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Lt. Boyd Alexander (Rifle
Brigade) (1873-1910), one of the foremost ornithologists of his time,
was perhaps unfortunate to have visited the islands of the Gulf of
Guinea so soon after the collections by Newton and Fea and the
publication in 1901 by Count Salvadori of all that had been collected to
date.
On the other hand he had planned to spend very little time in the islands, having other objectives, political and ornithological, on the continent, and could hardly expect to visit the many locations at which Newton and Fea previously and Correia later collected. Having already visited many parts of Africa in military service and as a member of other expeditions, he visited Bioko in October 1902 during a period of leave - this was his most successful ornithological foray amongst the islands collecting nearly 500 specimens of 103 species of which 35 at the time were unknown. The results of this trip were published in Ibis in 1903 (see bibliography below). However, Boyd Alexander gained his real fame from his own expedition which aimed to travel from the Niger to the Nile by boat. In this venture he was accompanied by his brother Claud and Captain G. B. Gosling in 1904. Although he achieved his goal, it was not without sacrifice as both Claud Alexander and Captain Gosling died during the trip. |
| In December 1908 he set off from Liverpool on
what was to be his final expedition. This had three stated objectives -
to visit the islands of Príncipe, São Tomé and
Annobon, to ascend Mt Cameroun and then to travel through Cameroun, Chad
(then part of French Equatorial Africa), Darfur (now part of Sudan but
then an independent sultanate) and Sudan to Khartoum.
On course to the islands he briefly revisited Fernando Po where he unsuccessfully attempted to gain a letter of introduction from the Spanish Governor but successfully received one from the Catholic Mission for his visit to Annobon. He finally arrived in São Tomé on January 18 1909 setting up a base camp in front of the Telegraph Station (now the location of the Hotel Miramar). His collection locations were limited to the Monte Café/Lagoa Amelia area and around the city, with his assistant, the Capeverdian José Lopes, collecting at an unidentified location named Zulma 1½ hours south of the city. On February 12 he departed to Annobon and stayed there a week. He writes little about his collecting localities apart from the crater lake Lago A Pot and it seems he did not visit the highest parts of the island. He then continued directly to Príncipe where he seems to have had a more satisfying visit, staying from February 24 to March 22. Collecting localities appear to have been around the Rio Papagaio and Esperanca, the west coast around Maria Correia and Sundi in the northwest. He was disappointed neither to encounter the Príncipe Thrush nor the Green Ibis but it was here that he described the Príncipe Grey Parrot as a new species, Psitthacus princeps. This was soon revised to subspecific level (Psitthacus erithacus princeps) when Bannerman published Alexander's collections in 1914. More recently under the CITES convention the sub-specific status of the Príncipe Grey Parrot was rejected, although since then research on the population's mitochondrial DNA suggests the Príncipe population may be derived from Psitthacus (erithacus) timneh rather than Psitthacus erithacus erithacus on the neighbouring mainland, thus supporting Alexander's original suggestions. |
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After spending two nights on Bioko preparing skins to be sent to England and, inevitably, dealing with bureaucracy, Alexander continued on the second part of his expedition to climb Mt. Cameroun. He finally arrived in Abéché in present-day Chad on March 3 1910. The French had only recently succeeded in occupying the city, deposing the Sultan of Wadai and installing a rival. Significant unrest in the area meant that travel outside of Abéché was dangerous. However, Alexander, trusting in the British relationship with the sultan of the neighbouring Darfur, Ali Dinar, supposed he could negotiate between the French, conducting sorties into the surrounding area, and resisting Wadai and Darfur forces. He left Abéché on March 29 and on April 2 was murdered upon meeting a group of hostile Wadai/Fur. Some days after his murder, his diaries and many photos were recovered from the scene of his death. The diaries were later edited and published with a Memoir by one of his younger brothers. Fortunately, he had sent his specimens from the Gulf of Guinea islands en route. The pages from his diaries concerning the islands of Príncipe, São Tomé and Annobon are reproduced here.
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Alexander, B. 1903. On the birds of Fernando Po. Ibis 3: 330-403 For more on Boyd Alexander's visit to Bioko see this external link |
