Sabin Berthelot was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

 and ethnologist. He was resident on the Canary Islands

Canary Islands

The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...

 for part of his life, and co-authored L'Histoire Naturelle des Îles Canaries (1835–50) with Philip Barker Webb

Philip Barker Webb

Philip Barker Webb was an English botanist.Webb, who was born to a wealthy aristocratic family studied languages, botany, and geology at Harrow and Oxford. He collected plants in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and was the first person to collect in the Tetuan Mountains of Morocco...

.

Berthelot was the son of a Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

 merchant. He joined the French Navy

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

 and served as a midshipman during the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

. After the war he joined the merchant fleet, travelling between Marseilles and the West Indies. He first visited the Canary Islands in 1820, where he taught at a school in Tenerife

Tenerife

Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the seven Canary Islands, it is also the most populated island of Spain, with a land area of 2,034.38 km² and 906,854 inhabitants, 43% of the total population of the Canary Islands. About five million tourists visit Tenerife each year, the...

 and managed the botanical gardens at Orotava

Orotava

Orotava is a genus of tephritid or fruit flies in the family Tephritidae....

 for the Marquis of Villanueva del Prato.

Berthelot studied the natural history of the islands. He was joined in this task by Webb in 1828, and by 1830 they had collected sufficient information for publication. They travelled to Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

, and produced the first volume of L'Histoire Naturelle des Îles Canaries in 1835. Berthelot concentrated on the ethnography, history and geography of the islands, with Webb completing the natural history sections. The ornithological section was mainly written by Alfred Moquin-Tandon

Alfred Moquin-Tandon

Christian Horace Benedict Alfred Moquin-Tandon was a French naturalist and doctor.Moquin-Tandon was professor of zoology at Marseille from 1829 until 1833, when he was appointed professor of botany and director of the botanical gardens at Toulouse. In 1850, he was sent by the French government to...

.

In 1845 Berthelot founded the Société d'Ethnologique. In 1846 he returned to Tenerife, and in 1848 was nominated the French consular agent for the island, being promoted to full Consul in 1867. He retired in August 1874, and was given the freedom of the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Santa Cruz de Tenerife is the capital , second-most populous city of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands and the 21st largest city in Spain, with a population of 222,417 in 2009...

.

Berthelot's other publications on the islands included Les Guanaches (1841 and 1845), La Conquète des canaries (1879) and Antiquités Canariennes (1879).

The Berthelot's Pipit

Berthelot's Pipit

The Berthelot’s Pipit is a small passerine bird which breeds in Madeira and the Canary Islands. It is a common resident in both archipelagos....

 (Anthus berthelotii) was named after him by his friend Carl Bolle

Carl Bolle

Carl August Bolle was a German naturalist and collector.Bolle was born at Berlin into a wealthy brewing family. He studied medicine and natural science at Berlin and Bonn...

.

External links

• Gallica Digitised L'Histoire Naturelle des Îles Canaries (1835–50)