George Masters | |
|---|---|
 Studio portrait of entomologist George Masters, 1867-1877 | |
| Born | 1837 Maidstone, England |
| Died | 1912 |
| Nationality | English |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland |
| Known for | zoology, entomology. |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Zoology; |
| Institutions | Australian Museum, Macleay Museum |
George Masters (1837-1912) was a zoologist, active in Australia during the 19th century.
Born in Maidstone, England, to Matilda, née Terry, he was trained as a gardener by his father, George Masters, before moving to Sydney. Masters began working as a gardener, then collecting insects in Queensland for William John Macleay, with the backing of the zoologist Gerard Krefft, later taking a position with the Australian Museum as an assistant curator. [1]
George Masters was a zoölogical collector, primarily of birds, but also of snakes and other animals. Masters also made a significant contribution to entomology, making large collections of insects available for research. He journeyed to remote regions to obtain specimens, including some that will difficult to obtain and are now listed as rare or endangered. His expeditions across the eastern states were extended to South and Western Australia, Tasmania, and Lord Howe Island. Noted collections include a series of specimens of the Queensland lungfish Neoceratodus forsteri , and in Western Australia, Dasyornis longirostris (western bristlebird) and Atrichornis clamosus (noisy scrub bird). [1]
Masters made two collections from Australia's south west for the museum in Sydney, noted as exceptional in a period when the study the birds of the region was lacking. He arrived by ship at King George Sound in 1866 for his first expedition, collecting a single specimen of the cryptic noisy scrub bird and two of the western bristlebird in a total of 281 bird skins. His second expedition (1868–9) was longer and further, journeying from Albany as far as the head of the Pallinup River, returning to Sydney with six more Atrichornis clamosus skins, 10 of Dasyornis longirostris, and eight of Psophodes nigrogularis (western whipbird). [2] These collections also supplemented those of nests and eggs of that state at the Australian Museum, and allowed A. J. North to publish more complete records of its birds oology and nidification in 1889. [3]
He continued collecting for himself, Krefft, Macleay, and others, despite an agreement with the museum to desist from doing so for personal gain. [1]
Masters is said to have gained extensive knowledge of Australian fauna, but avoided recording this in writing. [1] However, Masters observations of Atrichornis clamosus were published and are important records of a rare and little-known bird. His collections are often cited in North's Nests and eggs of birds found breeding in Australia (publ. 1901–14). [2] He served as curator at the Macleay Museum until 1912. [1]
Masters is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of Australian venomous snake, Drysdalia mastersii . [4]
Waychinicup National Park is in Western Australia, 404 kilometres (251 mi) southeast of Perth and 65 kilometres (40 mi) east of Albany, along the coast of the Southern Ocean.
The striated pardalote is the least colourful and most common of the four pardalote species. Other common names include pickwick, wittachew and chip-chip. It is a very small, short-tailed bird that is more often heard than seen, foraging noisily for lerps and other small creatures in the treetops.
The Australian Museum is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. It is the oldest museum in Australia, and the fifth oldest natural history museum in the world, with an international reputation in the fields of natural history and anthropology. It was first conceived and developed along the contemporary European model of an encyclopedic warehouse of cultural and natural history and features collections of vertebrate and invertebrate zoology, as well as mineralogy, palaeontology and anthropology. Apart from exhibitions, the museum is also involved in Indigenous studies research and community programs. In the museum's early years, collecting was its main priority, and specimens were commonly traded with British and other European institutions. The scientific stature of the museum was established under the curatorship of Gerard Krefft, himself a published scientist.
John Gilbert was an English naturalist and explorer. Gilbert is often cited in the earliest descriptions of many Australian animals, many of which were unrecorded in European literature, and some of these are named for him by those authors. Gilbert was sent to the newly founded Swan River Colony and made collections and notes on the unique birds and mammals of the surrounding region. He later joined expeditions to remote parts the country, continuing to make records and collections until he was killed during a violent altercation at Mitchell River (Queensland) on the Cape York Peninsula.
Johann Ludwig (Louis) Gerard Krefft, was an Australian artist, draughtsman, scientist, and natural historian who served as the curator of the Australian Museum for 13 years (1861–1874). He was one of Australia's first and most influential zoologists and palaeontologists.
Southwest Australia is a biogeographic region in Western Australia. It includes the Mediterranean-climate area of southwestern Australia, which is home to a diverse and distinctive flora and fauna.
The spotted pardalote is one of the smallest of all Australian birds at 8 to 10 centimetres in length, and one of the most colourful; it is sometimes known as the diamondbird. Although moderately common in all of the reasonably fertile parts of Australia it is seldom seen closely enough to enable identification.
The Macleay Museum at The University of Sydney, was a natural history museum located on the University's Camperdown campus, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Museum was amalgamanted into Chau Chak Wing Museum, which opened in 2020.
The yellow-rumped thornbill is a species of passerine bird from the genus Acanthiza. The genus was once placed in the family Pardalotidae but that family was split and it is now in the family Acanthizidae. There are four subspecies of yellow-rumped thornbill. It is a small, brownish bird with a distinctive yellow rump and thin dark bill. It inhabits savannah, scrub and forests across most of Australia and eats insects. The species engages in cooperative breeding.
The noisy scrubbird is a species of bird in the family Atrichornithidae. It is endemic to the coastal heaths of south-western Australia.
The rufous scrubbird is a bird species in the family Atrichornithidae. It is endemic to Australia.
The bristlebirds are a family of passerine birds, Dasyornithidae. There are three species in one genus, Dasyornis. The family is endemic to the south-east coast and south-west corner of Australia. The genus Dasyornis was sometimes placed in the Acanthizidae or, as a subfamily, Dasyornithinae, along with the Acanthizinae and Pardalotinae, within an expanded Pardalotidae, before being elevated to full family level by Christidis & Boles (2008).
The rufous bristlebird is one of three extant species of bristlebirds. It is endemic to Australia where three subspecies have been described from coastal southwestern Western Australia, southeastern South Australia and southwestern Victoria. Its natural habitat is coastal shrublands and heathlands. It is threatened by habitat destruction.
Egg collecting and bird life of Australia is a quarto-sized book authored and published in 1907 by field ornithologist and oologist Sidney William Jackson. The full title text reads: "Egg collecting and bird life of Australia. Catalogue and data of the "Jacksonian oological collection", illustrated with numerous photographs depicting various incidents and items in connection with this interesting study, which has been the life work of the Author."
Gull Rock National Park is a small national park situated 25 km (16 mi) east of Albany in Western Australia. It was established in 2006, becoming Western Australia's 97th national park in the process. It is around 2,593 hectares in area.
The western rufous bristlebird (Dasyornis broadbenti litoralis), also known as the rufous bristlebird (western), the south-western rufous bristlebird or the lesser rufous bristle bird, is an extinct and little-known subspecies of the rufous bristlebird that was endemic to Western Australia.
George Greensill Barnard was a British entomologist and ornithologist.
Frederick Bulstrode Lawson Whitlock (1860-1953) was an ornithological writer and oölogist, active in England and across Western Australia.
William Webb (1834?–1897) was a collector and trader of plants and animals, active in the region around King George Sound in Southwest Australia.
Charles McCauley Hoy (1897–1923) was a field naturalist who obtained series of mammal and bird specimens for United States National Museum, travelling on expeditions to Australia, China and elsewhere. The large collections of specimens and notes he made in Australia from 1919 to 1922 followed a period of dramatic decline in its mammalian fauna, and have been examined by later workers in efforts to determine the causes of the event. Born in China to foreign missionaries, Hoy returned there in 1922 with a commission from W. L. Abbott to continue collecting specimens for the institution. His successful collecting in that region included becoming the first occidental researcher to obtain a species of rare river dolphin, but his works were curtailed by complications arising from childhood illness – while convalescing from an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot injury – and he died there in 1923.
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