Darwin Correspondence Project

Galician (Spanish) physician, naturalist, and zoologist. Studied medicine in Madrid and Santiago; MD 1861. Taught natural history, physics, and chemistry at the Institute of A Coruña, 1863–4. Practised medicine in Ferrol at the Hospital da Marina, 1864–9. Married Francisca Riobóo Alvarez (1834–1919) in 1869, after which he lived in A Coruña. His taxonomic research focused on amphibians and reptiles. Later found to have plagiarised other authors in his ornithological work and to have altered dates in order to claim priority. A secretary of the first international Congress of Zoology, Paris 1889.