Page 13 - 2020 SoM Journal Vol 73 No 1 FINAL_Neat

General Sir William Manning and ‘his’ African Animals 5

Many scientific names are derived from Latin or Greek; they may
indicate some features of the animal being described, or where the animal is found,
or to honour the collector or some other important person. Using mammals and
birds of Nyasaland as examples, locality names include shirensis (after the Shire
Valley), zombae (after Zomba), nyikae (after the Nyika Plateau), and nyassae
(after Lake Nyasa). Descriptive
names include albiventris (white
ventral region), ruber (reddish
colour) and tricolor (three
colours). Names which honour
important people who lived in the
British Central Africa Protectorate
and Nyasaland in the early days
include johnstoni (after Sir Harry
Johnston, first Commissioner to
the Nyasaland Districts
Protectorate, and later the British
Central Africa Protectorate),
whytei (after Alexander Whyte,
Naturalist to the British Central
Africa Protectorate), sharpei (after
Sir Alfred Sharpe, the second
Commissioner to the BCA),
manningi (after Lt-Colonel
Manning, later General Sir
William Manning), and many Malaconotus manningi (Shelley 1899)
others [1].
General Manning has
two taxa [2] named after him. It seems that he was not the collector of either
taxon, but he was instrumental in sending the specimens to the British Museum
(Natural History). The first is a species of bird, Malaconotus manningi
(Manning's Black-fronted Bush-shrike) collected on the Nyasa-Tanganyika
Plateau. General Manning (then a Lt-Colonel) was in this area in 1897 when the
boundaries between British Central Africa and German East Africa were being
disputed, and there were skirmishes between the authorities and the local chief,
Chief Mpezeni. At the same time, members of the scientific staff at Zomba were
temporarily attached to the 'Commission for the Delimitation of the Anglo-
German Boundary between Lake Nyasa and Tanganyika' were collecting birds in
this disputed region. The collection of 220 specimens, referable to 100 species,
was presented to the museum by Lt-Colonel Manning. The details of this
collection were published by Captain G. E. Shelley (a former officer in the
Grenadier Guards who later became an important ornithologist at the museum)