Mon ami aimé Aimé (1 Viewer)

[janvanderbrugge]

One of the subspecies of the Red Munia, or Avadavat, Amandava amandava punicea, has the name decouxi for a synonym. It was given by Delacour & Jabouille in 1929, for M. A.Decoux. (M for Monsieur, as so often) The HBW Key listed the name with: Aimé Decoux (fl. 1950), French aviculturist.
I wondered about the given difference in years, so I checked the name in aviculture. Well, like Delacour himself, Decoux was not just an aviculturist, but the owner of an impressive collection of exotic bird species and thorough knowledge.

He died in October 1960 at the age of 72 at his country home Géry, at Aix-sur-Vienne, near Limoges, France (so must have been born in 1888). He was a friend of Jean Delacour, who wrote the obituary for "One of the doyens of European aviculture" in Avicultural Magazine, Vol.LXVII, Jan.1961-Dec.1961, p.109, and of two late Presidents of the Avicultural Society: Rev. Hubert Delaval Astley (the one of Leiothrix lutea astleyi) and Alfred Aaron Ezra (the one of Aethopyga nipalensis ezrai). Astley died in 1925, Ezra in 1955.

For the polyglot-minded:
I know hardly a handful of Hindi words, but I now use ''namasté" instead of handshaking, and I knew the words "lāl" = red and "nīl" = blue. The Red Munia is called Lāl Munya or just Lāl in India, and ''nīl" is in the name Nīlgai for the Blue Antilope, which in Dutch has got the silly name Nijlgau, as if the name was derived from the German word Nil for the Nile River (in Dutch: Nijl, we say Nijlpaard = Nile-horse for hippopotamus). By the way, the Avadavat has the names Tijgervink and Tigerfink in Dutch and German, but it has no stripes, it has white dots. There is also a Tijgerlelie (Tiger Lily) in Dutch gardens, orange with black dots all over, not any stripe in sight . . . Fortunately the big yellow-and-black striped Spider which came to Holland from southern Europe, is called Tijgerspin or Wespspin (wesp = wasp), so there is some progress in citizen-science!

Enjoy my entry; if this is not what you were looking for, try something else (Search Forums to: decouxi)
Jan van der Brugge

 

[Taphrospilus]

According his birth record:

Aimé Joseph Alexandre Decoux born 7. August 1889 in Géry and died 25. September 1960.

Archive en ligne Aixe-sur-Vienne 3 E 1 / 18 p. 186 of 278 entry 52.

I assume the Link wouldn't work.

But go to http://archives.haute-vienne.fr/r/12/archives-en-ligne/ => État civil => Select Commune as Aix-sur-Vienne => Select Période 1887 à 1889 => Select Type de Acte Naissance => Click Rechercher => Open the record.

At at certain stage you have to confirm that you accept the terms/conditions to of archive en ligne.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

• the invalid (Red) Avadavat ssp. "Amandava amandava decouxi" DELACOUR & JABOUILLE 1928 (here): "Named in honour of M. A. Decoux."

Monsieur Aimé Decoux's Obituary, written by the same Delacour, in The Avicultural magazine 67, No.3 (1961), here, Member of the (British) Avicultural Society, since 1917 (here).

He's also mentioned in Jean Delacour's autobiography The Living Air (1966), here (Snippet view only).

Who he was? I haven't got a clue. I'd never heard of him prior to this thread.

/B


PS. Re. Martin's found Birth Record (if hard to access?); see attached JPG.

As required: Document kept at the Departmental Archives of the Haute-Vienne (see: http://archives.haute-vienne.fr/s/1/etat-civil/resultats/), [accessed 16th of May 2020];
"Pour toute précision sur la Licence ouverte 2.0, vous pouvez vous référer au site Internet d’Etalab www.etalab.gouv.fr."
--

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

As I happened to find it, an additional quote:

... I have been the pupil and friend of exceptional men who have been as much aviculturists as ornithologists Firstly, M. Aimé Decoux, licenciate of Medieval English Literature, and also a great ornithologist and able aviculturist. He published many articles and participated in the famous treatise “Aviculture”, in three volumes, under the direction of Dr. Delacour. Now dead, he taught me to appreciate and to breed the most difficult birds during the last thirty years. He devoted his entire fortune to them and he died almost in poverty having given everything to his birds. He is devoutly thanked for this.
...

Dr. H. Quinque​

From The Avicultural magazine 88 (No.3), 1982, here.

Enjoy!

/B

 

[Taphrospilus]

In Die Gefiederte Welt either Vol 130 or 131 we can find about Henry Quinque:

Des Weiteren lernte er von Aimé Decoux und Dr. Etienne Beraut, die beide private Tiersammlungen besaßen. Vor Jahrzehnten kauften Dr. Henry und Lily Quinque das Anwesen in Le Mesnil-Aubry und bauten es sukzessive aus, bis der Garten und die Tierhäuser ihre heutige Form und Größe zeigten. Es war ein Glück, dass Lily, die Frau von Henry Quinque, die Tierund Pflanzenliebe ihres Mannes teilte. So unterstützte sie ihn in allen Belangen, half ihm bei der Betreuung der Tiere und überblickte stets die einmalige Sammlung.

He is as well mentioned in Tōri, Vol. 7 or 8 p. 254 here (but not to read at least for me).

P.S. The Eponym Dictionary of Birds once again wrong with his death 1961.

 

[l_raty]

He is as well mentioned in Tōri, Vol. 7 or 8 p. 254 here (but not to read at least for me).

Free access at https://doi.org/10.3838/jjo1915.8.38_254
But it doesn't seem to add anything significant. It's in a report (in Japanese) by Kuroda on museums and zoological gardens of Europe and America he visited in 1928. So far as I understand, Kuroda apparently shared an evening with Delacour and Decoux in Paris.

M. Aimé Decoux [中部佛國Gery pres Aixe, Hte Vienneに數百の小禽を飼養せる人]

Which I think (!) means something like "M. Aimé Decoux (a person who raises hundreds of small birds at "Gery pres Aixe, Hte Vienne", in the centre of the country)".

 

[janvanderbrugge]

Laurent,
In my opinion you deserve a RATIfication for Japanese translations, BANZAI + arigato !!!
I never got beyond composing a number of haiku's (in Dutch) for a haiku collection, which I organized for the Christmas newsletter (inviting the colleague volunteers to compose some) of the local museum. There were no birds in it, I think (just angels, as flying objects).
Cheers, Jan van der Brugge