Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(6)

Dodd, C. K. 2020. Book Review. The Poetics of Natural History (Second Edition). Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(6):42-46. Published November 27, 2020.

Egyptians catch crocodiles, a plate by Edward Orme, 1819

 

This is the first of seven posts that highlight the storytelling, reptile art work of Edward Orme (1775- ca 1848). Orme was an engraver and painter who produced 700 etchings and book plates. He was an engraver to both King George III and the Prince of Wales. Orme opened a shop as a printmaker on Conduit Street in Mayfair in 1800. A year later, in 1801, he opened another shop on the corner of New Bond Street and Brook Street. He published many books of aquatints (a print resembling a watercolor, produced from a copper plate etched with nitric acid) and etchings. His art was included the 1819 book Foreign Field Sports, Fisheries, Sporting Anecdotes from Drawings by Messrs. Howitt, Atkinson, Clark, Manskirch, & C. With a supplement of New South Wales which contained 110 plates. The plates were based on sketches and the stories were provided by travelers. Seven of the plates contain reptiles.  He closed his print shop in 1824. He also spent part of his career as a real estate developer. For more on Edward Orme see the British Museum account

The Orme post shown here is illustrating how Egyptians catch crocodiles. The story that goes with it is shown below.

The Crocodile of the Nile is of a greenish yellow, variegated with pale green blotches and transverse lines; having, at a distance, the resemblance to brass slightly rusted. The under parts of the body, tail, feet, and inner sides of the legs are of a yellowish white. The Egyptian peasants often catch this tremendous animal by means of a strong rope, tied to the trunk of a large tree , having a hook at the other end, to which a living lamb is attached: this is left on the banks of the Nile till the Crocodile, attracted to the spot by the cries of the lamb, gorges it , and the hook becomes fixed. The more the Crocodile struggles to get free, the more firmly the hook penetrates. The peasants then give line, as the Crocodile retreats, watching all its motions in the water; and, when it is completely exhausted, they drag it on shore. It is singular, that the absurd assertion of Aristotle, respecting the under jaw of the Crocodile being immoveable, should have been believed for so long a succession of ages. The motion of the jaw of this animal is the same as that of all others. In some of the interior parts of Africa dogs are employed to hunt the Crocodile; but they are provided with strong iron collars, full of spikes, that they may be the better able to overcome so formidable an antagonist.

Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(5)

Bauer, A. M., D. Claesson, T. Madsen, and M. Lundberg. 2020. In Memory of Richard Wahlgren (9 December 1946–5 October 2019) Founding Chairman of the ISHBH and Book Collector Extraordinaire. Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(5):32-41. Published November 14, 2020.

 

Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(4)

Bell, C. J., and A. M. Bauer. 2020.  Constantine Rafinesque’s Herpetological Observations along the Ohio River in 1818. Bibliotheca Herpetologica 14(4):19-31. Published November 13, 2020.

 

 

This Day in Herpetology - 2 November

Notable herpetological births:

Marco Aurelio Severino 1580–1656

Titian Ramsay Peale 1799–1885

Franklin Sherman, Jr. 1877–1947

John Hyacinth Power 1884–1964

Carlos Rusconi 1898–1969

Giuseppe Scortecci 1898–1973

Nelly Carillo de Espinoza 1927–2017

Pere Albrecht 1954–1998

James Bernard Murphy

SCORTECCI, Giuseppe (1898-1973).

Giuseppe Scortecci, authority on African and desert herpetofaunas, was born in Florence, on 2 November 1898. After service in World War I, he obtained a doctorate in natural sciences at the University of Florence (1921) and joined the staff of the Institute of Comparative Anatomy there. He later moved to Milan as Curator of Lower Vertebrates at the Museum of Natural History and, finally, in 1942, to the University of Genoa, where he became Professor of Zoology and, later, dean. Scortecci's special interest was deserts and, thus, also lizards. He conducted numerous explorations in the Sahara, north to Libya and east as far as Somalia and Arabia, often into previously unexplored regions. His interests coincided both geographically and chronologically with the expanding Italian colonial empire. Besides his taxonomic work, Scortecci also published on zoogeography, ecology, anatomy, and physiology, and he was widely honored for his work. He died in Milan, on 18 October 1973, from injuries suffered in a street accident.

Beginning in 1928, Scortecci published about 50 herpetological titles. His major contributions, besides sizeable papers on collections from various regions in northern Africa, include small books on the amphibians (1933) and poisonous snakes of Italian Somalia (1934), another on the amphibians of the Tripolitania region in Libya (1936), a major work on the venomous snakes of Italian Africa (1939), and the herpetological section of the Sagan-Omo mission to Ethiopia (1943). He also authored the enormous herpetological volume (1967), with its lavish photographs, in the nine-volume, 5,000-page Italian series "Animals," which was entirely written by him.

Scortecci published a book on the Sahara ("Biologia Sahariana," 1941 [1940]) which, because it was issued during World War II, was not widely distributed and is little known; it emphasized reptiles and was illustrated with many photographs by the author. Another more general book on the Sahara was published by him in 1945. Scortecci also published four major papers (1937–1941) on the sensory organs of the skin of agamid and iguanid lizards, following up on research by the German anatomist Franz Leydig in 1868, and Scortecci was the first to distinguish the two principal types of skin receptors.

• References: "Giuseppe Scortecci (1898-1973)," by M.  Sarà, Ann. Mus. Civ. Stor. Nat. Genova, 79: 402-403, 1972–1973 (1974?); "Prof. Giuseppe Scortecci. 1898–1973," by E. Tortonese, Copeia, 1974: 294, 1974; "In Memoria di Giuseppe Scortecci," by M. Sarà, Boll. Zool., 41: 141-143, 1974; "Giuseppe Scortecci (Firenze, 1898-Milano, 1973)," by M. Sarà, Boll. Mus. 1st. BioI. Univ. Genova, 42: 5–9, 1974 . • Portrait (about 1946): Courtesy Charles M. Bogert. • Signature (1940): Adler collection.

Biography reprinted with permission from Kraig Adler, SSAR. Source:

Adler, Kraig (eds.) 1989. Contributions to the History of Herpetology. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Oxford, Ohio, 202 p.

This book is still available from SSAR (click here)