Piotr Daszkiewicz

The article presents the contributions of Benedykt Dybowski to the natural history of Steller’s sea cow – a marine mammal species, that had become extinct in the 18^th c. Dybowski’s impact is highlighted in his iconic discoveries concerning the biology of this species. Namely, he revealed and described the sexual dimorphism of the Steller’s sea cow and was the first to propose the climatic hypothesis concerning its extinction. Furthermore, Dybowski sent the largest number of skulls and bones representing this species to European museums in the 19^th c. Today, these artifacts are deposited in seven museums in five countries (England, Ukraine, Poland, Austria, and Monaco). Unfortunately, specimens sent to Polish scientific institutions were looted or destroyed during both world wars. Sources examined in the present paper picture Dybowski as a prominent zoologist who worked within an international network of other outstanding specialists of that time – especially Władysław Taczanowski of the Warsaw Zoological Cabinet. The documents analyzed here shed new light on the work of naturalists and museum workers, revealing behind-the-scenes complexities of purchasing scarce and valuable zoological specimens.

J.-E. Gilibert spent eight years (1775–1783), in the Polish-Lituanian Commonwealth. In Grodno, he created a medical school and the first natural history cabinet, botanical gardens in Horodnica and Vilnius, he was a professor of botany, pharmacy and natural history in Vilnius (1781). Supporter of the classification system of Carl Linnaeus, Gilibert was the author of the first of Lithuanian flora Flora Lituanica Inchoata and some others publications dedicated to Lithuanian plants. Gilibert was not only a taxonomist and florist but also the author of a biogeographic (comparison of Lithuanian and Lyon vegetation) or ecological concepts (disparition and the appearance of species or the concept of the primary forest). In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth he was also interested with diseases and organization of healthcare. In 1790 he published in Lyon Exercita Phytologica. J.-E. Gilibert gave a list of 40 species of Lithuanian medicinal plants. The information provided by J.-E. Gilibert is undoubtedly an interesting contribution for the history of medicinal plants in the first Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The article presents and analyzes the list of given species.

A.F. Adamowicz, a veterinarian, botanist and science historian, became in 1866 a member of the SBF. This article presents the circumstances of his first and second travel to France. Written for the SBF Adamowicz’sHistoire de la Botanique en Lituanie was annotated and translated into Polish. The relationship of Adamowicz with the SBF and France has been analysed in regard to the context of liquidation of scientific institutions by the Russians in the occupied city of Vilnius.

Ignacio Bolivar, one of the most prominent entomologists of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the Director of the National Museum of Natural History in Madrid, corresponded with naturalists associated with the Zoological Cabinet in Warsaw. The collection of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales contains the letters of Władysław Taczanowski, Ludwik Dembowski, and Ludwik Młokosiewicz. Bolivar determined orthoptera sent by Konstanty Jelski and Jan Sztolcman from South America and by Ludwik Młokosiewicz from the Caucasus. At Taczanowski’s request, he sent to Warsaw the specimens of beetles and butterflies from Spain, the Iberian woodpecker and the African hymenoptera, determined by Oktawiusz Radoszkowski. Młokosiewicz’s letters concern specimens of insects, reptiles, birds, and mammals sent from Georgia to Madrid as well as preparations of the Bolivar expedition to the Caucasus. Letters of Polish naturalists to Bolivar are important documents of the history of the Zoological Cabinet in Warsaw and European natural history collections in the 19^th century.

The article presents Henri Marmottan and his cooperation with the Warsaw Zoological Cabinet. Marmottan, a correspondent of Antoni Waga and Władysław Taczanowski, sent bird specimens to Warsaw. From Poland, he received both birds and insects for his collections. The text also includes an analysis of Marmottan’s correspondence with Konstanty Branicki. In the collections of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, where the Marmottan collections are kept, the authors found specimens sent from Poland, and in the collections of the Museum and Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, specimens sent by him from Paris. Marmottan’s scientific cooperation with Polish zoologists is presented in the context of the epoch, the Russian occupation of Warsaw, the Franco-Prussian war, and the Paris Commune.

The article presents the Polish translation and analysis of the letters from Władysław Taczanowski (1819–1890) to Aleksander Strauch (1832–1893). The correspondence is stored in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg and comprises 29 letters written between 1870 and 1889. The main theme of these letters is specimens of reptiles and amphibians sent to Warsaw by Polish naturalists, such as Benedykt Dybowski from Siberia, Konstanty Jelski from French Guiana and Peru, Jan Kalinowski from Korea, as well as specimens brought by Taczanowski from Algeria. Strauch determined the species and used them in his publications. This correspondence is also a valuable testimony of the exchange of specimens between the Warsaw Zoological Cabinet and the Zoological Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. In return for herpetological specimens, the Warsaw collection received numerous fish specimens from the Russian Empire and a collection of birds from Mikołaj Przewalski’s expedition to Central Asia. The content of the letters allows a better understanding of the functioning of natural history museography but also the organization of shipments, preparation, determination, and exchange of specimens. They are a valuable document of the history of nineteenth-century scientific museography.

Ludwik Młokosiewicz was a collaborator of the Zoological Cabinet of Warsaw and an explorer of the Caucasian nature. The Caucasian specimens he collected can be found in several naturalist collections all over Europe. The author undertook the research of Młokosiewicz’s traces in Paris for two reasons: firstly, because of the relationship between the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) and the Zoological Cabinet of Warsaw; secondly, because of Ludwik Młokosiewicz’s visit in Paris in 1875. Besides the specimens in the collection of the MNHN (which include the holotype of the Caucasian salamander), the author found only one letter from Ludwik Młokosiewicz to Jerzy Wandalin Mniszech. The subject of this letter is the trade of beetles and the project of an expedition to Georgia and Armenia.

During the Second World War, the State Zoological Museum in Warsaw (PMZ) suffered severe losses. Many workers were killed, and parts of the zoological and book collections were stolen by the Germans as early as 1939. The Museum became an important centre of the resistance movement, as it became a storage for weapons, explosives, and chemicals used for sabotage. Despite the repressions, the Museum employees tried to continue their work under the occupation and developed a modern model for the functioning of this institution to be implemented after the war. In the archives of the Museum and Institute of Zoology, a folder was found containing the documentation of the surveys conducted in 1941–1942 on the organisation of work and the future structure of the PMZ. This article presents the first analysis of these documents, which turned out to be a valuable source of information on the functioning of scientific institutions during the occupation, as well as on the history of the PMZ itself.

Armand David, a Lazarist missionary, was one of the most important French naturalists of the second half of the 19th century. He spent more than 10 years in China, Tibet and Mongolia. He made an extensive contribution to the development of knowledge of the fauna, flora and geology of Asia. He also discoved and introduced the Giant panda, the Chinese giant salamander, and Father David’s deer to natural history collections in Europe. Father David was the collaborator and friend of W. Taczanowski, K. Branicki and A. Waga – naturalists of the Zoological Cabinet of Warsaw. The author of the present article found, in the Lazarist Congregation archives of Paris, several letters in relation with the zoological collection of Warsaw. Foundings also include letters about different explorations of Polish scientists exiled in Siberia. B. Dybowski’s research on the fauna of Central and Eastern Siberia shall be understood as completing A. David’s research in China. A part of this correspondence is about Charles and René Oberthür’s study on insects from Siberia and Peru (collections gathered by J. Sztolcman and K. Jelski). It is also about Taczanowski’s edition of The Ornithology of Peru and The Birds of Eastern Siberia. Therefore, this correspondence brings new important information to the history of the Zoological Cabinet in Warsaw, but also to the history of faunistical research of Asia and South America.

In 1887 Ksawery Branicki founded a zoological museum. The private institution was to protect Warsaw’s natural collections against possible confiscation by the Russian authorities during anti-Polish repressions. The museum existed for 32 years until it was passed to the Polish nation in 1919, and the National Museum of Natural History was created. Jan Sztolcman managed the Branicki Museum throughout its entire existence. This museum was one of the most important zoological collections in Europe, especially famous for its rich ornithological collections from South America and Asia. The article analyses available, today very fragmented, sources of knowledge about the history of the Branicki Museum, and also presents the hitherto unknown correspondence of Jan Sztolcman with Benedykt Dybowski on the exchange of specimens between the Branicki Museum and the Museum of the University of Lwow.