Adolphe Boucard (1839 – 15 March 1905) was a French

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

and trader in specimens who collected extensively in

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

and

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

. He lived in San Francisco between 1851 and 1852, at the height of the California Gold Rush. He concentrated on collecting

hummingbird Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics ar ...

s, sold scientific bird skins to natural history museums, and supplied the plume trade. He collected birds on expeditions to southern Mexico between 1854 and 1867, and many specimens were sold to

P.L. Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological Societ ...

. By 1865 he had become a foreign corresponding member of the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained the London Zoo, and since 1931 Whipsnade Park. History On 29 ...

. In 1891 he moved to London and set up a taxidermist company, ''Boucard, Pottier & Co.'' He published a periodical ''The Hummingbird'' (1891–95), which was stopped shortly after he moved to the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

in 1894, the same year in which he published ''Travels of a Naturalist''. He died at his son's home in Hampstead in 1905.

Taxa named in honor of Boucard

Seven

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

of birds are named after Boucard, including

Boucard's tinamou The slaty-breasted tinamou or Boucard's tinamou (''Crypturellus boucardi'') is a type of tinamou commonly found in lowland moist forests of Mexico and Central America.Clements, J (2007) Taxonomy All tinamou are from the family Tinamidae, and i ...

''Crypturellus boucardi'' (also known as the slaty-breasted tinamou) described in 1859 by

Philip Sclater Philip Lutley Sclater (4 November 1829 – 27 June 1913) was an English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main zoogeographic regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological Societ ...

. A subspecies of lizard, ''Phrynosoma orbiculare boucardii'', was named in his honor by

Auguste Duméril Auguste Henri André Duméril (30 November 1812 – 12 November 1870) was a French zoologist. His father, André Marie Constant Duméril (1774-1860), was also a zoologist. In 1869 he was elected as a member of the Académie des sciences. Dumér ...

and

Marie Firmin Bocourt Marie Firmin Bocourt (19 April 1819 – 4 February 1904) was a French zoologist and artist. As a young man, he worked as a preparateur for the zoologist Gabriel Bibron (1805–1848), later serving as a museum artist. In 1861, he was sent to Tha ...

in 1870;Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Boucard", p. 33). this subspecies is sometimes considered a synonym of '' Phrynosoma orbiculare cortezii''."''Phrynosoma orbiculare'' ". The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.com.

References

Other sources

*Mearns, Barbara; Mearns, Richard (1998). ''The Bird Collectors''. London: Academic Press. 472 pp. . *Rounds, R. Stowell (1990). ''Men and Birds in South America 1492 to 1900''. Fort Bragg, California: Q.E.D. Press. 190 pp. .

External links

''Travels of a Naturalist'' (1894)Zobodat''The Humming Bird'' (1891-1895)
1839 births 1905 deaths French ornithologists {{Ornithologist-stub