“A Dissertation on Swallows” with comments on their migration by the eighteenth-century Maryland naturalist, Henry Callister

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-293
Author(s):  
Ellen M. Lawler ◽  
Sarah A. Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Tachycineta Bicolor ◽  
Tree Swallow ◽  
Similar Species ◽  
Human Species ◽  
The World ◽  
Chaetura Pelagica ◽  
Intended Destination ◽  
Royal Society Of London

In 1761, Maryland merchant and amateur naturalist, Henry Callister wrote “A Dissertation on Swallows” in response to five questions posed by a Dr Chandler. His accounts of eight Maryland species include accurate descriptions of behaviour as well as external anatomy. His brief description of the tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) may be one of the earliest accounts of this species. On the disappearance of swallows in winter, a topic of debate in the eighteenth century, Callister cited a number of reasons why he concluded that migration rather than hibernation was the explanation for this phenomenon. He noted differences in the habits of similar species in America and Europe and commented on the use of chimneys for nesting by chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica), and the fact that some birds incorporated human-made fibres in their nests. These observations led him to conclude that, similar to humans, non-human species are capable of adapting to their environment, an idea remarkably advanced for his time. There is no evidence that Callister's dissertation reached its intended destination which may have been Reverend Dr Samuel Chandler, a Fellow of the Royal Society of London at that time. But this document demonstrates that Henry Callister was an enthusiastic and perceptive observer of nature and that he had the ability to use his observations to develop general concepts and a deeper understanding of the world around him.

Some Spanish contributions to the early activities of the Royal Society of London

1988 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-132 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Foreign Travel ◽  
The World ◽  
Royal Society Of London ◽  
At Home

IN March 1664, soon after its foundation, the Royal Society of London began to publish its Philosophical Transactions , the full title of which indicates the scope of the Society’s interests: Philosophical Transactions: giving some Accompt of the present undertakings, studies and labours of the Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World. Well-educated Englishmen felt quite at home with their fellows abroad. It had long been the custom for the upper classes to send their sons on the ‘grand tour’ to complete their education, and some young men of modest birth also contrived to enjoy the advantages of foreign travel. The links thus formed between England and the continent of Europe ensured that the Royal Society received a plentiful flow of correspondence from abroad. Extracts from these letters, reviews of technical and scientific books, suggestions made by members, and accounts of their inventions and experiments, rendered the Transactions an important vehicle for the exchange and dissemination of knowledge throughout the world.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, F. R. S

1984 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-49 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Prime Concern ◽  
The World ◽  
Special Concern ◽  
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Professor of Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy and Natural Philosophy at Göttingen University, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1793. At his death, on 24 February 1799, he left numerous writings of scientific and general nature, as well as many letters and, most important of all, copious personal notes. It is for these that he is mainly remembered. They include reflections on practically all the topics which were of special concern in the Age of Enlightenment. Due to their diversity it is not easy to obtain a comprehensive overview of his ideas and opinions, especially as they are often contained or developed in articles on assorted matters. Many of his themes lost their topicality, though by no means their relevance to Lichtenberg’s prime concern, to understand the world and in particular the human mind, in order to achieve realistic improvements. He jotted down his notes from 1764 until he died, in what he called his ‘waste books’, a term he borrowed from English tradesmen (1). Many of his notes are pointed, witty and unusually candid. Thus they allow remarkable insights into the trends of the last decades of the eighteenth century. They also demonstrate the importance of the Royal Society in establishing Göttingen as the leading scientific university in Germany and spreading English philosophical, literary and cultural influence.

Colonial fellows of the Royal Society of London, 1661-1788

1951 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-246 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
New World ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Corporate Body ◽  
The World ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
Royal Society Of London

I. Statutes relating to the admission of Fellows of the Royal Society. That inhabitants of the British colonies in America were sometimes elected Fellows of the Royal Society of London has been known since the foundation of the Society, but no one has attempted to prepare from the Society’s original records a complete list of colonial Fellows. 2 Such a list, as it may indicate the names of those colonial scientists, both amateur and professional, who, by constant intercourse with Fellows of the Royal Society in England and with the Society itself as a corporate body, contributed most to the introduction and development of * 34 experimental philosophy ’ in the New World, it is the purpose of this paper to supply. From the aims and practices both of its immediate predecessors, the groups that met in Oxford and in London, and of a number of its earliest Fellows, the Royal Society inherited as a prime motive of its existence the accurate collection, classification, and interpretation of scientific data from all parts of the world. Such an undertaking required collaborators in remote places, and in the first charter of the Society (15 July 1662),4 for the improvement of the experiments, arts, and sciences of the aforesaid Royal Society/ Charles II granted to the President, Council, and Fellows of the Society, and to their successors, the privilege `. . . to enjoy mutual intelligence and knowledge with all and all manner of strangers and foreigners, whether private or collegiate, corporate or politic, without any molestation, interruption, or disturbance whatsoever: Provided nevertheless, that this our indulgence, so granted as it is aforesaid, be not extended to further use than the particular benefit and interest of the aforesaid Royal Society in matters or things philosophical, mathematical, or mechanical.’ 3

Review of Locke's Essay and the Rhetoric of Science by Peter Walmsley

Locke Studies ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 225-230
Author(s):  
G. A. J. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
John Locke ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Rhetoric Of Science ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject

From at least Kenneth MacLean’s John Locke and English Literature of the Eighteenth Century (1936) Locke’s Essay has been the subject of a large number of works that are classified as contributions to literary criticism. Indeed, it is doubtful if any other work of philosophy in English has attracted such attention. The reasons for this are undoubtedly overdetermined. No other work of modern philosophy, and perhaps no other work of any kind, had such an impact as did Locke’s on the eighteenth century. But Walmsley’s is not an attempt to chart that impact. Rather, it sets out to examine Locke’s language and relate it to his contemporaries, especially those who would now be regarded as scientists, even though the term in Locke’s day did not exist. It was Locke’s fellow members of the Royal Society, the virtuosi of Oxford and London and their fellow-travellers, to whom the Essay was addressed, and his language shared their common assumptions about the world at large and our place in it. It was Locke’s task in part to provide argument for those assumptions and to provide a grounding for a view of the world that was to hold sway—indeed, perhaps it still does—for at least a century.

scholarly journals Anniversary Dinner 1955

1956 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Know How ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Royal Society Of London

The Anniversary Dinner for 1955 was held at the Dorchester Hotel on St Andrew’s Day, 30 November 1955. The Toast of ‘The Royal Society of London’ was proposed by His Excellency the American Ambassador to the Court of St James, the Honourable Winthrop W. Aldrich, who said: ‘It is indeed an honour and a privilege to be chosen to propose the toast of the Royal Society, a society which for three centuries has exerted a vast and beneficent influence in the life not only of Britain but of the world. ‘In America, even as a child at school, I became familiar with many of the great names which are inscribed on the rolls of this Society, and I was taught to venerate their achievements. We Americans know how indebted we are in our own progress in science and technology to the inductive principle which was expounded by Francis Bacon and which has since, in every generation, been so brilliantly applied by the great experimentalists of this nation. ‘Restless curiosity about the secrets of the universe, and the irresistible instinct to ferret them out, are just as lusty in Britain today as they were at the birth of this Society three hundred years ago. I am told that when Sir Edmund Hillary was asked why he climbed Mt Everest, he replied “Because it was there”. For this body of scientists, Sir Edmund undoubtedly said all that needs to be said. I venture to prophesy that so long as any Everest, in the laboratory, in nature, or in the conceptual realm, remains unconquered, the Fellows of this Society, the blood brothers of Hillary, will be found assaulting its most forbidding slopes.

Natural sex reversal in vertebrates

1970 ◽  
Vol 259 (828) ◽  
pp. 59-71 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Sea Bass ◽  
Sex Reversal ◽  
Human History ◽  
Common Occurrence ◽  
John Hunter ◽  
Early Human ◽  
Royal Society Of London

The phenomenon of sex reversal and hermaphroditism in vertebrates has been observed since early human history dating back to Aristotle, who also recorded that the , a sea-bass, reproduced without copulation. Despite their common occurrence and early discoveries, hermaphroditic animals, with or without sex reversal, aroused fear rather than interest before the eighteenth century; the laying ‘cock’ and the crowing ‘hen’ were usually put to death in accordance with the medieval laws (Evans 1906). The first experimental approach to intersexuality and sex reversal in vertebrates commenced with the work on birds and domestic mammals by John Hunter, who once gave an account to the Royal Society of London in 1780 on a most extraordinary pheasant, which ‘ after having produced several broods, moulted, and the succeeding feathers were those of a cock. This animal was never afterwards impregnated . . .’ (Marshall 1964).

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