AT the Shanghai Entomological Museum, a pair of ordinary-looking scorpionflies are part of a bigger story about scientific study in China. On a label underneath these specimens are two words — Musee Heude — connecting them to China’s oldest natural history museum in Xujiahui.

“The Xujiahui museum is not only the first museum in Shanghai, it’s part of the history of modern museums in China,” says Zhang Jie, a researcher at the Xuhui District Cultural Bureau.

According to the 1933 book “Xuhui Brief Record,” the museum was established by the French Jesuit Father Pierre Heude in 1867.

Heude had traveled throughout China to accumulate a valuable collection of zoological and botanical specimens. He also authored several books on such subjects.

A substantial museum was erected near Xujiahui Cathedral under Heude’s personal direction in the 1880s. According to a report from North China Herald in 1883, the then Natural History Museum featured zoological and botanical gardens and was “an institution which promises to rival in usefulness the famous Jesuit Observatory presided over by Father Dechevrens.”

The museum was one of four major projects launched by the scientific committee of the Jiangnan Society of Jesuits. Founded in 1872 during a meeting in Xujiahui, the committee later oversaw the founding of a museum, a history and geology research center, a scientific publishing house and a meteorological station.

Heude became the first director of the Xujiahui museum and conducted natural history studies with his team. The fruits of their work, including records and papers, were also sent to Europe.

“On entering the grounds, the first thing observable is a row of substantial wooden sheds for the reception of animals of the deer kind,” explained the 1883 report. “The workmen are still engaged in their construction; but when finished they will form very comfortable and convenient homes for the animals already in possession of the museum, some of which are of rare and valuable kinds, as well as for those which may be obtained from time to time in the future. At a little distance are the present homes of the deer. A large stag, with fine antlers, is, on account of his dangerous temper, confined by himself in a bamboo enclosure into which Father Heude himself does not care to venture.”

The museum was open free of charge to those properly introduced by the fathers, who offered guided tours after visitors submitted their name cards. The exhibits included tens of thousands of mammal, bird, reptile, insect and plant specimens.

Devoted to his scientific work for over 30 years, Father Heude used Xujiahui as a base to research and collect specimens from across China as well as Japan, the Philippines, today’s Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.

“Many of the collections, especially some mammal specimens, were never seen in Europe before. That’s why the Xujiahui museum won a reputation as the No. 1 museum in the Far East, and as ‘Asia’s British museum’,” researcher Zhang adds.

The new museum

Father Courtios, a bird expert, became the new director of the museum and continued to enrich the specimen collections after Father Heude passed away in 1902.

Courtios died of disease during a field trip in 1928. By this time the museum was too small to accommodate its swelling collection. In 1930, it was moved to the newly constructed museum of natural history at Aurora University.

Now perched at the crossroad of Hefei and Chongqing roads, the new museum is a three-story steel-and-concrete structure in Art Deco style. The façade is graced by red and white bricks and cloud scrolls across the top.

In the 1930s it featured exhibition, library and laboratory rooms. By then, exhibits including both biological specimens and Chinese antiques showcased in glass cabinets. It was also open to the public with admission.

In 1952, Chinese Academy of Sciences took over the museum. The mammals and birds specimen were transferred to the Shanghai Natural History Museum. Up to half a million insect specimens were maintained in the Art Deco building, which later became the Shanghai Entomological Institute. The institute, including its precious historical specimens, later relocated to the Shanghai Entommological Museum on Fenglin Road.

The 1930 museum building has been used by the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai since 2004.

“The building, built by French fathers, has very high ceiling,” recalls Yin Haisheng, director of the Shanghai Entomological Museum who worked in the building from 1990 to 2000.

“There was a big balcony and an antique iron-gated elevator that mirrored the one in the Park Hotel. Everything inside, from the solid, patterned floor tiles, copper knots to carvings on the doors were all exquisite,” he recalls.

Today spiral patterns on the doors and the staircase railing echo each other. Tall windows introduce plenty of sunlight into the building where French fathers once focused on their studies amid a sea of bull heads, rare birds and dried insects.

Like the 19th-century Jesuits, Yin’s colleagues continue to collect new insect specimens from around China every year from May to October. Specimens from the old museums in Xujiahui and on Hefei Road are well preserved in the storeroom of the new museum, which is heavily scented with the smell of camphor balls.

“Though the old specimens made by the French fathers have yellowed over the century and are not attractive for exhibition, they are important for research,” says the director.

“Specimens can tell about the botanical environment of a place at a particular time. Many of the insects were collected in Xujiahui in the 1930s, which cannot be found there in the 21th century. At that time, around 100 kinds of insects could be retrieved in Xujiahui, which was crisscrossed with rivers and farm fields,” Yin adds.

The director notes that tiny labels beneath each specimen include the time and place it was collected and the institute where it was produced.

“To memorialize the devoted founding director Father Heude, the Aurora museum’s French name was Musee Heude, which was written on every label of the old specimens,” director Yin explains.

The lying of the foundation stone of Musee Heude was “favored on a beautiful spring day” as was reported by the China Press on April 29, 1930.

A touch of dignity was given by the presence of the French Consul General and S. K. Chen from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“This is in fact the place that befits the Museum: medical students and students of Natural History having before their eyes the various collections … Students of the different universities of our city and those who take an interest in the different branches of Natural History will be able to consult the collections and library of this Museum. Aurora will ever tender them a hearty welcome and even aid them in their labors and researches,” said the Rector of Aurora University, Father Lefebvre, during a speech made on the occasion.

Some 74 years later, another group of dignities, including then French President Jacques Chirac, visited the building to attend the inauguration of the Pasteur Institute of Shanghai, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It was established to promote cooperation between France and China in the field of preventing and treating new infectious diseases.

“French scientists at our institute were happy to work in this building of rich history,” says Chen Fang, assistant to director of the institute.