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Message: <blockquote data-quote="janvanderbrugge" data-source="post: 3462232" data-attributes="member: 137246">Dear collegue-eponymists,The results of a searching exercise yielded a few things which I would like to share with you (and maybe with some readers outside this taxonomy-nomenclature forum, because I think it is rather nice stuff to read).I start with a quote: "Il est difficile de tromper l'oeil d'une mère, cette mere fût-elle un simple oiseau ..." (Vian, Paris): it is difficult to cheat a mother's eye, even when that mother is a simple bird ..." The article connected to this is (not in French): "Fremde Eier im Nest - Ein Beitrag zur Biologie der Vögel" by Paul Leverkühn, published in München, 1890. (Alien eggs in the nest - A contribution to the biology of birds) It can be found on this URL:<a href="http:///www.zobodat.at/pdf/MittNatVerSt_27_0001-0212.pdf" target="_blank">http:///www.zobodat.at/pdf/MittNatVerSt_27_0001-0212.pdf</a>It is a lengthy treatise on the eggs laid by birds or by people in the nests of other species than those of the egg-producers, and with a special focus on the ability of bird species to recognize their own eggs and alien ones. This ability is in some cases quite fascinating!The lack of such ability is widely used in aviculture: eggs of rare pheasants are placed in the care of a bantam chicken and eggs of special waxbills are entrusted to Bengalese (Society Finches), which have a good reputation as reliable breeders and parents.By the way, Leverkühn's text offers a number of interesting names. Sure, we're still on the trail, there is a link with eponymy!One aviculturist who has been very active in endeavourments to persuade his tropical Estrildidae to reproduction, in a natural way and also with the help of such foster-parent birds, was Hauth. In my name files there was a bird Spermestes hauthi. My old card system contained no information on persons and the name is unknown in several files. But I had it in my mind and knew that it was a synonym for Erythrura prasina, the Pin-tailed Parrotfinch (in German: Lauchgrüne Papageiamadine or Ostindischer Nonpareil) (= leek-green parrot-waxbill or East Indian Nonpareil). In one of my old aviculture books, "L'Amateur d'Oiseaux de Volière", I could retrieve the name: "Dans ces dernières années, on a obtenu, en Allemagne, la reproduction du Pape des Prairies. En 1882, il a réussi à élever ses petits chez M.Bargheer à Baselet en, en 1886, chez le lieutenant Hauth." (= In the recent years in Germany the breeding of the "Prairy Pope" has succeeded. In 1882 it raised its young with Mr. Bargheer in Baselet and in 1886 with Lieutenant Hauth.")Returning to the article mentioned above: this Lt. Hauth wrote about his success and disappointing experiences in aviculture (e.g. waxbill eggs in the nesting boxes for House Sparrows in his own garden) in the German magazine "Die Gefiederte Welt" (the Feathered World, ed. Dr. Karl Rusz) in 1886, and part of it is reprinted in Leverkühn's article. The contributions have only Lieutenant z.D. Hauth as signature. The extra information is that Lt. Hauth possessed several aviaries in Potsdam, Germany.About the nomenclatorial value: nihil. A Dutch aviculturist who published two books on Estrildidae, writes on his site that he had possessed several subspecies of the Pin-tailed Parrotfinch in his collection: prasina, coelica and huethi. However, huethi is the name which was given (by whom? when? where?) to the colour variety of Erythrura prasina, in which the red colour of belly and rump is replaced by yellow. This variety is mentioned in HBW15, but is not regionally determined and thus not entitled to a scientific name: there is no subspecies E.prasina hauthi and Spermestes hauthi is just a synonym (colour variety) of E.prasina prasina. (Spermestes is an old generic synonym of Erythrura and some other Estrildidae).In Potsdam I found several persons of the family name Hueth, the oldest being a captain who received a cross of honour as a victim of World War I. Obviously he must have been a lieutenant before being a captain, but I think the army offers no information about personal activity in aviculture . . .That 's all I wanted to communicate. Enjoy the article, if you like, and if you stumble on the name I mentioned, bring it forward, even if my file would be the only in existence to contain that name with some details . . .!Thanks for reading and helping.Jan van der Brugge[There was a topic on family names with prepositions and particles in it (like Mercier and le Mercier). Mine is such one. The elements are: van = of (German: von, French: de), der = of the, in plural (German: der, French: des). I know, it is double: van der, but personal names often are not grammatically correct). Names with these two elements: van de, or: van der, van den, are quite common in Dutch. However, in Belgium the tradition connects these elements to the main part of the name, so my name would be written Vanderbrugge, and would not be catalogued under B, but with the names beginning with V. Some American family names still show this phenomenon: Vandeventer, originally: van Deventer = of (the city of) Deventer. Like: offtopic . . .</blockquote>

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