Lionel de Nicéville

Who was Lionel de Nicéville?

Charles Lionel Augustus de Nicéville was a curator at the Indian Museum in Calcutta. He studied the butterflies of South Asia and wrote a three volume monograph on the butterflies of India, Pakistan, Burma and Sri Lanka.

Born in a noble Huguenot family, his father was a physician. He was educated at St. John's College at Hurstpierpoint near Brighton. Leaving England for India in 1870, de Nicéville became a clerk in a government office but from at least 1881, devoted all of his spare time to entomology. He worked with most 'Indian' entomologists of the day but especially with Henry John Elwes, Taylor, Wood–Mason, Martin and Marshall. At this time, he made several trips to Sikkim. In 1887 he made a trip to the Baltistan glaciers along with John Henry Leech. He made collections on these trips and wrote a series of papers in the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal and in 1890 the results were summarised in the Gazetteer of Sikhim in which G. A Gammie and De Niceville recorded about 631 species of butterflies found in Sikkim. Also included were butterflies found in Darjeeling, Buxa and Bhutan, areas contiguous with Sikkim state