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- Born
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Date: 5 Nov 1787
- Died
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Date: 5 Jun 1865
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Born
5 Nov 1787
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Died
5 Jun 1865
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Related toHenry McGhie, 'Images, Ideas, and Ideals: Thinking with and about Ross's Gull', in Thorsen et. al., Animals on Display (Penn. University Press, 2013), pp. 101-127.
Description:'In October 1823 the collections from Parry's second Arctic and earlier voyages were handed over to specialists to catalogue and describe; the two "new" gulls [identified as such by Fridtjof Nansen] were included among these collections. Birds were to be described by the naturalist John Richardson (1787-1865), a scottish surgeon-naturalist and explorer. He recognized the gull as belonging to a new species and planned to call it Larus rossii in order to honor its discoverer, basing his description on one of the specimens but mentioning the other, making them a holotype ("main type") and paratype ("supplementary" type)...
Richardson announced his new species at a meeting of the Wernerian Society in Edinburgh. He held back from publishing his description of the new gull so that the description could form part of the official account of the exedition, a more illustrious place of publication.' (104)
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Related toWilliam MacGillivray
From approx. Oct 1823 to approx. Dec 1824
Description:In his article 'Images, Ideas, and Ideals', Henry McGhie notes that the two figures are associatied with a conflict over the naming of Ross's Gull: 'The scientific naming of Ross's Gull is associated with controversy... Richardson announced his new species at a meeting of the Wernerian Society in Edinburgh. He held back from publishing his description of the new gull so that the description could form part of the official account of the exedition, a more illustrious place of publication. Another leading Edinburgh-based naturalist, William MacGillivray (1796-1852), gave the new bird a temporary scientific name (apparently based on only one of the specimens), making clear that it was to be properly described elsewhere. However, the temporary name was used by some other naturalists and was adopted as the bird's proper name, resulting in bad feeling from Richardson toward MacGillivray. After this time, the so-called law of priority... became standard practice, meaning that MacGillivray's temporary name had precedence over Richardson's intended, but unpublished, scientific name.
The naming affair and the bad feeling that it caused toward MacGillivray has been described several times. However, claims that MacGillivray acted unfairly, as he was aware that his newly created scientific name would be the one that would have to be used in perpetuity, are unfounded. Scientific nomenclature was more fluid at that time, and the law of priority had not yet been fully developed or accepted.' (104-105)
