Naturalist Robert Atkinson embarked on a survey of Hebridean Islands in the mid-1930s to survey and count the Leach's fork-tailed petrel. He landed on St Kilda in July 1938, which had been evacuated in 1930. Atkinson captured the transition and re-wilding of the island during his search for the rare petrel, going into vacant cottages and buildings. This gentle photograph captures a small wren resting in the warm light of a window in the old School House.
The herbarium of the Biblical Museum or 'Musée biblique' of KU Leuven consists of about ninety frames with dried flowers and plants, collected by Jozef Vandervorst (1884-1959) in Palestine. The identifying cards mention the scientific and vernacular name of the plants, their provenance and some biblical references. The herbarium further includes more than fifty unidentified dried plants, which have not yet been framed and a few small boxes with seed samples.
Vandervorst was a student at the renowned École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem and in 1910, he was charged by Rector Paulin Ladeuze (1870-1940) with building up the collection of the newly founded Musée biblique of the Leuven university. The main purpose of this museum was to introduce the students of theology to the material culture of the Holy Land at the time of Jesus.
