James Ellsworth De Kay
James Ellsworth De Kay ( born October 12, 1792 in Lisbon, Portugal, † November 21, 1851 in Oyster Bay, New York, wrote often DeKay ) was an American zoologist.
Life
De Kay was born in Portugal as son of a wealthy American sea captain and an Irish woman. At fourteen he was an orphan, but blessed with a considerable inheritance. 1807-12 he studied at Yale College, the study ended, but without a degree. He later continued his studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where he in 1819 finally received his Doctor of Medicine. Back in America, he specialized in but not on medicine but on natural history and was one of the leading figures of the Natural History Society of New York, the Lyceum of Natural History. He was also involved in the literary circles of New York and wrong with knickers as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and especially his Schwippschwager Joseph Rodman Drake and his bosom friend Fitz- Greene Halleck. In 1837 he was a founding member of the Authors Club, a literary club, the pre ate Washington as President, Keck Hall as Vice President.
In 1821 he married Janet Eckford, a daughter of shipbuilder Henry Eckford. After this had been awarded the contract to build a frigate for the fleet of the Ottoman Empire, De Kay sailed with his father to ship transfer to Turkey, where he remained one year. Upon his return to America - Eckford died 1832 in Constantinople Opel - published De Kay 1833 his travel impressions as Sketches of Turkey in 1831 and 1832 by an American. He drew in a very benevolent image of the Ottoman Empire and brought the American philhellenes on against him. Particular attention was his descriptions of Asiatic cholera. As an effective remedy against this infectious disease propagated De Kay port wine, which meant that this briefly a New York fashion drink was. It has thus often served at New York bar as Dr. DeKay.
De Kay's greatest service he rendered as part of the Geological Survey of New York, a review of the geology, but also the fauna and flora of New York, commissioned by the state legislature in 1835 in order. De Kay was renamed as editor of the zoological volumes. The five-volume Zoology of New - York; or, the New York Fauna appeared 1842-44, an expanded catalog 1851 Catalogue of the Cabinet of Natural History of the State of New York and of the Historical and Antiquarian Collection Annexed Thereto. De Kay was limited in the choice of species is presented not on the fauna of New York, but took even all animal species that occur in the United States, such as the endemic Florida manatee. Overall, the list of cataloged by De Kay species comprised approximately 1,600 entries; only a few, as described for example in the blind cave fish Amblyopsis spelaea, 1842 by De Kay basis of a museum specimen as Amblyopsis spelaeus, as well as the fossil trilobites Isotelus gigas (1824), De Hay trading as describer.