TRUE FRIEND OF THE BIRDS AND ANIMALS BRO. ANTONIO NAVARRO, S. J.

The Museum has been set up by Bro. Antonio Navarro, a Spanish Jesuit who studied ornithology under Fr. G. Palacios. For 20 years he went on expeditions, bringing in specimens totaling around 3000. Most are displayed in the school, and some were given to the Bombay Natural History Society. From 1945 until his death in 1987, Bro. Navarro continued to add specimens to this collection.

Spread over a couple of corridors on four floors of St. Xavier’s High School, the museum houses over 2,300 bird specimens, 250 varieties of bird eggs, 75 types of bats, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. What makes them especially attractive and informative are the backgrounds which depict the specimens in their natural environment. These backgrounds were painted by P.V. Joshi of Pune, who accompanied Bro. Navarro on several expeditions. This museum is the largest in Western India after the Prince of Wales. The bird eggs are neatly arranged in padded-cotton boxes, carefully catalogued and stored in wooden drawers while the stuffed mammals and birds are kept in ceiling-high glass cases, all carefully numbered and named.

Bro. Navarro even has a bird named after him. He discovered this rare white-throated babbler at Khandala in 1959, which is now known as Dumentia Hyperythra Navarro.

On the morning of January 4, 2004, his Excellency The Governor of Maharashtra, Shri. Mohammed Fazal, at the behest of Shri. Digveerendra Singh Solanki (a Maharaja of Vansda and an ex-student of the school), took time off to visit this one of a kind museum. So impressed was he that he made a spontaneous donation of Rs. 50,000/- towards preserving the heritage of the museum

Governor Mohd. Fazal in his brief address in the school said, “I have never seen anything like this. Yes, I have been to a number of schools all over the country, but none boasts of a museum as magnificent as this. I must say the exhibits have been painstakingly arranged. There is no doubt about the quality and discipline of missionary education. My children and now theirs have studied in Catholic missionary schools and I am well aware of their contribution in the field of education.”

At 4.00 a.m. on Monday, October 5, 1987, Bro. Antonio Navarro passed away at St. Xavier’s School. He was 84 and served the school for 46 years.