JACQUES AMAND

DESLONOCHAMPS  ELIDES- (1794-1867), French naturalist and palaeontologist, was born at Caen in Normandy on the 17th of January 1794 . His parents, though poor, contrived to give him a good education, and he studied medicine in his native town to such good effect that in 1812 he was appointed assistant-surgeon in the navy, and in 1815 surgeon assistant major to the military hospital of Caen . Soon after-wards he proceeded to Paris to qualify for the degree of doctor of surgery, and there the researches and teachings of Cuvier attracted his attention to subjects of natural history and palaeontology . In 1822 he was elected surgeon to the board of relief at Caen, and while he never ceased to devote his energies to the duties of this post, he sought relaxation in geological studies . Soon he discovered remains of Teleosaurus in one of the Caen quarries, and he became an ardent palaeontologist . He was one of the founders of the museum of natural history at Caen, and acted as honorary curator; he was likewise one of the founders of the Societe linneenne de Normandie (1823), to the transactions of which society he communicated papers on Teleosaurus, Poekilopleuron (Megalosaurus), on Jurassic mollusca and brachiopoda . In 1825 he became professor of zoology to the faculty of sciences, and in 1847, dean . He died on the 17th of January 1867 . His son EUGENE EUDES-DESLONGCHAMPS (183o-1889), French palaeontologist, was born in 183o . He succeeded his father about the year 1856 as professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences at Caen, and in 1861 he became also professor of geology and dean . After the death of his father in 1867, he devoted himself to the completion of a memoir on the Teleosaurs: the joint labours being embodied in his Prodrome des Teleosauriens du Calvados . To the Societe Linneenne de Normandie he contributed memoirs on Jurassic brachiopods, on the geology of the department of La Manche (1856), of Calvados (1856-1863), on the Terrain callovien (1859), on Nouvelle-Caledonie (1864), and Etudes sur les etages jurassiques inferieurs de la Normandie (1864) .

His

work Le Jura normand was issued in 1877–1878 (incomplete) . He died at Chateau Matthieu, Calvados, on the 21st of December 1889 .