| Description | [This collection of pressed ferns is of unknown provenance. It includes ferns collected on a number of trips. A couple of specimens in R/D182/1 and 3 are labelled Onslow, 'HMS Herald'. HMS Herald was a ship of the East India Company. She was converted to a survey ship in 1845, and sailed in the Pacific until 1861. Under the command of Captain Henry Mangles Denham HMS Herald carried out a survey of the Australian coast and Fiji Islands, bearing the naturalists John MacGillivray (1821–1867) (until 1854), William Milne (botanist), and Denis Macdonald as Assistant Surgeon-zoologist. Lt Arthur Onslow served on this vessel 1857-1861. The website https://seaheritageonline.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/ron-stannus_ash95_pp13-17.pdf provides a list of the survey voyages:
England to Australia February 1852 to February 1853
Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia and Isle of Pines February 1853 to January 1854
New Zealand and Raoul Island, Kermadec Group January to September 1854
Fiji, first survey September to November 1854
The search for Ben Boyd, November 1854 to January 1855
Norfolk Island, first survey January to June 1855
Fiji, second survey June 1855 to February 1856
The resettlement of Pitcairn Islanders on Norfolk Island February to June 1856
Fiji, third survey June 1856 to February 1857
Port Jackson survey February to December 1857
Bass Strait, King George Sound and Shark Bay, WA surveys December 1857 to June 1858
First Coral Sea survey June to December 1858
Second Coral Sea survey December 1858 to October 1859
Third Coral Sea survey October 1859 to May 1860
Sydney to Surabaya via Torres Strait May to November 1860
Surabaya to Chatham, UK, via Simons Bay November 1860 to June 1861.
Herald did not return to the South Seas after June 1861 and many of the specimens in this collection are too late to have come from the above voyage.] |