trinidad, but it then proceeded north of California; returning in October, it was in Tomales Bay on October 20, again in San Francisco Bay, October 21 to 24, and at Monterey, November 1 to 6; then at Santa Barbara, November 10 to 18, and at San Diego November 27 to December 9, 1793. Vancouver then sailed west across the Pacific. “A total of close to 96 days, or a little over three months, was thus spent by the “Discovery” at anchor on the coast of California, giving more or less opportunity for Menzies and his helpful fellow officers to be ashore. But close reading of his journal shows that conditions were nowhere else so favorable for collecting as at Monterey. Of his two visits at San Francisco, Menzies says … that during the second visit, owing to the unfriendly attitude of the Commandante at that port, he himself was not allowed ashore at all; “consequently”, he says, “I had no opportunity while we remained here of collecting either plants or seeds for his Majesty’s Gardens, which I the more regretted as my state of health when here last year [on his first visit] precluded me” from “examining the shores of this Harbour with the minuteness I could wish.” It is thus unlikely that specimens of any sort, such as birds, other than botanical were preserved from San Francisco.” From Menzies’ journal: “We found the Land about the Point [Point Pinos] low and bleaky with a number of white sand hills, particularly on the western side where it is exposed to the Oceanic gales. We returnd through the Wood by a different path and shot a number of small Birds, a new species of Hawk [likely the California Condor] and several Quails, but the Country was so exceeding dry and parched that we found but few plants in Flower in our whole excursion. The Cattle were supplied with Water from standing pools that remaind here and there in hollows, or in places dug on purpose for them by the Inhabitants, for we did not meet with a spring or constant run of Water in our whole circuit”. “[Now comes an important statement as showing that it was at Monterey that Menzies saved actual specimens.] “The two following days I remaind on board examining drawing and describing my little collection and such other objects of natural/history as were brought me by the different parties who traversd the Country, and who were in general extremely liberal in presenting me with every thing rare or curious they met with. The sporting parties were particularly succssful in killing a vast variety of Game with which the Country abounded and which were now in full perfection.” “Of the numbers of specimens of birds which, by inference, we may supposeMenzies, the first known collector of Californian birds, to have brought back to England, only two, insofar as I now know, gave basis for description of new species. These were the California Condor and the California Quail, both described and figured by George Shaw and Francis P. Nodder in volume 9 of the Naturalist’s Miscellany, 1797, plates 301 and 345, respectively, each with some pages of text. These two species were the first birds to be named scientifically from California, and they remain known today as perhaps the two most conspicuously peculiar birds of this State. According to the definite statements of the describers, the specimens they handled were ones “brought over” to England “by Mr. Archibald Menzies”, and were then in the British Museum. That they were obtained at Monterey, on or about December 5, 1792, my study of Menzies’ Journal, as above, now leaves scarcely a trace of doubt. “In the later history of the British Museum (see Sharpe, in Hist. Colls. Nat. Hist. Depts. British Mus., 2, 1906, pp. 79 ff) it has been set forth that it was customary in the latter half of the 18th and early half of the 19th century, to mount all specimens of birds that were preserved at all, and as the earlier acquired ones became faded, greasy or broken. to replace them with fresh specimens of the same species as such became available. Thus very many original type specimens doubtless were thrown away; very likely the type of the California Quail met that fate, for it long since disappeared. Insofar as I have learned, just one Menzies-taken bird remains, and that is the type specimen of the California Condor. Through the kindness of Mr. Percy R. Lowe, and especially through Mr. Harry S. Swarth who examined it when in London, May 12, 1930, I am able to offer the following facts in regard to its condition. “It is an adult bird; now a “skin” (once mounted), in rather poor condition; no stuffing (or very little) in the body; wings were imperfectly cleaned or poisoned, so that most of the lesser coverts “slipped” and are gone ; legs partly decayed before drying; a piece broken from left side and tip of upper mandible and fragment tied in bit of paper attached to leg; naked skin of head and neck had been painted a dull pinkish drab, through which the black markings show obscurely. The only label now on this specimen is not an old or original one ; one side is blank, the other reads: “No. 10. 5a [probably a taxidermist’s memorandum]. Brit. Mus. Reg............/ Onops californiana (Shaw) / Type / Lot. California. Pres. by A. Menzies”.