János Xantus

János Xántus (also: Johann Xantus; English: John Xantus; also pseudo- noble : de Csiktapolcza or de Vesey ) (born October 5, 1825 in Csokonya , Somogy county in the Austrian Empire ; † December 13, 1894 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian zoologist . Its scientific author's abbreviation is Xantus .

János Xantus

Life

János Xántus came from a wealthy middle-class family; Xantus acquired the title of nobility "de Vesey" and used different variants of it. Xantus went to Pécs to high school and earned 1841 Győr the Matura . Xantus studied law at the University of Pécs from 1841 to 1845. During the March Revolution of 1848 Xantus supported his compatriot Lajos Kossuth and fought as a captain against the Austrian troops under General Windisch-Graetz . On February 8, 1849, he and his corps were captured and interned in the Königgrätz Fortress in Bohemia, then assigned to a kk regiment as a criminal, but released in July 1850 at the instigation of his relatives. He went to Dresden, where I met again with other revolutionaries. After his return he was arrested in Prague . But he managed to escape and fled via Tetschen, Pirna via Hamburg to London , where he embarked for America in 1851 .

Xantusia henshawi

Xantusia vigilis

In order to earn his living in the USA, he worked a. a. as a bookseller, pharmacist and teacher. But it wasn't until he enlisted as a male nurse in the US Army that the tide turned for the better. There in the military he made the acquaintance of the surgeon William Alexander Hammond , who worked as a collector for the well-known zoologist Spencer Fullerton Baird .

With the support of Hammond, Xantus advanced to the position of assistant surgeon and was also instructed by him in the natural sciences . Over time, he too became a gifted collector. In 1853 he was also the companion of Duke Paul Wilhelm von Württemberg on his expeditions to Texas and from there to the borders of Mexico . But he got yellow fever and stayed in New Orleans for a few months . There the director of the Copenhagen Museum met Count Kroger and made his second trip to the Gulf of Mexico with him. In 1855 the State Department of the USA prepared for an expedition to survey Kansas in which Xantus also took part, who was able to attract the attention of the Smithsonian Institute by submitting various works of natural history, geographic, ethnographic and linguistic content. In 1857 he was commissioned by the Union to conduct a scientific research into southern California, which was previously unknown. This expedition lasted until September 1861, where he stayed at Fort Tejon . Xantus sent large quantities of material not only to Washington but also to Hungary. At the same time, the amnesty of 1861 made it possible for him to return to Hungary. There he was enthusiastically received, appointed a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy and tasked with cataloging his collection. After a long stay in Hungary he returned to his new home, he had already become a citizen of the Union. At first he would become secretary in the naval department.

When Xantus was transferred to the US Consulate in Manzanillo in 1862 , Hammond and Baird supported him with letters of recommendation to pave the way for him as a scientist (he led an expedition to the Sierra Madre ). The political entanglements around the French intervention in Mexico led to the withdrawal of all American consulates and in June 1864 Xantus returned to Hungary.

Politically rehabilitated there and recognized as a natural scientist, he was entrusted in 1864 with the management of the Budapest Zoological Garden, founded in 1862 . He held this office until the end of his life. After working as a consultant for the Hungarian National Museum for a few years , he was appointed custodian of ethnology . In 1869 he accompanied to East Asia on behalf of the Hungarian Ministry of Education. A scandal broke out in Hong Kong: he asked the consul there to take down the sign that read kk Consulate General and replace it with the title Austro-Hungarian Consulate General . He later separated from the expedition in Japan, traveled to the Philippines, Borneo, Sumatra, Java on behalf of the ministry and returned home at the end of 1871 with rich zoological, botanical and ethnographic collections.

From 1872 he was the first director of the Budapest Ethnographic Museum .

Works

He published 12 works in Hungarian, 15 in English, 9 in Spanish, 1 in German and 2 in Latin.

• levelei Ėjszakamerik, digitized version , 1857

• J. Hunfalvy, Johann Xántus' Journey through the California Peninsula , 1858

Dedication names

In the English language the name of the bird Xantus's murrelet (German: Lummenalk ) reminds of him. George Newbold Lawrence named the black-fronted sapphire hummingbird ( Basilinna xantusii ) in his honor . William Brewster honored him in 1902 in the western screech owl subspecies ( Megascops kennicottii xantusi ). He also bequeathed his name to the family of the niggas and some desert plants. In 2016 an asteroid was named after János Xántus: (145593) Xántus .

János Xántus' grave in Budapest on the Kerepesi temető

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Xantus, Johann . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 59th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1890, pp. 50–52 ( digitized version ).
• Xántus , in: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 20. Leipzig 1909, p. 808.
• Manfred Hecker: Janos Xantus and Karl May or On the Trail of a Newspaper Duck . In: Communications from the Karl May Society No. 41/1979, pp. 38–44 and Communications from the Karl May Society No. 42/1979, pp. 42–46. ( Online version of Part I and Part II )
• Henry Miller Madden: Xántus: Hungarian naturalist in the pioneer West . 1949.
• George Newbold Lawrence: Description of three new species of Humming-birds of Genera Heliomaster, Amazilia, and Mellisuga . In: Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York . tape 7 , 1860, p. 107-111 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).

See also

• Xántus János Museum in Győr , named after Xantus since 1951

Web links

Commons : John Xantus de Vesey  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hecker, Manfred: Janos Xantus and Karl May or on the track of a newspaper duck. In: Communications from the Karl May Society . No. 41 1979 pp. 38-44, No. 42 1979, pp. 42-46 [1]
2. ↑ Zoological Garden: Journal for the entire zoo, Volume 5, p.303
3. ↑ Acta Ethnographica, 1978, Volume 27.Page 224
4. ↑ Report of the royal. Hungarian Ministry for Cultus and Education to the Reichstag on the state of public education in the years 1870 and 1871, 1873, p.189 , number of samples supplied by Xantos
5. ↑ George Newbold Lawrence, p. 109.
6. ^ William Brewster, p. 93.