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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LPascal" data-source="post: 4148307" data-attributes="member: 157792">About Parotia helenae: I know this thread was written in 2016 but I'd like to update you all with my information. I have been researching and writing an article on Helena Scott (Forde). I strongly lean towards the view that Charles Walter de Vis named Parotia helenae after Helena Forde (nee Scott). Below is  my article's footnote to the naming of the bird after Helena. Helena and De Vis had scientific friends in common and de Vis may have known her or of her or corresponded with her. Helena corresponded with many scientists in her time.  Wynne cites Helena as the person the parotia is named after and his book, published in 1969, is the earliest of the etymologies, closest to Helena's time. The other later books claim the bird was named after Princess Helena but neither Wynne nor the others give a reference source for their claim of who the bird was named after.  In his first naming in the Ibis, 1897, de Vis does not say who he named the bird after and I have searched the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the de Vis and Scott and North papers and cannot find reference to a source for the name. However because they moved in the same circles and  especially because Ramsay named the parotia lawseii and was closely connected to Helena, I think it likely de Vis named the bird after her. <h4>Owen E Wynne, Biographical key-names of birds of the world - to authors and those commemorated, Fordingbridge, England, 1969; Charles Walter de Vis, ”Diagnosis of Thirty-six New or Little-known Birds from British New Guinea” Ibis, 1897, p390. Some bird etymologies claim the bird was named after Princess Helena, daughter of Queen Victoria, but without reference to a source. The naming after Helena Forde is plausible as Helena and de Vis had scientific friends in common; de Vis was curator of the Queensland Museum when Alexander Scott was trustee of the Australian Museum, Edward Ramsay had named Parotia lawseii, Helena had prepared drawings of birds’ eggs for his proposed oological publication, and Arthur North who corresponded with de Vis, was ornithologist of the Australian Museum when vol 2 of the Lepidoptera was published. De Vis could have met or corresponded with Helena or at least known of her reputation.</h4>Here is one article about Helena and the Scott family. <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/scott-alexander-walker-4545" target="_blank">https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/scott-alexander-walker-4545</a>I have also uploaded a photo of the Wynne reference. I would like to point out that Wynne described Helena in abbreviations as "daughter of AW Scott. Entomologist, oologist, artist New South Wales".  He was describing Helena as the entomologist, oologist and artist, not her father. AW Scott was an entomologist but not an oologist. Helen deserved to be called an oologist because she illustrated the eggs for Ramsay's birds' eggs publication. Helena was also an entomologist having been elected an honorary member of the Entomological Society of NSW and illustrated The Lepidoptera. All subsequent books who quote Wynne, misread Wynne's description of Helena and attribute to AW Scott the titles of entomologist and oologist when it should be read with a full stop after the name Scott and the new sentence describes Helena.</blockquote>

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