Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major's expedition to Madagascar, 1894 to 1896: beginnings of modern systematic study of the island's mammalian fauna

Abstract

Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major (1843–1923) made the first synoptic systematic collection of mammals from Madagascar in the last decade of the 19th century. To reconstruct Major's obscurely known itinerary, we located 994 specimens that originated from his 1894–1896 expedition and determined their identification, dates and locality of collection, and current institutional repository. Fifty species were recovered from 26 localities centred in the Central Highlands and Eastern Humid Forest of east‐central Madagascar. The geographic position of several type localities is refined and their coordinates estimated, and the type locality of one taxon (Microgale pusilla Major, 1896) is accordingly amended. Biographical details of the man, the biodiversity significance of his collections and the historical context of his discoveries are discussed.

Keywords:

• History of collection
• Madagascar
• mammals
• specimen localities
• type specimens

Acknowledgements

We are especially indebted to the many museum staff who provided information on and access to specimens in their care; our work would have been impossible without their unstinting assistance. They include Burkhart Engesser, Naturhistorisches Museum Basel; Rainer Hutterer, Zoologisches Forschungsinstitut und Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn; Adrian Friday, Zoology Museum, Cambridge University, Cambridge; Maria Rutzmoser, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts; William Stanley and Julian Kerbis, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Jeremy Herman, National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh; Clem Fisher and Malcolm Largen, Liverpool Museum; Henry McGhie, Manchester Museum; Jacques Cuisin and Michel Tranier, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris; Barbara Herzog, Naturhistorisches Museum, Wien; Caesar Claude, Zoologisches Museum der Universität Zürich.

P.D.J. is grateful to staff of NHM for their support, especially Carol Gocke, Paul Cooper, General and Zoology Library, Mrs F. E. Warr, librarian of the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, Tring and John Thackray (deceased), Archives. Daphne Hills, Mammal Group gave valuable advice on the carnivores and she and Richard Harbord, Mammal Group provided helpful curatorial assistance. Robert Prys‐Jones and Don Smith, Bird Group, Colin McCarthy, Lower Vertebrates Group and Roy Vickery, Botany Department all provided advice and assistance on specimens collected by Major for their respective groups. Thanks to Paul Lund, Photographic Unit for the photography. We appreciate the helpful assistance provided by the Map Librarian and staff of the Map Room, Royal Geographical Society and Mary Sampson, Archivist and library staff at The Royal Society. Mark Robinson, Waterway Conservation and Regeneration, British Waterways very generously assisted us with advice on mapping. The following vacation and work experience students also contributed valuable assistance to P.D.J.: Nicole Armstrong‐Best, Helena Bates, Michael O'Connor, and Nicola Wiles.

We are grateful to Steve Goodman, Field Museum, Chicago and World Wide Fund For Nature for his helpful comments on an early draft of the manuscript. For their constructive reviews of the submitted manuscript, we also thank Steve Goodman and one anonymous referee for their suggestions for improvements.

Notes

See Figure 4 for localities.

^aType locality as here emended; see locality 20.