Van Heurn’s Atjeh bird collecting expeditions of 1920 were two successive ornithological collecting expeditions undertaken by the Dutch chemical engineer and naturalist Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn in Atjeh in the year 1920, the results of which were worked up and published by the ornithologist Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg in the Jaarberichten (Yearbook) of the Koloniaal Instituut in Amsterdam. The first collection was made in the highland region of Lake Takengon (1200 metres above sea level) in Gajo-land, and the second at the lowland estates Alas Peurba (200 metres) and Aloer Djamboe (50 metres) on the northeast coast of Atjeh in September–November 1920. Together, the two collections gave a sample of the avifauna of Atjeh from the interior highlands to the coastal plain.
The first collection: Lake Takengon and the Gajo-land
The first of Van Heurn’s two Atjeh collections was made in the region of Lake Takengon — the lake known to the Gayo as Laut Tawar — at an elevation of 1200 metres above sea level, in the highlands of Gajo-land (Atjeh). The choice of the Takengon region reflected the scientific interest of the montane avifauna of the interior of Atjeh, which had been little collected by European ornithologists. The highland, montane character of the collecting locality distinguished this first collection from the second, and gave the two collections a complementary character: the first sampled the montane avifauna of the interior, the second the lowland avifauna of the coastal plain.
The first collection was described by Snouckaert in the Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen — Avifaunal Studies in the Gayo Lands — published in issue I (afl. I) of the previous Jaarbericht of the Koloniaal Instituut. The paper provided the map to which the second-collection paper later referred its reader.
The second collection: Alas Peurba and Aloer Djamboe
Van Heurn returned to Atjeh later in the same year 1920 and collected for a second time, in the months September–November 1920. The choice of localities for the second collection was deliberately different from that of the first: Ditmaal viel de keuze op veel lager gelegen localiteiten meer nabij de N.O.-kust, te weten de ondernemingen Alas Peurba (200 M.) en Aloer Djamboe (50 M.) — “This time the choice fell on much lower-lying localities nearer the northeast coast, namely the estates Alas Peurba (200 M.) and Aloer Djamboe (50 M.).”
The two estates stood under the management of the agency of the Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam, which granted Van Heurn permission and all requested facilities. The collecting was done op zwaar heuvelland, aan de grens van plantage en oorspronkelijk bosch — “on heavy hill country at the boundary of plantation and original forest” — the transitional situation that the later, joint paper by Van Heurn and Snouckaert held to be the most productive for tropical collecting, since it gave access both to the typical primeval-forest species and to those of the cultivated zone.
The chronology of collecting at Alas Peurba
At Alas Peurba, Van Heurn collected from 11 September 1920 — the date of the earliest specimens recorded in the second-collection paper, including specimens of the crested wood-partridge (Rollulus roulroul), the streak-breasted woodpecker (Picus vittatus), the forest wagtail (Dendronanthus indicus), and the black-headed bulbul (Microtarsus melanocephalus) — through September and into early October 1920. The paper records specimens from a wide range of bird families collected at Alas Peurba, including the crested wood-partridge, the jambu fruit-dove (Ptilinopus jambu), the spotted dove (Streptopelia chinensis tigrina), the crested serpent-eagle (Spilornis cheela bacha), several kingfishers (including Ceyx tridactyla and Halcyon concreta), trogons, broadbills, and the garnet pitta.
The chronology of collecting at Aloer Djamboe
At Aloer Djamboe, Van Heurn collected through November 1920, with specimens dated from early through late November. The latest date recorded in the second-collection paper is 25 November 1920 — the date of specimens of the crested serpent-eagle (Spilornis cheela bacha), the broad-billed roller (Eurystomus orientalis), the red-billed malcoha (Zanclostomus javanicus), the blue-fronted leafbird (Chloropsis cyanopogon), and the long-billed spiderhunter (Arachnothera affinis) at Aloer Djamboe. The paper records specimens from a wide range of bird families collected at Aloer Djamboe, including the crested serpent-eagle, the broad-billed roller, several cuckoos, woodpeckers, broadbills, bulbuls, and spiderhunters.
Snouckaert’s working up of the collection
After Van Heurn’s return to the Netherlands — onlangs in het vaderland teruggekeerd — he asked Snouckaert to work up the second collection: De Heer van Heurn, onlangs in het vaderland teruggekeerd, heeft mij verzocht ook deze verzameling te bewerken, van welke opdracht ik mij met genoegen kwijt — “Mr. Van Heurn, recently returned to the fatherland, has asked me to work up this collection too, a commission which I have discharged with pleasure.” Snouckaert followed the systematic order used by Robinson and Kloss for their species list of Sumatra, so that the Atjeh material could be compared readily with the wider Sumatran record. The paper is arranged as a taxonomic catalogue, family by family, with each entry giving the original binomial citation, the sex and number of specimens, the locality, and the date of collection.
The collection was deposited with the Boekerij van het Koloniaal Instituut — the Library of the Koloniaal Instituut — in Amsterdam, as recorded on the final page of the paper.
The Pitta granatina vanheurni specimen
The second collection is notable for the record of Pitta granatina vanheurni — a subspecies of the garnet pitta named after Van Heurn by Kloss — of which Snouckaert records a juvenile male collected at Alas Peurba on 13 September 1920. Snouckaert notes that the Sumatran form of the garnet pitta had only recently become known to science, and that Van Heurn’s two (or three) specimens were among the very few then in collections. Van Heurn himself, however, on the basis of the material he had examined, was of the opinion that the distinction of the Sumatran form from the Malayan coccinea was not well founded — a difference of judgement between the collector and the ornithologist who named the subspecies.
The later, joint paper
The two collections of 1920 furnished the material not only for the two papers by Snouckaert alone — the Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen and the Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn — but also for the later, more comprehensive paper Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh, co-authored by Van Heurn and Snouckaert, which described material collected on the same estates (Aloer Djamboe and Alas Peurba) and opened with the authors’ argument that the richest field for tropical avifaunal collecting is the virgin primeval forest.
Significance
Van Heurn’s Atjeh bird collecting expeditions of 1920 are significant within the AcehWiki corpus as a document of the natural-historical research that was carried on in Atjeh in the early civilian period — after the Atjeh War and the pacification — by Dutch scientific collectors working through the estates and the research institutions of the colony. The two collections, made in complementary highland and lowland localities, gave a sample of the avifauna of Atjeh from the interior highlands to the coastal plain, and their publication in the Jaarberichten of the Koloniaal Instituut is a document of the role of the Institute as the metropolitan venue for the publication of that research. The naming of Pitta granatina vanheurni after the collector is a document of the contribution of Van Heurn’s collecting to the formal taxonomy of the Sumatran avifauna.
See Also
- F. C. van Heurn
- R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg
- Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn
- Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen
- Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh
- Alas Peurba
- Aloer Djamboe
- Takengon
- Gajo-land
- Oostkust van Atjeh
- Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam
- Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut
- 1920
- 1921
Source
Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn, door Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg, in Jaarberichten van de Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut (Amsterdam). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, shelfmark Br N 95-1208.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn by Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg (Koloniaal Instituut, Jaarberichten). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering. The chronology of collecting at Alas Peurba and Aloer Djamboe is reconstructed from the dates recorded against the individual specimens in the paper.