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Colonel Pike's invalid "Slender billed Tern" alt. ditto Arctic Tern (1 Viewer)

Björn Bergenholtz

(former alias "Calalp")
Sweden
While wandering the shores of Mauritius (sadly only in text) I happened to notice this guy, hopefully here giving some additional details and context regarding the eponym ...

pikei as in:
• the invalid "Sterna Pikei" LAWRENCE 1853 (here) [Synonym of Sterna paradisaea PONTOPPIDAN 1763]:
From the cabinet of Nicholas Pike Esq., of Brooklyn, L. I., a gentleman who has for some years devoted much time to the study of different branches of our Natural History; to whom I take pleasure in dedicating this species.
= the US Colonel Nicholas Pike (1818–1905), Director of the Brooklyn Institute of Sciences in 1850, Consul General to Portugal is 1852, United States Consul in Mauritius (from 1866/7*), keen amateur naturalist, with a particular interest in Flora, Fauna and Geology ... Author of the small Booklet (42 pages) Subtropical Rambles in the Land of the Aphanapteryx ... (Personal experiences, adventures, and wanderings in and around the island of Mauritius), 1873.

"...born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on January 26, 1818." ... and so on. (here, p.64) ... and he died in Brooklyn, New York, 11 April 1905. (here, pp.291-292).
He will be remembered however rather from the fact that he introduced the English Sparrow into America [;)]
*Years of Consulate Service differ (a lot!), some say: "1866-1870","1866-1872" other "1867-1873" or "until 1874" ... either way he apparently arrived in Port Louis in January 1867 (at that point he could, of course, already had been appointed).

He is also claimed to have been " ... an enthusiastic caver" (i.e. speleologist), on Mauritius, still there in 1874 (here, p.173), and here (p.36), Also see here (pp.1074-1075), with an even better version of the Portrait (etching) of Colonel Nicholas Pike.

Enjoy!

Björn

PS. Regarding the alleged Type locality "... near the coast of California, in the vicinity of Monterey", also see this Paper, by David S, Lee, The Auk 1993 (here).
 
The Lee paper in the Auk which surmised that Pike was in the southern seas prior to Lawrence descriptions of his birds is wrong. Lawrence described the birds in 1853 as did Harvey describe Pikea californica and named it after Nicholas Pike of Brooklyn. Harvey " I have pleasure in bestowing on it the name of Captain Nicholas Pike, of Brooklyn, an ardent student of marine plants, to whom I am indebted for a very interesting collection of Californian Algae, among which was this species." So Nicholas Pike collected a southern skua and an Arctic Tern and a Grey Petrel and Cape Petrel in California.
This year a Kermadec Petrel was found in California.
http://www.pointblue.org/blog/losfarallones/?p=2706 . And a Swallow-tailed Gull in Washington state.
http://blog.aba.org/2017/08/abarare-swallow-tailed-gull-washington.html
 
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