Charles George Nurse

Moths collected by Nurse at Aden and in Somaliland

Charles George Nurse (1862 Barnham - 5 November 1933, Tunbridge Wells) was an English military officer, naturalist, ornithologist and entomologist.

Charles George Nurse was one of many British military officers who made significant contributions to knowledge of the natural history of India.

Military career

Charles George Nurse was educated at King Edward VI School in Bury, St. Edmunds, then at the Royal Military Academy. A linguist with a sound knowledge of Russian and several Oriental languages he rapidly advanced in his chosen career.

• 22 January 1881 Commissioned into the 89th Foot as a 2nd Lieutenant and advanced to Lieutenant in July the same year.^[1]
• 1881-1884 Served with the regiment in India as an Interpreter and Station Staff Officer, Kolapore.
• 1884 served with the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers in the Sudan Expedition seeing action at the battles of El-Teb and Tamai.
• 27 December 1884 Seconded to the Indian Staff Corps.^[2]
• 10 March 1885 Promoted to lieutenant while serving in the Bombay Staff Corps.^[3]
• 1890 served with the Zaila Field Force in Somalia.
• 22 January 1892 Promoted to Captain in the Indian Staff Corps.^[4]
• January 1901 Promoted to Major Indian Staff Corps.
• January 1907 Promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in the 113th Infantry.^[5]
• 23 January 1909 then commander of the 33rd Punjabi Regiment retired from the Indian Army.
• 12 May 1915 re-appointed from retirement and attached to the 3rd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment in Flanders.^[6]

Natural history

Nurse had a lifelong interest in birds and as many naturalists did he collected butterflies and moths. This was reinforced when Sir George Hampson and Lord Walsingham and George Hampson,published On moths collected at Aden and in Somaliland.Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 16:257–283, pl. 10 in 1896. This was based on his specimens and species new to science were described. He later widened his interest, to other Orders of insects,especially Hymenoptera. At this time Indian Hymenoptera were neglected. Nurse described many new species and added greatly to knowledge of the group.Many Nurse Hymenoptera specimens were described by Charles Thomas Bingham, Peter Cameron (1907. Description of a new genus and some new species of Hymenoptera captured by Lieut.-Col. C.G. Nurse at Deesa, Matheran and Ferozepore. Journal of the Bombay natural History Society,17: 1001-10012; 18: 130-1360 and Claude Morley in The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma.

Collection

The Nurse collection is in the Natural History Museum, London. "By the will of the late Lieut.-Col. C. G. Nurse, the Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History) have received a bequest of 3,000 Indian insects mostly obtained at Quetta, Deesa and Jubbulpore, where Col. Nurse served with the Indian Army. Col. Nurse was one of the small band of naturalists among military officers who devoted their leisure to the study of entomology, and was an enthusiastic collector of Hymenoptera, forming a large and valuable collection which he presented to the Museum a few years ago. The present bequest comprises the remainder of his Indian insects and includes about 1,450 Diptera (two winged flies), 1,300 butterflies, 130 dragon-flies and some others; of these the most valuable are the Diptera. The collection is especially rich in species of the family Bombyliidae, most of which are parasitic in the larval state on bees or wasps. Col. Nurse discovered and described fourteen species of this family which were new to science, and types of these are in the collection, as well as specimens of a number of other flies which were not previously represented in the Museum. Some interesting butterflies and other insects from Aden are included.’ Recent Acquisitions at the Natural History Museum Nature 133: 323 -323 (3 March 1934)

Societies

Charles George Nurse was a Member of the Bombay Natural History Society (Managing Committee). He was elected a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London in 1895 and a Special Life Fellow in 1932.

Works

Partial and intended to illustrate the diversity of Nurse's natural history interests.

• Nurse, C. G. 1891. A Journey Through Part of Somali-Land, Between Zeila and Bulhar.Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography13 (Issue 11): 657-663
• Nurse, C. G. 1899. Food of the Indian Grey Shrike. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XII (3): 572
• Nurse, C. G. 1899. Birds flying against window-panes. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XII(3): 572
• Nurse, C.G. 1901. Sport and natural history in northern Gujarat. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIII:337-342
• Nurse, C.G., 1902. New species of Indian Hymenoptera. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 70 (2): 146-154.
• Nurse, C. G. 1902. Sandgrouse in northern Gujarat. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIV(2): 387–388
• Nurse, C. G. 1902. Occurrence of the Red-breasted Merganser (Merganser serrator) near Quetta.Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIV(2): 400–401
• Nurse, C. G. 1902. Unusual abundance of Sandgrouse at Deesa. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIV(1): 172–173
• Nurse, C. G. 1902. Merops apiaster breeding in Baluchistan. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XIV(3): 627
• Nurse, C. G. 1903. The enemies of butterflies. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. XV(2): 349–350
• Nurse, C. G. 1903. On new Indian aculeate Hymenoptera. Annals and Magazine of Natural History(7)11: 393-403, 511-526, 529-549.
• Nurse,C. G 1904 .Occurrence of the Common Indian Bee-eater Merops viridis in Baluchistan. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 15 (3): 530–531.
• Nurse, C.G. 1904. New species of Indian Hymenoptera. Apidae. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 15(4): 557-585.
• Nurse,C . G. 1906. Food of Monopis rusticella Entomologist 9 :160.
• Nurse, C. G. 1910. Notes regarding the breeding of Cheilosia grossa. Entomologist 43: 313-314.
• Nurse, C. G. (1922). New and little known Indian Bombyliidae. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 28: 630-41.
• Nurse, C. G. (1922). New and little known Indian Bombyliidae. Part II. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 28: 883-88.

Citations

References

• Obit. Entomologist's monthly magazine, Volume 70 1934
• D.J. Greathead, 1967 The Bombyliidae (Diptera) of northern Ethiopia Journal of Natural History Volume 1, Issue 2, 1967 : 195-284.Describes new species from specimens collected by Nurse.
• Jivanayakam Cyril Daniel and Baljit Singh Natural History and the Indian Army OUP India
• Rao, B. R. Subba (1998) History of Entomology in India. Institution of Agricultural Technologists, Bangalore. pp. 29–30