Bird collection of de Selys-Longchamps

Baron Edmond de Selys-Longchamps is one of the great naturalists of the 19th century. Between his first publication in 1827 and his death in 1900, he covered a broad spectrum of subjects, touching on evolutionary science, ecology, and, remarkably for the time, nature conservation, through the study of several groups of animals, but particularly birds, mammals and dragonflies.

From left to right: Lorius rotatus pectoralis; Ithaginis cruentatus; Lopholaimus antarcticus; Columba livia; Rhynochetus jubatus.

Among his major contributions are his 1842 Faune belge and his 1897 Le déclin d'une faunule. The first is a unique testimony of the status of populations of birds and mammals in the middle of the 19th century. Indeed, contrary to most works of the time, it emphasises habitat, distribution, trends and behaviour rather than taxonomy. The second is an amazingly lucid analysis of the effects on fauna and flora of agricultural intensification and landscape uniformisation, based on his personal field experience in the Hesbaye region of Belgium, one of the first areas to suffer the development impact that was to become so characteristic of most of the continent. It is probable that the combined interests of de Sélys Longchamps, as a prominent statesman and an instinctive naturalist, helped to forge his clear understanding of the phenomena he was witnessing.

Rhynochetus jubatus

During his long life, de Selys-Longchamps acccumulated rich collections of natural history specimens, covering several systematic groups. The bird collection of 3189 specimens is particularly outstanding. It is the result of efforts to represent all the species observed around Longchamps and, beyond, most of those of Belgium and Europe, as well as the main genera of the world.

Rhynochetus jubatus

It remains important today, in particular, by its inclusion of several extinct or near-extinct species, notably the Great Auk, Alca impennis, the Eskimo Curlew, Numenius borealis, the Passenger Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, the Huia, Heteralocha acutirostris, and most remarkably, the Reunion Hoopoe-starling, Fregilupus varius, of which very few specimens have been preserved. Because de Sélys Longchamps does not seem to have placed a collector's monetary value on obtaining specimens from particular localities, most of the origins indicated seem reliable. Some of his specimens have thus retained, a century and a half after their collection, a considerable bio-geographical value. Notable among those are two White-backed Woodpeckers, Dendrocopos leucotos lilfordi, from Corsica which constitute, together with two companion specimens in Switzerland, the only indication of the presence of the species in the large Mediterranean islands.

Lorius rotatus pectoralis.