Biographies of famous collectors?

[L number Banana]

Hi,
Has anyone heard of anything - other than wiki - written on all these people that many of our fish are named after? Axelrod, Agassiz, Isbrücker et al?

[Silurus]

Axelrod

Who wants to write about a crook?

[jimoo]

I dunno, lots of people write about criminals, especially famous ones. It can make the story a lot more interesting.

[L number Banana]

Silurus wrote:

Axelrod.

Who wants to write about a crook?

Ha, that's more than I knew...I was only using those names off the top of my head. Actually it was your post about the Bleeker translation that made me want to read more.
I would want to read about any scientist/researcher/collector/hobbyist who has been collecting/describing etc catfish. I have many biographies of the early horticulturists/botanists etc an they're always a good read in my experience.

Hope someone's keeping notes on you, Silurus. Many people would find the details of your work very interesting. Shane and Jools' collecting trips are fascinating too.

Now I have to go look up information on this Axelrod person...

[Shane]

Actually, the wikipedia entry on Axelrod is quite interesting. My wife was working at Smithsonian when the incident with the instruments occured.

Shane

[L number Banana]

Shane wrote:

Actually, the wikipedia entry on Axelrod is quite interesting. My wife was working at Smithsonian when the incident with the instruments occured.

Shane

Wow, what a schmuck. The poor fish that bear his name and my beloved Guelph University!!
Personally, I'm more interested in the earlier collecting adventures. One of my favourites is an orchid collector using a whole chapter to go through the difficulties of tea-time in the Amazon. Someone broke some of the china etc...royalty sneaking rose seeds out of France in their undergarments. Kind of shows how all these famous people were real people who did kind of nutty things sometimes.

Maybe someone ought to whip up a collection of the life stories of catfish collectors? What a shame that these biographies are absent from the billion out there.