Oology

Item

Title

Oology

Description

Make your way to the Niven Library of the Percy Fitzgerald Institute of African Ornithology.

You will be met by the librarian. She will show you a small, indescript, bespoke cupboard filled with an array of birds' eggs (almost 400 eggs). These labelled and blown eggs were collected between 1961 and 1977 by a self-taught ornithologist, Peter Steyn.

Consider this collection.

Oology – the collecting and documenting of wild bird eggs – was an obscure hobby and ‘science’ of the past. Collected eggs were pierced and ‘blown’ of their contents. The perfect shells, beautifully coloured with speckles and intricate patterns, were then placed in vast cabinet collections.

Date

1 January 2022, 10:00

Date Valid

1 January 2022, 10:30

interactivityType

eggs.jpg