AS FONTES DO PARAISO - UM ENSAIO SOBRE A ORNITOLOGIA NO BRASIL HOLANDÊS (1624 - 1654).

Resumo

Duwring part of the period of Dutch rule in the Northeast of Brazil, naturalists and painters at the court of Maurice 0f Nassau (1637-1044) produced a considerable number of work on zoology. This contribution is based on examination of the bird species to be found in the following key volumes of the period: the Libri Pictural (“Theatrum Rerum Naturallum Brasillae”, “Libre Principis” and “Miscellanea Cleyeri”), and the books “Historia Rerum Naturallum Brasillae” by J. MARCGRAVE (1648) and “De indiae utriusque re naturall et medica” by G. PISO (1658). Although the birds figured in these works have been studied by others, notably LICHTENSTEIN (1819), SCHNEIDER (1938) and PINTO (1942), the analyses produced to date have examined onty part of the material in question. The aims of the present study, however, have been not merely to reidentify the taxa shown, with pertinent taxonomic comments, but also to situate the available information witrin the context of the period and lo compare it with the results of the author’s own research in the region since 1979. The texta, and illustrations in question deal with a total of 174 different birds, 25 of which are unidentifiable to species level. They Include representatives of no fewer than 52 of the 67 families of the class Aves so far recorded from northeastern Brazil, with greater emphasis on the larger forms rather than throse of little practical use, such as the Passeriformes. Another noteworthy point is the inclusion of apparently deliberate grouping, such as four “domestic” species, three “seabirds”. eight “exotics”, thirty-four “waterfowl”, sixty-six species of “manmade landscapes”, four “caatinga” species, thirteen “forest” birds, eleven “pats”, and about six generalists. The great preponderance of birds from manmade landscapes or coastal wetiands (84% oh the total) implles that the naturalists and peinters at Nussau’s court did not wander far from those areas effectively controlled by the Dutch, and it is quite likely that many observations were based on specimes purposely caught or killed by third parties. Apart from its great historical and taxonomic lnterest, this collection of omithological works produced under Dutch rule is the only really reliable source of information on the original bird fauna of this region of Brasil; later investigations have all been too recent since they have come afler the severe degradation of many ecosystems, especially the Atlantic forests. Even though some 90 per cent of the birds that figure in the Dutch works can still be found today in the Northeast, there is at least one bird which beceme extinct before it was known to science; for it, the material studied here seems to be the only documentation available.