Histoire naturelle des plus beaux oiseaux chanteurs de la zone torride (Natural History of the Most Beautiful Songbirds of the Tropical Zone)

French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot (1748 - 1831) was one of the first ornithologists to study changes in plumage, and to study live birds. He described many birds for the first time, especially those he encountered during the time he spent in the West Indies and in North America.

Vieillot was born in Yvetot, France. He was in business in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) but was forced to flee to the United States during the Haitian rebellions that followed the French Revolution. He returned to France in 1798, where he wrote Histoire naturelle et générale des colibris, oiseaux-mouches, jacamars et promerops (1802) with Jean Baptiste Audebert. He also published Ornithologie française (1823-30) and contributed to the Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle (1803-19). He is believed to have died in poverty in Rouen.