The southern ark

"... Surveys 130 years of discovery, description and illustration of New Zealand's unique fauna. It begins with the voyages of Captain Cook and concludes at the end of the Victorian era ... John Andrews integrates the writings of Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Richard Owen, the Reverend Richard Taylor, and the numerous resident collectors with the fine illustrations of Parkinson, Forster, Lear, Gould, Wolf, Martyn, Keulemans and Donovan. He shows the trials and tribulations of some of the early naturalists and artists, the ways in which they collected and preserved their material, and the ways in which they described it and illustrated it. The stories of the discovery and acquisition of specimens by such diverse personalities as lawyers, missionaries, doctors and administrators from the young colony, and by archdukes, empresses and princes of Northern Europe, are as fascinating as the fauna itself when considered in the context of the political, social and economic climate of the period ... The author also documents the consolidation of New Zealand science in the 1850s, the institutions established and the scientific publications that were locally illustrated and printed ... The study ends as the Victorian era was drawing to its close, when New Zealand's own scientific character had developed, and when it was already facing the problems caused by animal and plant introductions and exploitation of the environment ..." -- Inside front cover.