| Description | Includes correspondence on fishes, amphibians, reptiles and batrachians. Mainly incoming letters but some copies of outgoing letters. Correspondence with peers in other institutions, amateur naturalists, members of staff (usually administrative matters), dealers, and collectors.
Was previously DF235/1/3 |
| AdminHistory | Georges Albert Boulenger (1858-1937)
Belgian zoologist, specialised in amphibian, reptiles, fish and, after retirement, on roses.
Boulenger took charge of spirit collection after the move to South Kensington. He first came to Eng in 1881. It is said that Günther, then Keeper of Zoology, noticed him in the zoological gallery, learned that he had worked on reptiles at the Brussels Musee Royal d'Histoire Naturelle, found him very well-informed, and offered him the task of cataloguing the reptiles. To begin with he worked as an unpaid volunteer (he had private wealth). In 1883 he was officially appointed 1st Class Assistant. Gunther tasked him to produce new editions of catalogues he and Gray had prepared earlier. Boulenger had his own ideas and so the catalogues became, essentially, new works. In 1882 he produced a new catalogue of Batrachia; from 1885 - 1887 he produced three volumes on the lizards; in 1889 a catalogue on the chelonians, rhynocephalians and crocodiles; in 1890 an account of the Reptilia and Batrachia of India for The Fauna of British India; from 1893-1896 three volumes on snakes
Günther recommended him to the Royal Society, which Gunther complained was ignored, but with help from Flower he was elected in 1894.
In 1920 he retired with the reputation of one of the world's leading herpetologists. After the invasion of Belgium he refused to read any German publication issued after 1914.
List of Boulenger's publications in Annales de la Societe Royale Zoologique et Malacologique de Belgique 52: 11-56 (1921) contains 875 titles.
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