Collier's 1881 portrait of Charles Darwin, who stands in a large brown overcoat against a brown background. He is holding a hat and has a white beard and downcast expression.

“It tires me a great deal to sit to anyone, but I should be the most ungrateful and ungracious dog not to agree”

September's Treasure of the Month is our most famous portrait of Charles Darwin, which is now part of UNESCO's Memory of the World.
buff.ly/hQkkwPX

Look at this beauty, freshly returned from conservation! “Fleurs, fruits et feuillages choisis de la flore et de la pomone de l'Ile de Java” (1863) by Berthe van Nooten is one of my favourite items in the @linneansociety.bsky.social library, with firework fruits and flowers on every page.

What if they’re the same people…

SHNH Annual General Meeting and Prizegiving 2025 Please join us for the Society for the History of Natural History's AGM, followed by a presentation of the Society's awards and prizes.

Natural history friends! Join SHNH (@sochistnathist.bsky.social) for our annual prize-giving this Wednesday. We’ll zip through the AGM business in the first half, and then have brief talks from our medalists in the second. We would love for you to join us 😊

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shnh-annua...

And not really pronounce it like either.

Cancelled.

Pencil drawing of a koala on a branch

Pencil drawing of a koala and joey.

These subtle drawings of koalas are by John William Lewin (1770 – 1819). #wildkoaladay

The pencil drawings are part of a folder in our archives (MS-630), containing a selection of Lewin's sketches and watercolours of Australian wildlife and thought to have been drawn between 1800-1817.

🌿 It’s Lily of the Valley Day: a French tradition where the flower is given on 1 May for luck.

We’re marking it with Gilbert White’s May diary entry noting his first sighting 🌸 and a delicate botanical watercolour from our Naturalists’ Notebooks exhibition.

Charles Darwin's signature on the Linnean Society Roll and Charter

Charles Darwin's archive has been recognised on the UNESCO International Memory of the World Register, which protects invaluable records that tell the story of human civilisation.

www.linnean.org/news/2025/04...

Hand-drawn feathers

Birch twigs adorned with colourful feathers are a traditional Swedish Easter decoration, brightening up the dinner table.

Illustration by J. Terrier from 'Faune de la Senegambie' by Alphonse Trémeau de Rochebrune, 1883-1884.

www.magnoliabox.com/...

A beautiful historic illustration of a wood duck.

A colourful illustration of a blue-and-yellow macaw.

In 1694 #OTD the naturalist George Ewards was born.

Known by some as the father of British ornithology, Edwards travelled through Europe producing colourful drawings of birds as he went.

He finally published A Natural History of Uncommon Birds, which was subsequently referenced by Linnaeus. (📸BHL)

de même

A page of a book showing the heads and skull structures of lots of different types of Australian snakes.

Frederik Ruysch was born #OTD in 1638.

Ruysch was primarily an anatomist, experimenting with and testing new ways to preserve and embalm specimens which could then be further used for study and teaching.

But he also studied animals and was the first to describe the vomeronasal organ in snakes.

The Ray Society is now on Bluesky! Most recent publication ‘Biology, evolution and genetic review of the chemosymbiotic Bivalve Family Lucinidae’ by John Taylor and Emily Glover RRP £98 from the Ray Society and NHBS websites.

Try being short

How has the humble notebook been an essential tool for celebrated thinkers throughout history? Our upcoming free exhibition, Naturalists' Notebooks, explores how naturalists recorded our world from the 18th century to today.

Open Tuesday 11 March until Saturday 20 September 2025.

bit.ly/43kBXmC

I should say by way of clarification: I loved my school, and most of my teachers were wonderful. I don’t hold them responsible for the restrictions placed on their teaching by bigoted politicians. I haven’t set foot in a classroom in a long time, but I hope things are better now x

Oh gosh, I’m so sorry to hear this. I’m thankful I never experienced physical violence at school, but S28 allowed an anti-LGBT environment to thrive unchecked. It ruined many young lives, and certainly delayed my coming out by at least 5 years. The damage that law did was immense.

A newspaper-style graphic with a photo of man in the top right. The text reads: My name’s Will, I’m Newbury Pride’s Secretary, and I’m so happy to be celebrating LGBT+ History Month here in my hometown. The landscape for LGBT+ people has changed beyond recognition in my lifetime. Not just the well-publicised victories along the road to legal equality in the age of consent, civil partnerships, adoption, and most recently marriage, but also the widespread acceptance among the general public that LGBT+ people deserve equal treatment and respect (a 2019 poll suggested nearly 86% of Britons believe homosexuality should be accepted by society, about as unanimous a figure as you can hope to achieve on any topic in a free country). The change, even from my childhood, could not be more profound. I was educated in Newbury, and I’m sorry to say my secondary school environment was virulently homophobic. Sexuality and gender-based bullying was commonplace, and the existence of Section 28—a de facto ban on all discussions of LGBT+ relationships in the classroom—hobbled teachers’ ability to properly support their LGBT+ students. Many people seem surprised when told this piece of legislation—far from being a relic of the 1980s and 90s—remained on the statute books until 2003 in England. I was 15 when it was finally consigned to the dustbin of history, its damage already done. It wasn’t until university that I felt free to tell the truth about my sexuality; I came out at the relatively late age of 19. I still maintain that coming out was one of the few unambiguously good and sensible decisions I ever made, and the day I came out was one of the happiest of my life. My hope is that every LGBT+ person gets to experience that happiness, at least once. One of my main motivations for joining Newbury Pride was to create a safe environment for others to experience the happiness and relief I once felt. LGBT+ History Month is a great time to be thankful for the progress we’ve made, and…

I wrote a thing about growing up gay in West Berkshire for LGBT+ History Month and Newbury Pride. You can read my shapeless musings below 👇

No you’re not you’re clavah

And I’d be fascinated to see pictures of your examples (again, not to trouble you unduly! 🙂).

Thanks so much for this Yvonne! Not to trouble you further, but I’m struggling to find descriptions of this process online (searches for “Curly Wurly Stick” mostly returning material about a certain chocolate bar!).

🤣

It’s been in the Society a while: we were given it in 1849. But this “sword cane” rumour had been lingering for a while and we had an opportunity this week to put it to bed.

It would probably be worth searching the Linnaean correspondence to see if it’s mentioned anywhere. Just need to find the time!

My instinct—as yet unsupported by evidence—is that it was a gift, maybe from after his ennoblement in the 1760s. It feels like a decorative cane for an older man than a young man’s practical hiking pole. But as I say, no evidence yet!

The Linnaean provenance is pretty good, but the legend that he whittled it himself on his Lapland journey in 1732 is almost certainly apocryphal (he describes that stick in his account, and it doesn’t sound like this one).

Isn’t it lovely! I’d love to find out more about how it was made.

I shouldn’t keep you in suspense. No sword! But it’s still a beautiful object, and a fascinating morning. We hope to write up our findings in a blogpost very soon 🙂

I run some funny errands for the @linneansociety.bsky.social. Today’s was taking Carl Linnaeus’s walking stick to the V&A to be x-rayed (we thought there might be a sword inside it)…