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The Costa Collection of Birds

Authors
J. H. Fleming
Journal
Condor
Volume
21
Issue
1 (January-February)
Year
1919
Pages
39
Section
From Field and Study
Online Text

The Costa Collection of Birds

In The Condor for May, 1918, pages 114-116, Dr. T. S. Palmer has carefully reviewed the early history of Calypte costae, and ends with the phrase, "The Costa collection of hummingbirds, the fate of which is now unknown." Adolphe Boucard in his "Genera of Humming Birds," London, 1893-1895, under Calypte Costae, page 5, states: "This fine species was dedicated to Marquis Costa de Beauregard, who was a very enthusiast[ic] collector, and had in his time one of the finest collection[s] of Humming Birds. I bought his collection in 1878, and I found among many rare species, what I consider as the types, male and female of this species."

Boucard, who was one of the ablest of French ornithologists and the last of the great natural history agents who made Paris their headquarters in the nineteenth century, moved to London I think in 1889, where I frequently saw him in the years 1889-1891, at his natural history agency in High Holborn. He made two notable donations of the greater part of his ornithological collection to the Paris Museum, the first I think in 1895, and the last in 1904, a few months before his death. It is probable the supposed types of Calypte costae were in the first donation, as Boucard had then finished his "Genera of Humming Birds."

In the Atlas, "Voyage de la Fregate Ia Venus," Bourcier's types are figured (Oiseaux, pl. 2, figs. 1, 2), in colors from a painting of the male and female by Oudart.

J. H. Fleming

Toronto, Ontario, October 25, 1918

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