The Hon. F. J. Shore

Frederick John Shore is not a name familiar to those interested in Indian birds. A pioneer bird observer and artist, his omission is rather unfortunate. He is apparently still remembered in Dehra Dun by the well that he had constructed there and for being among the "Three Fredericks" associated with Mussoorie (the other two being Frederick Wilson and Frederick Young). The Himalayan flameback (Dinopium shorii) is named after him, his type specimen was exhibited at a Zoological Society of London meeting by his brother. John Gould commented on him in the Birds of Asia:

F. J. Shore was the son of a governor-general of Bengal, John Shore, who took some interest in natural history, particularly botany. He supported the botanist William Roxburgh enough to earn himself a honorific genus Shorea. Frederick also joined the East India Company's Bengal civil service and began to work in India. He seems to have had very independent and outspoken opinions during his work. He was very critical of Company policies and of British attitudes towards Indians. He once adopted local dress while attending the court and received a government order against it. A later commentator, Douglas Dewar, declared that Shore's comments needed to be taken with a pinch of salt.

An 1820 portrait of F.J. Shore

 

Shore was involved in suppressing a revolt by gurjars in Saharanpur. According to the magistrate of Saharanpur, Rivers Grindall (who would later become the father in law of A.O. Hume!), the gurjars, nearly 800 of whom had assembled,  had sworn by goddess Kali that they would get rid of the rule by foreigners. Grindall wrote urgently seeking military support. It would appear that every white man in the region with a pistol was invited to join - including the naturalist J. F. Royle and an army engineer named Henry De Bude. The main force however consisted of gurkhas under the command of Frederick Young. In the ensuing bloodbath, 200 people were killed, Shore received two deep cuts on his torso. Young's biography written from oral records by his daughter claims that there was an arrow in Shore's neck that had just missed his jugular. Shore apparently recovered from the wounds but his health remained bad and he died at the age of 37 in Calcutta. A British history has a sketch of Shore fighting with a gurjar and Young saving him by shooting the assailant.

Now for what Gould wrote, about Shore's notes and illustrations. It appears that Casey Wood got hold of a bunch of the paintings and notes that Shore made in 1928. They are quite spectacular in that they capture the pose in nature very accurately in many cases. But evidently the set that has been so kindly shared by the McGill University library lacks the illustrations of the male and female painted spurfowl mentioned by Gould. In one plate Shore refers to "Volume 4", so clearly there are other books with illustrations that are unknown at least to online researchers. Shore clearly was a very careful observer, noting the colour of the mouth, anatomical features like the structure of the tongue and native names. He notes the calls of birds and in some cases documents them with musical notation - a first in India surely. He also tries to follow the color standards defined the watercolor company Ackermann that he presumably used. In transcribing native place and bird names he uses the scheme of John Gilchrist.

Notes on a little brown dove with call notation

Casey Wood noted: One of the most valuable manuscripts in the Blacker Library is an unpublished Appendix (in three volumes) to Latham’s Birds, 1821-8, with 195 original water-colors of Indian avifauna by F. J. Shore. Most of these are not to be found in the 1821-8 edition, or if they do appear, the coloring is probably incorrect. This fact is pointed out by the artist-editor who states that almost every picture in his collection is painted ad naturam so that unaltered plumage is depicted. Copious notes accompany each drawing. A more complete review of this historical series of drawings will be found in the appended Catalogue.

Here is a sampling of Shore's works (a few are added here).

Refers to volume 4

So where is Volume 4 of his book which presumably contains the illustrations that Gould refers to? ZSL? NHM? (Have checked the online catalogues and found nothing)