Charles-Eusèbe Dionne
Charles-Eusèbe Dionne | |
---|---|
Born | 20 July 1846 AOU |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Natural history, taxidermy |
Institutions | Université Laval |
Charles-Eusèbe Dionne (20 July 1846 – 25 January 1925), also known as Charles Eusebe or C. E. Dionne, was a
Biography
Dionne was born in 1846 to a modest rural family in
At Laval
Dionne travelled to Quebec City in 1865 and, with the help of his cousin Zéphirin, who worked there, found work at the Séminaire de Québec. His predisposition was rapidly noticed and, having benefited from personal teaching sessions with Thomas-Étienne Hamel, he was promoted from cook to a position at Université Laval's (then administrated by the seminary) faculty of law. He became friend with historian and librarian Charles-Honoré Laverdière, and acquired from him scholarly techniques and instinct, all the while developing his knowledge and becoming an admirer of Léon Abel Provancher. He truly began to develop his natural history collections at that time. Unfortunately, his first attempts were of poor quality. It is possible that he acquired the basis for the techniques that would make his later fame from William Couper, a naturalist that resided in Quebec City during that period.
His knowledge in the various fields of natural sciences grew steadily thanks to the studies he did of his specimens, and the volumes he accessed through the university's library. He also followed classes at Laval and the Académie Commerciale of the
Marriage and the zoological museum
Dionne prowled the public markets for specimens, and attracted for himself the nickname of "Dionne l'empailleur" ("Dionne the stuffer"). He came to meet a fellow countryman, Guillaume-Wilfrid Pelletier, brother of his future wife Marie-Émélie, which he married on May 6, 1879; the couple had no children. The couple settled in an apartment on the second flour of Guillaume-Wilfrid's grocery. Dionne would gain further fame by regularly exposing his beautiful pieces in the front window of the store over the following decade. Pelletier, in return for the visibility, helped Dionne in his acquisitions. He died in July 1908.
Dionne's major interests over the course of his career were
Member of the American Ornithologists' Union
In 1889, Dionne completed and published (possibly having been spurred by a dispute with Newfoundland ornithologist
In 1902, Laval granted him an honorary
Dionne died of illness in Quebec City on 25 January 1925, a mere few days after Laval granted him an honorary Doctor of Science degree (he commented of it "They should have waited after my death."). He had had his right leg paralysed for some times after a nasty wound infection in 1919, and this was probably linked to his death.
Written works
Dionne's first major publication was his 1882 Les oiseaux du Canada ("The Birds of Canada"), which he dedicated to Provancher. It replaced a smaller, mostly outdated book published in 1860 by James MacPherson Le Moine. Les oiseaux du Canada, while well received in the French community, received mixed reviews from English-language scholars, particularly Montague Chamberlain, who deplored "its utter worthlessness as an authentic work". The precise amount of personal jealousy (Chamberlain was preparing his own Catalogue of Canadian Birds) and scientific concern (Dionne's work only truly covered Quebec, and used the soon-to-be obsolete classification of Coues) is difficult to assess. Coues himself, according to Dionne, wrote to commend his work.
The year 1902 saw the publication of Les mammifères de la province de Québec ("The Mammals of the Province of Quebec"), which was a commercial success and the first comprehensive French-language books about mammals in the province. Les oiseaux de la province de Québec was his major work and came out in 1906, garnering praise from Quebec and abroad for being up-to-date and comprehensive. It premiered French
In addition to his books, Dionne published a number of papers in
Influence and legacy
Alongside figures like
Provancher named one species of ichneumon after Dionne, Tryphon dionnei, now called Monoblastus dionnei. Dionne's taxidermy work was appreciated and widely distributed, and his observations are important in tracing trends in bird population evolutions over time, such as those of the passenger pigeon. It is possible that he prepared one of the last specimens of the species.
References
- Gaboriault, Victor (1974). Charles-Eusèbe Dionne: Naturaliste, né à Saint-Denis-de-la-Bouteillerie. Cahiers d'histoire, 9. La Pocatière: Société historique de la Côte-du-Sud. OCLC 15752359.
- Ouellet, Henri. "Dionne, Charles-Eusèbe". Dictionary of Canadian Biography online. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
- Duchesne, Raymond. "Dionne, Charles-Eusèbe". The Canadian Encyclopedia online. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
- Lepage, Louise (1995). Information requirements of users of natural science collections in Quebec. Ottawa: Canadian Heritage. pp. 92–93. ISBN 0-660-15731-4. Archived from the originalon 2007-07-24. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
- H.F.L. (April 1925). "Notes and News" (PDF). JSTOR 4074238. Retrieved 2007-09-02.
- Sterling, Keir Brooks (1997). "Dionne, Charles-Eusèbe". Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists. Westport: Greenwood Press. pp. 209–210. ISBN 0-313-23047-1.
- Robert, Michel. "Présentation de Raymond Cayouette lors de la remise du prix Charles-Eusèbe-Dionne" (in French). Club des Ornithologues de Québec. Archived from the original on 2007-03-10. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
- "Distinctions 2005" (in French). Association des biologistes du Québec. Archived from the original on 2007-05-19. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
- Saint-Pierre, Jacques. "La disparition de la tourte" (in French). Encyclobec. Archived from the original on 2007-09-15. Retrieved 2007-09-04.
- "La tourte... hier" (in French). Société de la faune et des parcs du Québec. Archived from the original on 2007-08-28. Retrieved 2007-09-04.