Alas Peurba was a plantation estate in East Atjeh, lying at 200 metres above sea level about eighteen kilometres south of Lho Seumawe, on which part of the collection of bird skins described in Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh by F. C. van Heurn and R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg was gathered, and on which the earlier, second Atjeh collection of Van Heurn — described in Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn by Snouckaert — was gathered in September–November 1920.
The estate and its management
Like Aloer Djamboe in Tamiang, the estate stood under the management of the agency of the Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam, whose grant of permission and facilities the authors of the Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh acknowledged as a proof of the interest of a commercial body in purely scientific work. The collecting was done on heavy hill country at the boundary of plantation and original forest — op zwaar heuvelland, aan de grens van plantage en oorspronkelijk bosch — the transitional situation that the authors 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 authors’ description of the eastern seaboard places the estate in its setting: almost the whole plain along the coast of East Atjeh had been brought into cultivation by a fairly dense population, while further inland the population had penetrated only sporadically; but from the coastal districts the European cultures had struck eenige diepe bressen in het oerbosch — “some deep breaches into the primeval forest” — of which the estates at which they collected were instances.
The second Atjeh collection of 1920
The estate was the site of the second of the two avifaunal collections made by Van Heurn in Atjeh in 1920. The first collection — described in the Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen — had been made in the highland region of Lake Takengon (1200 metres) in Gajo-land. The second — described in the Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn — was made at Alas Peurba (200 metres) and Aloer Djamboe (50 metres) in September–November 1920. As Snouckaert records, Ditmaal viel de keuze op veel lager gelegen localiteiten meer nabij de N.O.-kust — “This time the choice fell on much lower-lying localities nearer the northeast coast.”
At Alas Peurba, Van Heurn collected from 11 September 1920 — the date of the earliest specimens recorded in the paper (specimens of Rollulus roulroul, Picus vittatus, Dendronanthus indicus, and 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 (Rollulus roulroul), the jambu fruit-dove (Ptilinopus jambu), the crested serpent-eagle (Spilornis cheela bacha), several kingfishers, trogons, woodpeckers, broadbills, and the garnet pitta.
The Pitta granatina vanheurni specimen
The paper 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, was of the opinion that the distinction of the Sumatran form from the Malayan coccinea was not well founded.
Deposit
The collection described in the Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie was deposited with the Boekerij van het Koloniaal Instituut — the Library of the Koloniaal Instituut — in Amsterdam.
See Also
- Over de tweede Atjeh-collectie van Jhr. F. C. van Heurn
- Over eene collectie vogelhuiden van Oost-Atjeh
- Avifaunistische Studien in de Gajo-landen
- Aloer Djamboe
- Lho Seumawe
- Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam
- Oost-Atjeh
- R. C. E. G. J. Snouckaert van Schauburg
- F. C. van Heurn
- Takengon
- Gajo-land
- Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut
- 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.