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Cissa hypoleuca jini Delacour, 1930 (1 Viewer)

Taphrospilus

Well-known member
@ Fred: Nothing interesting for you. So don't waste time to read further.


Cissa hypoleuca jini Delacour, 1930 OD L'Oiseau et la revue française d'ornithologie 11(6) : 338

The Eponym Dictionary of Birds
Indochinese Green Magpie ssp. Cissa hypoleuca jini Delacour, 1930
Dr Jin-Kwok-Jung Sun (DNF) was a Chinese scientist. He presented the holotype to the museum at Sun Yat-sen University in Canton (Guangzhou).
I feel the Sun in this name is in fact the university (but I might wrong)

The Key to Scientific Names
Dr Jin Kwok Jung (fl. 1930) of Sun Yat Sen University; no further details available (Delacour 1930) (subsp. Cissa hypoleuca).

Maybe his life dates can be found with some chinese skills? Maybe his name written as 金國貞.
 
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Delacour J. 1930. Note sur la collection de l'Université Sun-Yatsen, à Canton, avec description d'oiseaux nouveaux. L'Oiseau, 11 (6): 337-339.
Repaged separate: here.

Nommé en l'honneur du Dr. Jin-Kwok-Yung, de l'Université Sun-Yatsen, à Canton.

I believe the dedicatee is 任国荣 (pinyin: Ren Guorong), 1907-1987 -- the same person as in the "Yen's Fulvetta" thread here.
 
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Thank you for the OD. I am wondering about the journal. Was it published in Revue d'Histoire naturelle or in l'Oiseaux. The 1930 publication is always hard to find (but maybe just because I am looking for the wrong journal). I understood the merged but the cover gives me the impression it was still Revue d'Histoire naturelle.
 
I'm never clear about what happened in 1930 either. ;)

L'Oiseau was originally published by the Société d'Acclimatation de France, and was from the start presented as a "second part" (ornithological and avicultural) of the "Revue d'histoire naturelle appliquée" published by this society. (Which may have been a way to refer generically to the main publication of the Société d'Acclimatation, the title of which has varied ? The society never published a "first part" of journal actually called "Revue d'histoire naturelle appliquée", but their main journal was titled at some point "Revue des sciences naturelles appliquées".). E.g., see title page of vol. 1: 1, 1920 - Revue d'histoire naturelle appliquée. Deuxième partie. l'Oiseau. - Biodiversity Heritage Library
La Revue Française d'Ornithologie was the journal of the Société Ornithologique de France.
In 1930, these two journals were supposed to have been merged but, as you can see, the wrapper/cover of the separate does not mention the second journal. Also, the volume numbers up to 1930 (11 in 1930) were in the direct continuation of L'Oiseau, not in that of La Revue Française d'Ornithologie.

In 1931, a new series was started, with a new volume 1 of the merged journal, and from there on, things are clear.
 
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The BnF suggests the following history:

1909-1925: Revue française d'ornithologie scientifique et pratique
1925-1928: Revue française d'ornithologie

1920-1928: Revue d'histoire naturelle appliquée. Deuxième partie, Ornithologie, aviculture. = Revue d'histoire naturelle appliquée. Deuxième partie, l'Oiseau.

1929-1930: Revue d'histoire naturelle. Deuxième partie, l'Oiseau et la Revue française d'ornithologie.
1931-1993: L'Oiseau et la Revue francaise d'ornithologie.

Thus the title in 1929-1930 should, in principle, indeed be "Revue d'histoire naturelle. Deuxième partie, l'Oiseau et la Revue française d'ornithologie." Except that separates from 1929-30, as well as, at least, the title page of the first issue of 1929, tell us "Revue d'histoire naturelle. Deuxième partie, l'Oiseau." Without any "Revue française d'ornithologie".
 
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I believe the dedicatee is 任国荣 (pinyin: Ren Guorong), 1907-1987 -- the same person as in the "Yen's Fulvetta" thread here.
In the OD we also find:
La plus grande partie des Oiseaux proviennent du Yao-Shan, massif élevé et boisé de la province du Khouang-Si, resté jusqu'alors complètement inconnu. Ces années dernières, un certairi nombre d'exemplaires ont été adressés à Berlin, au Dr. Stresemann, qui les a étudiés et a décrit quelques formes nouvelles. Les recherches continuent, et j'ai pu découvrir parmi les Oiseaux récemment reçus, deux sous-espèces nouvelles que je décris ci-après.
L'ensemble de ces collections fait le plus grand honneur à M. le Dr S. S. Sin, chargé du laboratoire de zoologie, et du Dr Jin-Kwok-Yung, son assistant, qui s'occupe plus spécialement des Oiseaux et a publié en chinois d'excellentes études.
From the second quote, we know that "Jin-Kwok-Yung" was a doctor, was the assistant of S. S. Sin (Shu Szi Sin = 辛树帜 = Xin Shuzhi, see here) at Sun-Yatsen, was working specifically with birds, and had already published excellent studies in Chinese. (He was thus clearly not an outsider who would incidentally have obtained a bird specimen and would have presented it to a museum, this having been his one and only interaction with the ornithological spheres.)

That Xin Shuzhi was the mentor of Ren Guorong (a.k.a. Yen Kwok-Yung) can easily be found in Chinese sources.
Ren Guorong is known to have collected birds in the Yaoshan, Guangxi, in the late 1920s (see his Baidu Baike page). In the early 30s, Ren Guorong went to Europe, where, in 1933-34, he published a long multi-part work in L'Oiseau et La Revue française d'ornithologie, as "K. Y. Yen", titled "Les oiseaux du Kwangsi".
In the first part of this paper, he explained:
Le nombre total des formes d'oiseaux du Yaoschan dépasse 300 et certaines lui sont propres.
Dans cet article, nous mentionnons 328 espèces et sous-espèces d'oiseaux ; la plupart des spécimens ont été collectés par moi-même au Yaoschan et dans les plaines du Kwangsi. Parmi ces 328 formes, une vingtaine ont été décrites récemment comme nouvelles par M. Delacour, par le Dr Stresemann et par moi-même, et beaucoup d'autres considérées autrefois comme propres au Fohkien et au Kwangtung, ou à l'Indochine, y sont représentées, indiquant les relations de la faune de la Chine méridionale avec celle d'Indochine.
In the last part of this paper, he listed the green magpie, citing specifically the type series, and insisting on the fact that this represented the first record of a Cissa magpie for mainland China:
326. Cissa concolor Jini Delacour.
L'Oiseau, XI, n° 6, 1930, p. 338: Yaoschan, Kwangsi.
1 ♂ (type), 2 ♀, 1 spécimen (sexe ?) ad., 1er juillet 1928; 19 mai 1929; Yaoschan. — Aile: ♂ 145. mm. ; ♀ 142 mm. ; spécimen (sexe ?), 145 mm.
Cette forme se distingue nettement de la forme typique Cissa concolor concolor Del. et Jab. de Phuqui (Indochine), par son aile plus- courte (142-145 mm. contre 160 mm.), par son bec moins fort et par son ton général plus vert et moins jaunâtre, surtout aux parties inférieures.
Au Yaoschan, nous n'avons trouvé cet oiseau que dans les grandes forêts, de 1.000 à 2.000 mètres d'altitude. Il est très craintif, et sauvage, ne se laissant jamais observer par le collecteur; aussi, ne savons-nous rien de ses habitudes.
C'est la première fois qu'on a signalé le genre Cissa sur le territoire continental de la Chine ; pourtant nous en connaissions déjà un représentant dans l'île de Haïnan, Cissa Katsumatæ Rothschild.

Note also that the discovery of Arborophila gingica sini, the other taxon described as new in the same paper as Cissa hypoleuca jini where the name "Jin-Kwok-Yung" was used, was subsequently explicitly attributed to "M[onsieur] Yen" by Delacour in a review of La Touche's Handbook of the birds of eastern China: here. (This subspecies was of course also cited by Yen (= Ren) in his 1933-34 paper here, also with an explicit reference to the type.)

is rendered as "Rèn" in pinyin, but as "Jen" in the Wade-Giles system, and is phonetically not very far from "Jin", as might be pronounced by a French speaker.
I just can't believe there were two "Kwok-Yung" involved in the above situation, one of them called "Yen" and easily identiable, the other called "Jin" and appearing only in Delacour's OD...
 
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