English
Heinrich Kühn
* 8.2.1860 Erlbach-Kirchberg nr. Stollberg, Saxonia, Germany
† 26.8.1906
Heinrich Kühn
His first collecting expedition with his school friend C. RIBBE led him to Celebes, Aru and Banggai islands, New Guinea from 1882-1886. 1887 he settled at Toeal on Key Island as planter and director of a saw mill. In need of money he started collecting again at the Key- and Aru Islands, Little Sunda Islands, SW islands, Damar Island, SE Islands and NW New Guinea 1887/1905. Since 1896 he collected for the ROTHSCHILD museum. Expeditions led to the Timorlaut, Banda, Damar, Wetar and Tukang-Besi islands. The collections were studied by HARTERT who commemorated KÜHNs name in some bird taxa. 300.000 skins came to the New York museum via coll. ROTHSCHILD. Specimens found their way to the museums in Tring, Liverpool, Michigan, Berlin, Amsterdam, Dresden (sometimes via W.F.H. ROSENBERG natural history dealer). KÜHN also collected insects (commemorated in butterfly taxa) and published ethnological notes about New Guinea. Since 1902 he suffered from malaria. Back in Europe in 1904 he stayed in Germany and England and married in London. He died after a cancer operation in Indonesia.
Lit.:
GEBHARDT L, 1970: Die Ornithologen Mitteleuropas. Bd. 2. J. Orn. 111, Sh. 166: 78 f.
HARTERT E., 1907: Nachruf. Novitat. Zool. 14: 340-341.
HORN W. & KAHLE I., 1935: Über entomologische Sammlungen, Entomologen & Entomo-Museologie. Teil I-III. Berlin-Dahlem, p. 144.
HORN et al., 1990: Collectiones entomologicae. Berlin. 217 f.
MEYER A.B. & L.W. WIGGLESWORTH, 1898: The birds of Celebes.
SCHNEIDER O., 1895: Carl Ribbes Reisen in die Südsee (Anfang). Dt. Geogr. Blätter 18: 372-386.
WICHMANN A., 1910/12: Nova Guinea 2/1, Leiden. 330-331, 2/2, 623, 653, 704.
Pers. comm.: C. FISHER, Liverpool, UK, E.C. DICKINSON, UK, J. HINSHAW, Michigan, USA, K. ROSELAAR, Amsterdam, NL, H. PIEPER, Kiel, Germany.
Nachruf Heinrich Kühn (aus Deutsche entomologische Zeitschrift Iris 19)
