Creagrus furcatus (Néboux, 1846) (1 Viewer)

[Taphrospilus]

I found the description of Swallow-tailed Gull by Néboux from the year 1840 as Mouette à queue fourchue. I understood that he missed the scientific name and in 1846 published a plate 10 in the Atlas of Voyage autour du monde sur la frégate la Vénus. commandée par Abel de Petit-Thouars. I found the text on Zoologie online but not the Atlas. Has anyone found the Atlas online?

P.S. OK I found here unfortunately not to read what's written on the plate.

Therefore my question was it Néboux who painted the picture? If not, why would be Néboux the author?

 

[l_raty]

P.S. OK I found here unfortunately not to read what's written on the plate.

You can read everything if you download the "High Res (TIF Format)" (under "All download options") -- but beware that this single image is 92.7 Mb.

Upper left: "VOYAGE DE LA FRÉGATE LA VÉNUS."
Upper right: "OISEAUX. PL. 10."
Lower left: "Peint par Oudart.", and below this: "Gide Editeur."
Lower center: "Dirigé par Borromée", and below this: "MOUETTE À QUEUE FOURCHUE. LARUS FURCATUS. (Néboux.)"
Lower right: "Gravé par A. Duménil.", and below this: "Imp-ie de Bougeard."

Therefore my question was it Néboux who painted the picture? If not, why would be Néboux the author?

Obviously the authorship has been accepted as indicated on the plate.
But indeed, there is no suggestion that Néboux fulfilled any of the requirements for availability, hence the author should probably be the person who published the Atlas. Which, as indicated [here], appears to be Abel du Petit-Thouars.

 

[Taphrospilus]

Obviously the authorship has been accepted as indicated on the plate.
But indeed, there is no suggestion that Néboux fulfilled any of the requirements for availability, hence the author should probably be the person who published the Atlas. Which, as indicated [here], appears to be Abel du Petit-Thouars.

Maybe from here it is acceptable that Néboux has the authorship?

 

[l_raty]

Maybe from here it is acceptable that Néboux has the authorship?

It's not really different from the plate caption.

By default, the author of a name is the person who published it in a way that made it available (or, in the case of a work with multiple authors, a subset of the persons who published it in said way), except that (ICZN 50.1.1):

[...] if it is clear from the contents that some person other than an author of the work is alone responsible both for the name [...] and for satisfying the criteria of availability other than actual publication, then that other person is the author of the name [...].

Here, the name is attributed to Néboux, i.e., arguably, 'it is clear from the contents that some person other than an author of the work is alone responsible [...] for the name'; but there is nothing (that I see) to suggest that Néboux contributed to 'satisfying the criteria of availability other than actual publication'. Thus, in principle, the default should prevail, and the author of the name should be the author of the work.

(It seems likely that Prévost & Des Murs [the authors of the ornithological part of the Zoologie of the Vénus] played a role here as well, but their names do not seem to appear in the Atlas at all, hence I don't really see how to attribute them the official authorship.)

 

[mb1848]

In 1855 Prevost and de Murs quote in full Neboux's 1840 article and give the bird the scientific name. Does this revive Neboux as author?
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/87532#page/289/mode/1up .
Zoonomen dates liv 2 of the Atlas to 1842. The drawing of L. furctus.
" this is found in livr.2 of the Atlas, and all other taxa from livr.2 are currently listed to 1842, so I change this taxon to 1842 as I find no reason why it should be dated separately from other plates in livr.2 of the Atlas."
Multiple citations give Prevost and de Murs as authors of the Atlas for the birds.
Neboux was considered a bad scientist for many years because he said this bird was from Monterey Haute-California. Until it is now known to very occasionally come up to Monterey during El Nino's.

 

[Taphrospilus]

Zoonomen dates liv 2 of the Atlas to 1842. The drawing of L. furctus.
" this is found in livr.2 of the Atlas, and all other taxa from livr.2 are currently listed to 1842, so I change this taxon to 1842 as I find no reason why it should be dated separately from other plates in livr.2 of the Atlas."

Good point the year 1842 and supported by IOC World bird list.:t:

Neboux was considered a bad scientist for many years because he said this bird was from Monterey Haute-California. Until it is now known to very occasionally come up to Monterey during El Nino's.

A second explanation was given in Audubon to Xantus where it is written:

Perhaps he did shoot it there but the species has never been recorded in this area since, nor anywhere in North American waters. It seems more likely that some specimens and labels became confused and that the bird was from more southerly waters, perhaps the Galapagos Islands.

Note: The Vénus was on the Galapagos Islands on their journey between 1836 and 1839.

 

[l_raty]

In 1855 Prevost and de Murs quote in full Neboux's 1840 article and give the bird the scientific name. Does this revive Neboux as author?
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/87532#page/289/mode/1up .

If this was the OD, the author would be Néboux, because he is presented here both as the author of the name and as the author of the description that made it available. (But note that even here, whether Néboux really coined the Latin name might arguably remain a bit uncertain. It's hard to exclude completely the possibility that Prévost & Des Murs, perceiving the French name as having been established in a bilingual nomenclatural system, might have latinized it while continuing to attribute it to Néboux.)

But, anyway, this is not the OD. And my reading is that, in principle, only evidence from the original work can be used.

(If external evidence could be used, we would not have, in [ICZN 50.1]:

If the author, or the person who publishes the work, cannot be determined from the contents, then the name or act is deemed to be anonymous.

Note that we don't respect this rule in practice, however. For example, we attribute the names introduced in the Adumbratiuncula of Vroeg's catalogue to Pallas, while this work is really anonymous (see [Sherborn 1905]). Or Calidris to Merrem while his name doesn't appear anywhere in the [OD].)

 

[mb1848]

"the species has never been recorded in this area since" Not so, there are two accepted records and one from a time the bird record committee does not look at, prior to 1900. Note that the 1985 bird was from Monterey, CA.
http://wfopublications.org/Rare_Birds/Swallow-tailed_Gull/Swallow-tailed_Gull.html .

 

[mb1848]

Calidris Merrem , in 1931 Otto Schnurre named Merrem as the author. Page 65 of :
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89097447551;view=1up;seq=77 .

 

[l_raty]

Calidris Merrem , in 1931 Otto Schnurre named Merrem as the author. Page 65 of :
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89097447551;view=1up;seq=77 .

Yes, but to be fully Code-compliant, we should in principle cite it as "Calidris anonymous (= Merrem)", not as "Calidris Merrem". But, of course, not doing so is a very minor infringement of the rules which can't really have any significant consequence.
(On the other hand, a similar situation would matter for a name published after 1950, because names published anonymously [= authors not identifiable from the contents of the work itself] after 1950 are not available -- even if the author can be identified easily using external evidence.)