Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg was a Dutch jurist and ornithologist who, with Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn, published the paper Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh on a collection of bird skins from East Atjeh, and who, as sole author, had earlier published two papers in the Jaarberichten (Yearbook) of the Koloniaal Instituut describing the two successive avifaunal collections made by Van Heurn in Atjeh in 1920: the Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen, describing the earlier collection made in the region of Lake Takengon (1200 metres) in Gajo-land, and the Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn, describing the later collection made at the estates Alas Peurba (200 metres) and Aloer Djamboe (50 metres) in September–November 1920.
The Van Heurn collections in Atjeh
The three papers that record the avifaunal collecting of Van Heurn in Atjeh form a sequence. The first — the Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen — described the earlier collection made in the region of Lake Takengon (1200 metres) in Gajo-land (Atjeh), and was published in issue I (afl. I) of the previous Jaarbericht of the Koloniaal Instituut. The second — the Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn — described the collection made at the estates Alas Peurba (200 metres) and Aloer Djamboe (50 metres) in September–November 1920. The third — the Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh — was co-authored by Van Heurn and Snouckaert, and described material collected on the same estates in a later, more comprehensive treatment.
In the Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie, Snouckaert records that Van Heurn, having returned to the Netherlands, asked him to work up the 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.” The second-collection paper thus stands in a different relation to the collector from the later, joint paper: in the second-collection paper, Van Heurn is the collector and Snouckaert the sole author; in the later paper, the two men appear together as joint authors.
The second collection paper
The Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie opens by contrasting the localities of the second collection with those of the first. The first collection had been made in the highland region of Lake Takengon (1200 metres) in Gajo-land. The second collection was made at much lower-lying localities nearer the northeast coast: 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 shift from the highland Gayo country to the lowland estates 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.
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 records specimens from a wide range of bird families, and 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 Van Heurn himself, 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 collection was deposited with the Boekerij van het Koloniaal Instituut — the Library of the Koloniaal Instituut — in Amsterdam.
The Oost-Atjeh paper
The Oost-Atjeh paper, Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh, co-authored with Van Heurn, describes material collected on the estates Aloer Djamboe in Tamiang and Alas Peurba south of Lho Seumawe. The paper opens with the authors’ argument that the richest field for tropical avifaunal collecting is the virgin primeval forest, since the typical forest species disappear immediately when the forest gives way to cultivation, while the birds of open marsh and cultivated country are already widely distributed and better known. The paper illustrates the argument from the Sumatran doves, from the common grey Streptopelia suratensis tigrina — so well adapted to cultivation that the birds were repeatedly run over by motor cars — to the shy Poenei djamboe (Ptilinopus jambu), which had to be sought in or near the original forest and of which the authors quote William Marsden’s description of 1784.
Significance
Snouckaert’s significance within the AcehWiki corpus is as the author of the three papers that record the avifaunal collecting of Van Heurn in Atjeh in 1920 — the Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen, the Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn, and the Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh. His work is 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, and of the role of the Koloniaal Instituut as the metropolitan venue for the publication of that research.
See Also
- Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn
- Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen
- Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh
- F. C. van Heurn
- Poenei djamboe
- William Marsden
- Aloer Djamboe
- Alas Peurba
- Takengon
- Gajo-land
- Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut
- Lho Seumawe
- 1920
- 1921
Sources
Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh, door Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn en Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg, in Jaarberichten (Koloniaal Instituut). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br N 95-1210.
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 eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh by Ir. Jhr. F. C. van Heurn and Mr. Dr. Baron R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg (Koloniaal Instituut, Jaarberichten) and 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.