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General Sir William Manning and ‘his’ African Animals 7

Mt Mulanje because he was the first European to reach the highest peak of the
mountain (Sapitwa - 3,002 m) in 1894 [6].
General Sir William Manning had a very illustrious career in Nyasaland both as a
military commander in the Central African Rifles and in the Kings African Rifles
(see e.g. Moyse-Bartlett [7]), and - less well known - he will also be remembered
in the zoological literature of Nyasaland. In addition to the collection of 438 bird
specimens, he presented 58 specimens of mammals between 1899 and 1913. Even
though taxonomic changes may occur in the future, the taxon manningi will
always be associated with birds and mammals of Nyasaland.

Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Mark Adams (Senior Curator, Bird Group,
Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum), Paula Jenkins (Senior
Curator, Mammal Group, Department of Life Sciences, Natural History
Museum), and Charles Hilary Fry for their assistance while preparing this note. I
am also grateful to Bentley Palmer for his photograph of Manning's Bush Hyrax
and to the Biodiversity Heritage Library for permission to use the image of
Malaconotus manningi (Biodiversity Heritage Library. Contributed by the
American Museum of Natural History Library (see:
www.biodiversitylibrary.org).
Note 1: Happold, David. 2011. African Naturalist. Book Guild. 290 pp. (see p.
66).
Note 2: A taxon (pl. taxa) is any defined unit (genus, species, subspecies, etc) in
the classification of living organisms. A 'type specimen' is the single specimen
chosen for the designation of a new taxon (e.g. genus, species, subspecies, etc)
Note 3: Shelley, G. E. 1899. On a collection of birds from the Tanganyika Plateau
in British Central Africa. Ibis Series 7; Vol. 5; No. 19: 364-380.
Note 4: Wroughton, R. C. 1910. New African Mammals of the genera
Cricetomys and Procavia. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 8(5):25-30.
Note 5. Hanna, A. J. 1956. The beginnings of Nyasaland and North-eastern
Rhodesia. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 281 pp.
Note 6: Eastward, F. 1979. Guide to the Mulanje Massif. Lorton Publications,
Johannesburg. 146 pp.
Note 7: Moyse-Bartlett, H. 1956. The King's African Rifles. Gale & Polden,
Aldershot. 727 pp.
* Some authorities place manningi in a different species - Chlorophoneus
multicolor. This species and Malaconotus nigrifrons form a 'superspecies' which
has many forms and great complexity. Nevertheless, this does not affect the
recognition of manningi as a valid taxon.
_____________________
Happold, David (2019). General Sir William Manning and 'his' African
animals. Rhino Link (The Journal of the King's African Rifles and East African
Forces Association 2(31): 33-34.