Antoni Stanisław Florian Waga (8 May 1799 – 23 November 1890) was a Polish zoologist, traveller, writer, literary critic and

Piarist The Piarists (), officially named the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools ( la, Ordo Clericorum Regularium pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum), abbreviated SchP, is a religious order of clerics regular of the ...

. He was also a collector of rare books on natural history. Along with

Taczanowski Taczanowski (Polish feminine: Taczanowska; plural: Taczanowscy) is the surname of a Polish szlachta (nobility) family from Poznań bearing the Jastrzębiec coat of arms and the motto: ''Plus penser que dire''. They took their name from th ...

and under the patronage of

Konstanty Branicki Count Konstanty Grzegorz Branicki (9 May 1824 – 14 July 1884) was a Polish landowner, collector and naturalist who established a private museum of natural history in Warsaw. The bird species '' Heliodoxa branickii'' and '' Odontorchilus branickii ...

, they established the zoological cabinet at the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

Life and work

Waga was born in Grabów near Kolno to Bernard and Agata née Gutowska. The botanist Jakub Ignacy Waga was his brother. He graduated from a Warsaw school run by

Piarists The Piarists (), officially named the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools ( la, Ordo Clericorum Regularium pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum), abbreviated SchP, is a religious order of clerics regular of the ...

in 1817 and then went to the

Warsaw Lyceum The Warsaw Lyceum ( pl, Liceum Warszawskie; german: Königlich-Preußisches Lyzäum zu Warschau) was a secondary school that existed in Warsaw, under the Kingdom of Prussia and under the Kingdom of Poland, from 1804 to its closing in 1831 by Imper ...

. From 1818 he taught Polish, natural history and other subjects at Piarist schools. In 1820 he received a scholarship for his dissertation which supported a visit to the University of Berlin, Leipzig, Wittenberg, and Königsberg. He took a special interest in ornithology. He then returned to study at the University of Warsaw from 1823 and became a professor at the Warsaw Lyceum in 1826. From 1832 he was at the Warsaw Gymnasium. Waga worked under the patronage of Aleksander and

with other collectors including Franciszek K. Nowakowski and

Władysław Taczanowski Władysław Taczanowski (; 17 March 1819, in Jabłonna, Lublin Voivodeship – 17 January 1890, in Warsaw) was a Polish zoologist and collector of natural history who explored the Russian Far East and northern Africa. He specialized mainly in ornit ...

, travelling on collecting expeditions to Egypt, Nubia, Sudan, and Syria between 1862 and 1867. Following his retirement, he concentrated on natural history and published extensively on the Polish invertebrate fauna. He collected rare books on natural history, which included a sixteenth century book on bird hunting by Mateusz Cyganski which Waga republished in 1842. From 1847 he was a custodian of the Pusłowski family library. He also wrote poetry and popular texts on natural history. Waga collected a number of arthropods and described a few springtails, earthworms, and millipedes from Poland. Among these are '' Achorutes bielanensis'' (1842) which is one of the largest springtails at 9.2 mm in length. He also described a fossil stag beetle '' Palaeognathus succini'' (1883) from Baltic amber and the salamander '' Salamandra caucasica'' in 1876. He was involved in restocking fishes. He wrote biographies of several naturalists including those of Karol Perthées, Kluk, Alojzy Rafał Estreicher and

Konstanty Tyzenhauz Count Konstanty Tyzenhauz (3 June 1786 – 16 March 1853) was a Polish-Lithuanian nobleman, naturalist, artist, and sponsor of ornithology in Poland. He made a large collection of eggs and bird skins at his estate in Postawy (now in Belarus). Ty ...

References

External links

Biography in Polish

Cygański, Mateusz (1584) ''Myślistwo ptasze''
- A book on bird hunting
Waga's annotated 1842 edition

O ptakach, które wyginęły z okręgu ziemskiego
(1845) n extinct birdsby Antoni Waga
Żérafa : (Camelopardalis Giraffa Lin.)
(1857)
Historya naturalna : dzieło wskazujące pomoc do nauczania się téj umiejętności, uważanéj w głównych stanowiskach jéj wzrostu. T. 1
(1860)
Flora polska : rejestra = Flora polonica
(1848) with his brother {{DEFAULTSORT:Waga, Antoni 1799 births 1890 deaths Polish naturalists Polish ornithologists