Game bird for a pharmacist

Friday 10 December 2010 sees the end of the UK grouse hunting season and the red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus) will be safe from the gun until 12 August 2011.

Found on heather moors across Britain and Ireland, the red grouse is one of some 16 subspecies of the willow ptarmigan or willow grouse. Going east from the British Isles, you can encounter a succession of other races as you pass through Scandinavia, into Russia, across the breadth of Siberia, then into Alaska and right across Canada back to the Atlantic.

This near circuit of the northern hemisphere ends with a race that is endemic to the island of Newfoundland and is known as Allen’s ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus alleni). Why do I single out this race for special mention? Because, according to the book ‘Whose bird?’, by Bo Beolens and Michael Watkins, it was named in honour of a British pharmacist.

William Allen (1770–1843) was one of the founders of the Pharmaceutical Society in 1841 and was elected its first president. He practised his profession at London’s famous Plough Court Pharmacy, which was to grow into one of Britain’s largest drug companies, Allen & Hanburys.

Outside pharmacy Allen was known as a philanthropist and a leading anti-slavery campaigner. His scientific achievements led to fellowships of the Linnean Society and the Royal Society.

I am not aware that Allen had any interest in game birds, and he would certainly not have known the one bearing his name because it was not identified as a distinct race until 40 years after he died. It was given its name in 1884 by Leonhard Hess Stejneger, a US ornithologist who found a number of new species and subspecies during expeditions to Canada and Alaska.

Beolens and Watkins do not say why Stejneger picked on William Allen. But it was certainly not unusual in the 19th century to honour public figures by naming newly discovered creatures after them.