[Lastname]'s birds

[Rianne]

Hello all,
I'm a natural history enthusiast and want to collect prints of various bird species discovered by one person in a book binding. In keeping with 19th century traditions, I'd like to use a latin title on the binding, but I'm not sure how to conjugate the person's last name in this context. One problem is that 'birds' is plural, but the personal name forming the possessive is singular. NB: These discoverers are usually males.

Example 1: last name ending in vowel.
English title: Wallace's birds (alternatively: The Birds of Wallace)
Latin title: Aves Wallace**

Example 2: last name ending in consonant
English title: D'Albertis' birds (alternatively: The Birds of D'Albertis)
Latin title: Aves D'Albertis**

Can anyone help fill in the blanks?

Many thanks,
Rianne

 

[Pacifica]

Hello,

For Wallace it would be aves Wallacii or even aves Wallacianae.

For D'Albertis I'm not sure.

 

[Oups]

Often latin names exist in species of bird :
- Drepanornis albertisi (Black-billed sicklebill), so you can use albertisi aves.
- Semioptera wallacii (Wallace’s Standardwing), so you can use wallacii aves

 

[Abbatiſſæ Scriptor]

Normally I would favour keeping the native ſpelling of any ſurname as the nominative ſingular, and treating a final 'e', mute or otherwise, as a variant nominative for the firſt declenſion, on the model of many Greek nouns. If there were already an accepted Latiniſation, however, I would follow precedent.

 

[Aurifex]

In keeping with 19th century traditions, I'd like to use a latin title on the binding.

If you want to keep with 19th century traditions generally, you'll want to specify a few things about the nature of the binding you commission. It's not an easy task to create an authentic-looking period binding, though it need not cost more than not doing so. Apart from being aesthetically more appealing, sensitively made period bindings are worth significantly more at resale than workaday bindings with no pretensions to period authenticity.

 

[Rianne]

My thanks to all who contributed. It seems I can safely follow the declension that is also used for species names, which makes my life a lot easier. In the examples given, that would be:
Aves Wallacii
Aves D'Albertisi (or alternatively: Aves Albertisi)

Abatissae Scriptor:
> Normally I would favour keeping the native ſpelling of any ſurname as the nominative ſingular, and treating a final 'e', mute or otherwise, as a variant nominative for the firſt declenſion, on the model of many Greek nouns. If there were already an accepted Latiniſation, however, I would follow precedent.

The trouble is that there was no clear consensus on Latinisation among the nineteenth-century naturalists who named new species. Thus we have the absurd situation that some birds named after Alfred Wallace have the species name 'wallacei' (e.g. Eulipoa wallacei) and others 'wallacii' (e.g. Aegotheles wallacii). The second variant seems to be the modern preference.