need for agents, pillage en route, and delays caused by port strikes and unscheduled transhipment, much was achieved. More than six hundred Italian and foreign birds and other land vertebrates were sent to Auckland, while one hundred and fifty New Zealand birds and numerous MÄori and Pacific ethnographic items were sent to Florence. There were also exchanges of pressed plants, insects, and academic periodicalsâthe bulletin of the Italian Entomological Society was exchanged for Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute .
Giglioli had been born in London to an English mother and an Italian father in political exile. After his school years in England, which explain the perfect English of his letters, he had returned to Italy to attend university. He had then signed up as assistant naturalist on a round-the-world voyage of an Italian warship, the Magenta . At Hong Kong in 1867 the chief naturalist, Professor Filippo de Filippi, died of cholera, and Giglioli, aged twenty-two, had to take charge of the scientific team.
The Magenta voyage has a link to New Zealand, for south of Pitcairn Island the team collected a new species of seabird, which Giglioli and another ornithologist, Tommaso Salvadori, described and named in 1869 Pterodroma magentae , the Magenta petrel, in honour of the ship. Today it is also known as the Chatham Island taiko. One of the worldâs rarest birds, it breeds in the forested south-west part of Chatham Island, some 850 kilometres east of mainland New Zealand. The taiko once bred in vast numbers but exploitation by Moriori, the indigenous people of the Chathams group, and by introduced predatory mammals reduced numbers so greatly it was thought to have become extinct. It was rediscovered in 1978 by a determined naturalist, David Crockett, who spent many years searching for it. Photographs and measurements of the bird established that it and the Magenta petrel were the same species.
After his voyage on the Magenta , Giglioli obtained employment in Florence, including the directorship of the natural history museum, which he held until his death in 1909. In their nearly three decades of correspondence, he and Cheeseman never met and never proceeded beyond âMy Dear Sirâ and âDear Colleagueâ. However, a few glimmers of their personal lives crept in. Delays in replying often elicited concerned enquiries as to health. Cheeseman had on one occasion been ill, which for a time had âlaid me on one side altogetherâ. Another time severe illness had afflicted Giglioliâs wife, who âis now, thank God, well againâ. Cheeseman was also late in writing because of his marriage to Rose Keesing in November 1889 and his expedition soon afterwards to the northern Three Kings Islands, on which his wife accompanied him.
In the land vertebrates storeroom in Auckland Museum I viewed the hundreds of surviving animals from the Florence exchanges; many still had original labels in Giglioliâs hand. In 2007 I spent three days at the museum in Florence to see the New Zealand birds Giglioli had received in exchange. To reach Museo Zoologico e di Storia Naturale, usually known as La Specola, from my modest hotel near the railway station, I had the pleasure each day of walking across town and over the Ponte Vecchio. La Specola first opened to the public in 1775 and I was expecting a building with a grand facade. On my first day, I walked up and down a section of the narrow street several times before I studied the street numbers and realised I had been passing the small museum entrance.
I was helped by several of the staff. First, I needed a short lesson in Italian vocabulary to understand the field names in the computer catalogue. From the computer I could scan the records of New Zealand birds and find those from the Auckland exchange that I wished to see. I sat in a workroom next to the office where Giglioli once worked. A French door was open to a small
Giglioli had been born in London to an English mother and an Italian father in political exile. After his school years in England, which explain the perfect English of his letters, he had returned to Italy to attend university. He had then signed up as assistant naturalist on a round-the-world voyage of an Italian warship, the Magenta . At Hong Kong in 1867 the chief naturalist, Professor Filippo de Filippi, died of cholera, and Giglioli, aged twenty-two, had to take charge of the scientific team.
The Magenta voyage has a link to New Zealand, for south of Pitcairn Island the team collected a new species of seabird, which Giglioli and another ornithologist, Tommaso Salvadori, described and named in 1869 Pterodroma magentae , the Magenta petrel, in honour of the ship. Today it is also known as the Chatham Island taiko. One of the worldâs rarest birds, it breeds in the forested south-west part of Chatham Island, some 850 kilometres east of mainland New Zealand. The taiko once bred in vast numbers but exploitation by Moriori, the indigenous people of the Chathams group, and by introduced predatory mammals reduced numbers so greatly it was thought to have become extinct. It was rediscovered in 1978 by a determined naturalist, David Crockett, who spent many years searching for it. Photographs and measurements of the bird established that it and the Magenta petrel were the same species.
After his voyage on the Magenta , Giglioli obtained employment in Florence, including the directorship of the natural history museum, which he held until his death in 1909. In their nearly three decades of correspondence, he and Cheeseman never met and never proceeded beyond âMy Dear Sirâ and âDear Colleagueâ. However, a few glimmers of their personal lives crept in. Delays in replying often elicited concerned enquiries as to health. Cheeseman had on one occasion been ill, which for a time had âlaid me on one side altogetherâ. Another time severe illness had afflicted Giglioliâs wife, who âis now, thank God, well againâ. Cheeseman was also late in writing because of his marriage to Rose Keesing in November 1889 and his expedition soon afterwards to the northern Three Kings Islands, on which his wife accompanied him.
In the land vertebrates storeroom in Auckland Museum I viewed the hundreds of surviving animals from the Florence exchanges; many still had original labels in Giglioliâs hand. In 2007 I spent three days at the museum in Florence to see the New Zealand birds Giglioli had received in exchange. To reach Museo Zoologico e di Storia Naturale, usually known as La Specola, from my modest hotel near the railway station, I had the pleasure each day of walking across town and over the Ponte Vecchio. La Specola first opened to the public in 1775 and I was expecting a building with a grand facade. On my first day, I walked up and down a section of the narrow street several times before I studied the street numbers and realised I had been passing the small museum entrance.
I was helped by several of the staff. First, I needed a short lesson in Italian vocabulary to understand the field names in the computer catalogue. From the computer I could scan the records of New Zealand birds and find those from the Auckland exchange that I wished to see. I sat in a workroom next to the office where Giglioli once worked. A French door was open to a small
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