Talk:Scissor-tailed kite

Temminck 1821 and 1824
Illustration with description in French, in Nouveaux recueil des planches coloriées.

Temminck notes "M. Vieillot dedicated this species to Count Riocour, first president in the Royal Court of Nancy, and possessor of a beautiful collection of birds"

Pelagic (talk) 19:29, 6 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Sharpe dated this publication to 1824,, but A. P. Peters (citing Dickinson) dates the plates to 1821, giving priority to Temminck over Vieillot. (The plates were issued in livraison separately, prior to the text.) Pelagic (talk) 17:44, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Comte de Riocour

 * I've been trying to find more information on this Count Riocour, but the closest I have come is Antione, his son the son of the first president according to French Wikipedia.
 * Though here we have "Boys de Riocour (du), (olim Dubois et du Bois de Riocourt) anobli en 1622, comte en 1763, Lorraine"
 * Pelagic (talk) 01:07, 16 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Curiouser? Antoine Nicolas François (1761–1841), son of Antoine François (m. 1756), son of Nicolas Joseph, son of Antoine II, son of Nicolas.
 * Does that “(51)” mean AF was 51 years old when he married? In that case, he wouldn't have been alive in 1821, but ANF was 60.  It's conceivable that he was not made Comte until after producing a son; less likely that the two-year-old son was made a count in 1763.  Did Vieillot name the bird for the dead father (the first Count) of the then-current (second) Count?
 * On the other hand, I got hold of a copy of The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names, and it says (p. 336) the epithet riocourii is in honour of Antoine junior, giving his year of death as 1856 rather than 1841.
 * Pelagic (talk) 11:46, 20 April 2016 (UTC)


 * There's no annotation on that site that Antoine Nicolas François du Bois was actually Comte, though his nephew Antoine Louis François Joseph de Coudenhove (1780–1856, note year of death) is denoted thus. (Where I wrote “second count” above, I was just assuming the title passed to the son.)
 * It does say that Antoine François was "1er président de la Chambre des comptes de Lorraine", agreeing with fr wiki and with Lesson.
 * Pelagic (talk) 12:46, 20 April 2016 (UTC)