Edgar Percival Chance (1881–1955) was a British businessman, ornithologist and oologist who amassed a collection of 25,000 birds' eggs.NHM picture library He is noted for his pioneering studies on the parasitic breeding behaviour of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus).
Life Chance was born at Edgbaston, in the city of Birmingham, the son of Alexander Macomb Chance and Florence Mercer.
He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a wealthy businessman and industrialist who managed the family chemicals business, Chance and Hunt, based in Oldbury, West Midlands, which provided chemicals to Chance Brothers, the famous glassmakers based in Smethwick, Birmingham, between the first and second world wars.Chance & Hunt He was an egg-collector who became fascinated by cuckoos and made intensive studies of the common cuckoo, in the course of which he wrote two books about the species as well as producing a film. The film, The Cuckoo's Secret, was shot at Pound Green Common in Worcestershire,Babbidge showing for the first time that female cuckoos lay their eggs directly into the nests of their hosts, rather than laying them on the ground and placing them in the nests with their bills as was previously widely believed.BFI Screenonline He also achieved a world record for collecting the most eggs – 25 – from a single female cuckoo in the course of one breeding season (1922).Mike Birkhead Associates
Chance was a member of the British Ornithologists' Union – from which his egg collecting eventually resulted in his expulsionBBC Natural world, 'Cuckoo' – and served on the Council of the British Oological Association. He named his daughter Cardamine, alluding to the scientific name of the cuckoo flower Cardamine pratensis.
Professor Nick Davies of Cambridge University has described Chance as one of his all time heroes and featured Chance's contribution to science in his book Cuckoo.
Chance's large egg collection, which includes the eggs of the cuckoo filmed at Pound Green Common, is held at the Natural History Museum at Tring.
Chance died at his home, age 74, on 24 October 1955.
Family
Chance's fraternal grandmother was Cornelia de Peyster, whose ancestors were Dutch and Huguenot settlers in British North America and Loyalist to the Crown.Howard, Joseph Jackson. Visitation of England and Wales, Volume 3. Great Britain, 1895, pages 63,71
Edgar Chance's elder brother Kenneth Macomb Chance, Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1948 and founder of British Industrial Plastics, was also a keen egg-collector, forming between 1925 and 1938 a complete collection of Warwickshire birds' eggs which is now in the possession of his grandson.
Publications
Books
1922 – The Cuckoo's Secret. Sidgwick and Jackson: London. 1940 – The Truth About the Cuckoo. Country Life: London.
Articles Among Chance's many articles in the ornithological literature are:
"abbreviated from an article on the same subject which appeared in Country Life for October 26th, 1918, pp. 354-5."
Films 1922 – Secrets of Nature: The Cuckoo's Secret. Producer: Edgar Chance. Director of Photography: Oliver Pike. Released by British Instructional Films (BIF). 'The Cuckoo's Secret' is available on the BFI DVD 'Secrets of Nature', released in 2010.
References
Notes
Sources
External links
The Cuckoo's Secret (1922) Online film footage by Chance BBC Natural World 'Cuckoo' – information on the episode featuring Chance's footage and a modern reconstruction of his field activities.