The Zoologist/4th series, vol 2 (1898)/Issue 686/William Turner, the Father of British Zoology

by Hugh Alexander Macpherson

 

THE ZOOLOGIST

 

---

 

No. 686.—August, 1898.

 

---

 

WILLIAM TURNER, THE FATHER OF BRITISH
ZOOLOGY.

By Rev. H.A. Macpherson, M.A.,
Author of 'A History of Fowling,' 'A Fauna of Lakeland,' &c.

 

The near advent of the International Zoological Congress, to be held at Cambridge during the present month, renders it fitting that attention should be drawn to the important part which Cambridge played in training the first naturalists bred upon English soil. That the revival of learning trained the youth of this country to concentrate their thoughts upon the study of dead languages is, of course, an obvious commonplace; it would be a grievous mistake to infer from this circumstance that a spirit of higher research was wholly absent from the minds of the ambitious youths who gathered together at Cambridge to acquaint themselves with the truths of philosophy. Any such erroneous surmise is disproved by the work accomplished by William Turner, to whom the title of "Father of British Zoology" may fairly be applied. This voluminous writer was apparently a man of humble extraction,—one of a family of that name resident at Morpeth,—where his father carried on the trade of a tanner. It was in rambling in the copse woods near Morpeth that the future naturalist spent his early years, searching for birds' nests in the thickets, or listening to the winter songs of the Dippers (Cinclus aquaticus), as those sprightly birds curtseyed on the rocks in the rapid eddies of the north-country streams.

When young Turner at length awoke to realize the possibilities of life, and yearned to secure a college education, he found his path to success barred by the poor circumstances of his family. Happily, an exhibition placed at his disposal by Lord Wentworth smoothed the difficulties of the poor scholar. In due course he became a member of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. There he studied with Ridley and other men who afterwards became famous in history, and there he took his degree in 1529–1530, being also elected a fellow of his college in the latter year. His cotemporary naturalist, John Caius, was about twenty-three when he was elected to a fellowship at Gonville Hall. If we venture to conjecture that Turner obtained his fellowship about the same age, it would appear that he was born about the year 1507, i.e. during the last years of Henry VII. He spent the next ten years of his life as a Cambridge don, acting latterly as senior treasurer of his college. As he constantly resided within easy reach of the then undrained fens, in which Savi's Warbler (Locustella luscinoides) reeled to its brooding mate among the forests of reeds, it is not surprising that he acquired an intimate knowledge of the habits of British wildfowl. Did he seek to traverse the quaking bogs in quest of some rare flower which was needed for his herbarium? Why, then, the Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa belgica) yelped round the track of the venturesome naturalist. Had he occasion to search for water-plants in the ponds of the district? Why, then, his intrusion into a region of watery waste must of course be resented by the clouds of Black Terns (Hydrochelidon nigra), which filled the air above their breeding colonies with deafening clamour as they hovered about their eggs, or swept hither and thither in tumultuous confusion. But Turner must have enjoyed his greatest triumph when he visited the wild Cranes (Grus communis) that then returned annually to breed among the fens. His interest in these fine birds must have been very great, for he took pains to find the young Cranes in many seasons. (This we know from the emphatic language which Turner himself employed on purpose to confute the assertion then current that the Crane did not breed in England: "Apud Anglos etiam nidulantur grues in locis palustribus, et earum pipiones'sæpissime vidi, quod quidam extra Angliam nati falsum esse contendunt.")

But Turner does not appear to have confined his field work to the neighbourhood of Cambridge. If he was eager to watch the Marsh Harrier or "Balbushard" (Cinclus æruginosus) quartering the marshes of Ely in quest of Duck or Coot, assuredly he was no less pleased to visit the Cormorants which nested on the lofty trees also occupied by a Norfolk Hernery.

But Turner was a man of strong religious convictions, and he lived in times which encouraged strife. Good naturalist as he was, he allowed his better judgment to be overpowered by sectarian bitterness, and for a time he lost his liberty. Released from prison, probably about 1542, he wisely went abroad, and occupied himself with his favourite hobbies. His continental travels enabled him to become acquainted with the habits of the White Stork (Ciconia alba), the Hoopoe (Upupa epops), and other birds which he had never met with in England. The pleasure which he derived from his wanderings must have been immense. For example, when he climbed the Alps, he became aware for the first time of the existence of a species which he had never heard of before—the European Nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes). To us the bird would be simply an old favourite, whose undulating flight recalled many happy hours spent amidst glorious pine forests; but to Turner it was a revelation, a form such as he had never contemplated,—its flight strange to his eye, its note weird, its coloration unique in his experience. Then, too, there was the curious fact that (as the Swiss peasants assured him), it did not feed upon grain or carrion like the Rooks and Crows of his own country, but it depended upon the harvest of nuts which the coppices of the wooded valleys supplied, reminding him of the little blue Nuthatches, or "Nut-jobbers," as the country-folk called them (Sitta cæsia), the birds whose shrill notes and lively actions had so often cheered him when strolling through the Cambridge gardens. Turner travelled into Italy, and even attended the botanical lectures of Lucas Ghinus at Bologna before he journeyed to Zurich, the home of Conrad Gesner. The meeting between the two great naturalists must have possessed many interesting features, and there can be no doubt that they were mutually impressed by one another's attainments.

Gesner, for example, was careful to allude to Turner in after years in terms of sincere admiration. On quitting Zurich, the English traveller journeyed to Basle, and thence to Cologne. During his residence in the latter city, in 1544, he printed the first ornithological work that the New Learning was destined to produce. Turner was still comparatively young, probably on the right side of forty, but his scholarly taste had already induced him to apply his critical skill to the difficult task of determining the particular species of birds described by Aristotle and Pliny. Accordingly, he entitled his little book, 'Avium præcipuarum quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis et succincta historia ex optimis quibusque scriptoribus contexta.' Trifling as this may appear beside the ponderous tomes of Gesner and Aldrovandus, the fact remains that it forms no unimportant contribution to the science of the sixteenth century. Indeed, Gesner quoted every line that Turner printed, only adding the contents of such private letters as passed between his friend and himself in the interval between 1544 and 1555. It was, by the way, in 1550 that the Privy Council unsuccessfully nominated Turner for election as Provost of Oriel College, Oxford. The fact deserves notice, because Oriel was destined to be Gilbert White's college. But however bitterly Turner may have felt the loss of this and other expected preferment, he found consolation in his zoological pursuits, and was always ready to amplify a previous statement from his latest experience. Thus he early pointed out the distinctions which appeared to separate the Black Kite (Milvus migrans) from the Red Kite (M. ictinus), stating that the Kites which he had met with in Britain were larger and redder than the Kites which he had seen in Germany; adding that, while the Red Kites frequented towns and cities, in which they became so bold as to snatch food out of the hands of children, the lesser and blacker species rarely appeared in the vicinity of towns. He is at pains to explain that, though he had very often seen the Black Kite in Germany (probably in the valley of the Rhine), he had never met with it in Great Britain. He returned to the subject in a later letter to Gesner, in which he makes the following statement (literally rendered):—"We have Kites in England, the like of which I have seen nowhere else. Our own birds are much larger than the German birds, more clamorous, more tending towards whiteness, and much greedier. For such is the audacity of our Kites, that they dare to snatch bread from children, fish from women, and handkerchiefs from off hedges and out of men's hands. They are accustomed to carry off caps from off men's heads when they are building their nests."

Another admirable specimen of Turner's discriminating skill may be found in his lucid refutation of the absurd theory that the Robin (Erithacus rubecula) and the Common Redstart (Ruticilla phœnicurus) did not represent distinct species, but were in fact identical. Turner truthfully explains to us the woodland habits of the Redbreast in the nesting season, adding that he spoke from personal knowledge: "Hæc quæ nunc scribo, admodum puer observavi." He describes the dress of both sexes of the Redstart, its habit of nesting in holes in trees and crevices of walls, its characteristic actions, and much besides; concluding with the remark that while the Redstart disappears from Britain before the arrival of winter, Redbreasts can be found all through the year, though it is not until the end of autumn, when the young Robins have almost entirely acquired the red plumage of the breast, that these birds withdraw from their summer haunts into the towns and villages. Again, he surprises us with the statement that he knew white Herons (Ardea) to occur in England in rare instances; but, ever anxious to guard against any misconception, he shrewdly points out that such white birds as he is referring to belonged to no foreign species of Heron, but agreed with their blue companions in every particular except their absence of coloration.

Had such a statement been made by anyone except Turner, we should at once have jumped to the conclusion that the so-called "white" Herons were neither more nor less than Spoonbills (Platalea leucorodia); but in the present case the suggestion is mentioned only to be dismissed. For, in the first place, Turner was well acquainted with the Spoonbill as a British bird. It may well have been upon the authority of Turner that Gesner wrote that the Spoonbill ("Platea nostra") "is captured in England on the shore of the sea, and when kept in confinemerit feeds upon fish, together with the intestines of fowls and other kitchen refuse." Certain it is that when Turner was in Italy he saw white Egrets ("Albardeolas" he calls them), which, he says, only differed from the "Shovelard" of the English in lacking the broad bill of the Spoonbill. And secondly, Turner states that the rare white Herons which occurred in Britain not only joined company to the common blue Herons (Ardea cinerea), but actually bred with them, and produced offspring by their union. Here are his words:—"Visa est etiam alba (ardea) cum (not inter) cyanea apud Anglos nidulari, et prolem gignere. Quare ejusdem esse speciei satis constat." This last sentence disposes of the idea which Turner may himself have considered, that these white Herons represented one of the white species of Egrets, such as he had met with in Italy. Clearly, the white Herons which occurred in Britain must have been albinos or white varieties of the common bird, such as have been obtained in modern times.

Gladly would we linger to discuss Turner's numerous references to the bird-life of Merrie England, picturing in our mind's eye the havoc which the blue "Henharroer" (Circus cyaneus) wrought in well-stocked poultry-yards, the Osprey (Pandion haliaëtus) purloining stock-fishes from the stews, and the Sheldrake (Tadorna cornuta) flighting round her nest hard by the tideway of the Thames; but present interests require us to indicate that Turner did not confine his attention to ornithology.

We have hitherto failed to ascertain that Turner studied mammals like his brother Cantab, Dr. Caius; but both the courtly doctor of medicine and the militant divine were keenly interested in the fish fauna of the British Islands. It was Dr. Caius who first discovered that the Ruff (Acerina vulgaris) existed in the waters of an English river—the Norfolk Yare (the doctor was a Norfolk man). Yet the notes which Dr. Caius published himself, or sent direct to Gesner, however interesting, will hardly bear a safe comparison with the list of British Fishes which Gesner received from Turner.

Turner was residing at Wissenburg when he drafted this rough catalogue, probably at a distance from his private memoranda: he wrote it in 1557. Eleven years later he evinced his sustained interest in the subject by alluding in print to his intention of publishing a work upon the names and natures of the Fishes to be found within the dominions of Queen Elizabeth. But the catalogue of 1557 was a remarkable production for the middle of the sixteenth century, and refers to many old names of British Fishes. Thus the title of "Keeling" is applied to Cod (Gadus morhua) of a particular size. Or again, Turner's remarks have a historical value, as when he represents that the Smelt (Osmerus eperlanus), which rarely ascends the Thames higher than Woolwich at the present day, used in his time to follow the tides as high up as Kew and Brentford in the spring of the year. How carefully Turner studied the specific characters of fishes may be guessed from the gravity with which he rejects the fallacious opinion entertained by some of his countrymen that the Sprat, or "Sprote," as the Londoners of those days termed it (Clupea sprattus), was not the young of the Herring (Clupea harengus), nor an immature form at all; but a valid and distinct species of fish. We can well believe that Turner's failure to produce his promised monograph of British Fishes was due in part to the strange vicissitudes of his career; in part to the encroachments of his Herbal upon his spare time.

Whatever shortcomings may be detected in the writings of William Turner, the man himself is worthy of our homage, not only as the first sturdy Englishman who essayed to study our insular fauna in a spirit of intelligent research, but also because, like Dr. Caius and Dr. Fauconer of his own generation, he delighted to clasp hands with brother naturalists across the "silver streak," thus bringing to our own remembrance the signal truth that the naturalist belongs to no single motherland, but is united with his comrades in the bonds of a generous friendship wherever the waves and the winds may carry him.

Dear old Turner was not spared to attain a very great age. His failing strength lasted long enough to enable him to correct the text of the edition of his Herbal printed in 1568; but that same year brought his sorely troubled life to a peaceful termination. On July 7th the great Northumbrian naturalist "quietly" laid his head upon the pillow and passed away. We gather from the epitaph which Jane Turner placed upon her husband's monument in St. Olave's Church, that the veteran was "ac tandem corpus senio, ac laborious confectum," when he answered the last roll-call.

The flowers that Turner loved so well had only blossomed for five more seasons when another famous alumnus of Cambridge laid aside his study of zoology. On July 29th, 1573, the spirit of John Caius fell upon a heavy slumber.

Oxford men are not disloyal, but we do envy our sister University the memory of these early naturalists, who surely owed whatever was noblest in their characters to the wise and discriminating education of their Alma Mater.