[ORNITHOLOGY]. Louis Pierre VIEILLOT (1748-1830), French orn - Lot 42

Lot 42
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[ORNITHOLOGY]. Louis Pierre VIEILLOT (1748-1830), French orn - Lot 42
[ORNITHOLOGY]. Louis Pierre VIEILLOT (1748-1830), French ornithologist. Set of 8 documents. Stamps from the collection of the Comte de Riocour. Very interesting scientific correspondence on ornithology. - Correspondence of 6 signed autograph letters and one autograph bill, addressed to Comte de RIOCOUR, ornithologist and bird collector. Paris and s.l. 1818 to 1830, the year of his death. 13 pp. in-4 and in-8 and 1 p. in-12 oblong. Extensive ornithological correspondence. April 21, 1818: Vieillot details lists of birds he has bought, received and is researching; birds from Senegal that arrived by boat in Le Havre (Senegal magpie different from the breech magpie; he awaits Riocour's description: aren't the uncovered nostrils closer to the magpie?); an error between the mottled turtle-dove and the pearl-naped turtle-dove "not described in Buffon" but in Les Voyages de Sonnerat [naturalist and explorer Pierre Sonnerat (1748-1814)]"; he criticizes ornithologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck, (1778-1858) at length: "this presumptuous [...] wants to give a sequel to Buffon. It will be a caricature, because he thinks he's a second Buffon"; discovery of eight new species, some of which are questionable: "I wouldn't be surprised if he had gone to Siberia to find them, in order to place them in Europe", etc. Departure of naturalist and explorer Pierre Antoine Delalande (1787-1828) "for the Indies" [with his nephew, ornithologist Jules Verreaux]; price of certain bird specimens, etc. - October 18, 1820: brown stork, male francolin, ring-necked pheasants, "Kakatoes" with red crest "but this one has all the lower parts undone feather by feather", white heron well described by Buffon "with yellow beak and black feet" with long description of the adult heron's winter plumage, a lammergeier, etc. Vieillot then claims a decoration through his correspondent "for the christening of his Highness the Duke of Bordeaux" and justifies himself "My travels and expenses for the progress of Natural History and my works on ornithology give me, as I believe, some right to a decoration [...]"; he evokes Cuvier, etc. To be studied. - one signed piece with autograph apostille. Sotteville-Lès-Rouen, July 5, 1829. 3 pp. in-4. Long list of Vieillot's travels (Americas and West Indies) and works (Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique septentrionale [Desray, 1807-1808]; Histoire naturelle des plus beaux oiseaux chanteurs de la zone torride; Histoire naturelle des oiseaux dorés; Système de l'ornithologie; etc.). Vieillot, "burdened with infirmities & threatened with absolute blindness", asks "His Majesty" for a pension. This document obviously never left Count de Riocour's desk. [There is an inventory entitled Catalogue des oiseaux composant le cabinet de M. le Cte de Riocour [Davis du Boys], à Aulnois (Nancy, Barbier 1829), under number S24735 at the BnF. And a catalog containing the 1763 species in the collection of Comte Antoine Nicolas François de Riocour (Imprimerie Paul Bousrez, Tours, 1889)].
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