Lionel William Wiglesworth

Lionel William Wiglesworth (born February 13, 1865 - † June 7, 1901 in Suva , Viti Levu , Fiji ) was a British ornithologist .

Life

Wiglesworth's father, James L. Wiglesworth, was the curator of Hanslope-with-Castlethorpe in Buckinghamshire . As a child, Lionel William Wiglesworth was a passionate bird watcher and egg collector. He was trained at Trinity School in Old Stratford . After his father's death in 1882, his inclinations were nurtured by an uncle and an aunt. In 1889 he went to Braunschweig , where he pursued a two-year ornithology course under the direction of Professor Wilhelm Blasius . In 1891 he became Adolf Bernhard Meyer's assistant in the ornithological department of the Museum für Tierkunde Dresden . Wiglesworth's long-cherished goal was to undertake ornithological expeditions to the islands of the Pacific. He then sent a request to the Committee for the Zoological Exploration of the Sandwich Islands in Hawaii , which was rejected. It wasn't until 1900 that he was given the opportunity to go overseas, and in November 1900 he left England, where he had returned at the end of the 19th century, with the aim of studying the avifauna of the less explored islands of Polynesia. On the recommendation of Walter Buller , Philip Lutley Sclater and other professionals, he started in Fiji. Soon after arriving there, and in the course of his first voyage across the main island of Viti Levu , he had a serious attack of dysentery from which he had barely recovered before a second attack knocked him down. A medical advisor recommended that he leave Viti Levu as soon as possible and seek medical treatment in New Zealand. But it was already too late for that. Wiglesworth died on June 7, 1901, at the age of 36.

Together with Adolf Bernhard Meyer Wiglesworth described several species of birds, including the Olivflanken-Dickkopf ( Hylocitrea bonensis ), the Celebeshonigfresser ( Myza celebensis ), the Celebeslaubsänger ( phylloscopus sarasinorum ), the Talaudzwergfischer ( Ceyx sangirensis ), the dark chin-Fruchttaube ( Ptilinopus subgularis ) the Banggai fruit pigeon ( Ramphiculus subgularis ), the Lompobattang fruit pigeon ( Ramphiculus meridionalis ) and the Sulawesibrillenvogel ( Zosterops anomalus ).

Wiglesworth published two books: Aves polynesiae: a catalog of the birds of the Polynesian subregion (1891) and, together with Adolf Bernhard Meyer, the two-volume work The birds of Celebes and the neighboring islands (1898).

Dedication names

In 1902 Ernst Hartert described the subspecies Anthreptes malacensis wiglesworthi of the brown-throated nectar bird . 1931 honored Ernst Mayr Wiglesworth the epithet of the subspecies Clytorhynchus vitiensis wiglesworthi of Fiji Strangler Monarchs .

literature

• Obituary: Lionel William Wiglesworth In Ibis, Volume 43, Issue 4, October 1901, pp. 751-752.
• News: Obituary Lionel William Wiglesworth In: Anton Reichenow (Hsg): Ornithological monthly reports. 9th year, December 1901, No. 12, p. 188.