Claude Marie Jules Bourcier (19 February 1797 – 9 March 1873) was a French naturalist and expert on

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 aro ...

s.Prosopo
''Sociétés savantes de France''. Bourcier was born in Cuisery,

Saône-et-Loire Saône-et-Loire (; Arpitan: ''Sona-et-Lêre'') is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the rivers Saône and Loire, between which it lies, in the country's central-eastern part. Saône-et-Loire is Bo ...

. He was the mayor of Millery, Rhône from 1832 to 1837, and he was the French consul to

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

from 1849 to 1850. In 1857, he became a corresponding member of the ''Société linnéenne de Lyon''. Bourcier named a number of new hummingbird species, either alone or with other ornithologists, such as

Adolphe Delattre (Pierre) Adolphe Delattre (or De Lattre) (12 February 1805, Tours – 3 January 1854, Nice) was a French ornithologist. Between 1831 and 1851 he made several expeditions to America, where he was particularly interested in collecting hummingbird ...

and Martial Etienne Mulsant. The following hummingbird species bear his name: * Colibri de Bourcier (''Polyonymus caroli''), described by Bourcier in 1847; *'' Phaethornis bourcieri'', described by

René Primevère Lesson René (''born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus. René is the masculine form of the name (Renée being the feminine ...

in 1832. A species of South American snake, '' Saphenophis boursieri'', was named in his honor by

Giorgio Jan ''Tantilla'' is a large genus of harmless New World snakes in the family Colubridae. The genus includes 66 species, which are commonly known as centipede snakes, blackhead snakes, and flathead snakes.Wilson, Larry David. 1982. Tantilla. ...

in 1867. The terrestrial mollusk genus

Bourciera ''Bourciera'' is a genus of neotropical terrestrial gastropod mollusks or land snails in the family Helicinidae. All species in the genus have an operculum. In 1907, an attempt was made to rename the genus ''Pseudhelicina'', sometimes corr ...

was named after him, based on specimens he collected for Louis Pfeiffer. He died in

Batignolles Batignolles () is a neighbourhood of Paris, part of its 17th arrondissement. The neighbourhood is bounded on the south by the Boulevard des Batignolles, on the east by the Avenue de Clichy, on the north by Rue Cardinet and on the west by the Ru ...

, Paris, in 1873.

Publications

*''Descriptions de nouvelles espèces d'oiseaux-mouches'', 1839 (with Martial Étienne Mulsant &

Jules Verreaux Jules Pierre Verreaux (24 August 1807 – 7 September 1873) was a French botanist and ornithologist and a professional collector of and trader in natural history specimens. He was the brother of Édouard Verreaux and nephew of Pierre Antoine Dela ...

) *''Collection typique d'oiseaux mouches (Trochilidés)'', 1874 (posthumous)Google Books
(publications).

Sources

*Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael (2003). ''Whose Bird?: Men and women commemorated in the common names of birds''. London: Christopher Helm. 400 pp. .

References

1797 births 1873 deaths French ornithologists People from Saône-et-Loire {{ornithologist-stub