Hugh Cuming

Hugh Cuming (14 February 1791 – 10 August 1865) was an English collector who was interested in natural history, particularly in conchology and botany.

As a child he displayed an avid interest in plants and shells, and through his acquaintance with naturalist George Montagu, his love of natural history was encouraged and developed.

[1] In Valparaiso he met Mr. Nugent, the British consul, and Lieutenant Frambly, a noted conchologist, who both stimulated and assisted him in shipping plants and shells back to England.

For nearly twelve months Cuming cruised among the islands of the South Pacific, dredging and collecting on sea and shore.

In his four years of combing the Philippines, Singapore, St. Helena, and the Malacca areas, he collected magnificent series of the shells of land snails.

He was aided greatly in these collections by hiring the services of local schoolchildren, who gladly scoured the wood and forests for plants and snails.

In the Philippine Journal of Science he is quoted as stating: " The greatest object of my ambition is to place my collection in the British Museum that it may be accessible to all the scientific world and where it would afford to the public eye a striking example of what has been done by the personal industry and means of one man. "

[5] Additionally the scientific identifier of a bird, the Scale-feathered Malkoha , endemic to the northern provinces of The Philippines, carries Cuming's name: Dasylophus Cumingi .