MS NKS 322 d 4° consists of eight volumes of autograph records by Otto Fabricius (1744-1822). On the title pages the author describes their contents as "Zoological Collections or Descriptions of Animals, from time to time noted down according to his own observations by Otho Fabricius, from the year 1768 and here collected from the year 1808". The eight volumes are similar in shape and size, each measuring c. 20 × 16 cm. The records were written in Danish, not in Latin, the language used by the author in his opus magnum, Fauna Groenlandica, published in Copenhagen & Leipzig in 1780. Almost all the records in the first volumes of the "Zoological Collections" may be seen as elaborations and supplements to the descriptions in Fauna Groenlandica. In most cases they are introduced by a reference to the relevant pages in this work.
The eight volumes of records contain 2300 numerated sections of texts, written on c. 3000 pages. It is stated on the title pages that Fabricius began to work on the "Zoological Collections" in 1808, on the basis of observations and material brought together during his long stay in Greenland. He continued his work on them for several years. Volume 7 was finished in 1814. The completion of volume 8 has not been noted down. All the volumes of the "Zoological Collections" were written while Fabricius was a resident of Christianshavn in Copenhagen. They contain several illustrations that were pasted to the pages, by all probability cuttings from Fabricius’ own papers from Greenland.
Fabricius' "Zoological Collections" were acquired for the sum of 50 Rigsdaler by the Royal Library at the auction of Fabricius' library and collections of naturalia in October 1823. The 8 volumes were numerated I-VIII and thus the first items to be sold according to the printed auction catalogue, which does not include any other manuscripts apart from the "Zoological Collections".
The first volume of "Zoological Collections" contains the sections numbered 1 to 119 on 356 pages. Pages 282 to 287 do not exist. The lacuna was caused by a false reading of the number 281 that, calamo currente, was graphically interpreted as 287 and is followed by page number 288. Fabricius finished work on the first volume in 1809.
Bibl.: Fortegnelse over en god og velconditioneert Bogsamling (...) afgangne Biskop Fabricius's og efterlevende Enkes Boe tilhørende, som ved Auction, Mandagen den 13de October, om Formiddagen Kl. 9, og følgende Dage ... bortsælges, Kjøbenhavn 1823, p. 1. - Christian Molbech, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskabs Historie i dets første Aarhundrede 1742-1842, Kjøbenhavn 1843, p. 312f. - Finn O. Kapel, Otto Fabricius and the Seals of Greenland, Copenhagen 2005 (= Meddelelser om Grønland, Bioscience, vol. 55). - Paasisaqarusuppunga – Science & Society. An Exhibition at The Greenland Institute of Natural Resources / Pinngortitaleriffimmi saqqummersitsineq, edd. Erik W. Born, Ida S. Fabricius, Fernando Ugarte & Klaus Nygaard, Nuuk 2013 [published separately in English and Greenlandic versions].
Erik Petersen
