John David Digues La Touche (5 June 1861

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...

– 6 May 1935,

Majorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

(at sea)) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

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 ...

, naturalist, and

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

. October, 1935 issue. La Touche's career was as a customs official in China. The La Touche family was of

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

extraction, however John David Digues La Touche was educated at

Downside Abbey Downside Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in England and the senior community of the English Benedictine Congregation. Until 2019, the community had close links with Downside School, for the education of children aged eleven to eighteen. Both t ...

, near

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

. He entered the

Imperial Maritime Customs Service The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a Chinese governmental tax collection agency and information service from its founding in 1854 until it split in 1949 into services operating in the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in the People's Republ ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in 1882 where he lived until 1921. He retired to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

and later lived in County Wicklow

Newtownmountkennedy Newtownmountkennedy () is a small town in County Wicklow, Ireland. It developed within the historic townland of Ballygarny () (now Mount Kennedy Demesne), although all that remains is a motte where a church, graveyard and a castle or tower hous ...

. During his time in China, he made extensive ornithological observations and collections, resulting in many important publications. Notably, he wrote the ''A Handbook of the Birds of Eastern China'', consisting of two volumes and altogether ten parts that were published in 1925–1934 (

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa ...

, London). He also made other collections, including reptiles and amphibians. La Touche's free-tailed bat and

La Touche's mole La Touche's mole (''Mogera latouchei'') is a species of mammal in the family Talpidae. It is found in eastern China and parts of northern Vietnam. It is named after Irish naturalist John David Digues La Touche. It was formerly considered a subs ...

are named after him. A species of Chinese snake, '' Opisthotropis latouchii'', is named in his honour. Also, a genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s from China (belonging to the family

Gentianaceae Gentianaceae is a family of flowering plants of 103 genera and about 1600 species. Etymology The family takes its name from the genus '' Gentiana'', named after the Illyrian king Gentius. Distribution Distribution is cosmopolitan. Characteri ...

) was named in honour of La Touche and his wife, with the Latin

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of ''fokienensis'' (of the species) referring to La Touche's wife, née Caroline Dawson Focken (c. 1871 – c. 1945).

Works

*
Further Notes on the Birds of the Province of Fohkien in South-east China
' (1917)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:La Touche, John David Digues La Touche, John Davis Digues Irish people of French descent 1861 births 1935 deaths 19th-century Irish people