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ought back in his extensive New Zealand collection, 18 the Natural History Museum in Vienna
received a total of 3016 ornithological specimens, of which only 2278 were native to New
Zealand, 19 2406 plants, 1194 ethnographical specimens, including 467 Maori objects, 20 as well as
thirty-seven skulls and fourteen lower jaws, in addition to 800 fish and reptile specimens, 21 120
mammal skins and 501 geological, mineralogical and botanical samples. 22 Although, at the time,
his efforts were well-respected by his peers at the Auckland Institute and his many friends within
the local scientific community, 23 which contributed to his receiving of the prestigious Fellowship
of the Linnean Society of London in 1885, 24 recognition and positions, other than his later
becoming an honorary member of the Vienna Ornithological Society, proved elusive for the self-
educated Reischek upon his return. He could never achieve the same standing in his own
homeland that the members of the Novara had received several decades earlier. Without the
formal education and scientific background of Hochstetter, Reischek was more of a practical man
than a man of theory or a scholar, making him not always conform to the general practices of
other naturalists, and at times less reliable and accurate, and more likely to rely exclusively on
others for knowledge in unknown fields. After moving to Klosterneuburg, he soon accepted the
18 King, Collector, 142. While the majority of the collection he brought home would have gone to the Natural History
Museum in Vienna, a small part of it went to a handful of other museums, including the Francisco-Carolinum
Museum in Linz, and the rest remained as a private family collection, some of which was sold to private collectors by
Reischek, while several hundred bird specimens were also put up for sale by his wife following his death (Kolig,
Umstrittene Würde, 27f.; Aubrecht, “Andreas Reischek”, 39; Gabriele Weiss, “Andreas Reischek”, in: Entdeckung
der Welt, 365f.).
19 Reischek’s remaining Viennese collection of around 1000 New Zealand bird specimens has been described as “one
of the biggest, best labelled, and best prepared collections outside New Zealand” (K.E. Westerskov, “Reischek’s New
Zealand Bird Collection”, in: A Flying Start: Commemorating Fifty Years of the Ornithological Society of New
Zealand 1940-1990. Eds. B. J. Gill and B. Heather. Auckland: Random Century, 1990, 130).
20 Hauer uses the figures of 453 Maori objects and 741 items from other Pacific Islands in his annual report, but the
inventory for 1890/91 lists 467 and 727 respectively (Franz von Hauer, “Jahresbericht für 1890”, in: Annalen des K.
K. naturhistorischen Hofmuseums 6 (1891): 7f.; Irmgard Moschner, “Katalog der Neuseeland-Sammlung (A.
Reischek) Wien”, in: Archiv für Völkerkunde 13 (1958): 51-131; Weiss, “Andreas Reischek”, 365).
21 This figure has been misquoted by Reischek junior and King as 8000 (King, Collector, 142).
22 This consists of twenty-two items taken after the Tarawera eruption in 1886 (although not by Reischek) and a
collection of 479 items gifted in 1888 (Johannes H. Obenholzner and Bernhard Spuida, “Andreas Reischek –
Zeugnisse über die aktiven Vulkane Neuseelands zwischen 1877 und 1888”, in: Kiwis und Vulkane, 123f.).
23 Reischek Col, which was named by Haast during their excursion together in the Southern Alps, Reischek Glacier,
Reischek Stream and Reischek Hut in Canterbury, the endangered Reischek’s parakeet and a tuatara all share his
name.
24 King is quick to point out that Reischek was struck off in May 1891 after paying only the first subscription and
having gone four years without paying the annual fee he agreed to when submitting the application (King, Collector,
123). However, it should be noted that Reischek did in fact make an effort to pay the annual £3 subscription fee to the
Linnean Society during his frequent expeditions by asking, for example, Thomas Cheeseman in 1887 to pay on his
behalf and explain why he was unable to do so (Andreas Reischek, “Letter to Thomas Cheeseman, 29 March 1887,
Chalky Sound”, in: Nolden, German and Austrian Naturalists, 164).
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