Étienne Mulsant

Who was Étienne Mulsant?

Martial Étienne Mulsant was a French entomologist and ornithologist.

Initially employed in commerce, Mulsant wrote writes Lettres à Julie sur l'entomologie, suivies d'une description méthodique de la plus grande partie des insectes de France, ornées de planches… dedicated to his future wife, Julie Ronchivole. In 1817, he became mayor of Saint-Jean-la-Bussière, where his parents had property. In 1827 he became, following his father and grandfather, a Justice of the Peace. He settled in Lyon in 1830 and in 1839, he obtained a post of assistant librarian then, in 1843, a post of professor of natural history in a college; a post he occupied until 1873.

In 1840, he published Histoire naturelle des Coléoptères de France, with various other entomologists : Antoine Casimir Marguerite Eugène Foudras and Claudius Rey, his former pupil. He also had as pupils Francisque Guillebeau and Valéry Mayet. With Jean Baptist Édouard Verreaux, he wrote Histoire naturelle des punaises de France, between 1865 to 1879. He also published school texts on zoology and geology. He was, for many years, President of la Société linnéenne de Lyon. He was also interested in birds, publishing several studies and taking part in the work of the commission on hunting small birds. In 1868, he wrote Lettres à Julie sur l'ornithologie, a splendid work on the “oiseaux-mouches de 1874 à 1877”. The hummingbird of Mulsant, Acestrura mulsanti, was named for him by Jules Bourcier in 1842. Mulsant and Bourcier were the authors of original descriptions of many new species.