Somogyi Múzeumok Közleményei 3. (1978)

Természettudomány - Keve András: Xántus János az ornitológus

XÁNTUS JÁNOS AZ ORNITHOLÓGUS 525 JÁNOS (JOHN) XÁNTUS, THE ORNITHOLOGIST So much has already been written about J. Xántus (1825-1894) that there is little new to be said about his life and his activities. His role in ornithology, however, has not been clearly described. What Xántus did in bird study was criticized by Nelson (1899) who stated that Xántus had never visited the Très Marias Islands, by Belding (1900) who wrote that he could not have been in the Victoria Mountains, and by Grinnell (1928) who believed that two specimens of auks could not have been taken in Southern California. Harris (1934) and Hume (1942), who both wrote biographies of ornithologists, gave the history of his life. Madden (1949) also found some data in Xántus's letters to Baird which did not correspond with other documents concerning the localities where Xántus was at the time. But all these data are still very sparse. The important question of when Xántus began to collect has only obscure answers. Xántus wrote that, in 1853, near New Orleans, he worked for Prince Paul of Württemberg, and he mentioned later in his letters the name of Prince Paul; but were both men in New Orleans at the same time? It has already been established that in 1854 Xántus collected birds near New Buda (now Davis City) in Iowa. From this area of collecting there are still some specimens in the museum of Budapest; this shows his altruistic work on behalf of the Hungarian National Museum. Xántus must have learned taxidermy before he met Dr. W. A. Hammond, for without this skill he could hardly call the attention of the latter to his ability in collecting specimens in natural history. His biographers have been unable to state from whom he learned taxidermy, but Németh's novel, in which most data are not correct (1959), claims that he learned it from his father in Hungary. At any rate, at Fort Riley (Kansas) in 1855, the surgeon of the post, Dr. Hammond, who had worked for the Smithsonian Institution, took notice of Xántus and recommended him to S. F. Baird, Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. This was the first step in the career of Xántus as a naturalist and ornithologist. The places were Xántus collected were Fort Riley (Kansas) 1855—57, Fort Tejon (Southern California) 1857-59. Cape San Lucas (Baja California) 1859-61, Manzanillo and Colima (Western Mexico) 1862-64. These materials were published by Xántus (1859), by Baird (1860), and by Lawrence (1874). The major part of these collections, in which were some thousand birds, is now in the possession of the National Museum in Washington; to Budapest Xántus sent 824 skins and 140 clutches (Keve-Sámuel, 1969), and the schools in Győr, Debrecen and Kolozsvár also received birds from him. The specimens in Budapest show that Xántus was not always precise in labeling, and the date of collecting is missing. From the letters to Baird (Madden) we learn that Xántus also exchanged specimens with Gruber, the naturalist in San Francisco, and in Mexico various people helped him in his collecting. If the specimens are not exactly labeled, it may have occurred during transport and packing that some labels could have been mixed with others, thus causing the material to lose its value. Madden (1949) also found that Xántus had made ecological notes in his letters to Baird, butthesewere never published and, for example, in the case of the California condor, it could not be verified (Bent 1931). Many of the bird skins, nevertheless, were used in different studies by Coues, Baird, Lawrence, Ridgway, et al., and even in Brewer's great book on oology over 3000 eggs were used from the Xántus collections (Madden). The catalogues of Corry, Hellmayr, and Conover (1918-49) and Deignan (1961) show the following new taxons, zoogeographically of great importance (Baird): 1. Nectris amaurosoma Coues, 1864 = Puffinus griseus (Gm.) 1789. 2. Puffinus opisthomelas Coues, 1864 = Puffinus opisthomelas Coues, 1864. 3. Oceanodroma towsendi Ridgway, 1893 = Ocean od roma m. mêla nia (В p.), 1854. 4. Halocyptema microsoma Coues, 1864 = Halocyptema microsoma Coues, 1864. 5. Buteo borealis var, lucasanus Ridgway, 1874 = Buteo jamaicensis borealis (Gm.), 1788. 6. Buteo magnirostris xantusii Van Rossem, 1939 = Buteo magnirostris xantusii Van Rossem, 1939. 7. Falco sparverius peninsularis Mearens, 1892 = Falco sparverius peninsularis Mearens, 1892. 8. Brachyrhampihus hypoleucus Xantus, 1859 = Brachyrhymphus hypoleucus Xántus, 1859. 9. Chamaepelia passerina var. pallescens Baird, 1860 = Columbigallina passerina pallescens (Baird), 1860.