The overlooked collection of Ludwig Kaiser and a little- known report on birds of Nauru

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The overlooked collection of Ludwig Kaiser and a little- known report on birds of Nauru

The avifauna of Nauru has received scant attention over the past nearly 130 years since

Otto Finsch reported the five species he observed on 24 July 1880 (Finsch 1881). Pearson

(1962) recorded at least 16 species over a period of six months in 1961, and he stated that

Finsch’s work comprised ‘the only previous ornithological literature available concerning

Nauru’. King (1967) and Garnett (1984) merged seabird records from Nauru with those

from the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), without stating which may have pertained only to the

Gilberts. More recent checklists of Nauru birds (e.g. Owen 1977, Pratt et al. 1987, Cain et al.

1997) cite Pearson (1962) as a primary reference. However, none of these mentions an article

that appeared in the notes section of volume 2 of the Journal für Ornithologie describing

a collection of birds from Nauru made by Ludwig Kaiser in 1900, nor is this article mentioned

in either of the two bibliographies of Nauru (Krauss 1970, Pollock 1994).

Ludwig Kaiser, born 21 March 1862 in Obergebisbach, Germany, held several different

administrative positions in the German Marshall Islands at different times between 1889

and 1906—Deputy Landeshauptmann (Deputy Chief of Administration) in Jaluit, 1889–92;

Stationsleiter (Station Chief) in the Protectorate of Nauru, 1899–1905?; and Acting

Landeshauptmann in Jaluit in 1906 until his suicide later that year (Spennemann

1999–2000). Kaiser’s Nauru collection (16 specimens of 12 species plus two skeletons, a nest,

and two eggs of Acrocephalus luscinius rehsei) has been housed at the Museum für

Naturkunde zu Berlin (ZMB) since it arrived in November 1901 via the Jaluit Corporation

Hamburg and the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde (Berlin). Kaiser apparently sent an

accompanying annotated list that included measurements and colour notes of the specimens,

as well as information concerning the status of the species on Nauru (breeder,

non- breeder, captive). This list is not in the museum archives, and only the letter regarding

delivery of the collection remains (ZMB archives, Zool. Mus. Sign. S III, Kaiser, L., p. 1).

However, information from this list was published in the Journal für Ornithologie as a contribution

to the meeting of the board of the German Ornithological Society, in January 1902

in Berlin, written by Paul Matschie.