The Hastings Rarities affair is a case of statistically demonstrated
ornithological
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...
fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...
that misled the bird world for decades in the 20th century. The discovery of the long-running hoax shocked ornithologists.
The Hastings Rarities were a series of records of rare birds added to the British list on the basis of hundreds of reports, supported by preserved specimens, from
George Bristow (1863–1947), a
taxidermist
Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body via mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the proce ...
and
gunsmith
A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very h ...
of
St Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea (commonly known as St Leonards) is a town and seaside resort in the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. It has been part of the borough since the late 19th century and lies to the west of central Hastings. The origina ...
, a town on the south coast of England. His reports were made between 1892 and 1930.
In August 1962, the statistician
John Nelder
John Ashworth Nelder (8 October 1924 – 7 August 2010) was a British statistician known for his contributions to experimental design, analysis of variance, computational statistics, and statistical theory.
Contributions
Nelder's work was infl ...
published an analysis in the journal ''
British Birds'', demonstrating that the records were unlikely to be genuine. This was supported by an editorial in the same issue. 29 bird species or subspecies were dropped from the
British List. On the basis of later records from elsewhere in Britain, most have subsequently been readmitted.
History
Two articles in the August 1962 issue of the journal ''
British Birds'', one a statistical examination by
John Nelder
John Ashworth Nelder (8 October 1924 – 7 August 2010) was a British statistician known for his contributions to experimental design, analysis of variance, computational statistics, and statistical theory.
Contributions
Nelder's work was infl ...
, the other an editorial by
Max Nicholson
Edward Max Nicholson (12 July 1904 – 26 April 2003) was a pioneering environmentalist, ornithologist and internationalist, and a founder of the World Wildlife Fund.
Early life
Max Nicholson, as he was known to all, was born in Kilternan, Ir ...
and
James Ferguson-Lees Ian James Ferguson-Lees (8 January 1929 in Italy – 11 January 2017) was a British ornithologist. He became known as a member of the British Birds Rarities Committee who was responsible, with John Nelder and Max Nicholson, for publicly debunking t ...
, made a case using several statistical measures that a series of records of rare birds collected within a radius of
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
, in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
and
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
, south-east
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, between 1892 and 1930, should be treated with suspicion. As a result, 29 bird species or subspecies were dropped from the
British List (though most of these have subsequent acceptable records from elsewhere in Britain) and 550 records, relating to 80–90 species, were rejected. Although some of these rejected records were undoubtedly good ones, there was no easy way of distinguishing them.
Although doubts had been expressed privately for many years about the provenance of many specimens from the Hastings area, until the articles appeared there had been no systematic investigation of the records. The case made in ''British Birds'' was essentially
statistical
Statistics (from German: ''Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industria ...
, concerning the unlikelihood of so many records of rare or new species being made within a limited area and limited time period when compared with a similar area and with earlier and later time periods. However, most records recommended for rejection were of specimens that had passed through the hands of
George Bristow (1863–1947), a
taxidermist
Taxidermy is the art of preserving an animal's body via mounting (over an armature) or stuffing, for the purpose of display or study. Animals are often, but not always, portrayed in a lifelike state. The word ''taxidermy'' describes the proce ...
and
gunsmith
A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very h ...
of
St Leonards-on-Sea
St Leonards-on-Sea (commonly known as St Leonards) is a town and seaside resort in the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. It has been part of the borough since the late 19th century and lies to the west of central Hastings. The origina ...
in the borough of Hastings.
It was clear that Bristow was suspected of having been the perpetrator of a series of frauds, carried out from the 1890s over at least the first two, and possibly three, decades of the 20th century, through importing bird specimens from outside the British Isles, and selling them to wealthy ornithologists, such as
Walter Rothschild
Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild, (8 February 1868 – 27 August 1937) was a British banker, politician, zoologist and soldier, who was a member of the Rothschild family. As a Zionist leader, he was present ...
, as having been procured from the Hastings area. John Nelder later estimated that Bristow had made about £7000, a considerable amount of money at the time, from this scheme, although there is considerable dispute as to how much Bristow might really have made from his sales.
The deletion of several taxa from the list had considerable repercussions. As the suspect records covered nearly four decades, many had been incorporated into books about birds in Britain, including major ornithological reference works, and there was resistance from some ornithologists to accepting the deletions.
David Bannerman, in the late stages of completing his monumental ''The Birds of the British Isles'' (12 vols, 1933–63), decided to maintain his faith in the validity of the controversial Hastings records and ignore the decision to delete them from the list. Since then, most of the species dropped have been readmitted to the list on the basis of reliable subsequent records.
Surviving specimens
Fifty of the rarities are held in the
Birmingham Museums Trust
Birmingham Museums Trust is the largest independent charitable trust of museums in the United Kingdom. It runs nine museum sites across the city of Birmingham, including Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG) and Thinktank, Birmingham Science ...
natural history collection.
Bird species dropped from the British List in 1962
*
Cory's shearwater
Cory's shearwater (''Calonectris borealis'') is a large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It breeds colonially of rocky islands in the eastern Atlantic. Outside the breeding season it ranges widely in the Atlantic. It was formerly ...
– since readmitted
*
Slender-billed curlew
The slender-billed curlew (''Numenius tenuirostris'') is a bird in the wader family Scolopacidae. Isotope analysis suggests the majority of the former population bred in the Kazakh Steppe despite a record from the Siberian swamps, and was migr ...
– since readmitted but subsequently removed
*
Grey-tailed tattler
The grey-tailed tattler (''Tringa brevipes'', formerly ''Heteroscelus brevipes''Banks, Richard C.; Cicero, Carla; Dunn, Jon L.; Kratter, Andrew W.; Rasmussen, Pamela C.; Remsen, J. V. Jr.; Rising, James D. & Stotz, Douglas F. (2006):Forty-seventh ...
– since readmitted
*
Terek sandpiper
The Terek sandpiper (''Xenus cinereus'') is a small migratory Palearctic wader species and is the only member of the genus ''Xenus''. It is named after the Terek River which flows into the west of the Caspian Sea, as it was first observed aroun ...
– since readmitted
*
Semipalmated sandpiper
The semipalmated sandpiper (''Calidris pusilla'') is a very small shorebird. The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''pusilla'' is Latin fo ...
– since readmitted
*
Black lark
The black lark (''Melanocorypha yeltoniensis'') is a species of lark in the family Alaudidae found in south-eastern Russia and Kazakhstan.
Taxonomy and systematics
The black lark was originally placed in the genus ''Alauda''. The current genus ...
– since readmitted
*
Calandra lark
The calandra lark (''Melanocorypha calandra'') or European calandra-lark breeds in warm temperate countries around the Mediterranean and eastwards through Turkey into northern Iran and southern Russia. It is replaced further east by its relative ...
– since readmitted
*
Cetti's warbler
Cetti's warbler (''Cettia cetti'') is a small, brown bush-warbler which breeds in southern and central Europe, northwest Africa and the east Palearctic as far as Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan. The sexes are alike. The bird is named after ...
– since readmitted
*
Moustached warbler
The moustached warbler (''Acrocephalus melanopogon'') is an Old World warbler in the genus '' Acrocephalus''. It breeds in southern Europe and southern temperate Asia with a few breeding in north-west Africa. It is partially migratory. South-we ...
*
Olivaceous warbler – since readmitted
*
Rüppell's warbler
Rüppell's warbler (''Curruca ruppeli'') is a typical warbler of the genus ''Curruca''. It breeds in Greece, Turkey and neighbouring islands. It is migratory, wintering in northeast Africa. This is a rare vagrant to western Europe. The name is ...
– since readmitted
*
Sardinian warbler
The Sardinian warbler (''Curruca melanocephala'') is a common and widespread typical warbler from the Mediterranean region. Like most ''Curruca'' species, it has distinct male and female plumages. The adult male has a grey back, whitish underpart ...
– since readmitted
*
Brown flycatcher – since readmitted
*
Collared flycatcher
The collared flycatcher (''Ficedula albicollis'') is a small passerine bird in the Old World flycatcher family, one of the four species of Western Palearctic black-and-white flycatchers. It breeds in southeast Europe (isolated populations are pr ...
– since readmitted
*
Masked shrike
The masked shrike (''Lanius nubicus'') is a species of bird in the shrike family, Laniidae. It breeds in southeastern Europe and at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, with a separate population in eastern Iraq and western Iran. It is migrat ...
– since readmitted
*
White-winged snowfinch
The white-winged snowfinch (''Montifringilla nivalis''), or snowfinch, is a small passerine bird. Despite its name, it is a sparrow rather than a true finch.
Taxonomy
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description ...
Sources
* Harrison, James M. (1968). ''Bristow and the Hastings Rarities Affair''. A. H. Butler: St Leonards-on-Sea, U.K.
*
[See also]
''British Birds,'' volume 55 (1962), nr 8 (August)
(in Biodiversity Heritage Library
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. BHL operates as worldwide consortiumof natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working toge ...
), which also includes the editorial 'Setting the record straight'.
*
* Seabrook, John. (2006). Ruffled feathers. Uncovering the biggest scandal in the bird world. ''The New Yorker'', 29 May 2006: 50–61.
* Senn, Stephen. (2003). A conversation with John Nelder. ''Statistical Science'' 18(1): 118–131.
References
External links
* {{cite web , url=http://www.hmag.org.uk/collections/rarities/ , publisher=Hastings Museum , title=The Hastings Rarities Affair , accessdate=29 October 2017
Ornithology in the United Kingdom
Hoaxes in science
Hoaxes in England
20th-century hoaxes
Fraud in England