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Abeillia abeillei (1 Viewer)

PScofield said:
I am not so sure this is resolved at all - the French Brig of war Le Pylade that had Lessons brother Adolphe aboard was commanded by Capitaine Felix Bernard and cruised the eastern coast of South America in 1839 and 1840 where Collared Antshrike specimens could easily be obtained. They also visited Buenos Aires where such specimens could no doubt be bought. Felix Bernard may have become "capitaine de la marine du commerce de Bordeaux" after his Pacific adventures. P
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I'm not sure I understand this. (Collared Antshrike occurs only in Ecuador and northern Peru.)

The OD says:
Ce batara que M. Abeillé a dédié à un capitaine de la marine du commerce de Bordeaux, très zélé collecteur, est remarquable par la coloration insolite de son plumage, coloration qui s'éloigne de celle des espèces qui vivent dans les contrées américaines baignées par l'océan Atlantique.
Le batara de Bernard vit à Gayaquil.
[...]
C'est aux alentours de Gayaquil, sur les côtes baignées par l'océan Pacifique, que vit ce batara.
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(= "This antshrike which Mr. Abeillé dedicated to a captain of the merchant navy of/from Bordeaux (*), very zealous collector, is remarkable for the unusual coloration of its plumage, a coloration that departs from that of the species which live in the American regions bathed by the Atlantic Ocean. Bernard's antshrike lives in Gayaquil. [...] It's around Gayaquil, on the coasts bathed by the Pacific Ocean, that this antshrike lives.")

Thus:
  • the dedication was by Abeillé, not by Lesson (i.e., the dedicatee should be a relation of Abeillé; there are no particular reasons to look among Lesson's [or his brother's] relations to find him);
  • the bird was described as occuring only on the Pacific coast (Guayaquil: Ecuador), and explicitly not on the Atlantic coast of America (i.e., Lesson was certainly not aware of any specimen obtained, or said to have been obtained, there);
  • Bernard was explicitly described as a very zealous collector (if the captain of the Pylade had been a "very zealous collector", he would presumably have collected some specimens brought back from this voyage -- shouldn't we then have traces of this...?).
(*) I'm not clear if it is the "marine de commerce", or the "capitaine", which is "de Bordeaux".

Björn Bergenholtz said:
I just wanted to point out that there seems to be little doubt that his surname was Bernard. Nothing else. That was the single part that Laurent made clear, back in 2018.
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Strictly speaking, even this might not be 100% granted, though, as (1) it is conceivable that Lesson might have mis-transcribed the name of the dedicatee (particularly if he did not actually know him), and (2), although I think it rather unlikely in the present case (because this would depart from the standard practice in the French literature of the time), "Bernard" can in principle be a first name too.
 
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Sorry I meant to say "east and west coasts". The Pylade and Adolphe Lesson collected a very significant collection from El Salvador (see Dickey & Van Rossem pg 11) and Chile as well see here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjADegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3vwkX2udM_FQVX7FjXp-4a on page 11.

books.google.co.nz

The Birds of Chile

books.google.co.nz

So this ship and its Captain Felix Bernard were active on the west coast and large collections of birds were made.

Abeillé had a large personal collection the source of many of these specimens is obscure.

I think Felix Bernard is a very good candidate.

P
 
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I still fail to see the evidence. (That Félix Bernard was in relation with Abeillé; that, from being a Capitaine de Corvette, commander of a Brig of War in 1842, he might have become a captain in the merchand navy in 1844; that he was a "zealous collector".)

I tried going through Adolphe's complete manuscript relation of the Voyage du Pylade, which can be read at:
So far as I can assess, the closest the Pylade ever came to the range of Collared Antshrike was Callao (= Lima harbour), which is still > 350 km S of the southernmost records of the species mapped in ebird https://ebird.org/species/colant1 , and where they stopped on their journey north.

From Callao, they sailed directly to Realejo in Nicaragua: https://www.odsas.net/scan_sets.php?set_id=1360&doc=155597&step=42 .
They reached San Carlos in San Salvador (El Salvador) from Realejo: https://www.odsas.net/scan_sets.php?set_id=1360&doc=155751&step=64 .
From San Carlos, they went to Acapulco in Mexico: https://www.odsas.net/scan_sets.php?set_id=1361&doc=155915&step=20 .
Last, when going back south, they sailed back directly from Acapulco to Valparaiso in Chile: https://www.odsas.net/scan_sets.php?set_id=1361&doc=156175&step=58 .

So I'm afraid that, so far, I don't really see they had the opportunity to collect this bird either.
 
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Once again well found (and fascinating)! All I can say is that Callao is a lot closer to any Collared Antshrikes than Bordeaux :)

P
 
Sorry we don't know when Bernard collected this bird in Guayaquil. It is not necassary that it is the same journey as that with Adolphe Lesson. I still see him as a candidate. It would be interesting if Félix Bernard was from Bordeaux.
 
books.google.be

Nouvelles archives du commerce et de l'industrie agricole et manufacturiére

books.google.be
Third line in the table (continuing on the next page): the "brick franç. le Sylphe, c.[apitaine] Bernard", from Bordeaux, reached Mazatlan/Guaymas on 14 Jan 1840, and departed on 15 Mar 1840 for Guayaquil, with France as its final destination.
books.google.be

Nouvelles archives du commerce et de l'industrie agricole et manufacturiére

books.google.be
Second line in the table: the brig le Sylphe, same captain Bernard, reached San Blas on 17 Mar 1840, and left, still towards Guayaquil, on 13 Apr 1840.
(In mid-April 1840, the Pylade was on the Gambier Islands, in what is now French Polynesia: https://www.odsas.net/scan_sets.php?set_id=1356&doc=153557&step=16 )

(Edited post -- sorry, I initially misread the table.)
 
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OK in this case some more here in Journal du palais. But no name. See also here

maybe it is worth to search him in context with M. Balguerie-Bellile?
 
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As I came just accross this The Eponym Dictionary of Birds entry:

Hummingbird genus Abeillia Bonaparte, 1850
Abeillé's Grosbeak Hesperiphona abeillei Lesson, 1839 [Alt. Hooded Grosbeak]
Abeillé's Hummingbird Abeillia abeillei Lesson & De Lattre, 1839 [Alt. Emerald-chinned Hummingbird]
Abeillé's Oriole Icterus abeillei Lesson, 1839 [Alt. Black-backed Oriole; Syn.Icterus galbula abeillei]
Brown Tanager Orchesticus abeillei Lesson, 1839
Black-capped Sparrow Arremon abeillei Lesson, 1844
Doctor Abeillé and his wife Félice (q.v.) Olymp were French naturalists and collectors who lived in Bordeaux. There is an illustration by Gould of a hummingbird he called Abeillé's Flutterer Myiabeillia typica, which appears nowhere else but is the same bird as Abeillé's Hummingbird. Lesson specifically stated that the Brown Tanager is named after the Doctor.
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It is not about an scientific eponym. The Abeillé's Flutterer is mentioned here. Why Gould gave Bonapartes name here priority is his secret.
 
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Taphrospilus said:
Why Gould gave Bonapartes name here priority is his secret.
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The introduction of Abeillia in 1850 (t.1-2; Index (1850; 1865) - Conspectus generum avium - Biodiversity Heritage Library ) was conditional (with a query) and rather obscure (in the synonymy of Ramphomicron abeillii).
Gould may simply have preferred to follow the more affirmative 1854 proposal of Myiabeillia.

(It may actually be that he had overlooked the 1850 name when he published the plate (1 Sep 1854), as he did not cite it there at all. The first adoption of Abeillia Bonaparte 1850 subsequent to its proposal seems to have been by Gray 1855 Catalogue of the genera and subgenera of birds contained in the British Museum. - Biodiversity Heritage Library . But Gould retained Myiabeillia in the introduction of the Monograph of the Trochilidae v.1 (1849-1852) - A monograph of the Trochilidæ, or family of humming-birds - Biodiversity Heritage Library (1861), where he cited Abeillia as a synonym.)
 
mb1848 said:
"The first adoption of Abeillia Bonaparte 1850 subsequent to its proposal seems to have been by Gray 1855"
But in the Appendix he says 341=Myiabeillia.
Catalogue of the genera and subgenera of birds contained in the British Museum. - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
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Yes -- what he does there is adding "Myiabeillia, Pr. B. 1854." and "Baucis, Reichenb. 1854." (OD) as synonyms of "341. ABEILLIA, Pr. B. 1849." of p. 22. (He's not adopting them as valid names. He used uppercase letters consistently for valid genus-group names.)

mb1848 said:
The Rev. et Mag. Zool use of the name is not the only use of it that year by Bonaparte.
ser.4:t.1 (1854) - Annales des sciences naturelles - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
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Indeed, but the Tableau des oiseaux mouches was published first. (And the name would be nude in Conspectus systematis ornithologiae if this had appeared first, anyway.)

Bonaparte actually published Tableau des oiseaux mouches himself as a separate work, 2 - Opera ornithologica. - Biodiversity Heritage Library , before it appeared in Rev. Mag. Zool. He offered this work to the Académie, presenting it as just published, on 24 Apr 1854 (t.38 (1854) - Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences. - Biodiversity Heritage Library ); the work was noticed as published a few days later, on 6 May 1854, in Bibliogr. France (Bibliographie de la France ).
The Rev. Mag. Zool. version, sér.2:t.6 (1854) - Revue et magasin de zoologie pure et appliquée - Biodiversity Heritage Library , was in the May issue of the journal. Note that the separate was not a mere reprint -- the page layouts of the two versions differ. It is known that Rev. Mag. Zool. probably always published the issue for a given month in the first days if the next month (in order to cover the society meetings that had occurred in that month), so that this may be expected to have appeared in early June; it must in any event have appeared after 29 May based on the contents of p. 295.
 
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The statement by Bonaparte in the 1850 book CGA “182 Ramphomicron, 4. Trochilus abeillii Delattre Rev. Zool. 1839 p. 16 ex Jalapa Ramphomicron aberrans, forsans genus constitute endum. Abeillia typica? Bp. "

1839 - Revue zoologique. - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
t.1-2; Index (1850; 1865) - Conspectus generum avium - Biodiversity Heritage Library .
Annales des sciences physiques et naturelles, d'agriculture et d'industrie / publiées par la Société d'agriculture de Lyon | 1843-03 | Gallica .
Google translate: wandering away, perchance an organized race.
R. aberrans, forsans genus constitute endum. Bonaparte then list the new genus Abeillia? But typica is not a species level name John Gould. He is asking if Abeillia abeillei is the type species of this new genus. Sort of weak erection of a genus. But my question is does not Bonaparte four years later have the authority or power to erect strongly a new genus which includes Tr. abeillei and Tr. Guimeti? In the Key it says that Myiabeillia means “Gr. μυια muia, μυιας muias fly; genus Abeillia “
Klais guimeti feeding behavior : “Sallies from perch to catch flies and gnats, gleans foliage for arthropods, “. So Bonaparte mixed Abeillia and flies to name the new genus. The two species are very similar. SACC Proposal 780 kept all the genuses separate but one choice was:” Subgroup B3 includes five small genera (Klais, Abeillia, Orthorhynchus, Anthocephala and Stephanoxis, all on long branches. One alternative would be to lump all five into Orthorhynchus, the oldest name. A second would be to lump Klais into Abeillia, and the remaining three into Orthorhynchus. So Bonaparte was a good systematist. And Myiabeillia is not a synonym of Abeillia nor vice versa.
 
mb1848 said:
Ramphomicron aberrans, forsans genus constitute endum. Abeillia typica? Bp.
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"Ramphomicron aberrans, forsan genus constituendum. Abeillia typica? Bp."
= Aberrant Ramphomicron, perhaps having to constitute a genus. Abeillia typica? Bp.

The question mark is because the whole proposal is made with reservations (see also 'forsan' -- 'perhaps'). Reservations stated in a name proposal do not make the name unavailable unless it was published after 1960.
In Bonaparte's time, it was usual to avoid tautonymous or virtually tautonymous binomina (names with a specific epithet identical to, or of the same derivation as the generic name). When a new genus name derived from the specific name of one of the included species was created, that specific name was often changed, either to the next available name if one existed, or to a wholly new name. Bonaparte here proposes (with reservations) to place the species in a separate genus under the binomen "Abeillia typica", of which he claims the authorship ("Bp.").

Abeillia and Myiabeillia were originally used for taxa with different circumscriptions; but they have the same type species : this makes them objective synonyms.
 
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Apart from the discussion above not that bad how many times we find his name in birds even if he haven't published anything about birds:


Are Formicivora Abeillei Lesson, 1845 1845 pt.1 (1845) - L'Écho du monde savant et l'Hermès : - Biodiversity Heritage Library and Xenops Abeillei Lesson, 1840

1840 - Revue zoologique. - Biodiversity Heritage Library

The Biodiversity Heritage Library works collaboratively to make biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.
www.biodiversitylibrary.org www.biodiversitylibrary.org
more for The Key to Scientific Names. For what are the synonyms?

As well the mollusque Cyclostoma abeillei Grateloup, 1840 OD t.11 (1839) - Actes de la Société linnéenne de Bordeaux - Biodiversity Heritage Library is named for him.
 
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Thank you Laurent the information about Bonaparte's time not liking tautonymous names is helpful. I do not think typica is the type species of Myiabeillia. In the Rev. et Mag. Zool. he uses typica and guimeti. And in the Analles he uses only guimeti. And although nude there it still can be used to read his intentions in the other paper.
 
mb1848 said:
Thank you Laurent the information about Bonaparte's time not liking tautonymous names is helpful. I do not think typica is the type species of Myiabeillia. In the Rev. et Mag. Zool. he uses typica and guimeti. And in the Analles he uses only guimeti. And although nude there it still can be used to read his intentions in the other paper.
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When an author renames an included species typus or typicus, -a, -um, in the OD of a new generic name, the Code makes this a designation of this species as the type of the new name (ICZN 68.2.2).
The usual interpretation here is that Bonaparte did this for both Abeillia and Myiabeillia, making the types of the genera Abeillia typica Bonaparte 1850 = Ornysmia abeillei Delattre & Lesson 1839 and Myiabeillia typica Bonaparte 1854 = Ornysmia abeillei Delattre & Lesson 1839, respectively. (He did not cite Abeillia when he introduced Myiabeillia.)
I guess someone who'd be after another interpretation might argue that, in 1854, Bonaparte merely accepted his own 1850 species-group name in Myiabeillia, in which case no new name 'typica' was proposed in the 1854 OD, and no type was designated there. If so, what is needed is a subsequent type designation. Gray 1855 treated Myiabeillia Bonaparte 1854 as a synonym of Abeillia Bonaparte 1850, and his type designations do not extent to the names he cited as synonyms. (In fact, relatively few authors -- mainly Gould and Sclater -- have used Myiabeillia as a valid name after Bonaparte proposed it.) Elliot 1879 treated it as a synonym of Abeillia too but, unlike Gray, he did designate types for the names he retained in synonymy; he made Ornysmia abeillei Delattre & Lesson 1839 the type of Myiabeillia.

Bonaparte did not restrict Myiabeillia to guimeti in the Annales. (And even if he had, this would not have fixed its type, see ICZN 69.4.) The Conspectus systematis ornithologiae in the Annales was a classification of bird down to generic and subgeneric ranks, without addressing their species composition at all. What we find there is:
1563. Myiabeillia, Bp. (Guimetia, Reich.)
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...which is the bird genus #1563 in Bonaparte's system, denoted by Bonaparte's own genus-group name Myiabeillia, with a name 'Guimetia', presented as authored by Reichenbach, cited as a synonym.
In this paper, as compared to his slightly earlier Tableau des oiseaux mouches, Bonaparte introduced many names he attributed to Reichenbach, many of which dated from Reichenbach's Aufzählung der Colibris, which Bonaparte may have received between the preparation of these two works. He misspelled some of these names, however, and a number of the names that he used and attributed to Reichenbach had actually not been used by him at all. This was the case of 'Guimetia, Reich.' -- Reichenbach placed the two species that Bonaparte had placed earlier in Myiabeillia in Baucis and in Klais, respectively, and never used 'Guimetia'.
Guimetia "Reichenbach" Bonaparte 1854 is not available as a genus-group name under the present Rules. For once, the name is nude in Bonaparte's work (a name introduced as a synonym does not thereby inherit the type of the name in the synonymy of which it is cited, and Bonaparte provided no additional indication of any kind). But, had it not been the case, the name would still be unavailable because it was introduced in synonymy, and never subsequently adopted as the valid name of a taxon or treated as a senior homonym (i.e., it doesn't meet ICZN 11.6.1, which is the only way a name introduced in synonymy can ever become available). As a corollary, the name cannot be claimed from any subsequent source that cited it as a synonym either -- be it, e.g., Gray 1855, Cabanis & Heine 1860, Heine 1863, Gray 1869, Geibel 1875, Elliot 1879, Boucard 1892, Salvin 1892, Simon 1897, Hartert 1900, Dubois 1902, or Ridgway 1911.
 
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Thanks for the full explanation Laurent! In the Richmond Index there are 24 typica specioes names listed with about half by Bonaparte. (7 typicus and 2 typicum) So should the birds name be Abeillia typica?
 
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