French ornithologist, taxidermist and dealer of natural history objects. Along with his brother, Edouard Verreaux, Jules Verreaux worked for the family business, Maison Verreaux. Established in Paris in 1803 by their father, taxidermist Jacques Philippe Verreaux, the company was in the 19th century the foremost trader in natural history specimens, which it often supplied to the Paris Museum of Natural History. Items sold by Maison Verreaux are still on display in museums in London and at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, among others.

Jules Verreaux began his training in the family business at just 11 years of age, when he accompanied his uncle, naturalist Pierre Delalande, to the South African Cape. They stayed there exploring and collecting from 1818-1820, among their achievements being the first hippopotamus skeleton acquired for the Paris Museum of Natural History. The animal was among a collection of more than 13,000 items, mostly plants, brought back by Delalande and his nephew. Back in Paris, Verreaux attended anatomy classes under zoologist Georges Cuvier, and began to show an aptitude for taxidermy.

Verreaux returned to South Africa in 1825, where he helped with the establishment of the South African Museum in Cape Town and made further collections. Finding that the bountiful specimens offered by the country were more than he could deal with by himself, he sent for his younger brother, Edouard, who came out to join him in 1830. Jules Verreaux was reputed to have set out on the trail of various already extinct and mythical creatures in the Cape, including the unicorn (with no success). The most notorious collection he made was the corpse of a native African, which was stolen from its grave and stuffed for display in the Verreaux shop. The body was later bought by a Spanish vet and taxidermist, Francesc Darder, in the 1880s, and remained on show at the Darder Museum until 1997. It was repatriated and buried in Gabarone, Botswana, in 2000. No stranger to scandal in his lifetime, either, while in South Africa Jules Verreaux was summoned to court after a woman claimed to have borne his illegitimate son. Verreaux had previously asked Elisabeth Greef to marry him, but revoked the proposal. The young mother then brought a suit against him, but lost the case as Verreaux was still a minor at the time of the proposal in 1827.

After Edouard delivered a consignment of collections back to Paris in 1831, he returned to South Africa with the third Verreaux brother, Alexis, in 1832. Alexis remained in South Africa for the rest of his life, while the course of Edouard and Jules' lives over the next decade is somewhat confused. Some sources say that both Edouard and Jules travelled to China and the Philippines and remained there until 1837, but it is also possible that Jules stayed in South Africa during this time. He seems to have returned to Paris in 1838, in which year a large number of his collections were lost in a shipwreck while being transported back to Paris.

Inspired by John Gould, Jules Verreaux travelled to Australia in 1842, his main purpose being to collect insects, birds, plants and mammals for the Paris Museum of Natural History. He chiefly explored New South Wales and Tasmania, where he also collected some more human remains over a five-year period of working. Back in Paris he concentrated on naming and arranging bird specimens and from 1862 was employed as assistant naturalist at the Paris Museum of Natural History. Around this time he created the diorama 'Arab Courier attacked by Lions', which won an award at the Exposition Universelle in 1869 and remains on display at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. The scene features stuffed Barbary lions (now extinct in the wild) and an Arab mannequin on a stuffed camel. Verreaux left France in 1870 at the start of the Franco-Prussian War, seeking refuge in England. He remained there for the concluding three years of his life.

Jules Verreaux left a particular legacy in ornithology; a number of bird species bear his name, such as Verreaux's Eagle (Aquila verreauxii) and Verreaux's Sifaka (Propithecus verreaux). However his specimen labels often give only the country of provenance and are sometimes attributed to localities incorrectly, perhaps to make them more commercially valuable, but diminishing their scientific value.

Sources:
Anon., 1874, Ibis, 16(4): 467-469
M. Gunn and L.E.W. Codd, 1981, Botanical Exploration of Southern Africa
T. Iredale, 1945, "Jules Verreaux", The Australian Zoologist, 11: 71-72
J.H. Maiden, 1910, "Records of Australian Botanists", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 44: 153
J.H. Maiden, 1921, "Records of Australian Botanists", Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 55: 168
M. Molina, 2002, "More notes on the Verreaux brothers", Pula Botswana Journal of African Studies, 16(1): 30-36.