Talk:Domestication of the Syrian hamster

Newspaper article needed about Albert F. Marsh

A person named Albert F. Marsh is a key figure in the history of hamster domestication. He gave a newspaper interview in 1949 in the Press-Register according to this source.

• Helms, Dave (20 October 2008). "Give a hamster a treat: 70 years in the U.S." The Seattle Times. Retrieved 28 December 2015.

The person who wrote this Seattle Times article has no other online presence that I can find, and seems to not have written anything else for the Seattle Times besides this hamster article. Neither the Seattle Public Library nor the New York Public Library seem to have copies of the Press Register, and I am not sure how I can get copies from the Mobile Alabama library. I do not have a date for this Marsh interview, but it seems to have been on a 1949 Sunday, because the New York library database description says, "On Sundays, published a combined edition with the Mobile Press, called Mobile press register, Feb. 14, 1932", so on other days, I think the paper is called the "Mobile Press". Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:08, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

• Press Register

This seems to be the record at the Mobile Alabama Library. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:30, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

@Mitchazenia: - I know that you do a lot of research with online newspapers. If it is no trouble, and briefly, could you give me your opinion on the likelihood of me finding all the 1949 Sunday editions of this newspaper in some online database, and which one I might check? Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:45, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Account from Adler

This is a letter to the editor in a major newspaper written about the capture of the original laboratory hamsters, written by the person who requested their capture. Adler, D (27 January 1973). "Letter to the Times". The Times. London. This might not be available anywhere online right now. I have not seen this article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:24, 29 December 2015 (UTC) Also see -

• Adler, JH (April 1989). "The origin of the golden hamster as a laboratory animal". Israel journal of medical sciences. 25 (4): 206–9. PMID 2651351.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:46, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Memoir of a Hebrew Zoologist - original in Hebrew, do not know how to get English translation

In this source

• Murphy, Michael R. (1985). "History of the Capture and Domestication of the Syrian Golden Hamster (Mesocricetus auratus Waterhouse)". In Siegel, Harold I. (ed.). The Hamster : reproduction and behavior. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN 030641791X. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Murphy draws his account of the capture of hamsters from an English language translation of this book.

• Aharoni, Israel (1942). Memoirs of a Hebrew Zoologist (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Am Oved.

Murphy says that he got a copy of the original Hebrew edition then had a colleague, M. Devor, translate the chapter about the hamster expedition. He then goes on to recommend the entire chapter, which is disappointing to me because so far as I know he never shared this English translation and no one who does not know Hebrew could read it without having a translation.

I am not aware of any English language translation of this chapter being available anywhere. This means that all information that I have from this book is from the translated quotations in the Murphy source. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:52, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Use of quotations

Wikipedia's guideline on quotations is at Wikipedia:Quotations. The issues to balance are the usefulness of quotations to give insight into a subject and to make the Wikipedia article sufficiently informative, as compared with a desire to limit the amount of Wikipedia:Non-free content in an article and also to be concise and write in a neutral style.

This article contains quotations, some several sentences long, from scientific texts and the memoir of a historical figure in the history of hamsters. I chose to present these texts because I think they bring useful historical context to the time in which they were written, and because these quotations capture thought at milestones in the history of hamster domestication and make a record of actions which unambiguously influenced the future of hamster domestication. I feel quite fortunate to have these quotations available. It is unusual to capture a record of specific historical events which so certainly had an impact, especially in a field like natural history. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:03, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Typos?

"...the pouch, though muscular, is think, and the most expect fingers ..." should it say?

"...the pouch, though muscular, is thick, and the most expert fingers ..."

Alexander and Patrick Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo, page 181 of the 1797 English second edition

I actually came here to say that this is exactly the sort of article WP needs! But then I found the possible typos. Happy new year! 220 of ^Borg 04:18, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

220 of Borg Thanks for reading. I checked the source and it should be "thin", not thick, so I am glad you found the error and let me check. The other problem is as you say.

Of course I hope that people enjoy this article, and wrote it because I want more compilations of narratives to appear in Wikipedia. I need to check some other sources before going live with this. Happy new year and thanks a lot for your support. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:11, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh thin, I didn't think of that possibility. I was being a little facetious about the importance of this article, thought there are a lot of even less ″important″ things that need to be in an encyclopaedia. I tend to do more NPP and current events updates so like, disasters, plane crashes and terrorist attacks. Reminds me that I have at least one large article that I have had as a user draft for 2(!) years. (my third 2016 edit!) 220 of ^Borg 05:06, 1 January 2016 (UTC)