person
Alfred Brehm
Brehm
also: Брем, Alfred Edmund Brehm
German zoologist (1829-1884) and author of \textit{Brehms Tierleben} (\textit{Brehm's Life of Animals}), the standard popular zoological reference of the era; invoked by Chekhov in a letter to Leikin for the joke that even Brehm never saw a live mongoose and had to describe it at second hand under the name "mungo," unlike Chekhov, who brought two home from Ceylon.
Reading notes
- To N. A. Leikin, 10 December 1890. Moscow. §4 Brem никогда не видел их и описал со слов других под именем \"мунго\"
\textbf{Alfred Brehm} (1829--1884) was the German zoologist whose multi-volume popular reference \textit{Brehms Tierleben} (\textit{Brehm's Life of Animals}, first published 1863--69, later much expanded) was the standard household zoological authority of the era across Europe and Russia alike -- the joke depends on the reader recognizing Brehm by surname alone, the way an English letter of the period might invoke a mere "Cuvier" or "Audubon." \textbf{мунго} ("mungo"/"mongo") was indeed the name under which earlier European naturalists, working from travelers' reports rather than firsthand observation, catalogued the Indian gray mongoose before the modern English "mongoose" (itself from Marathi/Konkani \textit{mangūs}) became standard; Chekhov's claim that Brehm never personally saw a live mongoose and had to describe it "from others' accounts" is consistent with the practical difficulty of obtaining specimens of small South Asian mammals for European menageries in the mid-19th century, and adds a genuine touch of natural-history one-upmanship to the anecdote -- Chekhov, quite plausibly, really had seen something Brehm's famous reference work had not.