Gosling's Bunting (a k a Grey-throated Bunting) (1 Viewer)

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Here's a quick look at a tiny (minor) detail of the guy commemorated in ...

Gosling's and goslingi as in:
• Gosling's Bunting Emberiza goslingi ALEXANDER 1906, (here) as "Fringillaria goslingi", no outspoken dedication, no obvious explanation, but if we simply trust the phrase "... new species of birds obtained by him during his expedition to Lake Chad and the Nile. ...", and then look at Boyd Alexander's own report (see below) from the same expedition, it's pretty obvious who de dedicatee was (and is).

In today's Key explained as:

goslingi
Capt. George Bennett Gosling (1872-1906) British Army, naturalist, explorer on the Niger-Nile expedition 1904-1906 (Apalis, syn. Caprimulgus tristigma sharpei, Emberiza).

But ... in Mearns & Mearns, 2022 [*], we find his name somewhat (slightly) different [in Vol. 1: pp.136–137], as:

George Bennet [sic] Gosling (1872–1906)
[English/British (Army) officer, a k a 'Ben']
... joined Boyd Alexander’s Niger to the Nile Expedition in 1904. [i.e. the Expedition of 1904–1906]

Anyone who can confirm the actual spelling of his Second given name?

Note that in Boyd Alexander's own Work From the Niger to the Nile (1907), we do find the following quote (in vol. 2, on page 293, here):

“George Bennett Gosling was the fourth son of the late Robert Gosling, Esquire, of Hassobury, Essex, by his Marriage with Eleanor Spencer, daughter of the late Spencer Smith, Esquire, and was born August 26, 1872. He was educated at Eton and the Military College, Sandhurst ...

🧩​

Was/is the Mearns Couple possibly in error (which indeed, even in such a tiny detail, would be somewhat rare) ... or?

In any case, also note that Mearns & Mearns as well wrote the following phrases [my blue and bolds]:

... His Rifle Brigade friends called him Goose but otherwise he was known as Ben – a shortened version of his middle name (apparently derived from Bennet Gosling, a great uncle).

Ben Gosling was the fourth son of Robert Gosling of Hassoberry House, near Farnham in Essex. He was born on 26 August 1872 and grew up with twelve siblings (and a half-sister) in an imposing mansion that ...

... to me, indicating that it wasn't just a single/stray typo (even if they clearly had read the Book/s above, by Boyd Alexander].

🧩
​

Anyone who can verify his (second) Given name? Either way?

Was it; "Bennett", or "Bennet"?

And who was the "great uncle" ... ?

Grateful for any help.

Björn

PS. The same Book/Volume, by Boyd Alexander, also include a Photo of: "Captain G. B. Gosling, Rifle Brigade".

PPS. Type location (for the Holotype, an adult Male, kept by BNHM): "M'bima, Welle River, North Nigeria (= Kina or Gongola Rivers, vide Sclater, Systema avium Aethiopicarum (1930): 831. = Nasawara, vide Bannerman, MS. on Boyd Alexander localities), 8 Aug. 1904."

---

*Biographies for Birdwatchers – The Lives of Those Commemorated in Western Palearctic Bird Names (Revised and expanded edition), by Barbara Mearns and Richard Mearns (662 pages, in two volumes), © 2022.

 

[Xenospiza]

Captain George Bennet Gosling

Board/Plaque/ Tablet

www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk