HARVARD UNIVERSITY e Library of the
Museum of
Comparative Zoology
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SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF MAMMALOGY (1919-1994)
ELMER C. BIRNEY AND JERRY R. CHOATE Editors
SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS
This series, published by the American Society of Mammalogists, has been established for papers of monographic scope concerned with some aspect of the biology of mam- mals.
Correspondence concerning manuscripts to be submitted for publication in the series should be addressed to the Editor for Special Publications, Michael A. Mares (address below).
Copies of Special Publications of the Society may be ordered from the Secretary- Treasurer, H. Duane Smith, 501 Widtsoe Bldg., Dept. Zoology, Brigham Young Uni- versity, Provo, UT 84602.
COMMITTEE ON SPECIAL PUBLICATIONS
MIcHAEL A. Mares, Editor Oklahoma Museum of Natural History University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma 73019
JosepH F. Merritt, Managing Editor Powdermill Biological Station Carnegie Museum of Natural History Rector, Pennsylvania 15677
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SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF MAMMALOGY (1919-1994)
EDITED By
ELMER C. BIRNEY Bell Museum of Natural History 100 Ecology Building University of Minnesota St. Paul, Minnesota 55108
JERRY R. CHOATE Sternberg Museum of Natural History Fort Hays State University Hays, Kansas 67601
SPECIAL PUBLICATION NO. 11 THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAMMALOGISTS PUBLISHED 27 May 1994
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MCZ LIBRARY OCT 19 1994
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 97-71464 © 1994 ISBN No. 0-935868-73-9
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LIST OF AUTHORS
Sydney Anderson American Museum of Natural History Central Park West at 79th Street New York, NY 10024
David M. Armstrong Department of Evolutionary, Population, and Organismic Biology University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309
Robert J. Baker Department of Biological Sciences and the Museum Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409
Elmer C. Birney Bell Museum of Natural History 100 Ecology Building University of Minnesota St. Paul, MN 55108
James H. Brown Department of Biology University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131
Guy N. Cameron Department of Biology University of Houston Houston, TX 77004
Jerry R. Choate Sternberg Museum of Natural History Fort Hays State University Hays, KS 67601
Mark D. Engstrom Department of Mammalogy Royal Ontario Museum 100 Queen’s Park Toronto, Ontario, CANADA MSS 2C6
John F. Eisenberg Florida Museum of Natural History Department of Natural Sciences and School of Forest Resources and Conservation University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611
Gregory L. Florant Department of Biology Temple University Philadelphia, PA 19122
Hugh H. Genoways University of Nebraska State Museum University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588
Ayesha E. Gill Institute of Health Policy Studies University of California 1388 Sutter Street, 11th Floor San Francisco, CA 94109 Present Address 2308 Jefferson Avenue Berkeley, CA 94703
Mark S. Hafner Museum of Natural Science and Department of Zoology and Physiology Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Robert S. Hoffmann Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560
Donald F. Hoffmeister Museum of Natural History University of Illinois Urbana, IL 61801
Rodney L. Honeycutt Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences and The Faculty of Genetics 210 Nagle Hall Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843
Murray L. Johnson 501 N. Tacoma Avenue Tacoma, WA 98403
G. J. Kenagy Department of Zoology University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195
Gordon L. Kirkland, Jr. The Vertebrate Museum Shippensburg University Shippensburg, PA 17257
James N. Layne Archbold Biological Station P.O. Box 2057 Lake Placid, FL 33852
William Z. Lidicker, Jr. Museum of Vertebrate Zoology University of California Berkeley, CA 94720
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Jason A. Lillegraven Departments of Geology/Geophysics and Zoology/Physiology The University of Wyoming Laramie, WY 82071
Michael A. Mares Oklahoma Museum of Natural History University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 73019
Bruce D. Patterson Field Museum of Natural History Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive Chicago, IL 60605
Oliver P. Pearson Museum of Vertebrate Zoology University of California Berkeley, CA 94720
Randolph L. Peterson (Deceased) Royal Ontario Museum 100 Queen’s Park Toronto, Ontario, CANADA MS5S 2C6
Carleton J. Phillips Department of Biological Sciences Illinois State University Normal, IL 61790
Duane A. Schlitter Edward O’Neil Research Center Carnegie Museum of Natural History 5800 Baum Blvd Pittsburgh, PA 15206
David J. Schmidly Texas A&M University P.O. Box 1675 Galveston, TX 77553
James H. Shaw Department of Zoology Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 74078
H. Duane Smith Department of Zoology Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602
Keir Sterling 324 Webster Street Bel Air, MD 21014
J. Mary Taylor Cleveland Museum of Natural History Wade Oval, University Circle Cleveland, OH 44106
B. J. Verts Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331
John O. Whitaker, Jr. Department of Life Science Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN 47809
Don E. Wilson National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560
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Jerry O. Wolff Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331
W. Chris Wozencraft Division of Natural Sciences Lewis-Clark State College Lewiston, ID 83501
Bruce A. Wunder Department of Biology Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523
Terry L. Yates Department of Biology and Museum of Southwestern Biology University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131
Richard J. Zakrzewski Department of Geosciences and Sternberg Museum of Natural History Fort Hays State University Hays, KS 67601
PREFACE
he ad hoc committee to plan the 75th anniversary of the American Society of Mammalogists (abbreviated ASM here and throughout this book), was established by President Hugh Genoways, seemingly only a short time after we celebrated our 50th anniversary. The first meeting of that committee that we recall was at the annual gathering of ASM in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1986, and was chaired by Craig Hood. The coeditors of this book volunteered early in that meeting to oversee the preparation of a book covering the 75 years that ASM had been in existence, 1919-1994, admit- ting at the time that we had no specific plan but that we thought we could get something of this nature done in the 8 years avail- able.
We are not the first, nor will we be the last, to learn that every job expands to con- sume all available time. Certainly, this book was no exception. It was remarkably easy for authors to agree to participate and for editors to develop ‘“‘firm’’ deadlines when the target dates were such a long time in the future. Today, 10 February 1994, as we are drafting this final note to accompany the 21 chapters in this book, we still lack and shall never see one important chapter, and Allen Press is bending over backwards to get page proofs to the authors. Managing Editor Joe Merritt and Special Publications Editor Mi- chael Mares are probably the only authors and editors who did not have time to pro- crastinate! Nevertheless, production pres-
ipa fe
ently is on schedule to have this book in the hands of ASM members at the anniversary meeting in Washington, D.C., as promised so long ago.
As we employ the latest in word-process- ing software to draft this document, send e-mail messages between Kansas and Min- nesota in seconds, fax manuscripts between authors and editors, and generally make the most of this electronic era and its infor- mation superhighways, we contemplate 1919, the year ASM was founded. The First World War had just ended, Woodrow Wil- son was President of the United States, and Mexico was experiencing a revolution. What was the state of the discipline of mammal- ogy, and what has ASM done in its 75-year existence to promote and facilitate the sci- ence? That is the topic of this book, which was conceived without much forethought in an otherwise forgotten committee meeting, and which underwent early embryogenesis along the banks of Lake Mendota on the beautiful University of Wisconsin campus, then survived a lengthy period of delayed development following some rapid growth that took place while the list of chapters was finalized and authors were recruited. A few individual cells underwent mitosis now and then, but real gestation began in the spring and summer of 1992. Subsequently, all chapters were subjected to two reviews by peers, mostly during the spring of 1993, and final revisions of most chapters were com- pleted that summer.
The book is in two parts, one on the so- ciety and its members (the first eight chap- ters) and the other on the intellectual growth and development of the discipline of mam- malogy during the past 75 years. The charge to authors of the two parts was different. Those writing chapters for Part I were asked simply to treat the topic, and in all cases the emphasis was on ASM, its members, its growth, and its activities to promote mam- malogy. Thus, those chapters address his- tory, and their topics are less about science than its facilitation.
Authors writing chapters for Part II were given the following, much more specific, guidelines: ““We envision that chapters in this section will briefly review the pre-1919 state of knowledge of the assigned subdis- cipline, if appropriate, then trace the intel- lectual development of the field through the 75-year period that ASM will have been in existence. Chapters in Part II are expected to take a global perspective of the history, with no special emphasis on either ASM or its members, of the field’s development.” We judge that all authors have more than adequately fulfilled the charge.
Authors originally were selected in pairs with an eye toward diversity. In some pairs our strategy was to select collaborators rep- resenting different eras, in others different schools of thought, and in still others we sought authors whose expertise encom- passed the extremes of a broad or complex subdiscipline. A few prospective authors re- signed for one reason or another, one died, one pair decided their chapter was not nec- essary, and fora host of other reasons author lines changed. We attempted to maintain the two-author-per-chapter philosophy throughout in order to get the best ideas of at least two individuals into every chapter, but in three instances that was not possible and in one a third author was recruited. Historical details of author selection pale in comparison to the heartfelt thanks we ex- tend to all authors—it was our very real pleasure to work with each of them.
We are equally appreciative of the con- siderable effort donated by Jane Waterman, who drew the vignettes used on the first
pages of chapters. We like each one very much, Jane. Our thanks go also to a long list of reviewers, some of whom dropped everything in order to help us meet our deadline, then employed fax and e-mail as necessary to provide nearly instantaneous turn-around of excellent, insightful reviews. We greatly appreciate the time and efforts of all reviewers, several of whom reviewed more than a single chapter: Sydney Ander- son, David M. Armstrong, Robert J. Baker, Patricia J. Berger, James H. Brown, William A. Clemens, Mark D. Engstrom, James S. Findley, G. Lawrence Forman, Enk K. Fritzell, Hugh H. Genoways, Sarah B. George, Donald W. Kaufman, Gordon L. Kirkland, Jr., Thomas H. Kunz, Norman C. Negus, Bruce D. Patterson, Anne E. Pu- sey, O. J. Reichman, Eric A. Rickart, Duke S. Rogers, Robert K. Rose, William D. Schmid, Robert S. Sikes, Donald B. Siniff, Norman A. Slade, H. Duane Smith, Robert H. Tamarin, Robert M. Timm, Michael R. Voorhies, Jane M. Waterman, Michael R. Willig, Don E. Wilson, and Robert M. Zink.
Finally, we thank three people who made our jobs easy, and without whose untiring energies at crucial times this book would not have been completed in time for the anniversary celebration: Joseph F. Merritt, Managing Editor for Mammalian Species and Special Publications, put a prodigious amount of time and energy (with occasional lapses into jocularity) into making certain that no important detail of production was slighted; Michael A. Mares, Editor for Spe- cial Publications, processed manuscripts as fast as the two of us could send them to him; and Ken Blair at Allen Press adopted this project and simply made it happen on time no matter what the obstacle.
The proof of the pudding, as always, is in the eating. We hope that you, the reader, like our idea of pudding.
ELMER C. BIRNEY St. Paul, Minnesota
JERRY R. CHOATE Hays, Kansas February 1994
CONTENTS
PART I. History of ASM and Its Most Prominent Members
ORIGIN Donaid F ehojmeisterand Keir B. Stine, tse pec culo. 14 ee De eee ese RIO O CHR GUO Mie tk vc ee Ree rhea hee haan coy an aanias versie ita a pee 4 ke eee MRS net A The Development of Scientific Societies in Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries ...... North American Mammatogy Before the 20th Century «2.2... d22c2 2 nocecee cies ce sen: The Early History of the American Society of Mammalogists ......................... EN CLCEUCI OT ASIN CACTI ES pert te asec ai aubecie ana ep i taed Gad tte he an es ara neh ate oak Oa ee catia aad tc rare Site dh 0 Aachen eee oe ood eGo Oe ok 8 tae eek tee hg ee a 2
PRESIDENTS James N. Layne and Robert S: HOPMOnNN 2.2 oss edhe thea eed sesS EHROGUCHION Wace Mist 22 dui, eq: pain ich aes Bu anes yeah cates mat msad Sate Slates Ee SIC ential p PEO lier Sets errant tat aot ham eee Rett tean dae Sa ea ale hg aes ee orale BIOS rap MICS KEICNES a man oa ba aS od ott aaa doe hs ee ee espana oem Mee cat eden eee NClMOWICGRINEDS Sn eG Oar eaiee cages se ee he alae ee ete Ae be 3.65 bau ee oot aes Tre neitnpres CGM tes aN tig, Rag sree ey tan pe teh ta ne al oh ants a _ateee ca
AWARDEES J. Mary Taylorand Duane A, SCHUMCl 2) nce oo ee ow eee Pees goa deeeees TALEO GU GLIOM pee Mets e5.2 Mire ee re ae ale eee a tt tare EM Ree nis SG Ae ete ILONORARY IVICINDErS ite a ate eG SRO AT FR erates a Neg Se ae Caan MERaInek WaldCeS da.0e. hoe ae Naoto en CAA a hae PER Uae ee Bee nee eee Brantley Elli FAGKSOMUAWATOUCES Daren: gals a.com ae eatin nnn cde a areas eds is eed occas CEQ CIU SIO tS ree ee aaa OR ple tee ca etm care Sete ie 2 laa, Mat cols lhe, LI eS a O FACRMOWICGO MENUS cde, Sidi sete ack ee eahe 2 Bon acar meat Thon anal ke ier tee ee eae? We eal ate oe
OTHER PROMINENT MEMBERS David M. Armstrong, Murray L. Johnson, and RONG OWNER RELErSOMs fans tte eee ae ee ee eG eae ees, anaes IU OGUCIOler eee haere eae en eat eet oie rancor Ake Ne tune ee Rae a BU gl 22 0h oe cee eee eae eee vee EL ag Se ey eC ee 2 eee gn OES ny VEL pYoroal 108183 0 ILO nen om teed ea OF tegen En ES) OCT SO rg ARE reg ates OE errs sc eee BURLY 1090) ae ere cree nce eee en a ee pC Sn an ek Cy nS A. Ua Ge lbs) Serene rete, 0, PR eee TR oe eee, ante eI Et A as Allee Wi ea cha BING sD. Sareea wees erates wer ee ee ee eee ee cate ke aes ee ne ees GE 0 an) AS 27 (San aS cS ea e Y e e a ae e
ACADEMIC PROPINQUITY SONMLO AVUILGKCI gy ere ee este =, Ae, ee MVE THO CUNG ENO TIC ce enero ae eee ee ay eee ek eric nape ears ern Ihe: NViemiam: Group) 4, ...242. 055. eo ee ee ces een ee Me the Agassiz/Glover Allen Group (Harvard) {is.i..2..0e07-8 eee ose eee ee III. The Joseph Grinnell/E. A. Hall Group (Berkeley and Kansas) ..................... IV Phe Walliam. Hamulton, Jr. (Group (Cornell) 2). os eo oe i ee LALO 18 Fes col S100) 6 oo ae ae era en ne ne a Dy no Og Oe oP Acknowledgments ite rapinkc: Cie creamy eee yee ee ce ee a ee me ere nan weve ee
PUBLICATIONS Bio). Verts and bner GC. BUney wen ones a6 cask on tes es een eae ee Ja eC (0 117) 50) 1 eee eee nme Oem RY 0> SPEER Te SETA PORE tS TR RE RE TY Ec eee ee ee lieed ournal Of MIGWIMNGIOCY .24. -chsacs gem bats eae nk eo ne ee ee BR eg ok VA GITIIGUI GANS DECICS ie awe ay esa rues ee ee ek ee ES ces HN og ae Monographs and Special Publications 3.25 24. 2c. eens an cesta ces eee eene Seana ee: Cumulative Indices and Miscellaneous Publications ................0.0 0000 ce cece ACKHOWICCOTMCIUS: = ote. i ees ee See ee, Uae Be Geter ee Redeem eee Piteratune riled, a422 aaa ane ee ee ee ee ce Ae ie ee eee eee ema
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COMMITTEES AND ANNUAL MEETINGS Ayesha E. Gill and W. Chris Wozencraft .. INMtFOGUCUON 4.252.025 fas 358826 bitte ere ete ere aa Oe eee oe ese a ts ae eee Histor or che Comumittees of ASM 1c... 222/502 ites nc alacuat ee een eeteeee ee aa ihe Hlustory of ASMcAnnial Mecunes: . 2 sic 2 6.50, ee gon sha ion a eng See ee oe Biterature: Cited % 202 2 ie certs ec oa hike oe AS Sea ee on es a een ee een eee
MEMBERSHIP AND FINANCE Gordon L. Kirkland, Jr. and H. Duane Smith ......... RTEPOCUCHON:” 4, 358 ba a arnien se Qe oe nS any on hae oan eee ras ee See ee Mero bership Glassesir oucctesy sce xs tau as ea ater ado cots atl a ra ee Membership History... Wee 25 2 dar0 ind. iut aud baat als Cate ae eet Intemational Micmibersiiip 2, gaint sa ere soars acs orate eae ne ire ee ee Corresponding Secretary, Treasurer, and’ Secretary- lireasurer ...22...2.. sae. 2 eee eee RESET V Gai TUINC AS errata eaten cc icici eer Ng Bars Nes LeU en coe eens a AAS MAV BUC BCES Au ecte cestia se dens) eR asics wo ous waa 6 aaah tact n eee: ee a ae ne po] 10060 800) @) OMe sae ieee tena Cee eek eG Rrra hme © Gelea eeebed terran ede ne Nee Meee ee nerarerinnes tn ree a AACKMNOWICASINGIIS. 2 (orem. anaes dene wee eee tee en aed nn ae ee Heiterature | Wed oo. ed ee ee eae ee ne es Le ck en ee rae
PART II. Intellectual Development of the Science of Mammalogy
TAXONOMY Mark D. Engstrom, Jerry R. Choate, and Hugh H. Genoways ........... | Goi ieova Ub Tey oY) ote memrebmeaer eearaee Wl ultra Ur patty rae ural verge esir ream we arse nr erie) Met yw ery es eanny rae eee ee ck A Histoncall Perspective qe ee ne ns ee eee ee eee ee BiglopicaleSpecies Concept... ei ie ets se ee ee te ea eee SUIOSWECICS CC OMCs eer ae em eg ye Seen eee Figher evel axOnOmiy ger. eee oe ee aa ee eee ease ee auinal@Survicy Sse icc ae ere eer eis eee rae cir ene a een cee mice see eg PREKTOW ECO IT TALS tent eee ee eee eg eee ee Wikerature:Citedi ee a. eee ete eee ea Stee ete ae eee er eee
PALEOMAMMALOGY Richard J. Zakrzewski and Jason A. Lillegraven .............. DtEO CIC TIO ae eros oes eee eee apres yore ne Sa Ee pe ee Compartmentalization of Mammalopgy +22... 1. -.o2-.225..-24s 224560105 ss asntee nee General Advancements...) 4-e oe et ee e e e e eee Geologically Directed Paleomammialogy ...::....2-. 2.246.462.5454. 004-6eu140sse08 Biologically Directed Paleomammmalogy ...... 2.2.4 ..-202h26..605 ne sndnendw toned sees The Blending of Geologically and Biologically Directed Paleomammalogy ............. EDilOSUC se ce et oe aoe te So tae Meta AME Ate te ooh 2 ieee Ue Se ct ACKNOWICAUSIMENIS 66 okct ean ened xP Fo Ed Pods Ga £ LA Sod we antl dis 4 atin ho ee eee MiteratureCed: 25.456 ea ok eh oe eee adeee ee tee the. hey hele Peele eee
BIOGEOGRAPHY Sydney Anderson and Bruce D. Patterson ......:4:.. 5202002 ee IntrodUCtION( «54 = eccidelenc eaddlonandtee Echadoe garde cates aoa ganaus nee s eee Histoncal Trends. 23 422644 28 4 Soden Pad aod toned oar ood nhae eninge ce te Oe pe eee Species Over Ecological Time Penods.2.222...4 424.2022 oo sss eon es soos cae eee Biotas Over Ecolopical Time Periods. .¢2.).%).4.4.-6.4%40060% mtn der sake eaeesaes seems Species Over Evolutionary Time Permods:,¢. 52.42. 4.40452552e02se4nsee eee eee Bietas Over Evolutionary Time PerodS<22...2224c2. 222. 340805e ne se a eee eee iterature Cited) =) 3.5.4.ceddi6 8a Crd. Sasha cba eh ee See Reheat ea eee eee
ANATOMY Carleton TS GPITS: 4 Peres S6 Ge ok Bo CaS Oyo SA ee ee Introduction... ...«. odes See 28 Wi ih eao Det ea ea aa aula th @ a dtd bE dee Gale Se Ng eee Paradiems.and Conceptual Frameworks 2.4; auc n¢ani+ ac. 2 6ee eal ee eee eee he BarivieHlistOny: £5 «4 e\sck 2, fam canhealeracidon tate: ind 4 ae ghs panes ee Gen Oe ee ee ihelnivence:of Laxonomy 2.4.5.6 Ss cheno fnew eae ee eee ee oe ‘Phe Iniluence of Natutal History: <..2..4 428.4 icn Sa eRe ee ee es ee The Future-of Mammalogical Anatomy: 3442.6 2005 ine das fa aoe ce oe ee ACkKnOWIEdSINEGHtS, 24.4 uaete © Site in mode CE Oe Reh SP oe Clone Lue waren cee ae ane HeTte TAGE CNC! Fs 216.0 Bho arcicgia ec beare ae wid Eee PASE Ge ee eee ee
PHYSIOLOGY Bruce A. Wunder and Gregory L. Florant .......0. 00000000 ccc eee. INET EINE UT Oe a ree res tes he eaters weer iat eae ty Le ne SE tee a a anon eas toe a Physiology Backoroundhy 63.6 2526.05 5s Soe thee 1 hae nates dhe vetoed we baued andes RG Views MICUMOOUS, 24 xc. nenaet yet an tear eA tone eee eae heute eee sehen feo
Ep MUG Ue ine Ne gc NN a ec 2 1 abs dae tee eM Rae a ee SO be tain yah daha teh PERS OUI Se OILEO Mat oa etn Lh etl te ete ees een ears akarmeeet ns ae not eee ec ola ra
REPRODUCTION Oliver’? Pearsonand Go J. ReEnGoy 2) ces, bite oa oe is St he ITSO CEC UTOTE ee cis 5 Pie cal tacts Mie ate ete lls Sati tans iecasea cea nent sto, Ren A Ste bak Sok eee Fae Panly22 OUR Cent uiys ato oa os SO coe tan on wate hones Ones ewes aeuacen the Cambria se keg ag re elena ck aied edeee Nee cannes eit te nd btn ne Vols 1OpKInS* beCAaCy me. 3 cokes OO he Be es ae all ae cee Gece th aoe: ONT EC SACI CS erat ee Mt PANN eich senses ans 2 S0E tsa Eeas ets SOs ein aeeR ald elie ee PuntheriNotablesPUblicatlons @ saserees os ey oes Sea nik we Beek 6 ns ke ec KG Bate 20 thi Gemtunny ae... crs een aaa Oe old rate a hae ake Pens e a ts tag oe ano Reproduction, Neuroendocrinology, and Molecular Biology .......................... Environmental ‘Physiology and Regulatory Processes i... . 0421054 5:-5.605.-¢c08es uns Reproduciuycienerey Ie xpencivures sete ky manok cw niche cet ens any Gees eee oe nd go tna 9 ak Oltiction and Regulation of Reproduction. .¥24.0ye soe tase See te eee eee oe Behavior and Neuroendocrinology «22: 225.2 eee s en od eh eo es dns See ae eta eae eee INTARS UPI alSeerre mete et ee te cM so a Cc ed i 7 acer cs ae anes <A Oe Reproductive Mechnologies sa. aaa. ae. or ase Menace Aimee tote Kae en a INaturalsrnstory-and the Utne a. oye een cease es ka ek oa a eee hoe es key eeees PXCKMO WILE GOIN CTL Sa ene ties ape onan areas SN aa reas Cl Oe My Ui, mes ne a PEt trea tame Gc Leen Sree es ee a ae Se uen eect eet ee as
MOLECULAR SYSTEMATICS Rodney LoHoneyoutl and Terry Lk. Yares, 4. acest. Meraitiecy ne ERO Tne eee eee, weenie os ee a Rel Hg cee onc ees oe ee Os, Sar el Yee pe Molecular Techniques in Mammalian Systematics ................ 00.0. .0 cece ences Molecular Glock Concept we is... cue one ey ee ee eee eee Se ees Emereineissucs-and Future DirectionS..04..0- sor sete eee ee ae ee PAGO WIC CPI CINCS a anger eg ca GRRE etree ae ae re Ue pO arene UA ORL PUA Toca RCo AC CL re eee en, Aree gd
CY TOGENETICS Robert J, Bakewand Marks. Hamer 22.5 ae hes ae ee | Falla Woy N's (| 51.6 o RAE aera Rea ener gen Parva Ora Oren anew ewe wean rare ane eine ee ConcepiualsDevelopment-o1 the Field. .7 2.7 aes es a ee ee anes Hechnological- Advances, 2.754.052.6882 oy aes dae oe ena ae be nes Se woes Cytogenetic Studies: Insights from the Journal of Mammalogy .................0....-. Summary and Gonclusions: 2... 4020.00 4444<eec2 fas bance eae en ede eee iteranuie Cited! 42 Mir ce outa coined aatere ge cene titanate ott ale Saueee mae Gane per taeene oe
POPULATION ECOLOGY WALTQIN. ZL IGICKCI IF) ee eg et ee RIMITOGMCHMON: .Sr3 saben nak ees cn ct cuit tank game eae ae sates ca nimate ee tee Roots: Initial PHOUHIS::4., 654.0 0: eas soe ogee eee ses bhp den sandueneut as eegunons The irunk: Early Research on Population Processes, . 0.4 ....0 461.202 eee ee eee se esses. The Modern Era: The Last Two Dozen Years .............00.00 00 ccc cece eee MUU HBerspectivies si rtu2 a heen eo ee wen Sar eceene & wale nes cape oe ees AckMowled GmmentS.:.3.22052%) 66.40 ennudes onebaseiu eh eesnueda geese weno tee vantweaaue Inte raluine Onda tan tnt a eet ee Ne eet a Ot pada os oa aaa hee ae ereene f
COMMUNITY AND ECOSYSTEM ECOLOGY Michael A. Mares and (GLLVEIN AC GI CHOMD ies crs uh Sol g E40p to oa Sytner eae ee oe ee ee eee re ee TER OC UIGII@ Mis Ph ete tore et a autre ae le eee aa aug ee steer ee me eres eo er eae ee oe PUIStOmiGalbOVeIviCw. « 1-azy eae ea tea cee eee ne ee ae, Se een ee Ee Approaches to Community and Ecosystem Bcology =.s....25.s20.5-+ sete oo ane eee GOnmmininitysECOLOLY cca Sa aten sou os ee ea See nae one en eeae 2 er eee eae Ecosystem ECOlOSY® 2208s Aad As arid ae sae ee aa oe a ieee ee Cane sate ee COMETS TON Sek arch recs ae ace nN ease Sc IC ee nrc ANCknowlcdements...4.9.0 2 cee et aaans teeta Se eeu Rie ad aa Soh Se ee ae ae, en ee iccrature Cited) 6. sae cee a Gon hee ce oar seat ener a ee ee ee
NATURAL HISTORY AND EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY James H. Brown and OEE ALS A VUTIS ONL: eatreg seer ee ets Nats, eRe i ee ld ec RIOT, caste tsa ee deat ae ge MTEL CULO as Mer ee ee a a sc Sh sin ee US aren ee oes Sco oe IDISCOVELY RNaSet.e Gem ai. cree ee tan ON nee Ae ites Rea Ms cc retraite tee Natural eaStOmysRinaSGere rete ae ee moet ak ar titas dae te ite We eatinta ate eas 9 ec Manmalosy andthe sNew Symthesis: 422. tiee ea. Secteke ae a ha ee ans oes eee Evolutionatyeecolosysehase sue oe oo wae ns ea aa aes Ree eee The Transition from Natural History to Evolutionary Ecology ........................ ro 0 81) £0) Sse ECO Ee OO OE Set ores earns a eee ee Pe a arma eres fe ere ee ee ACKNOWlEdomEMIS erases oar ee ea. Pen ea a santa eye senip omen ee ene eee iterature @ited meee ene ee ee ate as eta Sheu rrete his a ee eee
BEHAVIOR JOR. TISenvers And Jey OW Of coca. tack «el sale ee es oe MM GERO CHUGH OMe ee eer ree ee eae ee Se ee aes, ance ae A Brief History of Ethology: its Origins, Reception, and Modification in America ...... A Record of the Beginnings of Animal Behavior Studies in North America ............ Mammalian Behavior studies Prior to 196) 2 2..4.55.-: <6 ea eee ee ee Phe Influence of Some Semanal msututions “4 es tees ee ee te ee The Years of Consolidation and Subsequent Fractionation ...................0..0205- From Ethology to Sociobiology and Socioecology—the Last 25 Years ................. Some Advances moister DiScipimesn see sete te en ee eee ee DTN nV Sere eee ve ese ae re PE encase eee see cae se a es go ene ee eee eee Peiteratunec@ Meda ieee ee ne ee eee ee ee eee CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT James H. Shaw and David J. Schmidly ..... INTOGUCHION |..oe2 se Brae gee Re ee aaa ee eae ee Lard eee eae en eee ee ee ee Before a9 1Oi es eran seins een ens eee ny Leahy Ridieteh ade tears etd ode eau, RAR ee PTGCE VOU O a ee a ae ope eee ee oe ee a Pe Oded aos hee Meta eee New Approaches to the Conservation of Mammals ...................0 0.0000 e eee Summary -and COnchiSiOnS 25 024 2245 feces neg Pee eae eee e ee oe seas anne nee Eevterature: Cited! 6 =e oc ace eee a es ae ene ee Rare es ee ge
X1V
PART I
HISTORY OF ASM AND ITS MOST PROMINENT MEMBERS
ORIGIN
DONALD F. HOFFMEISTER AND KEIR B. STERLING
Introduction
BY, in the 20th century, groups of sci- entists with common interests were banding together to share their mutual re- search and activities. Some of these groups organized themselves to form scientific so- cieties. Among vertebrate zoologists this was especially true of the ornithologists, but much field work and research on mammals also was being conducted during this period. For example, the United States Bureau of Biological Survey had field workers study- ing and collecting mammals in many parts of North America, and by 1919 this group had published 44 monographs on mammals in the North American Fauna series. Uni- versities and museums in the United States also were becoming increasingly more ac- tive in mammalian research. Thus, it is not surprising that in 1919 a group at the United States Bureau of Biological Survey would consider forming a scientific society for mammalogists (Hoffmeister, 1969).
This chapter summarizes the historical details of the formation of this society, which became known as The American Society of Mammalogists (ASM). To accomplish this, it is necessary first to review briefly some of the earlier developments of mammalian
research, collections, and societies in the Old World, as well as the work conducted with mammals in North America prior to the formation of the ASM.
The Development of Scientific Societies in Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries
In the Middle Ages, interest in mammals was directed more to their economic im- portance—as a source of food and furs, as beasts of burden, as animals that could be domesticated. People were most familiar and concerned with those mammals they could readily observe, especially those that were diurnal or of large size. As interest in identifying and describing all of the mam- mals developed, it was advantageous and even necessary to collect and preserve them. With more parts of the world being explored and colonized and new and unusual mam- mals being encountered, these needed to be collected and described. The naturalists in- volved in research on these new discoveries
2 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
were slow in joining together to form sci- entific societies. However, as their numbers increased and printing became possible and affordable, they formed groups with com- mon interests which were the forerunners of our scientific societies.
Already in the late 1600s, collections of animals and plants increased so much that museums, usually called cabinets, were be- ing developed, especially by wealthy indi- viduals. In Paris alone there reportedly were over 200 private cabinets and a visitor’s guide to Paris, published in 1787, listed 45 notable cabinets of natural history for that year. It was said that every member of the leisured class felt it necessary to have a cab- inet of natural curiosities. The owners of such cabinets and collections usually were not scientists or naturalists. Some spon- sored collecting expeditions, both locally and to distant places, and hired persons to do the collecting for them. Among the Euro- pean collections in the 1700s were those of the English East India Company, the cabi- nets of Becoeur and Mauduyt de la Varenne, Sir Hans Sloane, Lady Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, Comte de Reaumur, Coenraad Jacob Temminck, William Yarrel, Lord Stanley, Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reau- mur, and the Cabinet du Roi. Most of these were private cabinets or collections, al- though some were opened to the public for a fee.
In the 1700s the preservation of mammal and bird specimens was haphazard and poor (Farber, 1982). Many specimens were with- out adequate data. Specimens obtained from foreign travelers were often of even poorer quality. Attempts were made to improve the quality of the materials. Some of the larger private collections hired curators. Many of these were trained in universities or apprenticed under medical doctors. Of- ten those persons working with the collec- tions published catalogues of the specimens in their cabinets. For example, Mathurin- Jacques Brisson’s Ornithologie of 1760 has been referred to as a collection-catalogue of natural history, and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-
Hilaire’s work of 1803 was a Catalogue des Mammiferes due Museum. Some of the wealthy cabinet owners sought to advance their prestige by producing lavishly illus- trated books, based in part upon their col- lections. Because of the great expense, such works were not widely distributed or avail- able. There were exceptions, such as the vol- umes of Histoire Naturelle by Buffon (Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon), Starting in 1749.
In the early 1700s, natural history soci- eties were practically non-existent. By the latter half of that century, groups of literary and scientific men frequently met for infor- mal discussions. Natural history was further stimulated by the publicity Carl Linnaeus was receiving. In England, James Edward Smith and a few friends formed a “‘Society for the Investigation of Natural History” and a group that was the forerunner of the Linnean Society of London was started in 1782 by William Forsyth and nurtured by James Smith. In France, several local or provincial societies started, as in Caen, Cherbourg, Lyons, Nancy, and others, but most lasted only for a short time and not beyond the French Revolution.
At the end of the 18th century, natural history became increasingly noteworthy be- cause many turned to improving upon Lin- naeus’ Sytema Naturae. Lamarck’s ideas stirred interest, as did the debates of Georges Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (Appel, 1987). This was the period when 18th-century natural history was changing to 19th-century biology. With such interest, local and national governments became more involved with making collections for the scientific communities. Government ships were sent to chart distant seas and coasts and to survey overseas holdings, as well as to trade with the new colonies. These were outfitted with naturalists whose intents were to bring back specimens. Examples of such voyages are those of Maximilan Prinz von Wied-Neuwied in 1815 to the New World, John Natterer to Brazil in 1817, sponsored by the Imperial Natural History
ORIGIN |
Museum of Vienna, Robert Herman Schom- burgh to British Guiana in 1835, sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society of Lon- don, Johann Jacob von Tschudi in 1838 to Peru, the voyages of the Beagle, and the explorations of Captain Cook.
Museums and collections maintained by government agencies grew in size and im- portance, became available to the public, and began to incorporate some of the pri- vate collections (McClellan, 1985). The British Museum in its infancy was located in the Montagu House and was not open to the public. Sir Hans Sloane’s large collection was turned over to the museum and in 1830 it moved to a new building, was recognized as the national museum, and soon addi- tional private collections were acquired. For example, James Edward Smith bought Carl Linnaeus’ library, manuscripts, herbarium, and specimens in 1788. Shortly thereafter the Linnean Society was formed, with Smith as president. Collections of the Society went to the British Museum, as did those of some other British societies. In the ensuing parts of the 19th century, the British Museum was curated by such mammalogists as George Robert Waterhouse, Richard Lydekker, and William Henry Flower.
The Jardin du Roi became the French Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in 1793. Buffon had built the Cabinet at the Jardin into an outstanding collection during the mid-1700s. Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hi- laire continued this endeavor when, at age 21, he was placed in charge of the newly established national museum. Other per- sons with mammalogical interests associ- ated with the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle were Georges Cuvier, Georges Duvernoy, Henri Milne Edwards, and Etienne’s son, Isidore Geoffroy St-Hilaire. Anselme-Gaé- tan Desmarest served part-time as a pre- parator for Cuvier.
Germany had fewer private collections in the 1700s, but a museum was included with the establishment of the Universitat zu Ber- lin in 1810. Johann Carl Wilhelm Illiger was the first curator. Incorporated into this mu-
seum was the Pallas Collection and the Cab- inet of Count Johann Centurius von Hoff- mannsegg.
In Holland, there were many collectors (reportedly more than in all the rest of Eu- rope) and many private collections in the late 1700s. In 1820, the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Histoire was started in Leiden and many of these private collections were incorporated. This included the private col- lection of Coenraad Jacob Temminck, who became the first director of the new muse- um. The Dutch government provided spec- imens from its possessions. Max Wilhelm Carl Weber, known for numerous studies on mammals including Die Saugetiere, was associated with the University of Amster- dam.
The beginning of the 19th century saw the birth of many new scientific societies and the beginning of many new scientific journals. As collections and museums grew, so did the international community of scholars. At about the same time, it became possible to publish one’s findings more readily. For example, before 1802 there were few permanent journals in Europe for pub- lishing research in natural history. How- ever, the development of steam-driven printing presses in the early 1800s made it possible to produce up to 20 times as many impressions in a given time span. The price of production of periodicals and books de- clined. Also, the wars that had ravaged parts of Europe from about 1790 greatly subsided after 1815.
As the number of scholars interested in natural history and biology grew, they began to associate into mutually beneficial groups or societies. There are many examples of societies and journals started in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The Zoological So- ciety of London was founded in 1826, in- corporated in 1829, and shortly thereafter started publishing the Proceedings. The Lin- nean Society of London began in 1788 and published its Transactions in 1789 and its Zoological Journal in 1824. The Scottish counterpart of the Linnean Society, the
4 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, was founded in 1808. Although the Royal So- ciety of London began at an earlier time, it was in 1820 that it reportedly threw off its social club aura and became a society of professional scientists. In 1823, the Plinian Society of Edinburgh, and in 1836 the Bo- tanical Society of Edinburgh, were founded, and soon they started the Magazine of Nat- ural History. The British Association for the Advancement of Science was founded in 1831 and the British Ornithological Union in 1858.
In France, the numerous provincial so- cieties that had been established began to wane; during the French Revolution, a de- cree was issued in 1793 that eliminated all societies patented or endowed by the na- tion. The Paris Academy of Sciences was revived in 1795; in 1822, the Societe d’His- toire Naturelle de Paris was founded and in 1824 began publishing the Annals des Sci- ences Naturelles, and the French journal Magasin de Zoologie was founded in 1831.
In Germany and northern Europe, soci- eties and academies were only beginning to emerge in the late 1700s. Most were asso- ciated with universities. One of the early societies was the Berlin Gessellschaft Na- turforschender Freunde, first established as a private society in 1742. In 1812, the Aka- demie der Wissenschaften became aligned with the University of Berlin. In 1822, the Deutsche Naturforscher Versammlung was organized; in 1831, the Gesellshaft Deutsch- er Naturforscher und Artze. The Archiv fur Naturgeschichte began publication in 1835. The Society for Finnish Zoology and Bot- any, later called the Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica, was founded in 1821, and published Fauna Fennica. The Society of Naturalists of the Imperial University of Moscow initiated publishing in 1811 the Memoires Moskovskoe Olshchestov Ispyta- telei Prierody, which was republished in Paris as Memoires de la Societe Imperiale des Na- turalistes de Moscou.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, nu- merous factors contributed to the evolving
study of mammals. The scientific explora- tion of many parts of the world and the growth of collections were early factors. The development of private collections that lat- er became public or university museums was significant. The growth of numerous sci- entific societies and the proliferation of sci- entific journals encouraged the study of fau- na and flora. Numerous persons during this time made an imprint on scientific thought and research, especially Carl Linnaeus, Georges Cuvier, Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire, Jean Baptiste de Lamarck, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Charles Darwin.
North American Mammalogy Before the 20th Century
The fauna and flora of North America were of considerable interest to the natu- ralists, travellers, colonists, and other visi- tors who arrived there beginning in the late 15th century. Mammals they encountered were either eaten or had their fur or hides utilized for clothing, decoration, and other purposes. Thomas Hariot’s Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, published in London in 1588, was the first scientific effort to describe the natural re- sources of any part of what is now the Unit- ed States. Hariot accompanied Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1585 expedition to North Caro- lina. His 44-page account mentioned deer, rabbits, opossum, raccoons, squirrels, bears, “lyon,” wolves, and ‘‘Wolfish Dogges,”’ al- though he did not personally observe all of these. Hariot’s book underwent 17 editions before the 1620s.
Spanish observers, notably Gonzalo Fer- nandez de Oviedo y Valdez, whose Historia general y natural de las Indias, Islas y Ti- erra-Firme del Mar Oceano (a natural his- tory of the West Indies) was published in 1526, had preceded Hariot in reporting on the mammals of the New World, but these earlier writers were active in the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean and in Central and South America from the beginning of
ORIGIN 5
the 16th century. The first person to give concentrated attention to the natural history of Canada was Samuel de Champlain. How- ever, his studies at the end of the 16th cen- tury were principally concerned with plants.
Other notable travelers and observers who mentioned the mammals of the English col- onies in their writings before the 18th cen- tury included Ralph Hamor, author of A True Discourse of the Present State of Vir- ginia (1615); Captain John Smith, in his General Historie of Virginia, New England, and Summer Isles (1624); William Wood, author of New Englands Prospect (1634), with a listing of New England mammals in verse; Thomas Morton’s New English Ca- naan (1637); and John Josselyn’s New En- gland’s Rarities Discovered (1672) and An Account of Two Voyages to New England (1674).
John Lawson, surveyor general of the North Carolina Colony from 1708 until his death at the hands of Indians in 1711, pro- vided a full and detailed account of the mammals of that region. Pehr (or Peter) Kalm (1715-1779), a protegé of Linnaeus, traveled in the American colonies between 1748 and 1751 and was a principal con- tributor to his mentor’s understanding of North American species for successive edi- tions of the Systema Naturae. His En Resa Til Norra America, published in Stockholm between 1753 and 1761, was translated by John Reinhold Forster in 1770-1771. The narrative provided ethological information for some species, and he mentioned fossil elephants found in the Ohio country.
Undoubtedly the single most outstanding work to appear before the American Rev- olution was Mark Catesby’s The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Ba- hama Islands, which first appeared between 1729 and 1747. A later revision was com- pleted by Catesby’s friend George Edwards in 1754. Although a popular as opposed to a scientific account, Catesby’s was the first attempt at a detailed description of the mammals he observed. His two volumes contained illustrations of only nine mam-
mals, as compared with 113 birds, 33 am- phibians, 46 fish, and 31 insects, most of them set against a background of plant life, but these combinations introduced for the first time many American ecological asso- ciations. Not until the early 19th century would there be any further notable advances in general descriptive mammalogy.
The Revolutionary and post-Revolution- ary period offered some useful details about North American mammals in the works of such men as the Marquis Francois de Chas- tellux, a French army officer whose Travels in North America (1786) included a detailed account of opossum gestation written by a friend, and William Bartram’s Travels Through North and South Carolina, Geor- gia, ... (1791), which included a short de- scriptive narrative of the mammals en- countered on his travels. When Buffon published his account of New World fauna in 1769, detailing principally mammals, he was clearly unimpressed by his subject (Pe- den, 1955). He implied that American spe- cies were “‘shrivelled and diminished”’ both in size and variety because of excessive moisture and less heat than was to be found in Europe. In Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, written during the American Revolution and later revised, the future president went to considerable pains to amass statistical data with which he ef- fectively demolished the French savant’s views. Buffon appeared to be convinced by the weight of Jefferson’s evidence, and promised that suitable corrections would be published in the next volume of his Histoire Naturelle. However, he died before this could be accomplished.
Philadelphia was the first important cen- ter of research in natural history in the Unit- ed States, and it maintained its dominance in the field from the late 1790s until the late 1830s. There were a number of reasons for this. Curious naturalists in the Quaker city had closer ties with their English and French colleagues than did naturalists in any other part of the country. Here, the American Philosophical Society, the oldest scholarly
6 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
= s ———— ..
Charles Willson Peale* John D. Godman Richard Harlan (1741-1826) (1794-1830) (1796-1843) Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of Courtesy of the Library, College of Courtesy of the Library, College of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Gift of Mrs. Sarah Physicians of Philadelphia Physicians of Philadelphia Harrison (The Joseph Harmison, Jr. Collection)
Elliott Coues, M.D. Spencer F. Baird Rev. John Bachman (1842-1899) (1823-1887) (1790-1874) Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, Courtesy of the Charleston Museum, Washington, D.C. Charleston, N.C.
Fic. 1.—Eminent early North American mammalogists.
* The self-portrait of 1822, showing his museum on the second floor of Independence Hall, Philadelphia. A mastodon skeleton exhumed and mounted by Peale stands to the right, partially obscured by the curtain.
ORIGIN y
organization in America, had been founded in 1743. Here too, other organizations, in- cluding Peale’s Museum, begun in 1784, the Academy of Natural Sciences, founded in 1812, and several medical colleges were in operation. Philadelphia also led the rest of the nation both in the number of libraries and in the numbers of books they contained. At least 40% ofall scientific periodicals pub- lished in the United States were published in Philadelphia by 1832, at a time when none was being published in New York City.
Art and medicine were the two major av- enues through which Americans ap- proached the study of mammals in the 19th century. The Maryland-born Charles Will- son Peale (1741-1826) was a largely self- taught artist whose interest in natural his- tory began to manifest itself when he was in his mid-40s (Fig. 1). The museum he founded in his Philadelphia home in 1784 was not the first in the country, but was the first successful one to be started north of the Mason and Dixon Line. It survived for more than 60 years (Sellers, 1980). The Charles- ton Museum in South Carolina had begun operations in 1773, and still operates today, but was slower to develop its natural history collections. Peale’s was the focal point for those working on mammals in Philadel- phia. Most books on the subject published from about 1815 until the early 1840s were largely based on specimens examined there. Peale’s Museum operated for many years on the top floor of Independence Hall, and he was probably the first to supply painted backgrounds suggestive of habitat for the cases in which many of his specimens were mounted. The natural history specimens in Peale’s Museum were exhibited as a unit by Charles’ sons and grandsons until forced to sell, with most going to P. T. Barnum and some to the Boston Museum. Peale also at- tempted a series of public lectures on what was then (1799-1800) known concerning the mammals and birds of the world. Peale’s Museum housed specimens brought back by the leaders of the Lewis and Clark Ex- pedition of 1805-1807, the first federally-
sponsored scientific expedition. It cost the government about $2,500, and produced 39 new species and subspecies of mammals. Most of the specimens were later lost in a fire, but a few survive to this day.
The first attempt at a comprehensive compilation of mammals by an American was George Ord’s “North American Zool- ogy,” which appeared anonymously in the third edition of William Guthries’ 4 New Geographical, Historical, and Commercial Grammar, and Present State of the Several Kingdoms of the World (1815). Of the 167 species listed, Samuel Rhoads determined in 1894 that “fifteen are undeterminable, twenty-four are Mexican and South Amer- ican species, eighteen are synonyms of other names on the list and ten are old world forms having no specific affinities with those of America” (Baird, 1859). Nevertheless, Ord’s 24-page contribution was the first effort by an American to place American species in some scientific arrangement.
Two Philadelphia physician-naturalists (Fig. 1), Richard Harlan (1796-1843) and John Godman (1794-1830), produced no- table works focusing on American mam- mals in the 1820s. Harlan’s Fauna Ameri- cana (1825) was largely a compilation, although he added 10 new American species and discussed the role of tooth structure in speciation. Godman’s American Natural History: Part I: Mastology, appeared in three volumes (1826-1828), and was the first es- sentially original work on mammals com- pleted by an American. The illustrations were based on mounted specimens in Peale’s Museum. The first part of the English ex- plorer-naturalist Sir John Richardson’s Fauna Boreali Americana dealing with mammals was published in London in 1829. Richardson focused on Canadian forms, some of them native to the United States, and his descriptions were still considered authoritative at the end of the 19th century.
With the creation of the various state geo- logical and natural history surveys in the 1830s, and a rapid increase in new infor- mation, a greater degree of specialization
8 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
entered into American natural science. A number of studies centered on particular states were published, such as Ebenezer Em- mons’ Report on the Quadrupeds of Mas- sachusetts (1840) and James De Kay’s five- volume Zoology of New York (1842-1844), which included a volume on mammals. Such publications helped expand the horizons of Americans interested in their native mam- malian fauna.
The famous collaboration of John James Audubon (1785-1851) and his colleague, the New York-born Charleston-Lutheran cler- gyman John Bachman (1790-1874), result- ed in the brilliant three-volume Quadrupeds of North America (1845-1854) (Fig. 1). Bachman supplied much of the scientific information in this work, while Audubon (until his mind and eyes failed him in 1846) and his sons Victor Gifford (1809-1860) and John Woodhouse Audubon (1812-1862) completed the excellent mammal paintings. Audubon and Bachman tried to deal with all known species from the Tropic of Cancer north to Canada and Alaska. The work was intended for the widest appeal, necessitated in some measure by the costs of producing this very expensive set of books. As a con- sequence, there was no particular sequence of orders, families, and genera, although this weakened the finished product from a sci- entific standpoint. Today, the 155 forms de- scribed in the Imperial Folios of 1845-1848 have been reduced to about 118.
In June 1840, the 17-year-old Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823-1887) (Fig. 1), on the point of graduating from Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, diffidently wrote Audubon for help in identifying a flycatcher, which proved to be a new species. Audubon was kind, agreed that the bird was probably unde- scribed, and asked Baird’s help in capturing small mammals. Baird gave up the study of medicine, taught natural history at Dick- inson, and in 1850, was named the first As- sistant Secretary of the new (1846) Smith- sonian Institution at the comparatively young age of 27. Baird, a seminal figure in American zoology, brilliantly orchestrated
the collecting talents of eager but unpaid civilian naturalists who accompanied the field parties exploring railroad surveys sent out by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis in the mid 1850s. From the materials thus de- rived, Baird wrote and published his fa- mous report on the mammals of the expe- ditions in 1857, which was commercially reprinted 2 years later as Mammals of North America. This substantial volume listed 52 new species and 18 previously described forms not mentioned by Audubon and Bachman. Baird also listed 37 other species and varieties he had not personally seen or identified, together with 16 species of squir- rels and skunks, which he thought might be located in the United States. This totaled 273 forms, although Baird was careful to state that some might prove invalid. Baird’s work was a model of accuracy for its time, with emphasis placed upon morphological detail and geographical range.
As Baird had been encouraged by Au- dubon and Bachman, so he in turn provided all possible support to his contemporaries and to the next generation of individuals just beginning their professional careers. A wise and patient official, he doled out the limited practical assistance at his command and carefully gathered many of the speci- mens and field observations that form the basis of the excellent government collec- tions of today (Lindsay, 1993; Rivinus and Youssef, 1992). Among his protegés may be mentioned Elliott Coues (Fig. 1), Joseph Leidy, Robert Kennicott, Robert Ridgway, and C. Hart Merriam.
The last several decades of the 19th cen- tury coincided with a period of ferment in American intellectual life and in American natural science. A few American and Ca- nadian colleges and universities began to offer modern biological training after the American Civil War. At the same time, the federal government became increasingly concerned with scientific research and ex- ploration. The creation of a federal De- partment of Agriculture in 1862 (which achieved cabinet status in 1889) provided
ORIGIN 9
the needed home for a number of research components. These included an Entomo- logical Commission, established in 1877, and the antecedents of work in animal in- dustry, begun in 1879. These and several other agencies separately organized, includ- ing the Fish Commission in 1871 (placed in the Commerce Department in 1903) and the U.S. Geological Survey in 1878 (placed in Interior), all helped to create a large group of professions interested in various kinds of scientific activity in Washington (Dupree, 1957). The capitol city rapidly became an important center of scientific inquiry. In- deed, Congress gave some consideration to the establishment of a Department of Sci- ence in the early 1880s. One authority has pointed out that the 1,812 members of the Agriculture Department employed in sci- entific research in the year 1913 was larger than the number of American scientists known to be active in the first 5 decades of the 19th century.
A number of professional organizations in zoology began making their appearance in the 1880s. The American Society of Nat- uralists and the American Ornithologists’ Union were founded in 1883, the Ento- mological Society of America in 1889, and the American Morphological Society, and later the American Society of Zoologists, in 1890. These organizations and others that followed helped bring about a rise in sci- entific standards. The articles and reviews appearing in their journals made possible the dissemination of modern scientific in- formation.
Mammalian paleontology, in which Har- lan and Godman had been early American pioneers, prospered with the work of Joseph Leidy (1823-1891), the first of whose two most famous works was published under the aegis of the Smithsonian. This was his An- cient Fauna of Nebraska (1854). The other, On the Extinct Mammalia of Dakota and Nebraska, was published by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1869. Other leading paleontologists who made contributions to the study of fossil mam-
mals included Othniel Charles Marsh (183 1- 1899), including his studies on fossil horses; Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897), includ- ing work with mammals of the Paleocene, and Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935), whose Age of Mammals in Europe, Asia, and North America (1910) and later works on the Equidae, on titanotheres, and on the Proboscidea were important additions to the literature.
A good number of late 19th century lead- ers in ornithology were simultaneously ac- tive in studying mammals, both in the field and in the laboratory. They included Baird at the Smithsonian and Joel Asaph Allen (1838-1921) at Harvard, who moved in 1885 to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City as its first curator of ornithology and mammalogy. Two pro- tegés of Baird also began making substantial contributions to mammalogy in the 1860s and 1880s, respectively. One was Elliott Coues (1842-1899), an Army physician in- volved with several of the federal geograph- ical and geological surveys of the west, and later a free-lance naturalist. The other was Clinton Hart Merriam (1855-1942), trained as a medical doctor (Columbia University, 1879), who wrote Mammals of the Adiron- dacks (1882 and 1884) at an early age.
In 1888, the Federal government estab- lished an agency in the Department of Ag- riculture called the ‘Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy,” under the direction of C. Hart Merriam. This division, later to evolve into the Bureau of Biological Survey, developed in a most indirect way. The American Ornithologists’ Union in 1883 created a committee concerned with the migration and geographical distribution of birds. Merriam was the chairman, and his group was so successful at gathering data that they soon had more on their hands than they could handle. Into this emergency stepped Spencer F. Baird and Senator War- ner Miller of New York, an old Merriam family friend. In 1884, they pushed a bill through Congress calling for a $5,000 sub- vention for the establishment of an Office
10 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
of Economic Ornithology to be placed with- in the Entomological Commission at the Agriculture Department. As head of this di- vision, Merriam invited Albert Kenrick Fisher (1856-1948), a friend and fellow alumnus of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, to join the fledgling agency as his assistant. They began opera- tions in July, 1885 (Cameron, 1929; Ster- ling, 1977, 1989). Their task was to research “the interrelation of birds and agriculture [and] an investigation of the food, habits and migration of birds in relation to plants, and publishing report[s] thereon....” The intent of this operation was to benefit Amer- ican agriculture by collecting data and de- veloping information that farmers could use in fending off the depredations of harmful species. The relationship between birds and insects was to be an important element in this work. Within a year, Merriam’s re- sponsibilities had been expanded to include mammals and birds as they related to ag- riculture, horticulture, and forestry.
By 1886, Merriam’s agency had achieved emancipation from the parent Entomolog- ical Commission; within 10 years, it had been redesignated the Division of Biological Survey, and by 1906, it had become the Bureau of Biological Survey, the name it would retain until 1940. In that year, it was combined with the old Fish Commission, then in the Commerce Department, to form the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which was placed in the Interior Department. The United States National Museum was estab- lished in 1879 as an adjunct of the Smith- sonian. It is reported that the National Mu- seum started back-handedly when an unauthorized sign “‘National Museum of the United States” appeared in the hall with the collections of the Smithsonian.
The Early History of the American Society of Mammalogists
The United States Biological Survey flourished under the direction of C. Hart Merriam (Fig. 2). Merriam’s personal agen-
da involved nothing less than a continent- wide biogeographical reconnaissance, and Congress officially incorporated this in its authorization of his agency’s expenditures in 1894. Merriam assembled an impressive cadre of young workers in Washington, D.C. Some of these came college-trained, but many had only a high school education. Merriam was critical of the educational phi- losophies of some American universities that stressed laboratory work to the exclusion of field work. He preferred to give his men on- the-job training, using field methods he had developed (Cameron, 1929; Sterling, 1977, 1989). Included in those associated in the early history of the Biological survey were Vernon Bailey, Clarence Birdseye, A. K. Fisher, Frederick Funston, Edward A. Goldman, Ned Hollister, Arthur H. Howell, Hartley H. T. Jackson, John Alden Loring, Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr., Waldo Lee Mc- Atee, Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., Edward M. Nel- son, Wilfred H. Osgood, T. S. Palmer, Ed- ward Preble, Walter P. Taylor, W. E. Clyde Todd, and Stanley P. Young.
Another event that gave great impetus to the study of mammals at this time was the invention and adoption of the cyclone mouse trap in the late 1880s. This trap and its var- ious modifications, including the Museum Special and live traps, opened up new vistas in the study of mammals.
In the early 1900s an increasing number of persons outside of the Washington, D.C., area were publishing or lecturing about mammals. Some of these were associated with universities and others with large mu- seums. Included in this group were Joel A. Allen, Glover M. Allen, Rudolph Ander- son, Joseph Grinnell, W. D. Matthew, Er- nest Thompson Seton, and Alfred H. Wright.
Many important events mentioned above led to the formation of the American So- ciety of Mammalogists: 1) the establish- ment and objectives of the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey with its cadre of enthu- siastic, eager mammalogists; 2) the forma- tion and growth of the U.S. National Mu- seum with curators in mammalogy, including Elliott Coues, Gerrit S. Miller, Jr.,
ORIGIN 11
oe
Fic. 2.—Bureau of Biological Survey members working at the U.S. National Museum at the turn of the century. From left to right: Vernon O. Bailey, Wilfred H. Osgood, Edward W. Nelson, Albert K. Fisher. Photograph from the files of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
and Frederick True; 3) the formation and growth of successful scientific societies for the other “‘ologies’’; 4) the use of the mu- seum-special trap and the associated in- crease in numbers of specimens of mam- mals in collections with uniform, standard data; and 5) the increased interest in teach- ing mammalogy at the college level.
One young mammalogist working at the Bureau of Biological Survey had often thought about a society of persons interest- ed in mammals. This was Hartley H. T. Jackson (Fig. 3). In 1902, when a junior at Milton College, Wisconsin, young Jackson discussed such a society with his admired mentor, Professor Ludwig Kumlien, and his boyhood friend, Ned Hollister. Although the others were somewhat skeptical, Jackson was not. In 1910, Jackson who by then was working for the Bureau of Biological Survey in Washington, D.C., attended the annual meeting of the American Ornithologists’
Union held in that city. This meeting en- forced his earlier views and “‘I became more thoroughly convinced that we could make a success of a mammal society” (H. H. T. Jackson letter, 1968, in archives of ASM). For the next few years, Jackson ““muddled along with ideas, worked on a possible con- stitution or bylaws, figured on possible sources of members” (ibid). He discussed such an organization with Edward Gold- man when in the field on Horseshoe Cie- nega, Arizona, in 1915, and again with Goldman and Walter Taylor on the Nantan Plateau, Arizona, in 1916. Walter Taylor was enthusiastic about such an organiza- tion.
The Bureau of Biological Survey was un- der the leadership of Edward W. Nelson in 1918, Merriam having stepped down in 1910. The Survey, by custom, held staff meetings periodically, but they gradually had become disorganized, according to Jackson.
12 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
Fic. 3.—Hartley Harrad Thompson Jackson, the one person whose dream, dedication, and perseverance contributed the most to the suc- cessful origin of the American Society of Mam- malogists.
To rectify this situation, a committee of three—A. K. Fisher, Vernon Bailey, and Walter Taylor—was appointed to plan such meetings. Among other things, this com- mittee recommended that the scientific staff hold evening meetings monthly at the home of different staff members.
At the third such meeting, held at Vernon Bailey’s home on 5 December 1918, Jack- son wrote (ibid) that he ‘“‘thought there might not be too much to talk about at the De- cember meeting, and suggested to Mr. Bai- ley [who would preside] ahead of the meet- ing that it might be a good time to bring up the matter of a mammal society.”’ Dr. Jack- son continued to write that ‘“‘near the close of a busy session the question as to the ad- visability of launching a new organization for the promotion of mammal study was brought up for discussion by Chairman Bai- ley. I had already appraised Bailey of some of my ideas such as that [A. H.] Howell, [Ned] Hollister, [E. A.] Preble, and [W. P.]
Taylor should be on the committee, and that it would be advisable to have five other representatives, one from each of five other institutions outside of Washington. I had already done considerable work such as out- lining a constitution or by-laws, searching lists for possible members, etc.”’ At this meeting it was moved that a committee be appointed to canvas the situation, and this committee consisted of Dr. Jackson as chairman and the other recommended members. It was further suggested that a report be made at the next meeting on work- ing plans for the proposed organization. Eight days after the committee was ap- pointed, on 13 December 1918, the five Washington members met, discussed a con- stitution for the proposed society, suggested a first regular meeting in the spring of 1919, and added these non- Washingtonians to the committee: G. M. Allen, J. A. Allen, J. Grinnell, W. H. Osgood, and later, Witmer Stone. On 21 December the Washington- members of the committee met again and, quoting from Walter Taylor’s notes (in ASM archives), “decided upon the following rec- ommendations: (1) That there be organized a society for mammal study to be known as the American Society of Mammalogists. (2) That the constitution attached hereto be proposed as a basis for further considera- tion. (3) That the report of the Committee on Organization appointed by the Chair- man of the meeting of the Scientific Staff of the Biological Survey on Dec. 5, 1918, be received and the Committee discharged, it being understood that the Committee would be immediately reorganized as a permanent Committee on Organization independent of the Survey. (4) That plans be made for hold- ing a formal organization meeting of the new Society if possible in March, 1919.” At the next staff meeting at the home of Walter Henderson, 9 January 1919, the re- port of the committee was approved, the committee was discharged, and Jackson as chairman appointed a new committee con- sisting of the same ten persons. Also, the original notice of ‘““A proposed American
ORIGIN i
A PROPOSED AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAMMALOGISTS
You are cordially invited to join in a movement to organize a society for the promotion of the interests and study of mammalogy. It is intended that the society shall devote itself to the subject in a broad way, including studies of habits, life histories, evolution, ecology, and other phases. Plans call for the publication of a journal in which both popular and technical matter shall be presented, for holding meet- ings, both general and sectional, aiding research, and engaging in such other activities as may be deemed expedient. It is hoped that you will actively participate, and, if possible, attend the organization meeting which will be held in the New National Museum, Washing- ton, D. C., April 3 and 4, 1919, sessions commencing at 10.00 a.m. and 2.00 ep. m. No program of papers has been planned for this meeting.
Prevalent opinion indicates that annual dues for members will be about three dollars.
Kindly bring this notice to the attention of others who may be interested in the movement.
Respectfully submitted,
( HARTLEY H. T. JACKSON, Chairman, U. S. Biological Survey. WALTER P. TAYLOR, Secretary, U. S. Biological Survey. GLOVER M. ALLEN, Boston Society of Natural History. | J. A. ALLEN, American Museum of Natural History. ; JOSEPH GRINNELL, Committee 2 University of California. on N. HOLLISTER, Organization National Zoological Park. ARTHUR H. HOWELL, H U. S. Biological Survey. | WILFRED H. OSGOOD, Field Museum of Natural History. EDWARD A. PREBLE, U. S. Biological Survey. WITMER STONE, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
The following blank properly filled and sent to the Chairman or Secretary of the Committee, Biological Survey, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., will constitute application for charter membership.
TATA ATA ATA ALATALALATATALALALALATALA LA TALATALALAUATALAVATATACAVAUL YA UA VAVACLULUL YA VALAUL CALL TANI 2 a VAUA UD VAVAVALYAVAYA YALA A VAYAULVIYIVAVIVIVAVILYIVLY
I desire to become a charter member of the American Society of Mammalogists. I shall attend the organization meeting.
Fic. 4.—This announcement of the proposed Society was sent to prospective members in the United States and other countries.
14 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
A PROPOSED AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAMMALOGISTS
A COMMITTEE of representative American mammalogists, including men from different parts of the country in its membership, has recently been at work on plans to organize a society for the promotion of interest in the study of mammalogy. It is intended that the society shall devote itself to the subject in a broad way, including investigations of habits, life histories, evolution and ecology. The plans call for the publication of a journal in which both popular and technical matter will be presented, for holding meetings both gen- eral and sectional, aiding research, and en- gaging in such other activities as may be deemed expedient. It is hoped to secure the active participation of all interested. The organization meeting will be held at the New National Museum, Washington, D. C., April
3 and 4, 1919, sessions commencing at 10:00 AM. and 2:00 p.m.
No program of papers has been planned for this meeting. The or- ganization committee includes the following: Hartley H. T. Jackson, Chairman, U. S. Bio- logical Survey; Walter P. Taylor, Secretary, U. S. Biological Survey; Glover M. Allen, Boston Society of Natural History; J. A. Allen, American Museum of Natural History; Joseph Grinnell, University of California; N. Hollister, National Zoological Park; Arthur H. Howell, U. S. Biological Survey: Wilfred H. Osgood, Field Museum of Natural History; Edward A. Preble, U. S. Biological Survey; Witmer Stone, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Further informa- tion will be furnished by either the chairman or the secretary, to whom applications for charter membership should be transmitted.
Fic. 5.—Account of the proposed American Society of Mammalogists as it appeared six weeks before the first meeting in Science, n.s., XLIX, 21 February 1919.
Society of Mammalogists” was printed and mailed in early February, 1919, to prospec- tive members (Fig. 4). A notice of the forth- coming organizational meeting was pub- lished in Science, n.s., 49:189, 21 February 1919 (Fig. 5).
With an official committee set up for the organization of a society of mammalogists,
five meetings were held in late January to March, 1919. The out-of-town members were usually unable to attend. Jackson was busily drawing up a list of prospective mem- bers, gathering funds to start such an or- ganization, and drafting the by-laws. These, Jackson said, were modeled after the con- stitution and by-laws of the A. O. U., Amer- ican Society of Naturalists, Wisconsin Nat- ural History Society, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, and the Biological Society of Washington. Jackson learned that under the laws of the District of Columbia, where the Society was to be incorporated, the phrase- ology of “‘bylaws and rules, had to be used, not constitution.” On 23 January 1919, a most important meeting of the ““Committee on the Organization of Mammal Society” was held in Room 61 of the “New Muse- um,” Washington, D.C. Four typescript pages of this meeting are in the ASM ar- chives. Jackson chaired the meeting with other committee members consisting of A. H. Howell, Ned Hollister, and Walter Tay- lor. Other “resident mammalogists’” who were present included J. W. Gidley, E. W. Nelson, H. H. Sheldon, Charles Sheldon, C. Birdseye, William Palmer, T. S. Palmer, Vernon Bailey, C. Hart Merriam, George Field, W. C. Henderson, W. D. Bell, and M. W. Lyon, Jr. Most of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of the by-laws. Mer- riam ‘‘advocated simplicity in the consti- tution as the best way to promote effective business administration and permanence.” He also opposed ‘“‘the division of the mem- bership into different classes and favoring one general class of members, with possibly an honorary class composed of foreign members.” Thereby a section on “Fellows” was deleted by committee action, but a sec- tion on Honorary Members was included. The suggestion of meeting with other soci- eties was discussed but remained undecid- ed. Persons in the Washington area were encouraged to make voluntary contribu- tions of $2.00 for preliminary operations, and Jackson said the response was good. A total of $52 had been collected by the time
ORIGIN ibs:
of the first meeting, and of this $47.31 had been spent for 1,000 circulars and stamped envelopes, 500 printed membership cards, and 100 printed programs. The first annual meeting started with a balance of $4.69.
The organizational meeting was held on 3 and 4 April 1919 at the U.S. National Museum (Fig. 6). Eight members of the orig- inal organizing committee were elected to top positions in the new society. Although many persons were anxious for J. A. Allen to be the first president, he declined because of failing health. C. Hart Merriam was elect- ed President, E. W. Nelson and Wilfred H. Osgood Vice-presidents, H. H. T. Jackson Corresponding Secretary, W. P. Taylor Treasurer, H. H. Lane Recording Secretary, and Joel A. Allen Honorary Member. Ten members were elected to the Council (now Board of Directors), five for a 1-year term — R. M. Anderson, M. W. Lyon, Jr., W. D. Matthew, T. S. Palmer, E. A. Preble—and five for a 2-year term—G. M. Allen, J. Grin- nell, J. C. Merriam, G. S. Miller, Jr., and W. Stone. Every person who joined before or during the first meeting or the first year was regarded as a charter member and re- ceived a card signed by Jackson and Mer- riam. About 60 persons attended the meet- ing.
At the first meeting, often referred to as the Organizational Meeting, there were three sessions of the Council (Fig. 7). These were held at 8 p.m., April 3; 9 a.m., April 4; and 11:15 a.m., April 4. The original By-laws and Rules had a “Council or Board of Man- agers” (Journal of Mammalogy, 1:50, 1919). Before the society was incorporated in the District of Columbia, this was changed to Directors (Journal of Mammalogy, |, inside cover of No. 4, 1920).
At the first session of the organizational meeting, Marcus W. Lyon was elected tem- porary chairman, H. H. Lane, temporary secretary. Two hundred and forty persons were accepted as charter members. The original list is on file in the ASM archives. At the afternoon session the officers and “councillors” were elected. Wilfred H. Os-
good gave an “illustrated lecture on North American Mammals” at the evening session (1919 minutes, ASM archives).
The business that transpired at the third (Friday morning) session can be summa- rized thus: 1) J. A. Allen unanimously elect- ed Honorary Member; 2) persons qualified for charter membership if they enroll before the next annual meeting; 3) incorporation of the Society under the laws of the District of Columbia; 4) plans to issue a quarterly publication known as the Journal of Mam- malogy, 5) appointed a Committee on Membership; 6) J. C. Merriam was elected ‘““Councillor” to replace Ned Hollister, who was appointed Editor of the Journal; 7) es- tablished a Committee on the Study of Game Mammals; 8) next annual meeting in New York City.
There was “‘quite a difference of opinion regarding the name of the Journal. Some favor a short name, like ‘Bison’, ‘Puma’, or something of that sort. Others like “Bairdia’, but I think that most of us here, at least, agree with you that ‘American Journal of Mammalogy’ is the most appropriate name suggested to date. Or, more simply ‘Journal of Mammalogy’ [letter from Walter P. Tay- lor to Glover Allen on 11 March 1919].” On 11 July 1919, Williams and Wilkins Company of Baltimore, Maryland, solicited the new society through President C. Hart Merriam and Glover Allen to print the Journal of Mammalogy. The report of the “Committee on Publications,” chaired by Ned Hollister, pointed out that Williams and Wilkins was the only company to sub- mit a bid.
By January 1920, there were 11 life mem- bers with their membership fees invested in United States Liberty and Victory bonds. By the end of the second annual meeting, there were 441 members (Fig. 8), of which 25 resided outside of the United States and Canada. Income for this period amounted to $3,003.58; expenses for printing and mailing the Journal and all other expenses were $748.44: monies invested in bonds and in the bank, $2,255.14. A memorandum of
16 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
APrey sg Pe eg nt tee
Fic. 6.—This is the only known photograph of the first (organizational) meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists, 4 April 1919, taken at the Administration Building, National Zoological Park, Washington, D.C. 1. C. H. M. Barrett; 2. Walter P. Taylor; 3. Charles M. Hoy; 4. Arthur J. Poole; 5. Vernon Bailey; 6. Ned Hollister; 7. Marcus W. Lyon, Jr.; 8. George A. Lawyer; 9. Frank M. Jarvis; 10. H. H. T. Jackson; 11. A. K. Fisher; 12. Leo D. Miner; 13. W. B. Bell; 14. Witmer Stone; 15. Wilfred H. Osgood; 16. C. Hart Merriam; 17. J. W. Gidley; 18. W. H. Cheesman; 19. James S. Gutsell; 20. C. C. Adams; 21. G. W. Field; 22. Ned Dearborn; 23. T. S. Palmer; 24. Charles Batchelder; 25. Charles Sheldon; 26. E. A. Preble; 27. Rudolph M. Anderson; 28. Mrs. Witmer Stone;
ORIGIN i,
29. Mrs. T. S. Palmer; 30. Mrs. E. A. Preble; 31. A. B. Baker; 32. Mrs. C. H. Merriam; 33. Harry Oberholser; 34. Mrs. F. M. Bailey; 35. B. H. Swales; 36. Waldo L. Schmitt; 37. Alexander Wetmore; 38. Mrs. Leo D. Miner; 39. Mrs. Waldo Schmitt; 40. Miss Catherine Baird; 41. Miss May T. Cooke; 42. Mrs. G. W. Gidley; 43. J. W. Scollick; 44. Jonathan Dwight; 45. Mrs. Ned Hollister; 46. Mrs. Jane Elliott; 47. John P. Buwalda; 48. Leland C. Wyman; 49. H. W. Henshaw; 50. Warren Craven; 51. Mrs. Marcus W. Lyon; 52. Remington Kellogg; 53. Viola S. Schantz; 54. Mrs. Anna Jackson; 55.
E. W. Nelson; 56. H. H. Lane; 57. W. C. Henderson.
18 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
Ameriran Soriety of Mammalogists
ORGANIZATION MEETING NEW NATIONAL MUSEUM WASHINGTON, D. C.
APRIL 3 AND 4, 1919
ALL BUSINESS SESSIONS WILL BE HELD IN ROOMS 42 AND 43
Program April 3. Business session : : , 10:00 A. M. Luncheon for members. 1:00 P. M.
Members are asked to assemble at 12.45 P. M. at B Street or North entrance of the Museum and proceed in a body to May- nard Cafe, formerly Tea Cup Inn, 611 12th Street, N. W.
Business session : : . : 2:00 P. M.
Informal program and conversazione . 7:30 P. M.
Auditorium, New National Museum.
April 4. Business session : . ; 10:00 A. M.
Luncheon for members and their wives 12:30 P. M.
National Zoological Park, Administration Building. | Members are asked to assemble at the B Street entrance of the Museum at 12:00 o'clock sharp. Following the luncheon there will be a tour of National Zoological Park, under direction of N. Hollister, Superintendent.
Fic. 7.—Program of the first meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists. Note that this was called the “‘organization”’ meeting.
ORIGIN 1)
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAMMALOGISTS
EO Lay ioe Daahao
I have the honor to inform you that you were elected a Sore ee
at the meeting peld Opes 2-ve CGT : ine Ue neers ere
~~
President.
Fic. 8.—Original membership card of Hartley H. T. Jackson. Cards so dated represented charter membership. The first four lines are in the hand-writing of Anna Marcia Jackson.
H. H. T. Jackson’s (ASM archives) of 3 May 1920, states that “After many distressing circumstances the Journal of Mammalogy is started. .. . A written agreement was made with Williams and Wilkins Company, Bal- timore, to print the first volume. . . . It seems to the corresponding secretary [Jackson] that an endowment—a publication fund—is es- sential if the Society is to live up to stan- dards worthy of its membership. The in- come from such a fund would nourish the Journal through its precarious infancy, and could later be utilized for publishing mono- graphs or for whatever worthy cause the So- ciety might deem desirable.”
On 3 May 1921, Jackson re-emphasized this request in the Second Annual Report of the Corresponding Secretary. He wrote: “The Society can take pride in having es- tablished a creditable magazine without a single financial donation toward its publi- cation or general expenses. This has been done at a critical period in industrial history and at a time when printing costs were al- most prohibitive. It has been possible, how- ever, largely through the Charter Members, who willingly paid membership dues for the
year 1919, yet received only one number of the Journal during that year. With a normal increase in the number of members and sub- scribers we can hope to continue to publish under present conditions between 200 and 250 pages, and 10 halftones a year. The ac- tual costs of printing and distributing our present edition averages a trifle less than $8.00 per page. Indications are that we shall soon be receiving first class manuscript in quantity sufficient to publish 400 pages a year. Is the Editor to be placed in a position where it will be necessary for him to refuse valuable contributions? It would seem that the Society could ill afford to sanction such a predicament. Diffusion of knowledge 1s as essential as its creation. Immense endow- ments are given to be devoted to research, investigations, and explorations. Compar- atively small sums set aside as permanent publication funds would make available some of the results now buried in manu- scripts. It is, therefore, essential to the best interests of the Society, the Journal, and everybody concerned, that definite and pos- itive action be immediately taken to raise a Permanent Publication Fund. Any amount
20 HOFFMEISTER AND STERLING
raised would actually be worth double the amount to the Journal because of the as- sured increase in the number of subscrip- tions which would follow the improvement in the Journal.”
The Board of Directors, on 17 May 1922, heard and approved the report of the Com- mittee on the Allen Memorial, chaired by Harold E. Anthony. This report recom- mended that: 1) a permanent fund be cre- ated to be known as the J. A. Allen Me- morial Fund; 2) this fund be invested and the income used for the publication of such memorial numbers of the Journal of Mam- malogy or other publications dedicated to the memory of Dr. J. A. Allen; 3) a com- mittee be appointed to raise such funds; 4) a minimum of $10,000 be raised in 2 years. By the end of 1924, the Fund had acquired $7,606. At the 1925 meeting, John Rowley, noted taxidermist, offered to apply all roy- alties from his book towards this Fund until $10,000 had been secured from all sources. By 10 July 1928, the goal had been reached. Also at the meeting in 1922, it was proposed that the by-laws be amended to provide for a board of three trustees. These trustees con- tinue to manage the society’s reserve fund.
The new society received considerable early publicity. Science in its 21 February 1919 issue carried a report of ““A Proposed American Society of Mammalogists” and a follow-up account on 18 April 1919, of the organizational meeting, with elected officers and “councilors,” committees, and refer- ence to a forthcoming Journal of Mam- malogy.
Concerning the Fourth Annual Meeting, Science reported in its 16 May 1922 issue that “among the many interesting papers that were given before the mammalogists was the ‘Symposium on the Anatomy and Relationships of the Gorilla.’ At this session the attendance was probably greater than at any of the others, and representatives of the press were present to make the most of a subject in which the public is at present so keenly interested [the infamous Scopes tri- al].”
Of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the So- ciety, the Boston Evening Transcript had an interesting story. It began: ““Mammalogists take their electioneering seriously. Twenty- five of them, all members of the American Society of Mammalogists, spent an hour and a half at the Harvard Museum in Cambridge this morning, making up a slate of six of- ficers and as many directors. The hitch came in choosing the directors. On the first ballot the names of twenty-four candidates ap- peared, one fewer than the number of men in the room. Eight ballots were taken before the choice was made.”
At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a marked increase in the study of mam- mals in the United States. Museums and universities were training young people in mammalogy, both in the laboratory and field. Sooner or later there surely would be an organization of such scientists. However, this would not have come about as rapidly, effectively, and successfully without the dreams and determination of Hartley Jack- son and a group of dedicated fellow workers in Washington, D.C. Their work toward the formation of a new society is attested to in a small part by the fact that between 5 De- cember 1918 and 13 March 1919, Jackson and his colleagues held a recorded nine or- ganizational meetings, and undoubtedly many other private discussions. Once the ASM was started, many persons continued unselfishly to devote much time to the op- erations of the society. For the first 14 years, Henry H. Lane of the University of Kansas served as Recording Secretary. For 23 years, Viola S. Schantz served as Treasurer. Anna M. Jackson, Hartley’s wife, did most of the record-keeping and typing during the for- mative period and during the years that Hartley served as Corresponding Secretary. The work of these and many others provid- ed a sound basis for the rapidly growing society.
The foregoing paragraphs have briefly re- viewed the events and circumstances that led to the formation of a scientific society of mammalogists in the Americas in the
ORIGIN Al
early 1900s. A group of energetic and far- sighted mammalogists working in the Unit- ed States National Museum seized the mo- ment to spearhead the organization of the ASM. As stated in Article 1, Section 2, of their by-laws, it was their intention that: “The object of the Society shall be the pro- motion of the interests of mammalogy by holding meetings, issuing a serial or other publications, aiding research, and engaging in such other activities as may be deemed expedient.” The following chapters review how these aims and goals of 1919 have been accomplished during the ensuing 75 years, both through activities of the ASM and the growth and intellectual development of the discipline of mammalogy.
Additional Readings
One volume of an international history of mammalogy has been published (Ster- ling, 1987) and another is in progress. His- torical accounts of mammalogy in the USA include contributions by Hamilton (1955) and Gunderson (1976); Allen (1916) pro- vided insights into the career of a major American mammalogist and founder of the ASM.
Literature Cited
ALLEN, J. A. 1916. Autobiographical notes and a bib- liography of the scientific publications of Joel Asaph Allen. American Museum of Natural History, New York, 215 pp.
ApPEL, T. A. 1987. The Cuvier-Geoffroy debate: French biology in the decades before Darwin. Oxford University Press, New York, 305 pp.
Bairp, S. F. 1859. Mammals of North America. J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 764 pp.
CAMERON, J. 1929. The Bureau of Biological Survey. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 339 pp.
Dupree, A. H. 1957. Science in the federal govern- ment; a history of policies and activities to 1940. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 460 pp.
FARBER, P. L. 1982. The emergence of ornithology as a scientific discipline, 1760-1850. Dordrecht, Holland, 191 pp.
GUNDERSON, H.L. 1976. Mammalogy. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 483 pp.
HAmILTon, W. J., JR. 1955. Mammalogy in North America. Pp. 661-688, in A century of progress in the natural sciences, 1853-1953 (E. L. Kessel, ed.). California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, 807 pp.
HOFFMEISTER, D. F. 1969. The first fifty years of the American Society of Mammalogists. Journal of Mammalogy, 50:794-802.
LinpsAy, D. 1993. Science in the subarctic: trappers, traders, and the Smithsonian Institution. Smithson- ian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 176 pp.
McCLELLAN, J. R. 1985. Science reorganized: sci- entific societies in the Eighteenth Century. Columbia University Press, New York, 413 pp.
PEDEN, W. (ED.) 1955. Thomas Jefferson’s notes on the state of Virginia. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 315 pp.
Ruoaps, S. N. (Ep.) 1894. A reprint of the North American zoology, by George Ord. . . . George Stokely Printer, Haddonfield, New Jersey, 290-361; 1-90
SELLERS, C. C. 1980. Mr. Peale’s museum: Charles Willson Peale and the first popular museum of sci- ence and art. W. W. Norton, New York, 370 pp.
STERLING, K. B. 1977. Last of the naturalists: the career of C. Hart Merriam (revised edition). Arno Press, New York, 478 pp.
.(ED.) 1987. An international history of mam-
malogy. One World Press, Bel Air, Maryland, Vol.
1, 198 pp.
. 1989. Builders of the Biological Survey, 1885-
1930. Journal of Forest History, 30:180-187.
PRESIDENTS
JAMES N. LAYNE AND ROBERT S. HOFFMANN
Introduction
he President is one of four elective of- ficers of the ASM, the others being the First and Second Vice-presidents and the Recording Secretary. The President is the official representative of the Society. His or her duties include presiding over the meet- ings of the Board of Directors and the gen- eral business meeting, appointment of chairs and members of standing committees, es- tablishing ad hoc committees to carry out specific tasks, designating representatives to other organizations, and preparation of an annual budget proposal with the help of the Secretary-Treasurer. Past-presidents are au- tomatically members of the Board of Di- rectors.
The term of office of the President and other elective and appointed officers of the society extends from the end of the annual meeting at which elected or appointed to the end of the following annual meeting, normally from June of one year to June of the next. Prior to 1973, the President was elected for a 1-year term and was eligible for reelection. In 1974, the By-laws and Rules were revised to extend the term of office to 2 years, with no provision for re- election.
Unlike many scientific societies in which
22
Se 9. the President is empowered to speak for the Society...
election of officers is by mail ballot, the ASM has followed the practice of holding elec- tions at the annual general business meet- ing. Nominations are made from the floor and voting is by written ballot. The pros and cons of this policy have been debated over the years, but it has survived succes- sive revisions of the By-laws and Rules. The prevailing view has been that members who regularly attend annual meetings and take an active part in the affairs of the society are best qualified to judge the qualifications of candidates. The long succession of pres- idents who have ably served the society at- tests to the effectiveness of this system.
The 38 presidents of the society during its 75-year history and their terms of office are as follows (living individuals indicated with an asterisk):
1. C. Hart Merriam (1919-1921)
2. Edward W. Nelson (1921-1924) 3. Wilfred H. Osgood (1924-1926) 4. William D. Matthew (1926-1927) 5. Glover M. Allen (1927-1929)
6. Witmer Stone (1929-1931)
7. Marcus W. Lyon, Jr. (1931-1933) 8. Vernon Bailey (1933-1935)
9. Harold E. Anthony (1935-1937)
PRESIDENTS 25
10. Joseph Grinnell (1937-1938)
11. Hartley H. T. Jackson (1938-1940) 12. Walter P. Taylor (1940-1942)
13. A. Brazier Howell (1942-1944)
14. E. Raymond Hall (1944-1946)
15. Edward A. Goldman (1946-1947)
16. Remington Kellogg (1947-1949)
17. Tracy I. Storer (1949-1951)
18. William J. Hamilton, Jr. (1951-1953) 19. William H. Burt (1953-1955)
20. William B. Davis* (1955-1958)
21. Robert T. Orr* (1958-1960)
22. Stephen D. Durrant (1960-1962)
23. Emmet T. Hooper, Jr. (1962-1964) 24. Donald F. Hoffmeister* (1964-1966) 25. Randolph L. Peterson (1966-1968) 26. Richard G. Van Gelder* (1968-1970) 27. James N. Layne* (1970-1972)
28. J. Knox Jones, Jr. (1972-1974)
29. Sydney Anderson* (1974-1976)
30. William Z. Lidicker, Jr.* (1976-1978) 31. Robert S. Hoffmann* (1978-1980) 32. James S. Findley* (1980-1982)
33. J. Mary Taylor* (1982-1984)
34. Hugh H. Genoways* (1984-1986)
35. Don E. Wilson* (1986-1988)
36. Elmer C. Birney* (1988-1990)
37. James H. Brown* (1990-1992)
38. James L. Patton* (1992-1994)
Presidential Profile
Several of the early presidents played a key role in the prehistory of the ASM. Grin- nell was one of the founders, in 1903, of the short-lived Pacific Coast Mammalogical Club, apparently the first attempt to form a professional mammalogy society in North America (Jackson, 1948). The major figure in the establishment of the ASM was Jack- son. As early as 1902, he discussed with Ned Hollister the formation of a mammal so- ciety (Hoffmeister, 1969). More serious consideration of the idea took place while Jackson and Goldman were collecting in the White Mountains of Arizona in the summer of 1915 and when Jackson, Goldman, and Taylor were working on the Natanes Plateau
in Arizona in 1916 (Hoffmeister, 1969). Jackson, together with three others (Bailey, Nelson, and W. Taylor) destined to become ASM presidents, was a member in 1918 and 1919 of the informal group from the Wash- ington area known as the Biological Survey Association that formally proposed the for- mation of the ASM; and he served as chair- man, with W. Taylor as secretary, at the first meeting of the society in April 1919. Four presidents (Bailey, Jackson, Merriam, Nel- son) were signatories to the articles of in- corporation of the society in April 1920 (Anon., 1923). With the exception of Hall, who became a member of the society in 1923, all of the first 17 presidents, from Merriam to Storer, were charter members. Nelson and Osgood, the second and third presidents, were the first vice-presidents, serving in that capacity from 1919 to 1921 and 1924, respectively.
Typical of other scientific organizations, the sex ratio of the elective officers of ASM has been strongly male-biased; and it was not until 1982 that the first woman, J. Mary Taylor, was elected president. Prior to that time, Viola S. Schantz and Caroline A. Hep- penstall were the only women to hold office, that of treasurer, which together with sec- retary, was the traditional post of women in scientific and other organizations in ear- lier days.
Most presidents (excluding charter mem- bers) joined the society in their early 20s (average age 23), with Findley and Jones the youngest (18) and Davis and Durrant the oldest (32). Presidents who were charter members averaged 46 years of age at the time ASM was formed. Storer (27) and An- thony (29) were the youngest and Merriam and Nelson the oldest (64). Van Gelder was the youngest president (40) at the time of election, followed by Wilson (42), Jones (43), and Genoways, Layne, and Lidicker (44). Goldman (73) was the oldest, followed by Bailey (69), Nelson (66), and Merriam (64). Considering only non-charter members, Durrant (58) was the oldest president at the time of election. As a group, ASM presi-
24 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
dents have been relatively long-lived, with an average life span of 76 years, with Jack- son holding the record for longevity (95) and Matthew being the youngest at time of death (59). The average age of living pres- idents (as of June 1993) was 64, ranging from 49 (Wilson) to 91 (Davis). With six exceptions, all presidents have served for 2 years. Goldman died within a few months of election, Matthew and Grinnell served only | year, and Nelson and Davis were elected for 3 years. Davis’s extended tenure was the result of a desire of the membership to maintain administrative continuity dur- ing a period of reorganization of the socie- ty’s finances.
The usual path to the presidency of the society has been through membership in standing committees, service as a director, and election to the vice-presidency. Mat- thew, Allen, Stone, and Lyon were members of the original Council. With the exception of Merriam, Bailey, and Anderson, presi- dents have served from 1 (Nelson, Jackson, Kellogg, Van Gelder) to 9 (Patton) terms as vice-president, with a mean of 3 years. Ten presidents have held other elective offices in the society besides those of Director and Vice-president. Jackson, Howell, Burt, Hooper, and Hoffmeister served as Corre- sponding Secretary and Orr, Peterson, Van Gelder, and Anderson as Recording Secre- tary. W. Taylor was Treasurer. Anthony, Davis, and Anderson served as Trustees of the Reserve Fund. Thirteen presidents held editorial posts. These included Jackson (Journal of Mammalogy), Howell (Journal of Mammalogy), Burt (Journal of Mam- malogy, Special Publications), Davis (Jour- nal of Mammalogy), Van Gelder (Recent Literature), Layne (Special Publications), Jones (Managing Editor, Review Editor, Journal of Mammalogy), Anderson (Mam- malian Species), Hoffmann (Review Edi- tor), Genoways (Journal of Mammalogy, Special Publications), Wilson (Mammalian Species, Special Publications), Birney (Man- aging Editor, Journal of Mammalogy, Spe-
cial Publications), and Patton (Review Ed- itor).
With the exception of Matthew, who was born in New Brunswick, Canada, all ASM presidents have been born in the United States. Nine were born in the Northeast (Maryland [1], New Hampshire [3], New York [4], Pennsylvania [1]), 18 in the Mid- dle West (Illinois [4], Iowa [1], Kansas [4], Michigan [1], Missouri [1], Nebraska [2], Ohio [1], Oklahoma [2], Wisconsin [2]), and 8 in the West (Arizona [1], California [2], Idaho [1], Oregon [2], Texas [1], Utah [1]). There is a historical trend in the geographic origins of the presidents, with the Northeast and Middle West predominating in the pe- riod up to the 1940s and increasing repre- sentation of western states in subsequent years. Interestingly enough, the Southeast has produced no presidents thus far in the history of the society.
Slightly more than half (55%) of the pres- idents were born and spent at least their early childhood in a rural setting, while the remainder, with the exception of Lyon, who spent his youth on different army posts around the country, were born in larger cit- ies. The proportion of presidents born and raised in cities increases after the late 1940s. Regardless of the environment of their youth, almost all of the presidents devel- oped a consuming interest in natural history at an early age, sometimes through an in- terest in collecting objects or in hunting or other outdoor activity such as falconry (Layne). Birney and J. Taylor divided their interests between natural history and sports, football and tennis, respectively; and Ham- ilton was a champion boxer during his un- dergraduate years.
Almost all presidents were strongly influ- enced in their pursuits of natural history by their mothers or fathers; particular friends; high school, college, and, in the case of Hamilton, Sunday school teachers; or mu- seum curators or keepers in zoological parks. The majority of presidents focused on mammalogy as a career during their college
PRESIDENTS 25
years as a result of the influence of an un- dergraduate or graduate professor or, in some cases, a fellow student. Seven presi- dents have had students who themselves be- came president. These include (students in parentheses) Grinnell (Burt, Davis, Hall, Hooper, Orr), Hall (Hoffmeister, Durrant, Jones, Anderson, Findley), Jones (Geno- ways, Birney), Hooper (Brown), Hoffmeis- ter (Lidicker, Van Gelder), Hamilton (Layne), and Findley (Wilson). A more-de- tailed “family tree’ of ASM presidents and other North American mammalogists is given in the chapter by Whitaker (1994) in this volume. Major influences on the careers of the earliest presidents were Spencer Ful- lerton Baird, second Secretary of the Smith- sonian Institution, who encouraged Merri- am as a youth and supported Nelson at an early stage in his career, and the famous ichthyologist and president of Stanford University, David Starr Jordan, who ad- vised Osgood to take a position under Mer- riam in the Bureau of Biological Survey while he was still an undergraduate. Osgood was not only one of ““Merriam’s Men” in the Survey but also lived in Merriam’s home. Merriam also played an important role in the career of Bailey, purchasing specimens from him when he was a youth and later bringing him into the Bureau of Biological Survey. The famous team of Nelson and Goldman was born when Nelson, who needed a field assistant for a survey of the southern San Joaquin Valley of California, happened to stop at the Goldman ranch to have his wagon repaired. Goldman’s father told him of his son’s interest in natural his- tory and suggested that Nelson might like to hire him, which he did.
Nelson and Osgood were bachelors. Of the presidents who were married, six (Stone, Jackson, Storer, Burt, W. Taylor, Patton) had no children. The remainder had from one to five children, with an average of 2.7.
Except for Matthew, a geologist and pa- leontologist, all ASM presidents have been neomammalogists, although some, such as
Anthony and Kellogg, also published on fossil mammals. Other than Howell, who was primarily a mammalian anatomist, the major research fields of the remainder of the presidents can be broadly defined as ei- ther taxonomy or ecology. This categori- zation is, however, rather arbitrary, as one of the hallmarks of the work of many pres- idents has been the wide scope of their in- terests. Thus, persons who might be classed as taxonomists on the basis of the major body of their research may well have pub- lished significant papers in the area of life history, ecology, behavior, morphology, or physiology; and workers whose major re- search has been in ecology and life history have often done taxonomic or distribution- al studies as well. Given this qualification, the presidency of ASM has been dominated by taxonomists (67%). The early presidents were exclusively taxonomists, W. Taylor being the first president whose interests were in areas of ecology and life history, which in the present day would probably be de- fined as “wildlife biology.”’ Although begin- ning with Storer and Hamilton, ecology and life history interests have been more strong- ly represented in the ASM presidency, tax- onomy still prevails as the major field.
In addition to the wide recognition of the research of ASM presidents among mam- malogists at the national and international levels, the work of several of the presidents has had an impact beyond the field of mam- malogy in the broader areas of evolution, ecology, and education. Examples include Merriam’s life zone concept, Matthew’s volume Climate and Evolution, Storer’s classic text General Zoology, Burt’s work on territoriality and home range, and Brown’s research on desert ecology.
In addition to the diversity of their mam- malian research, most presidents have pub- lished on other taxonomic groups or in oth- er fields. Merriam and Nelson, for example, conducted ethnographic research and Mat- thew published many papers on geology. Of the other taxonomic groups of interest to
26 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
ASM presidents, birds predominate. Allen, Grinnell, and Stone are as well known as ornithologists as they are mammalogists, and at least 17 other presidents have pub- lished one or more papers on birds. Also appearing in the bibliographies of presi- dents are publications on fishes, amphibians and reptiles, insects and other invertebrate groups, botany, plant ecology, conserva- tion, and a wide range of other topics. One of the most versatile researchers among ASM presidents was Hamilton, who, be- sides work on a broad range of mammalian subjects, published extensively on the ecol- ogy and life histories of other vertebrates. In addition to their service to ASM in many capacities, presidents have played an active role in over 20 other scientific soci- eties as president or other elective officer. These include the Ecological Society of America (W. Taylor, Hamilton, Brown), American Society of Naturalists (Brown), Wildlife Society (Storer, W. Taylor), Pale- ontological Society (Matthew), Biological Society of Washington (Osgood, Bailey, Jackson, Wilson), Texas Academy of Sci- ence (W. Taylor), Florida Academy of Sci- ences (Layne), Society of Systematic Zool- ogy (Durrant, Hoffmann, Peterson), Midwest Museums Conference (Hoffmeis- ter), Texas Mammal Society (Jones), Or- ganization of Biological Field Stations (Layne), Southwest Association of Natural- ists (Genoways), Nebraska Museum Asso- ciation (Genoways), Nuttall Ornithological Club (Allen), American Ornithologists’ Union (Merriam, Grinnell), Cooper Orni- thological Society (Osgood, Storer), New York Academy of Sciences (Anthony), New York Explorers Club (Anthony), Organi- zation of Tropical Studies (Jones), Ameri- can Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetol- ogists (Storer), and Association of Science Museum Directors (J. Taylor). ASM pres- idents have also served as editors of journals of other organizations, including the Auk (Allen, Stone), Condor (Grinnell), Ecologi- cal Monographs (Hamilton), The American Midland Naturalist (Hoffmeister, Birney),
Evolution (Jones), The Journal of Wildlife Management (Storer), and The Texas Jour- nal of Science (Jones). In addition to these activities, presidents have served as board members of numerous conservation, aca- demic, and museum organizations, as well as scientific consultants or advisors to var- ious local, state, federal, and international agencies.
ASM presidents have frequently received recognition from the society for their re- search, service to the society, and other con- tributions to the field of mammalogy. Mer- riam and Jackson have been memorialized through the creation of the C. Hart Merriam and the H. H. T. Jackson awards. Seven (Layne, Jones, Lidicker, Findley, Geno- ways, Brown, Patton) of the 12 presidents since the establishment of the Merriam Award have been recipients; and the Jack- son Award has gone to Jones and Anderson. Honorary Membership has been bestowed on Merriam, Nelson, Lyon, Anthony, Jack- son, W. Taylor, Howell, Hall, Storer, Ham- ilton, Burt, Davis, Orr, Durrant, Hooper, Hoffmeister, Peterson, Layne, Jones, and Anderson. Early in their careers, Anderson and Layne received ASM Graduate Student Honoraria.
ASM presidents also have been the recip- ients of numerous honors and awards from other professional organizations as well as from academic institutions, governmental bodies, and environmental groups. Merri- am is the only president to have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Ten of the 38 presidents have served with distinction in the armed forces of the United States. These include Lyon, Anthony, Gold- man, Kellogg, and Storer who served in var- ious branches of the army in World War I; Hamilton and Findley (army) and Peterson, Hooper, and Layne (air force) during or just after World War IJ; Jones (army) in the Ko- rean War; and Birney (navy) in the 1960s.
The educational backgrounds of the ear- lier ASM presidents were more diverse than those of later years. Merriam and Lyon were MDs, and Stone had an honorary D.Sc. Nel-
PRESIDENTS 2d
son, Bailey, Howell, and Goldman were largely self-trained scientists, and were known by some of their contemporaries as “range-raised naturalists and biologists” (Young, 1947). With these exceptions, pres- idents have invariably had bachelor’s and Ph.D.s, and a large percentage has also re- ceived master’s degrees. Presidents have at- tended 25 different undergraduate institu- tions, with the University of California at Berkeley, University of Kansas, and Cornell each having been attended by four future presidents; the University of Arizona, Yale, and Stanford by two; and the remaining 17 colleges or universities by a single president. The list of institutions from which presi- dents have received their doctorates is much shorter (12), with over half (58%) of the degrees having been awarded by the Uni- versity of California (11) and University of Kansas (6) and a maximum of two by other institutions.
The careers of ASM presidents have cov- ered a broad spectrum of employment, and summarization of their professional posts is complicated by the fact that in many cases persons have held a number of appoint- ments, either concurrently or successively, during the course of their careers. Thus, the following breakdown, based upon the pre- dominant, if not exclusive, type of positions held by ASM presidents during their careers is of neccessity somewhat arbitrary. Seven presidents have been employed in various agencies or organizations of the federal gov- ernment, including the original Biological Survey (Merriam, Nelson, Bailey, Jackson, Goldman, Kellogg), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (W. Taylor, Wilson), and the Smith- sonian Institution (Kellogg, Hoffmann). Over half (55%) of the presidents are iden- tified primarily with museums. Nine of these have been associated with public museums, including the American Museum of Natural History (Anthony, Van Gelder, Anderson), Field Museum of Natural History (Osgood), Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- phia (Stone), California Academy of Sci- ences (Orr), Cleveland Museum of Natural
History (J. M. Taylor), and the Royal On- tario Museum (Peterson). Twelve more have been members of the curatorial staffs, and with professorial appointments in academic departments as well, of museums afhliated with universities, including the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard (Allen), Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley (Grinnell, Lidicker, Patton), Museum of Natural His- tory at the University of Kansas (Hall, Jones, Hoffmann), Museum of Natural History at the University of Illinois (Hoffmeister), Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan (Burt, Hooper), Museum of Southwestern Biology at the University of New Mexico (Findley), The Museum of Texas Tech University (Jones), University of Nebraska State Museum (Genoways), and the Bell Museum of the University of Min- nesota (Birney).
Five presidents have been teachers and researchers in academic departments at the University of California at Davis (Storer), Cornell University (Hamilton), Texas A&M University (Davis), University of Utah (Durrant), and University of New Mexico (Brown). One president (Layne) left acade- mia (Cornell) to spend a major portion of his career as a research biologist at the Arch- bold Biological Station, one (Howell) was a professor in a medical school (Johns Hop- kins), and one (Lyon) did much of his re- search while a practicing physician in In- diana.
In addition to their research, teaching, and other professional activities, many (74%) ASM presidents have held administrative posts during the course of their careers. Merriam, Nelson, Bailey, Jackson, W. Tay- lor, and Wilson served as heads of sections or programs of federal agencies, including the Biological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Cooperative Research Units. Anthony, Peterson, Van Gelder, and Anderson were chairmen of museum mam- mal departments; Osgood, Matthew, and Allen were chief curators at museums; Orr and Patton were associate directors of mu-
28 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
seums; and Stone, Grinnell, Hall, Kellogg, Hoffmeister, Jones, Findley, M. J. Taylor, Birney, and Genoways served as museum directors. Hall, Davis, Hoffmann, and Fin- dley served stints as university department chairman. Layne was director of research and executive director of the Archbold Bi- ological Station. Kellogg and Hoffmann held the post of assistant secretary for science at the Smithsonian, and Jones served as grad- uate school Dean and Vice-President for re- search at Texas Tech University.
Biographic Sketches
Following are brief biographies, arranged chronologically by term of office, of the 38 persons who have served as presidents of the ASM during the 75 years of the society’s history. Published source materials used in preparation of the accounts of deceased presidents are given at the end of the ac- counts.
Clinton Hart Merriam: 1919-1921
C. Hart Merriam (Fig. 1) was a founding member and the first president of the ASM. His selection as the founding president of the new society was a logical choice, given the preeminence he had attained in the field of mammalogy by age 64 when he assumed the presidency. His career spanned the for- mative period of the science of mammal- ogy. He was born on 5 December 1855 at Locust Grove, New York, and at age 16 joined the Hayden Survey of the American West. Throughout a long and extremely productive career that ended with his death in 1942, he helped shape the modern sci- ence of mammalogy. His parents lived in comfortable circumstances, in a “rural mansion surrounded by ample acres and shadowed by the Adirondack Mountains,” (Osgood, 1943). His early schooling appears to have been routine, and it is likely that he was much influenced by his natural sur-
roundings. In his teens he began to collect birds and eggs and early came under the influence of Spencer Fullerton Baird, the second Secretary of the Smithsonian Insti- tution. At age 17, he was sent to a day pre- paratory school, Pingry Military, in Eliza- beth, New Jersey. After 2 years, he enrolled at Yale University to study medicine. How- ever, his interest in natural history contin- ued unabated, and he had already accu- mulated a significant series of publications when he enrolled at age 24 in medical school at Columbia University. While still a med- ical student, he was involved in organizing the Linnaean Society of New York and cho- sen its first president, having previously been involved in the organization of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. Graduating from med- ical school in 1879, he returned home to Locust Grove to practice, but continued to pursue his natural history avocation; at this time his increasing interest in mammals be- came evident. Through the early 1880s, most of his publications were devoted to mam- mals, and this early phase culminated with publication of Mammals of the Adirondacks in 1884. Nevertheless, his interest in birds had not flagged, and he was also active in the formation of the American Ornitholo- gists’ Union, becoming the first secretary of that organization.
By 1885 Merriam was ready to give up his medical practice and accepted the po- sition of ornithologist in the Division of En- tomology of the Department of Agriculture. His position soon became a division and in 1888 was expanded to include mammalogy, at the same time separating itself from en- tomology. This new scientific bureau of the government provided the vehicle for his principal life work; Merriam’s name is syn- onymous with the Bureau of Biological Sur- vey, and with the “life zone’ concept he pioneered. He inaugurated the North Amer- ican Fauna series and in the first four num- bers (1889-1890) described 71 new species and several new genera of mammals. He developed an ambitious program of field collecting throughout North America, aided
PRESIDENTS 29
, °
RS
N
C. Hart Merriam Edward W. Nelson Wilfred H. Osgood a (1919-1921) ‘anions ees
William D. Matthew Glover M. Allen Witmer Stone (1926-1927) (1927-1929) (1929-1931)
hy
x Ne N
r
Vernon O. Bailey Harold E. Anthony (1931-1933) (1933-1935) (1935-1937)
Fic. 1.—Presidents of the ASM from 1919 to 1937.
30 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
by people such as Vernon Bailey, A. K. Fi- scher, T. S. Palmer (Fig. 5), and the incom- parable duo of Nelson and Goldman. Equally important was the recent invention of a cheap portable “‘mouse trap,” the Cy- clone.
The avidity with which Merriam named new species ultimately led him to write a revision of the brown and grizzly bears of North America in which he described a total of 84 species, including one of separate ge- neric rank. However, from about 1900, at the age of 55, he began to devote most of his time to the ethnology of California In- dians, having become the beneficiary of the Harriman Trust. His work on bears was thus published when he no longer was devoting himself primarily to mammalogy. Paradox- ically, the nearly universal rejection of his systematic concept was balanced by his rep- utation, which resulted in his systematic ar- rangement nevertheless being employed even after his death.
Among his many honors was election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1902. He married Elizabeth Gosnell in 1886 and they had two daughters (Sources: Grinnell, 1943; Osgood, 1943).
Edward William Nelson: 1921-1923
The second president of the ASM and an Honorary Member, E. W. Nelson (Fig. 1) was born near Manchester, New Hamp- shire, on 8 May 1855 and, like his prede- cessor, Merriam, is said to have been in- terested in the out-of-doors as a child. During the Civil War he lived with his grandparents on a farm in the northern Ad- irondacks while his father served in the Union Army and his mother nursed in a hospital in Baltimore. He attended a one- room rural school until 1886 when his mother, now widowed, moved to Chicago and enrolled him in schools there. His for- mal education appears to have been some- what spotty, but continued until 1875.
However, even by 1872 he had participated in a field collecting expedition to the western United States and after assuming a teaching position in Dalton, Illinois, in 1875 began to publish on birds. Like Merriam, he also went to Washington, met Spencer Baird at the Smithsonian, and was sent on a govern- ment expedition to Alaska. During this trip he carried out a variety of observing and collecting activities, including geography, ethnography, and zoology. Other expedi- tions to Alaska followed, resulting in a series of ethnographic and biological publications; although not trained as a scientist, Nelson was obviously an excellent self-trained nat- ural historian.
By 1890 he was working for the Bureau of Biological Survey, as a special agent on the Death Valley Expedition. Thereafter, he and Edward A. Goldman began a series of field studies in Mexico, which continued al- most unabated until 1929 when he retired. During his later years, he became increas- ingly involved in administration of the Sur- vey, being named Assistant Chief in 1914 and Chief in 1916, and serving until 1927. For the next 4 years, he continued his re- search as a Principal Biologist for the Sur- vey. Subsequent to his retirement, he spent some time in California, but died in Wash- ington, D.C. on 19 May 1934 (Sources: Goldman, 1935; Lantis, 1954).
Wilfred Hudson Osgood: 1924-1926
W. H. Osgood (Fig. 1) was born 8 De- cember 1875 in Rochester, New Hamp- shire; he was the first of five children. When the family moved to California in 1888, they settled in the Santa Clara Valley in a rural area at the south end of San Francisco Bay. Osgood’s primary schooling was in Roch- ester, and he attended three years of high school in Santa Clara, but the family then moved into the city of San Jose. Osgood had become interested in birds and egg col- lecting and was involved in the organization of the Cooper Ornithological Club in San
PRESIDENTS 51
Jose, which has subsequently become a ma- jor professional organization.
After graduating from high school, Os- good accepted a teaching position in a small school in Wilcox, Arizona, for a year and then entered Stanford University shortly af- ter its founding. Here he came within the orbit of the eminent zoologist David Starr Jordan, then president of the university. It was Jordan’s suggestion that he leave Stan- ford before completing his BA degree in or- der to take a position in C. Hart Merriam’s Bureau of Biological Survey, but he was eventually awarded his degree in 1899. He spent over a decade with the Survey, pub- lishing a number of papers in the North American Fauna series, culminating in his monographic revision of the genus Pero- myscus in 1909. In that year he joined the staff of the Field Museum of Natural His- tory in Chicago, the second of his two posts. He was Assistant Curator of Mammals and Birds, receiving his Ph.D. from University of Chicago in 1918 for a dissertation enti- tled ““A Monographic Study of the Ameri- can Marsupial, Caenolestes,” which was published a few years later by the Field Mu- seum. He served as Chief Curator of Zo- ology for 20 years, until his retirement in 1941. During his career at the Field Mu- seum, he alternated between studying col- lections, both at the Field and in museums in other parts of the world, and conducting field expeditions. He participated in about 20 expeditions, 8 of which were major for- eign ventures. Asa result, the Field Museum mammal collections grew greatly in size and importance during his tenure. From his re- tirement until his death 6 years later on 20 June 1947, he remained fully engaged in publishing scientific papers. He was active not only in scientific societies, including the Biological Society of Washington, the Chi- cago Zoological Society, the American Or- nithologists’ Union, and the British Orni- thologists’ Union, but also in a number of other clubs such as the Explorers Club.
Like Nelson, his predecessor, he re- mained a bachelor (Source: Sanborn, 1948).
William Diller Matthew: 1926-1927
William D. Matthew (Fig. 1) was born on 19 February 1871 in St. John, New Bruns- wick. He acquired his interest in the natural sciences from his father, Dr. George F. Mat- thew, who was a well-known and highly skilled amateur paleontologist and an au- thority on the geology, paleobotany, and fossil amphibian tracks of New Brunswick.
In graduate work at Columbia Univer- sity, he studied geology, mineralogy, and metallurgy, which provided a solid back- ground for his subsequent research in pa- leontology. He received the doctorate in 1895 and the same year joined the staff of The American Museum of Natural History as an assistant in the Department of Ver- tebrate Paleontology. He rose to Assistant Curator and then Curator in the department and Curator-in-chief of the Division of Ge- ology, Mineralogy, and Paleontology. In 1927, after 32 years service with the Mu- seum, he left to become Professor of Pale- ontology and Curator of the Paleontological Museum of the University of California at Berkeley. His courses in paleontology, de- spite their reputation as difficult, were taken by hundreds of students, many of whom went on to distinguished careers in the field.
Although his early publications were in the field of geology, for example, crystal- lography and the structure of rocks in New Brunswick, the main body of Matthew’s re- search dealt with mammalian paleontology. His first major project after coming to the American Museum was to catalog, pack, and ship to the Museum the extensive collec- tions of E. D. Cope. This task introduced him to the mammal fauna of the Basal Eo- cene of New Mexico, which he later desig- nated as the Paleocene. In the course of his career he was to work on fossils of nearly every major group of mammals, including carnivores, insectivores, primates, marsu- pials, rodents, edentates, and ungulates. He played a leading role in fossil collecting ex-
a2 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
peditions to many localities in the western states and Florida, as well as Mongolia, Chi- na, and Java. In addition to his basic studies on the phylogeny of various groups, he also contributed to general theories concerning the arboreal origin of mammals, the mode of formation of the mammal fossil-bearing strata in the western United States, and the major patterns of the origin and dispersal of the mammalian fauna of the world. It was the latter subject, treated in his book Climate and Evolution, published in 1915, for which he was most widely known out- side the field of paleontology. The book was a healthy antidote to the tendency at the time of erecting hypothetical land bridges to explain the distribution of related groups separated by ocean barriers. Although some of the major conclusions have not stood the test of time, the book remains one of the classic works in biogeography.
In addition to his technical writing, Mat- thew contributed many articles to Natural History magazine and authored handbooks and guide leaflets on various fossil exhibits at the museum. He was active in prepara- tion of public exhibits. He was especially concerned with mounting fossils in a life- like posture and was a pioneer in the use of comparative myology and osteology for this purpose.
His scholarship and solid contributions to paleontology brought him numerous honors from scientific societies during the course of his career, including election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of England. He was a Charter Member of ASM and, in ad- dition to his term as president, also was a member of the original Council and Vice- president. He also served as President of the Paleontological Society in 1929.
He was married and had two daughters and a son. He died on 24 September 1930, following an illness of several months (Source: Gregory, 1930a, 19306, 1931).
Glover Morrill Allen: 1927-1929
Glover M. Allen (Fig. 1), son of Reverend Nathaniel Allen and Harriet Ann (Schouler)
Allen, was born on 8 February 1879, in Walpole, New Hampshire. He developed a keen interest in natural history at an early age and by the time he was in high school had become an expert in bird identification and an authority on local mammals. He at- tended Harvard College on a John Harvard Scholarship, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, and graduated magna cum laude in 1901. He remained at Harvard for graduate studies, receiving an A.M. in 1903 and a Ph.D. in 1904. His doctoral thesis was on the heredity of pelage color in mice. In addition to scientific subjects, he studied several foreign languages and acquired broad knowledge of classical European and Rus- sian literature. He was married in 1911 to Sarah Moody Cushing, and they had one daughter, Elizabeth Cushing Allen (Mrs. Arthur Gilman).
Upon receiving his doctorate, he was ap- pointed Secretary, Librarian, and Editor of the Boston Society of Natural History. He returned to the Harvard Graduate School in 1906 and 1907 and in the latter year be- gan work on the mammal collections of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. In 1924, he became Lecturer in Zoology at Harvard and Curator of Mammals in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, where he re- mained for the remainder of his career.
His research involved both mammals and birds. He had a keen interest in the fauna of New England and also conducted re- search in the Bahamas, Labrador, Africa, West Indies, Brazil, and Australia. AI- though small and slight of build, he had unusual stamina and capacity for work when in the field. His mammal research was pri- marily concerned with taxonomy and dis- tribution, and he also published a number of papers on fossil sirenians, cetaceans, and bats. Among his major contributions were the books Bats, Checklist of African Mam- mals, Mammals of China and Mongolia, and Extinct and Vanishing Mammals of the Western Hemisphere with Marine Species of all Oceans. His ornithological work in- cluded The Birds of Massachusetts coau- thored with R. H. Howe, Jr., and Birds and Their Attributes. He also published numer-
PRESIDENTS 33
ous distributional records and regional checklists of birds and was a prolific re- viewer of ornithological works.
He was a charter and life member of the ASM and, in addition to the presidency, was Vice-president, a Director, and member of a number of standing committees. The Life Histories and Ecology, Conservation of Land Mammals, and Nomenclature committees were established during his presidency. He was a Fellow of the American Ornitholo- gists’ Union and Editor of the Auk and also served as Editor of the American Naturalist and Secretary and President of the Nuttall Ornithological Club.
Glover Allen was known for his modest nature, kindly presence, diplomacy, and ac- cessibility to all who wished his advice or help. Although not given to “hearty ca- maraderie,” as one of his friends put it, when encouraged he would greatly entertain lis- teners with whimsical and humorous tales of his travels, often enhancing his accounts with appropriate quotes drawn from his vast knowledge of literature. W. M. Tyler (1943) cited an example of Allen’s ability to come up with a quote from the classics to fit the occasion. After they had gone to bed in a hotel on Cape Cod after a day in the field, someone in the room above tramped heavi- ly across the floor. Allen, nearly asleep, mut- tered: ‘““The Wild Ass stamps o’er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.”’ Glover Allen died on 14 February 1942 in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Sources: Barbour et al.,
1943; Tyler, 1943).
Witmer Stone: 1929-1931
Witmer Stone (Fig. 1) was born in Phil- adelphia, Pennsylvania, on 22 September 1866. His parents were Frederick D. Stone and Anne E. Witmer. He developed an in- terest in natural history at an early age and as a small boy was a regular visitor to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- phia, where he was later to spend his entire career. While a student at the Germantown Academy in 1877, he and several school- mates founded the Wilson Natural Science
Association. Regular meetings were held at which formal papers were presented, and scientific collections were maintained. In- cluded among the mammals were speci- mens he collected during summers spent at his uncle’s home in Chester County, Penn- sylvania. He was married to Lillie May Laf- ferty in 1904.
He received A.B. and A.M. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in 1887 and 1891, respectively. His first position follow- ing graduation was that of assistant in the library of the Historical Society of Penn- sylvania, where his father was librarian. In 1888, he became affliated with the Acad- emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia where he served in many capacities until his death on 23 May 1939. He was Conservator of the Ornithological Section (1891-1918); Assistant Curator (1893-1908) and Curator (1908-1918) of the Museum; Executive Cu- rator (1918-1925); Director (1925-1929); Emeritus Director (1929-1939); Curator of Vertebrates (1918-1936); Honorary Cura- tor of Birds (1938-1939); and Vice-presi- dent of the Academy (1927-1939).
Although Stone authored 19 publications on mammals, he was primarily an orni- thologist. Reflecting his broad interest in natural history, he also conducted research on plants, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and land molluscs. He published two books on mammals: American Animals coauthored with W. E. Cram and The mammals of New Jersey. His other mammal publications in- cluded descriptions of several new taxa; re- ports on collections from Alaska, Sumatra, western United States, and Ecuador; and studies of the Hawaiian rat and pumas in western United States. One of his best known ornithological works is Bird Studies of Old Cape May, which earned him comparison with Thoreau and Burroughs as a writer. A major botanical contribution was The Plants of Southern New Jersey with Especial Ref- erence to the Flora of the Pine Barrens.
One of his major accomplishments as cu- rator of the bird and mammal collections at the Philadelphia Academy was rescuing many valuable historic specimens that had been exposed to moisture, mold, and insects
34 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
and the dust and grime of the city while on exhibit. He also performed the monumental task of salvaging and rehabilitating E. D. Cope’s large collection of reptiles, which came to the Academy after Cope’s death. The state of preservation of many of the valuable specimens was questionable and the alcohol had to be poured off carefully before the condition of the specimens could be determined. J. A. Rhen, who assisted him in the task, wrote that “‘the tedium of this work was greatly enlivened by Stone’s vivid classification and nomenclature of the various color shades and consistencies re- ferred to as ‘gorum,’ ‘gee,’ and ‘goo,’ to be found in the five-gallon glass jars used to receive the discarded solution.”
Witmer Stone was a Charter Member of the ASM. He was a member of the original Council and served as Vice-president prior to assuming the presidency. Two important standing committees established during his tenure as President were the Editorial and Membership committees. He also was an active member of the American Ornithol- ogists’ Union, serving as Editor of the Auk from 1912 to 1937. Among honors he re- ceived was an Honorary Sc.D. and the Alumni Award of Merit from the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania (Source: Huber, 1940).
Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr.: 1931-1932
Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr. (Fig. 1), was born at Rock Island Arsenal, in Illinois, to Cap- tain Lyon and his wife on 5 February 1875. Little appears to be known of his early life, which was spent at Army posts in various parts of the country. One of these was Wa- tertown Arsenal near Boston, Massachu- setts. His scientific interests apparently stem from his childhood days there when he be- gan to make collections of insects and other animals. Later, his father apparently was again posted to Rock Island, because Lyon graduated from high school there in 1893 and entered Brown University that same year, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1897. His college training in biology led to his
being offered an instructorship in bacteri- ology at North Carolina Medical College in 1897. After serving in that post for a year, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he was appointed an Aid in the Division of Mammals, U.S. National Museum (USNM), Smithsonian Institution. Concurrent with this part-time position, he began graduate studies at George Washington University, obtaining his M.S. degree in 1900 and his M.D. in 1902. In that same year he married Martha Maria Brewer of Lanham, Mary- land. Lyon continued to work in the Na- tional Museum, but embarked upon a par- allel teaching career in the Howard University Medical School in Washington. He taught physiology, bacteriology, and pa- thology there until 1917. With the outbreak of World War I, he joined the U.S. Army and served as pathologist in Walter Reed Army Hospital from 1917 to 1919, attain- ing the rank of Major. At the same time, he taught veterinary zoology and parasitology at the Medical School of George Washing- ton University. During that 18-year stretch of medical teaching and practice, his wife also obtained an M.D. from Howard Uni- versity, and in 1919 they jointly accepted an invitation to join the staff of the South Bend Clinic in Indiana. This decision re- sulted in a major change of direction for Lyon. Previously while associated with the Division of Mammals at USNM, he had published a series of significant papers on the morphology, systematics, and zooge- ography of wild mammals. Most notable among these are his paper on the classifi- cation of the hares and their allies (1904) and an account of the mammalian family Tupaitidae (1913), for which he was awarded a doctorate by George Washington Univer- sity. Although his formal relationship with the USNM ended in 1912, he continued to publish broadly in mammalogy until his move to Indiana. In addition, he published a number of basic medical studies during that period.
After he and his wife set up their medical practice in South Bend, Indiana, his scien- tific contributions were almost all devoted
PRESIDENTS 35
to Indiana subjects, focusing particularly on the region around South Bend. His medical publications also drew from his practice more frequently than during his time in Washington. Perhaps the most significant publication from this period is his book, Mammals of Indiana, published in 1936. In this last period of his life, he became an ardent conservationist and spokesman for wildlife protection. His last paper was in press when he died on 19 May 1942; it de- scribed the changes, mostly negative, that had occurred in the Kankakee Region along the Indiana border near his home as a result of human activities (Source: Anon., 1942).
Vernon Orlando Bailey: 1933-1934
Vernon Bailey (Fig. 1) was born of pio- neer parents, the fourth child of Hiram and Emily Bailey, on 21 June 1864 in Man- chester, Michigan. His father had learned the mason’s trade, but was by preference a woodsman and hunter, and when Vernon was about 6 years old the family moved west to Elk River, Minnesota, on the western frontier. This move was accomplished in a horse-drawn wagon and must have taken some months to cover the 700 miles. The only opportunity for schooling in a frontier homestead such as his parents established was at home, but late in 1873 the families of the adjacent homesteads built a school- house and formal coursework began. Like most early mammalogists, Bailey began by collecting the organisms in his surround- ings. Self-taught in taxidermy, he began to prepare museum specimens, which he sold to firms in Ontario, Canada, and in Halle, Germany. Some of these specimens were in turn purchased by C. Hart Merriam, leading him to contact Bailey who was then 19. This was prior to Merriam’s being named to his government position, eventually in the Bu- reau of Biological Survey, and their lifelong association gained Bailey entreé into the Bu- reau. In 1887 Bailey was appointed asa field naturalist and sent to the northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. For virtually
every year thereafter, until his final trip to Nevada in 1937, he collected for the Bureau and for the U.S. National Museum. How- ever, he found time to take course work at the University of Michigan in 1893 and at George Washington University in 1894- 1895.
He retired from the Biological Survey in 1933, having gained the rank of Chief Field Naturalist, but continued to work until his death in Washington on 20 April 1942. He was survived by his wife, Florence Merriam Bailey, herselfa biologist, whom he married in 1904. In addition to the presidency of the American Society of Mammalogists, he served as President of the Biological Society of Washington (Sources: Smithsonian In- stitution Archives, Record Unit 7098; Zahniser, 1942).
Harold Elmer Anthony: 1935-1937
Harold E. Anthony (Fig. 1) was born in Beaverton, Oregon, on 5 April 1890. His father was a well-known Pacific Coast or- nithologist and collector. From an early age, he hunted and trapped and loved the out- doors and, although his primary field came to be mammalogy, he retained a broad in- terest in natural history throughout his life. He was married in 1916 to Edith Demerell, who died shortly after their son, Alfred Webster Anthony, was born. Four years lat- er he married Margaret Feldt, and they had a daughter, Margery Stuart, and a son, Gil- bert Chase. He was an officer (1st Lieuten- ant and Captain) in the field artillery during World War I (1917-1919) and saw action in France.
He attended Pacific University for 2 years (1910-1911) and received B.S. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University in 1915 and 1920, respectively.
He began his career as a field collector for the Biological Survey in 1910 and in the same year was employed by The American Museum of Natural History as naturalist on the Albatross Expedition to Lower Califor- nia. The following year he joined the Mu-
36 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
Joseph Grinnell Hartley H. T. Jackson Walter P. Taylor (1937-1938) (1938-1940) (1940-1942)
oe
{
A. Brazier Howell E. Raymond Hall Edward A. Goldman (1942-1944) (1944-1946) (1946-1947)
Remington Kellogg Tracy I. Storer William J. Hamilton, Jr. (1947-1949) (1949-1951) (1951-1953)
Fic. 2.—Presidents of the ASM from 1937 to 1953.
PRESIDENTS oF
seum staff full-time as a cataloger and gen- eral handyman in the Department of Mammals and Ornithology. He was ap- pointed Associate Curator in the Depart- ment of Mammalogy in 1919, Curator in 1926, and Emeritus Curator upon his re- tirement in 1958. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Department of Mammal- ogy from 1942 to 1958, he held the posts of Dean of the Scientific Staff (1942-1948) and Deputy Director (1952-1957) of the Museum. After retirement, he was Appoint- ed Curator of the Frick Laboratory, a pa- leontological research laboratory at the Mu- seum supported by the Charles Frick Foundation, and served in that capacity un- til 1966.
Anthony’s research involved both Recent and fossil mammals, with an emphasis on the Caribbean and Central and South Amer- ican regions. In addition to his work in the Neotropics, he participated in expeditions to various regions of western United States, Alaska and the Arctic Ocean, Canada, Af- rica, and Burma. Among his major contri- butions were the two volume Mammals of Puerto Rico, Living and Extinct and Field Book of North American Mammals, which for many years was the major guide to mam- mals of the region. He was active in the Museum’s exhibition program, playing a key role in the creation of the Hall of North American Mammals, the Akeley Hall of Af- rican Mammals, and the Hall of South Asi- atic Mammals. An ardent conservationist, he served as Chairman of the Committee on Preservation of Natural Conditions of the National Research Council’s Division of Biology and Agriculture.
Anthony was a Charter Member of the ASM. Besides the presidency, he served as a Councillor, Trustee, and Vice-president. He also was a director of both the New York Explorers Club and National Audubon So- ciety, Treasurer of the New York Academy of Sciences, and an Honorary Life Member of the Sociedad Colombiana de Ciencias Naturales.
In addition to his scientific interests, An- thony was a financial expert. As was once
stated in an article in an American Museum employee newsletter “he knew that a bear market wasn’t always a place where grizzlies and kodiaks are sold, and that there are two kinds of bulls.” His financial expertise made him a particularly valuable member of the Museum’s Pension Board and Welfare Committee.
As a youth, he discovered the pleasure and satisfaction of growing plants and this became a lifetime avocation. Orchids were his specialty. He served as President of the Greater New York Orchid Society and Treasurer of the American Orchid Society, from which he received a gold medal in rec- ognition of his contributions. Cooking was another of his long-time interests, and his culinary skills were attested to by his in- duction into the Society of Amateur Chefs.
He died of a heart attack on 29 March 1970, while on a family outing in Paradise, California (Sources: Anon., 1958a, 19585, 1970).
Joseph Grinnell: 1937-1938
Joseph Grinnell (Fig. 2) was born on 27 February 1877, at Ft. Sill (then Indian Ter- ritory) in what is now Oklahoma. His family was of New England origin, but his father, a physician, moved the family to California when Grinnell was still young. Joseph’s schooling through college was in Pasadena. He attended Pasadena High School and then enrolled in what was known as Throop Polytechnic Institute (now the California Institute of Technology) where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1897. He began his graduate studies at Stanford University shortly thereafter, receiving his M.A. degree in 1901. Even as a high school student he had displayed an interest in natural history and had begun to amass a collection of ver- tebrates. In 1896, while only 19 years old, he made his first visit to Alaska, where he collected around Sitka. Two years later he returned to Kotzebue and the Bering Sea Region where he not only collected verte- brates but also apparently prospected for
38 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
gold. An apocryphal tale suggests that he found a rich claim but was robbed of it by claim jumpers; however, this cannot be sub- stantiated. Between these early expeditions, he served as instructor at Throop Polytech, teaching assistant at Stanford, and instruc- tor in the Palo Alto High School. He re- ceived an appointment at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1905, and almost all of his subsequent field collecting was car- ried out within the state of California. Shortly after joining the Berkeley faculty, however, he returned to coastal Alaska in 1907 on an expedition headed by Annie M. Alexander, who became his life-long bene- factor. In 1908 she founded the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley, of which Grinnell was named Director. Together with Louise Kellogg, Alexander supported the Museum and Grinnell until his death at age 63 on 29 May 1939. During those 31 years as Director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Grinnell developed a highly or- ganized approach to field collecting, which has had an influence far beyond the state of California, to which he restricted not only his own efforts, but if possible, those of his students. Most of his many publications were devoted to birds, but 76 treat wholly or in part of mammals.
In addition to his systematic and ecolog- ical work, he played a significant role in the developing field of conservation. His im- pact on teaching biology at Berkeley was profound, as is suggested by the fact that 15 years after his death his principal course “Zoology 113°. and his graduate seminar “Vertebrate Review” were still essentially Grinnellian (Source: Hall, 1939).
Hartley Harrad Thompson Jackson: 1938-1939
Although Hartley H. T. Jackson (Fig. 2) was only the eleventh president of the ASM, he was one of those Biological Survey sci- entists who first developed the idea of such a society, and he chaired the first Organizing
Committee. He served first as Correspond- ing Secretary (1919-1925), was elected Vice President in 1937, and in addition held a number of committee posts. Hartley Jack- son was born in Milton, Wisconsin, on 19 May 1881, the son of English immigrants to the United States. He was the last of their eight children and the only one born in this country. Like so many other field biologists, he began when still young to collect birds, and his first scientific paper on screech owls appeared when he was 16 years old. Jackson attended primary and secondary schools in Milton, and then enrolled in Milton College, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1904. Upon graduating, he taught at Car- thage Collegiate Institute in Missouri, where he met Anna Marcia Adams who he mar- ried in 1910, having already entered the University of Wisconsin 2 years earlier for graduate work. His master’s degree was awarded in 1909, and the following year he joined the Bureau of Biological Survey in Washington. He also enrolled in George Washington University, and attained a doc- toral degree in Zoology in 1914.
In 1917, E. W. Nelson, Chief of the Sur- vey, arranged with the State of Wisconsin for a cooperative study of the fauna. Jackson was designated principal investigator from the Biological Survey, with the state sup- plying a field assistant and other support. Jackson had, even prior to this formal agree- ment, carried out field work in Wisconsin, but thereafter field work was conducted reg- ularly each summer by a team directed by Jackson until 1922 when the agreement be- came inactive. It was, however, reactivated in 1940, and eventually led to one of Jack- son’s most important works, The Mammals of Wisconsin, published in 1954.
Increasing administrative duties cur- tailed Jackson’s field research, and he be- came more involved in wildlife manage- ment as Chief of the Division of Wildlife Research, later renamed Wildlife Surveys. This unit sponsored a great many important studies of game birds and mammals in the period just prior to World War II, during which Jackson served on several War Pro-
PRESIDENTS Sy)
duction Board committees. After a 41-year period of government service, Hartley Jack- son retired in 1951. He continued to utilize his office in the National Museum of Nat- ural History after retirement, but worked primarily on a history of the Bureau of Bi- ological Survey, which apparently was nev- er published. His wife Anna died in 1968, but 2 years later he married Mrs. Stephanie Hall of Durham, North Carolina, whose fa- ther was the former president of Milton Col- lege in Wisconsin. He died at age 95 in Dur- ham (Source: Aldrich, 1977).
Walter Penn Taylor: 1940-1942
Walter P. Taylor (Fig. 2) was born 31 Oc- tober 1888 near Elkhorn, Wisconsin, to Benton Ben and Helen West Taylor. No in- formation could be found concerning the family or Taylor’s childhood and early ed- ucation. That the family had moved by the time he reached his teens can be inferred from the fact that he received his secondary education from Throop Polytechnic Insti- tute in Pasadena, California, between 1902 and 1908. This was the same school at- tended by Joseph Grinnell a few years pre- viously. He then spent one semester at Stan- ford University before transferring to the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1911. He continued on at Berkeley in graduate school, marrying Mary E. Fairchild in 1912, and completing his doctorate in zoology in 1914. Both at Throop and at the University of California he was employed while a student.
His first post-doctoral appointment was as Assistant Curator and then Curator of Mammals at the University of California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology under its director, Joseph Grinnell. In 1916, as so many of his colleagues had, he joined the U.S. Biological Survey first as Assistant and subsequently Senior Biologist. He remained full time with the Survey until 1932, when he joined the faculty of the University of Arizona under a cooperative arrangement with the Survey. From 1935 to 1947 he oc-
cupied a comparable position at Texas A&M College; during this time, the Biological Sur- vey was transformed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and he headed one of the first Cooperative Wildlife Research Units within the Service. He then transferred to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater (then the Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege) where he served as Wildlife Research Unit Leader until 1951, when he retired from federal service. In 1954 he was appointed Professor of Conservation Education and Biology at the Claremont Graduate School of the Claremont Colleges group in southern California. During this time he also taught at LaVerne College, Murray State College, and Southern Illinois University. He retired from this position in 1962, but entered on a second career in politics, serving on the City Council and as Vice-mayor of Clare- mont.
He was the recipient of many honors, in- cluding the Distinguished Service Medal of the Department of the Interior, and the Le- opold Award of The Wildlife Society. He was President of The Wildlife Society, Eco- logical Society of America, and Texas Acad- emy of Sciences, as well as of the ASM.
Although Taylor held a number of dif- ferent appointments in the course of a long career, his principal focus after he joined the Biological Survey in 1916 was on what would now be called wildlife biology. He was a prolific writer, authoring about 300 scientific and technical papers and pam- phlets, and was co-author or editor of sev- eral books, including The Birds of the State of Washington (1953) and Deer of North America (1956).
He died on 29 March 1972, and was sur- vived by his wife, Clara, two sons, and two daughters, one of whom, Elizabeth, married Randolph Peterson (Sources: Cottam, n.d.; Lehmann, 1972; E. Peterson, pers. comm.).
Alfred Brazier Howell: 1942-1944
A. Brazier Howell (Fig. 2) was born on 28 July 1886 in Catonsville, Maryland. His
40 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
parents were Darius Carpenter and Kath- erine Hyatt Howell. As a youngster, Howell became interested in birds and egg collect- ing. At age 13 his mother gave him a bird book by William E. D. Scott inscribed “A. Brazier Howell from Mother,” which may have been the reason he later dropped his first name from most of his publications. He married Margaret Gray Sherk in 1914, and they had three daughters and a son. His wife enjoyed the out-of-doors and frequent- ly accompanied him in the field. He died on 23 December 1961 at his home in Ban- gor, Maine.
Howell’s formal college education was limited to a year at Yale after graduation from the Hill Preparatory Boys School in 1905. In 1908 he and his mother moved to Pasadena, California. There he developed a serious interest in research, which began with a study of the birds of the Channel Islands off the southern California coast. In 1911, having sufficient financial means, he pur- chased a home and small orange grove in Covina, California, where he housed his ex- panding collections and library. He could afford to spend considerable time in the field, and from time to time he employed collec- tors, among whom were A. J. Van Rossem, Chester Lamb, and Laurence Huey. In 1918, under the direction of E. W. Nelson, he and Luther Little conducted a collecting expe- dition in southern Arizona. They were kept out of one area by an uprising of Yaqui Indians. From 1922 to 1928, the Howells lived in Washington, D.C., and Brazier worked as a “‘dollar-a-year-man” in the Di- vision of Biological Survey with the title of Scientific Assistant. In 1928, he accepted a position in the Department of Anatomy of Johns Hopkins Medical School. He taught gross human anatomy, in which he had nev- er had a formal course, until his retirement in 1943.
Although Howell is best known for his work on mammalian anatomy, his early re- search was primarily on the distribution, taxonomy, and life histories of birds and mammals. His first anatomical paper, ““On the alimentary tracts of squirrels with di-
verse food habits,’ appeared in 1925. His best known contribution to mammalian anatomy was the volume Anatomy of the Woodrat, which appeared as the first mono- graph of the ASM in 1926 and remains one of the classics in the field. Among his other important contributions to mammalogy were a revision of the genus Phenacomys and the life history of the red tree mouse and a revision of the genus Synaptomys published in the North American Fauna se- ries.
Howell was a Charter Member of the ASM, and, in addition to the presidency, was a Director, Corresponding Secretary, and member of various committees. He also served on the Council for the Conservation of Whales and other Marine Mammals or- ganized in 1929 under the ASM. A few years before his death he provided an endowment to the ASM for a graduate student award, now designated the A. Brazier Howell Graduate Student Honorarium. He also was active in the Cooper Ornithological Society, serving for some time as an aid to the Busi- ness Manager and in managing the endow- ment fund.
Brazier Howell was a talented artist, as reflected in his anatomical illustrations, a gifted musician, and an accomplished wood worker. Among his other interests were re- furbishing old cars, stamp collecting, raising tropical fish, and collecting antiques. He was a quiet, friendly man, but as a result of an inherited hard-of-hearing condition tended to avoid meetings and large groups of peo- ple. One of the Bill Hamilton anecdotes concerns A. Brazier Howell. As a graduate student, the well-known Cornell anatomist and shark expert, Perry Gilbert, was greatly impressed by the work of Howell. Thus he was delighted when he came to Hamilton’s office one day and found him with a man Bill introduced as his old friend Brazier Howell. After going to great lengths to dis- play his knowledge of anatomy and How- ell’s research, Gilbert was disappointed that Howell remained silent and seemingly un- impressed. It was not until later that he learned that “Brazier Howell” was a local
PRESIDENTS 41
farmer who had come to ask Hamilton how to get rid of some mammal pest (Source: Little, 1968).
Eugene Raymond Hall: 1944-1946
E. Raymond Hall (Fig. 2) (students and colleagues never called him Eugene) was born on 11 May 1902, in the small town of Imes, in eastern Kansas, a town that no lon- ger appears on most maps. He grew up on the family farm in nearby Le Loup and spent his boyhood helping in farming activities and in fur trapping. After an initial educa- tion in rural schools, he spent his final year of high school in Lawrence, Kansas, and then enrolled in the University of Kansas. His first scientific publication, ““The First Record of a Golden-Winged Warbler from Kansas,” was published in 1921 while he was still an undergraduate majoring in zo- ology. During his KU years, he was influ- enced by Remington Kellogg, who, 10 years his senior, had graduated from the univer- sity and was then working in the Bureau of Biological Survey in Washington. Kellogg urged him to enroll in graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley, as Kellogg had. Hall did so, first marrying Mary Harkey, also a University of Kansas un- dergraduate. At Berkeley, he worked under the direction of Joseph Grinnell, who was to become president of ASM and was Di- rector of the Museum of Vertebrate Zool- ogy. In 1927, still a year short of earning his Ph.D., he became Curator of Mammals in the museum. During the next decade, expanding beyond Grinnell’s preoccupation with California, Hall carried out intensive field work on mammals in Nevada. This led to what many regard as his most notable publication, The Mammals of Nevada, in 1946. In 1938 he became Acting Director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology upon the resignation of the founding director, Grinnell, who died the next year. Hall served as acting director until 1944; in that year he abruptly left Berkeley to return to the Uni-
versity of Kansas as Chairman of the De- partment of Zoology and Director of the Museum of Natural History, holding the latter position until he retired in 1967. Many have speculated that his sudden departure from Berkeley was occasioned by the failure of the university to name him as Director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology dur- ing the 6 years he served there in an acting capacity.
At Kansas, he took a museum with a strong tradition and built it into one of the leading research and graduate education museums of natural history in the country. His own productivity was prodigious, re- sulting in an output of 350 publications be- fore his death at age 84 in 1986. In addition to his other contributions to mammalogy, his major work was The Mammals of North America, first published in 1959 and revised in 1981.
He attracted a large number of students to Kansas, many of whom have gone on to make major contributions to the ASM. Hall was respected by many, disliked by some, and feared by a few. He had an exceptionally strong personality, through which he in- spired respect and loyalty among his grad- uate students. Few ever saw Hall’s human side, but for those who did, he was a proud father and husband, and loyal friend. “E. Raymond Hall was a farmer, trapper, and naturalist at heart, and a prodigiously suc- cessful scientist by profession. He was a uniquely prominent and tremendously in- fluential figure in twentieth century mam- malogy” (Findley and Jones, 1989) (Sources: Findley and Jones, 1989; Jones, 1990).
Edward Alphonso Goldman: 1946
Edward A. Goldman (Fig. 2) was born to Jacob and Laura Goltman in Mount Car- roll, Illinois, in 1873. His parents were farmers, and little is known about his child- hood, although he was presumably educat- ed in rural schools. When he was around 10 years old, his parents left Illinois for Falls
42 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
City, in eastern Nebraska, driving 300 head of cattle seeking “‘greener pastures.”” Two signal events marked their short residence in Nebraska; Jacob Goltman changed the family name to Goldman and a grasshopper plague resulted in the family losing most of its livestock to starvation. In 1888, the fam- ily again resettled, this time in Tulare Coun- ty, California. No details concerning his schooling in either Nebraska or California could be found, but as was the case with some other early presidents of the society, he was thoroughly self-tutored as a natu- ralist. His interest in natural history appears to have come from his father, who was him- self an amateur student of nature. Goldman was taught to shoot a shotgun while on the Nebraska ranch and began then to collect specimens of birds and mammals, a hobby he continued after the move to California. At age 17 Goldman left home to accept a job as vineyard foreman near Fresno, about 120 km north of the family ranch at Earli- mart in the southern San Joaquin Valley. In that same year, there came his fateful meet- ing with E. W. Nelson, who had been in California participating in the famous Death Valley Expedition of the Bureau of Biolog- ical Survey. Nelson had been asked by the survey director, C. Hart Merriam, to con- duct a survey of the southern San Joaquin Valley and needed an assistant. He stopped at the Goldman ranch for help in repairing his wagon, learned of Jacob Goldman’s in- terest in natural history, and received the suggestion that son Edward might serve as a field assistant. From this fortuitous meet- ing came the famous collecting team of Nel- son and Goldman.
The first joint expedition was a short one, of about 3 months duration, but it was fol- lowed by Merriam’s order to collect in west- ern Mexico. What was planned as a 3-month stay in Mexico lengthened to 4 years, during which time Goldman worked his way up from the status of temporary field assistant to a permanent position in the Biological Survey. Together Nelson and Goldman col- lected in every state and territory in Mexico,
obtaining a combined total of nearly 23,000 mammal specimens by the time of Nelson’s death in 1934. In addition to Mexico, Gold- man worked in many parts of the United States, as well as in Panama, where his re- sults were published as Mammals of Pan- ama by the Smithsonian in 1920.
During World War I he entered the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of Major in the Sanitary Corps in France. After the war, he retained his rank in the Sanitary Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army Medical Depart- ment until 1937. Although the war had in- terrupted his work with Nelson, this was resumed until Nelson’s retirement in 1929 terminated the active collaboration. The previous year, however, Goldman had been relieved of all administrative duties so that he could carry on the Mexican work, which he did very productively until his retire- ment at the end of 1944. He continued to work on the ““Mammals of Mexico”? manu- script until his untimely death from a heart attack on 2 September 1946, which cut short his service as President of the American So- ciety of Mammalogists. He was survived by his widow, Emma May Chase, and three sons, Nelson, Orville, and Luther. The latter followed his father’s ir terest in natural his- tory.
Edward Goldman was one of the small group who had the vision to organize an American Society of Mammalogists during the years immediately following World War I. He published over 200 scientific papers, among them classic volumes on the puma and gray wolf (Sources: Jackson, 1947; Tay- lor, 1947; Young, 1947).
Arthur Remington Kellogg: 1946-1949
Another midwesterner, Remington Kel- logg (Fig. 2), was born in Davenport, Iowa, on 5 October 1892, the son of Claire and Rolla Remington Kellogg. His father was a printer by profession and his mother taught school. When young Remington was 6 years
PRESIDENTS 43
old, his parents moved to Kansas City, Mis- souri, where, after grammar school, he com- pleted Westport High School, and then en- rolled at the University of Kansas in 1910. As an undergraduate at the university, he was strongly influenced by two men, Charles Dean Bunker, who was then Curator of Birds and Mammals in the Museum of Natural History, and Alexander Wetmore, a Kansan who was an upper division student in zo- ology and who was to become an eminent American ornithologist. While initially in- terested in insects, Kellogg shifted his focus to marine mammals and paleontology dur- ing the course of his undergraduate work. After graduation, he enrolled at the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley, in 1916. It had taken him 6 years to graduate from Kansas because of the necessity of working to support his college career, but in Cali- fornia he was awarded a teaching fellowship under Dr. John C. Merriam, who was to be another important influence in Kellogg’s life. His graduate work was interrupted by World War I, and he enlisted in late 1917. Several months later he was promoted to sergeant and transferred to the Central Medical De- partment Laboratory, whose commander was Major Edward Goldman and whom he succeeded as President of the American So- ciety of Mammalogists, serving not only Goldman’s unexpired term but a regular 2-year term subsequently. Receiving a dis- charge from the Army in 1919, he returned to the University of California to complete his residence requirements for the doctoral degree and at the end of the fall semester was appointed Assistant Biologist in the Bi- ological Survey. Later that year he married fellow student Marguerite Henrich, and they spent their entire married life in Washing- ton, D.C., until his death from a heart attack at age 77, in 1969.
Around the same time that Kellogg joined the Biological Survey, his former mentor John C. Merriam accepted appointment as President of the Carnegie Institution in Washington. Merriam arranged for Kellogg to be made a Research Associate of the In-
stitution, a position he held from 1921 until 1943. This arrangement allowed Kellogg to receive funding from Carnegie to pursue his research on marine mammals at the same time that he carried out assigned projects for the Biological Survey. This in turn al- lowed Kellogg to complete the research nec- essary to write his dissertation, which com- pleted the requirements for his Ph.D.from the University of California in 1928. That same year, Kellogg left the Biological Sur- vey to fill a position of Assistant Curator of Mammals at the U.S. National Museum. Under Gerritt S. Miller’s supervision, Kel- logg was able to devote more time to marine mammals, and he became recognized as the American authority. As a result he found himselfin 1937 with an appointment by the Department of State as U.S. Delegate to the International Conference on Whaling, the forerunner of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Further appointments followed in 1944-1946, and he served as Commissioner of the IWC from 1949 until 1967, being Chairman from 1952 to 1964.
In 1948, Kellogg was appointed Director of the U.S. National Museum, and 10 years later, Assistant Secretary for Science of the Smithsonian Institution. His heavy admin- istrative burdens deprived him of the time he was used to spending on research, but he still attempted to spend several hours a day on his own research projects. As an admin- istrator, his tenure in both the museum and the Office of the Assistant Secretary were characterized by an innate negativism that led him to be referred to at times as the ‘abominable no man’’ (Source: Setzer, POT):
Tracy Irvin Storer: 1949-1951
Like many presidents of the ASM, Tracy I. Storer (Fig. 2) had a wide array of interests beyond the study of mammals. He was also well known as an ornithologist and herpe- tologist, published in the field of wildlife
44 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
management and animal control, and au- thored the most successful general zoology text of its time. He was born in San Fran- cisco, California, on 17 August 1889 and grew up in Elmhurst, south of Oakland. He and his brother were raised by their father, his mother having died when he was 9 years old. Tracy went to local public schools, and in 1908 at the age of 18 entered the Uni- versity of California at Berkeley. He re- ceived his bachelor’s degree in zoology with honors in 1912 and his master’s degree the next year. He worked his way through col- lege as a printer, primarily of handbills and cards, and his well known frugality was un- doubtedly instilled by the often straitened financial circumstances of his motherless boyhood. Upon completion of his master’s degree he was hired as an assistant by Charles Koford in Berkeley’s Department of Zool- ogy but transferred the next year to the staff of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, es- tablished five years previously and directed by Joseph Grinnell. With the financial sup- port of Annie M. Alexander, Grinnell had mapped out several ambitious projects. Storer’s first assignment was to work with Grinnell and Harold Bryant on a project that resulted in the publication of The Game Birds of California in 1918. While this was going on, Storer, along with Walter P. Tay- lor and a number of others, began field work on an ambitious transect survey across the Sierra Nevada in the region of Yosemite National Park. This field work was inter- rupted by World War I, during which Storer served in the U.S. Army Sanitary Corps in Texas; his commanding officer was his for- mer employer, Koford. Upon his return from the Army he resumed the Yosemite survey, completing field work in 1920 and then drafting the report, which he and Grin- nell completed as Animal Life in the Yo- semite in 1924.
Storer had married Ruth Risdon just be- fore his Army tour. His wife, one of the first women graduates of the University of Cal- ifornia Medical School, suffered from tu- berculosis during the first years of their mar-
riage, which further strengthened Storer’s habits of frugality. In order to fund field work for his doctoral dissertation, Storer accumulated vacation time for 6 years, and his doctoral dissertation on Amphibia of California earned him a Ph.D. in 1924, just as he and Grinnell completed the Yosemite work.
With these two milestones achieved, Storer accepted a position at the University of California at Davis as the first member of its new Division of Zoology. The ap- pointment was not only as Assistant Pro- fessor but also as Assistant Zoologist in the Experiment Station, and his research hence- forth focused on control and manipulation of vertebrate population densities— wildlife management and pest control. After a de- cade, undergraduate enrollment in zoology at Davis had increased so much that addi- tional faculty could be added to his one- person division. When a program in wildlife management that he had sought for the ex- panding division was instead awarded to the Berkeley campus, Storer turned his atten- tion to undergraduate teaching and wrote a text first published in 1943 with the title General Zoology. The book, with its sys- tematic organization, profuse illustration, and large information content, quickly came to dominate the freshman zoology market, and made Storer relatively wealthy. At the same time, the book and its many subse- quent editions and associated teaching aids came to usurp much of his time. He nev- ertheless continued to produce a steady flow of short papers and reviews, as well as sev- eral major monographs, most notably those on the California grizzly in 1955 and on Pacific Island rat ecology in 1963.
The Storers were childless. While he was frugal, Tracy Storer was generous. In ad- dition to gifts to U.C. Davis, he also re- membered the ASM in his will with a large bequest, which has become a major portion of the trust funds administered by the so- ciety. He died from a heart attack on 25 June 1973 at age 84 (Source: Salt and Rudd, L975);
PRESIDENTS 45
William John Hamilton, Jr.: 1951-1953
William J. Hamilton, Jr. (Fig. 2), was born on 11 December 1902 in Corona, New York, the son of William J. Hamilton and Char- lotte Richardson Hamilton. Bill, as he was known to all, was a quintessential naturalist, whose interest in natural history stemmed from the experience of caring for a plant he received as a gift when he was 7 years old. Gardening and horticulture remained a ma- jor avocation throughout his life. Bill met his future wife, Nellie Rightmyer, when she took a class in which he was an instructor. They were married in 1928 and had three children, Ruth, June, and William J. III, who also is a well-known zoologist. Bill was commissioned a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1942 and worked on ro- dent and typhus control problems and as one of the military governors of Manheim, Germany, after the war. He was discharged in 1945 with the rank of Major.
He received all of his degrees from Cor- nell University, including a B.S. in 1926; M.S. in entomology in 1928; and a Ph.D. in vertebrate zoology in 1930. His major professor for the doctorate was the herpe- tologist Albert H. Wright, and his doctoral thesis was on the life history of the star- nosed mole.
In 1930, he was appointed Instructor in Zoology in the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell, where he remained for his entire career. He became Assistant Professor in 1937, Associate Professor in 1942, Professor in 1947, and Professor Emeritus upon his retirement in 1963. At various times he was a member of the de- partments of Entomology, Zoology, and Conservation (now Natural Resources). He taught vertebrate zoology, mammalogy, herpetology, literature of vertebrate zoolo- gy, economic zoology, and conservation and served as major professor of over 60 grad- uate students in mammalogy and herpetol- ogy.
Bill’s principal research interests were the ecology and life history of mammals. Much of his work was done in New York, reflect- ing his belief that one did not have to go to far off places to find interesting and signif- icant problems to study. Among his major contributions were studies on microtine cy- cles, food habits of mammals and other ver- tebrates, and various aspects of reproduc- tive biology. He also published life history accounts for a substantial proportion of eastern United States mammals. In addi- tion to over 200 papers, he authored Amer- ican Mammals, the first textbook in mam- malogy, and Mammals of Eastern United States and was coauthor of Conservation in the United States.
His professional honors included election as an Honorary Member of the ASM and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, New York Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Hor- ticultural Society of England. He also was the recipient of the LePiniec Award from the American Rock Garden Society and the Outstanding Alumni Award from Cornell University.
He joined the American Society of Mam- malogists in 1924. In addition to the pres- idency, he was Vice-president, a Director, and a member of numerous committees. He was also Secretary and President of the Eco- logical Society of America and Zoological Editor of Ecological Monographs. He served on the Environmental Biology Panel of the National Science Foundation and as Chair- man of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the E. N. Huyck Preserve and for many years was a Research Associate in the De- partment of Mammalogy of the American Museum of Natural History.
Bill Hamilton was one of the most col- orful of the mammal society presidents. His sense of humor, which earned him the title “Wild Bill,’ was legendary. He was able to weave the most outlandish tall tales into a conversation with such apparent sincerity that the listener often did not realize he was joking. He died at his home in Ithaca, New
46 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
York, on 27 July 1990 (Source: Layne and Whitaker, 1992).
William Henry Burt: 1953-1955
Like several other presidents of the ASM, William H. Burt (Fig. 3) was born and raised in Kansas. He was born on 22 January 1903 in Haddam, near the border with eastern Nebraska. His parents were Frank and Hat- tie Burt, and no references to siblings have been found. He grew up on the Burt farm, but was reticent to talk about his early years. He did, however, comment once that his observations of prairie dogs on the family farm were the basis of his later thoughts on territoriality and home range in mammals, the field in which he made a singular con- tribution to biology. He attended the Uni- versity of Kansas, graduating in 1926; he was thus an undergraduate together with E. Raymond Hall. He completed a master’s degree at Kansas in its Museum of Natural History in 1927, after which, like Hall, he enrolled in graduate school at the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley. He began grad- uate work in paleontology, even though his earlier interest had been in ornithology and mammalogy. In 1928 and 1929, he was awarded a research fellowship at the Cali- fornia Institute of Technology, which al- lowed him to complete his doctoral disser- tation on the morphology and evolution of woodpeckers, and he was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of California in 1930. While in graduate school, he married Leona Suzan Galutia.
His doctorate was awarded at the begin- ning of the Great Depression, and Burt re- mained at Cal Tech as a research fellow for 6 years working on a variety of projects. In 1935, he was awarded a tenure-track posi- tion at the University of Michigan, where he remained for the rest of his career. He also held a joint appointment as Curator of Mammals in the Museum of Zoology there. His career at Michigan was marked by the mentoring of over 20 graduate students,
many of whom have become important mammalogists in their own right. He suc- cessfully guided the growth of the mammal collections of the Museum of Zoology to their current level of excellence. He also published pioneering studies on territorial behavior and home range in mammals. In addition to his scientific publications, he au- thored A Field Guide to the Mammals, which with its illustrations by Richard Grossen- heider, became a best-selling classic.
Burt retired in 1969 and took up resi- dence in Boulder, Colorado, where he con- tinued his scientific studies as Honorary Cu- rator and Lecturer at the University of Colorado Museum. He and his wife also were able to indulge in the foreign travel they both loved until her death in 1973. He died in 1987 at the age of 84. His alma mater, the University of Kansas, was be- queathed the royalties from his field guide (Source: Muul, 1990).
William B. Davis: 1955-1958
William B. Davis (Fig. 3) was born to Bennoni Washington Davis and Mary Ann Matilda (Owens) Davis on 14 March 1902 in Rexburg, Idaho, a small agricultural and lumber community on the Snake River about 50 miles southwest of Yellowstone National Park. His father and grandfather operated a small sawmill east of Rexburg. When Bill was 3 years old his father was killed in an accident at the sawmill. This tragedy left Buill’s mother with two small children and no visible means of support. Fortunately she was a competent cook so she spent the next 2 years cooking for min- ing crews in northern Utah. In 1907 she found employment as a cook in a new boarding house and hotel in Rupert, Idaho, a small community in an irrigation project on the north side of the Snake River. Bill received all of his elementary and high school education there and graduated in February 1920.
At that time Idaho law permitted high
PRESIDENTS 47
William H. Burt William B. Davis Robert T. Orr (1953-1955) (1955-1958) (1958-1960)
Stephen D. Durrant Emmet T. Hooper Donald F. Hoffmeister (1960-1962) (1962-1964) (1964-1966)
Randolph L. Peterson Richard G. Van Gelder James N. Layne (1966-1968) (1968-1970) (1970-1972)
Fic. 3.—Presidents of the ASM from 1953 to 1972.
48 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
school graduates to qualify for a teaching certificate upon completion of two summer school courses at a normal college. Bill was not enthused with the labor involved in farming, so he followed the suggestion of his fiancée and qualified for a grade three teaching certificate. That autumn he began his teaching career in a rural school near St. Anthony, Idaho. During the next 13 years he alternated going to summer school and teaching in elementary schools in Idaho, Washington, and California, ranging from a single-room school with seven students in six grades to a three-room school where he was principal and teacher of the sixth to eighth grades. On 21 April 1923 he married Pearl Kathryn Tansey, and they have two children, a daughter, LaNell, and a son, Robert Lee.
In 1932, Bill matriculated at Chico State College in California, where he received a B.A. in Education in 1933. However, even before entering college, he had developed a professional interest in ornithology. His first paper is dated 1923, and by the time he had finished at Chico State he had published 10 papers, all but one on birds, based on ob- servations made during the course of his teaching career.
His association with the University of California at Berkeley began the summer after he completed his B.A., when he served as a field assistant to E. R. Hall in Nevada, a position also held by Bob Orr. Dr. Joseph Grinnell agreed to chair Bill’s graduate committee if he switched his research to the field of mammalogy. This appears to have been the stimulus that turned him from birds to mammals, and in the following four sum- mers he conducted his graduate field work in Idaho, collecting mammals throughout the state, while supporting himself by work- ing as a graduate assistant in the Depart- ment of Zoology. His dissertation, The Re- cent Mammals of Idaho, was published in 1939, 2 years after he received his Ph.D. By that time he had also published an addi- tional 26 papers, mostly based on work done while a graduate student. It is interesting to
see the increasing emphasis on mammals in his scholarly output during this period.
Upon completing his doctorate, Bill ac- cepted a professorship in the Department of Wildlife Science at Texas A&M Univer- sity. The following year (1938) he became Curator of the Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collections. He also served as Head of the Department from 1947 to 1965. During his academic career, he supervised the theses and dissertations of many well-known mammalogists. Upon his retirement from administration, he received the Governor’s Award for Outstanding Service in Conser- vation Education.
He first became active as an officer of the ASM in 1937, as Corresponding Secretary, which he held for 3 years. He was elected President in 1955, and re-elected in 1956 and 1957. He was appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees, strong evidence of his colleagues’ confidence in his judgment and financial acumen. Bill remained active in research following his retirement in 1967, and to date has published a total of 188 scholarly contributions. Failing eyesight fi- nally forced him to curtail his scholarly ac- tivities, but his interests remain strong. He now lives quietly with his second wife of 8 years, Leola, in Bryan, Texas. She has two children by a former marriage.
Robert Thomas Orr: 1958-1960
Robert T. Orr (Fig. 3) recently told a friend and colleague that he has always considered himself ‘‘a real naturalist, not a specialist.” He attributed his initial interests in the out- of-doors to his physician father who took the whole family camping and encouraged him to hunt and fish. Bob was born on 17 August 1908 in San Francisco, California, to Robert H. and Agnes K. Orr; he was one of three children. His grandfather had a ranch in Tehama County, and Bob spent many vacations while growing up collecting vertebrates on the ranch, although it is not clear where those specimens were deposit-
PRESIDENTS 49
ed, if they still survive. After grammar and high school in San Francisco, he enrolled in the University of San Francisco, receiving a Bachelor of Science in 1929. One of his teachers there, George Haley, was a person- al friend of Joseph Grinnell at the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley, to whom he in- troduced Orr. It was natural then that Bob should enroll in graduate school at Berkeley, receiving a master’s degree in 1931. At this time, E. Raymond Hall was also in the Mu- seum of Vertebrate Zoology, and employed him in field studies on the mammals of Ne- vada, which Hall later published through the U.C. Press. He also was befriended there by Alden Miller, the highly respected or- nithologist who was to become director of MVZ after Grinnell’s death. Bob accom- panied Miller on collecting trips, and cred- ited Miller with teaching him the funda- mentals of field ornithology, whose study he pursued throughout his career.
His doctoral research was on the rabbits of California and was supervised by Grin- nell. He received the Ph.D. in 1937, 2 years after he had accepted a position as Wildlife Biologist with the National Park Service with assignments at various places in central Cal- ifornia. In 1936 he began a lifetime asso- ciation with the California Academy of Sci- ences when he was appointed Assistant Curator in the Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy, ultimately being awarded its Fellow’s Medal in 1973.
Although his work prior to his doctoral dissertation was primarily on terrestrial mammals, his research interests at the Academy began to focus on marine mam- mals, although he continued to publish widely in both ornithology and mammal- ogy. His advancement at the California Academy of Sciences was steady, and be was named Full Curator in 1945, a rank he held for 30 years until his retirement. He also assumed the additional administrative duty of Associate Director in 1964 at the request of George Lindsay, whom he had supported for the directorship. Those additional duties finally forced him to terminate his courtesy
teaching appointment at the University of San Francisco, which he had begun as an Assistant Professor of Biology in 1942, again rising through the ranks to Full Professor in 1955. Upon his retirement in 1975, he was named Senior Scientist and Curator Emer- itus at the Academy. He has continued to publish, and his total bibliography now amounts to 267 titles. Only about one in ten were co-authored, one with his wife, Margaret C. Orr. They have one daughter.
Bob has been honored as a Fellow and Honorary Member by a number of scientific societies and conservation organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Orni- thologists’ Union, and Explorers Club of New York.
Stephen David Durrant: 1960-1962
Stephen D. Durrant (Fig. 3) was born 1 1 October 1902 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of Stephen Thomas and Martha Har- man Durrant. Following graduation from high school he spent several years (1922- 1925) in Europe, mainly in Switzerland, on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During the summer of 1933 while taking a course at the University of California at Berkeley, he met Sylvia Jane Burt, who was vacationing there from Salt Lake. They were married that December. They had two children, a daughter, Sue Marilyn, and a son, Stephen Carl.
Steve began his undergraduate work at Weber Junior College, then transferred to the University of Utah, where he received the A.B. degree, with a major in Modern Languages (French), in 1929. As a result of courses taken with William W. Newby, who also taught him to prepare mammal skins, he decided to major in zoology for his Mas- ter’s degree, which he received in 1931. He began doctoral work at the University of Minnesota but after a year (1931-1932) ac- cepted an offer to return to the University of Utah as an instructor in comparative
50 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
anatomy. While a full-time faculty member, he began doctoral work in mammalogy with E. R. Hall, first at the University of Cali- fornia at Berkeley (1938-1939) then at the University of Kansas when Hall moved there. He received his doctorate in 1950 and remained at the University of Utah for his entire career, rising from Assistant Profes- sor to Professor.
Steve’s research dealt primarily with the distribution and systematics of Utah mam- mals. The genus 7homomys was a favorite subject. Of 37 new subspecies named by him and collaborators, 15 were pocket go- phers. He spent most of his summers in the field, often traveling by horseback. He par- ticipated in the Upper Colorado River Ba- sin Surveys from 1958 to 1962, serving as Field Director and mammalogist. His years of field work, during which he and graduate students amassed some 27,000 specimens, and his intimate knowledge of the mam- malian fauna of Utah were reflected in his book Mammals of Utah, Taxonomy and Distribution.
Steve excelled as a teacher and, although a tough taskmaster, was revered by his stu- dents. His comparative anatomy course had the reputation of being both one of the best and hardest courses on campus. Mammal- ogy was offered once a year and was such a popular course that enrollment had to be limited. He had 36 graduate students, a number of which earned both master’s and doctorates under his direction.
Steve joined the ASM in 1934. In addi- tion to the presidency, he was a Director and Vice-president. The International Re- lations Committee, one of the most pro- ductive in the Society, was formed during his tenure as president. He also served as a member, often chairman, of six standing committees. He participated in other sci- entific societies, including serving as Pres- ident of the Pacific Division of the Society of Systematic Zoology in 1956. Among hon- ors received during his career were election as Honorary Member of the ASM; the Dis- tinguished Teaching Award from the Uni- versity of Utah; the Distinguished Service
Award from the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters; and the establishment of the Stephen D. Durrant Memorial Schol- arship at the University of Utah. Perhaps his most cherished honor was a bronze cast- ing of a pocket gopher presented to him by graduate students and members of his last classes in comparative anatomy and mam- malogy.
Steve was a warm and jovial person and a superb raconteur—a skill honed during many hours around a campfire with stu- dents and colleagues. He was an ardent duck hunter and a crack shot. He died on 11 No- vember 1975, and his remains after cre- mation were deposited near his favorite blind on Salt Lake where he had hunted for many years (Source: Behle, 1977).
Emmet Thurman Hooper, Jr.: 1962-1964
Emmet T. Hooper (Fig. 3) was another of the many mammalogists inspired by Joseph Grinnell to pursue a professional career in biology. He was born 19 August 1911 in Phoenix, Arizona, the eldest of two chil- dren, to Emmet Thurman and Frances Jew- ell (McDonald) Hooper. His elementary schooling was in Phoenix, but after he had finished a year of high school, the family moved to San Diego, California. Complet- ing high school in that city, Emmet then enrolled in San Diego State University at the somewhat precocious age of 17. For his senior year, however, he transferred to the University of California at Berkeley where he came within the sphere of Joseph Grin- nell and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Completing his bachelor’s degree in 1933, he then continued his graduate studies, re- ceiving a master’s degree in 1936 and his Ph.D. in 1939. His doctoral dissertation fo- cused on geographic variation in woodrats of the San Francisco Bay region. While at Berkeley, he also worked as a part-time as- sistant in the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.
He married Helen Bacon while a graduate
PRESIDENTS Bil
student, and they had two sons, Alan and Kim. Shortly before completing his doctor- ate, Emmet accepted what appears to have been a non-tenured position at the Univer- sity of Michigan Museum of Zoology, where he began a long professional association with fellow U.C. Berkeley graduates Bill Burt and Lee Dice. His tenure at the University of Michigan was interrupted by World War II, and he spent 4 years in the U.S. Army Air Corps, attaining the rank of Captain by the time of his discharge in 1946. He returned to the University of Michigan in that year and remained at the Museum of Zoology as Professor and Curator until his retirement in 1978. During those 3 decades, he served as major professor for many graduate stu- dents who have gone on to distinguished careers in mammalogy. His own research, published in 85 papers and monographs, was principally on the muroid rodents, es- pecially their morphology and systematics. Having lost his wife of 40 years in 1976, Emmet made the decision to relocate fol- lowing his retirement from the University of Michigan and accepted a position as lead- er of the sea otter research program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Center for Marine Studies, University of Califor- nia, Santa Cruz. He was very active in re- tirement, not only scientifically but in pub- lic service as well, serving as Commissioner of the Santa Cruz Museum and member of the Citizens Advisory Committee for Ni- senemarks State Park. In 1983 he remar- ried, to Leanore Theriot, and they resided in Aptos, California, until his death on 28 June 1992 (Sources: Anon., 1988, 1992).
Donald Frederick Hoffmeister: 1964-1966
Donald F. Hoffmeister (Fig. 3) was born in San Bernardino, California, on 21 March 1916, and spent his youth in southern Cal- ifornia. Although his parents moved to Cal- ifornia from Iowa in 1906, his paternal grandfather had gone to California in the
gold rush of 1849. Don and his wife, the former Helen Kaatz, were married in 1938 and have two sons, Robert and Ronald.
Don took his first 2 years of undergrad- uate work at San Bernardino Junior College and received his A.B. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1938. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and en- couraged by his parents, Don originally in- tended to become a medical doctor. How- ever, as the result of the influence of Dr. Elton R. Edge, one of his instructors in ju- nior college who had taken a field trip in Nevada with E. R. Hall, and a course in vertebrate zoology taught by Joseph Grin- nell and Hall, which he took in his senior year, Don decided to switch from medicine to mammalogy even though he had already been accepted to medical school. He re- mained at Berkeley for graduate study with E. R. Hall, who had a profound influence on his scientific career. He received the M.A. in 1940 and the Ph.D. in 1944. During his graduate work, he held a Teaching Assis- tantship and also served as Technical As- sistant and Research Assistant in the Mu- seum of Vertebrate Zoology.
In 1944 he was appointed Assistant Pro- fessor and Assistant Curator of Modern Vertebrates at the University of Kansas, and in 1946 went to the University of Illinois as Assistant Professor and Assistant Cura- tor in the Museum of Natural History, where he remained for the remainder of his career. He became Associate Professor in 1956, and Professor in 1959. He was promoted to Cu- rator, with responsibility as director, in the Museum of Natural History in 1948 and was given the official title of Director of the museum in 1964. Upon his retirement in 1984, he was appointed Emeritus Director and Professor. In addition to his research, administration, and teaching, he served as chairman of 14 Ph.D. and 18 master’s stu- dents. Two of his students are themselves past-presidents of ASM.
Don’s research has dealt primarily with the distribution and taxonomy of mam- mals, with emphasis on Arizona and Illi- nois. However, his publications include a
52 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
distributional note and study of growth and development of birds and papers on life his- tory and ecology, pelage coloration, and various aspects of anatomy of mammals. He has also described a number of mam- malian taxa. He is the author or coauthor of a number of semipopular and technical books on mammals, including Mammals/ A Guide to Familar American Species with H. S. Zim, Handbook of Illinois Mammals with C. O. Mohr, Fieldbook of Illinois Mammals with C. O. Mohr, Mammals of the Grand Canyon, Mammals of Illinois, and the monumental Mammals of Arizona. Sources of support for his work include the National Science Foundation, National In- stitutes of Health, Illinois Department of Conservation, Arizona Fish and Game De- partment, and the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation.
Don became a member of the ASM in 1938. Other elective offices he held in ad- dition to the presidency include Director, Corresponding Secretary, and Vice-presi- dent. He was appointed in 1966 as the so- ciety’s first Historian and continues to serve in that capacity. He was a member of five, and chairman of three, standing committees and also chaired special committees on Sub- scriptions to the Journal of Mammalogy and Reprinting of the Journal of Mammalogy. Offices he has held in other professional or- ganizations include President of the Mid- west Museums Conference, Chairman of the Zoology Section and Councillor of the Ili- nois State Academy of Science, Councillor of the American Association of Museums, and Associate Editor of The American Mid- land Naturalist.
In recognition of his outstanding service to the ASM, Don was awarded Honorary Membership in 1982 and the Hartley H. T. Jackson Award in 1986. Among his other professional honors are Honorary Mem- bership, Midwest Museums Conference; appointment to the Governor’s Board of the Illinois State Museum; and appointment as Research Associate of both the Museum of Northern Arizona and the Northern Ari- zona Society of Science and Art.
The second meeting of the society outside the United States was held in Winnipeg, Canada, during Don’s presidency, and in what was probably a first for an ASM pres- ident he was made an Honorary Citizen of Winnipeg by Royal proclamation.
Randolph Lee Peterson: 1966-1968
Randolph L. Peterson (Fig. 3) was born on 16 February 1920 in Roanoke, Texas, one of five children of Omas and Margaret Francisco Peterson. Pete, as he was known to his friends and colleagues, spent his youth on the family farm, where he developed an interest in natural history, particularly mammals, plants, and ecology. In 1942 he married Elizabeth Fairchild Taylor, the daughter of the well-known mammalogist Walter P. Taylor, who was Pete’s mentor. They had one daughter, Penny Elizabeth. In addition to her role as wife and mother, Elizabeth participated with Pete in running a biological supply business and helped as his research assistant. During World War II, Pete served in the U.S. Air Force as pilot and instructor and Operations Officer with the Mediterranean Allied Air Force.
He obtained his B.Sc. in 1941 in the De- partment of Fish and Game at Texas A&M University. During his undergraduate years he served as Assistant Curator of the Texas Cooperative Wildlife Research Collection under William B. Davis. He began graduate studies at Texas A&M, but went into service before completing his degree. After the war, he entered the graduate program of the Uni- versity of Toronto under J. R. Dymond and received the Ph.D. in 1950.
While at the University of Toronto, Pete served as Acting Curator in Charge of the Mammal Division of the Royal Ontario Museum and upon receiving his degree was appointed Curator-in-Charge of the De- partment of Mammalogy of the Museum, a position he held until retirement in 1985. He was also on the faculty of the University of Toronto, as Special Lecturer in the De- partment of Zoology (1949-1962), Asso-
PRESIDENTS 58,
ciate Professor (1962-1968), and Professor (1968-1985). Upon retirement he was ap- pointed Curator Emeritus in the museum and Professor Emeritus in the university. He died on 29 October 1989.
Pete’s doctoral research was on the bi- ology of the moose and was published as the book North American Moose in 1955. This was one of the most definitive studies of the species and has been reprinted several times. He also directed a survey of the mammals of Ontario and Quebec, which culminated in his second book, Mammals of Eastern Canada, in 1966. Bats became a consuming research interest later in his ca- reer and over a third of his publications deal with the taxonomy, distribution, habitats, and habits of bats, including descriptions of five new species. He led expeditions to many areas in North America and Mexico and abroad and built one of the largest and most complete collections of bats in the world at the Royal Ontario Museum.
As Curator-in-Charge of mammalogy at the museum, he supervised the renovation and expansion of the department’s office and collection space. He also served as Editor and Chairman of the Life Sciences Publi- cations and was a member of the Promotion and Tenure Committees. As Professor of Zoology he taught mammalogy and directed the work of eight doctoral and eight master’s students, in addition to serving on the grad- uate committees of many others.
Pete joined the ASM in 1940 and attend- ed 50 consecutive meetings. Besides the presidency, he was a Director, Recording Secretary, and Vice-president, in addition to serving as chairman and member of nu- merous committees. He played a key role in the establishment of the Future Mam- malogists Fund and in 1986 was awarded Honorary Membership. His participation in other scientific organizations included serving on the boards of the Metropolitan Toronto Zoological Society and the Met- ropolitan Toronto Zoo and as Councillor of the Society of Systematic Zoology.
In addition to his active and productive professional life, Pete pursued interests in
gardening, farming, wood-working, and oe- nology. In the 1950s, he and Elizabeth start- ed a thriving biological supply company and operated it until 1974. He also invented such items of equipment as automated calipers for measuring specimens, a cider press, and a large skeleton cleaning apparatus.
Pete was a man of contrasts. When nec- essary, he was rough and ready, as might be expected given his Texas origins, but on other occasions he was the perfect country gentleman (Source: Eger and Mitchell, 1990).
Richard George Van Gelder: 1968-1970
Richard G. Van Gelder (Fig. 3) was born in New York City on 17 December 1928, the son of Joseph and Clara DeHirsch Van Gelder. Despite growing up in an urban en- vironment, he developed an avid interest in natural history at an early age. Upon grad- uation from the Horace Mann School in New York with honors in biology and Span- ish, he entered Colorado A&M College. He received a B.S. with honors in 1950, then attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana, where he worked with Donald F. Hoffmeister. Dick received the M.S. in 1952 and Ph.D. in 1958. During graduate school, he spent one summer at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. He was married in 1962 to Rosalind Rudnick, and they have three children: Rus- sell Neil, Gordon Mark, and Leslie Gail. His son Russell probably holds the record of being the youngest person ever to join ASM, as Dick took out a life membership for him when he was a baby.
Dick served as Curator in the Natural History Museum of Colorado A&M College in 1948-1949 and was an Assistant in the Mammal Department of the American Mu- seum of Natural History in 1952. He was a Research Assistant in the Museum of Nat- ural History of the University of Kansas from 1954 to 1956 and an Assistant Pro- fessor in 1955-1956. In 1956, he was ap- pointed Assistant Curator in the Depart-
54 LAYNE AND HOFFMANN
ment of Mammals of the American Museum of Natural History and was promoted to Associate Curator in 1961 and Curator in 1969. He also served as Acting Chairman of the Mammal Department in 1958-1959 and as Chairman from 1959 to 1974. He retired in 1986. During his tenure at the American Museum, Dick also held appoint- ments as Instructor and Assistant Professor at Columbia University; Adjunct Graduate Advisor at Albert Einstein Medical College, Columbia University, New York Univer- sity, and City College of New York; and Professorial Lecturer at Downstate Medical Center of the State University of New York.
Dick’s areas of research reflect his broad interests in mammals, including mammal populations and physiology; taxonomy of carnivores, marine mammals, bats, artio- dactyls; behavior; hybridization and spe- ciation; color patterns, and mammals of New Jersey. He also has published on other ver- tebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, and birds. He has conducted field work in many parts of North America, as well as Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia, Bahamas, Mozambique, Botswana, and South West Africa. Skunks were one of his favorite groups, and he pub- lished a definitive revision of the spotted skunks in 1959, as well as a number of other papers and semipopular articles on the tax- onomy, morphology, behavior, and habits of skunks. In later years, he worked on the behavioral ecology of African ungulates and directed a cooperative study of the status of mammals of New Jersey. He was author of the books Biology of Mammals, Mammals of the National Parks, and Animals and Man, Past, Present, Future, coauthor of Animals in Winter, and coeditor of Physiological Mammalogy volumes I and II. In addition to research, he directed graduate students in areas of mammalian anatomy, behavior, and history and was active in the Museum’s exhibits program, playing a lead role in the design, construction, and installation of the blue whale model that dominates the Hall of Fishes. He recounted his experience with the latter project in the humorous article ‘*“Whale on my back” published in Curator.
Dick also taught adult education courses at the museum for many years.
Dick joined the ASM in 1948. Besides the presidency, he served as Director, Vice- president, and Recording Secretary. As chairman of the Committee on Recent Lit- erature, he edited the Recent Literature sec- tion of the Journal of Mammalogy from 1965 to 1968. He also was a member of many other committees. The office of His- torian was established during his presiden- cy. Among other appointments, Dick was a member of the Board of Directors of Arch- bold Expeditions; a Director of the Quincy Bog Natural Area in New Hampshire; a member of the Board of Education, Har- rington Park, New Jersey; and a member of the Technical and Editorial Advisory Board of the Population Reference Bureau.
James Nathaniel Layne: 1970-1972
James N. Layne (Fig. 3) was born on 16 May 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, to Harriet (Hausman) and Leslie J. Layne. He grew up in what Chicagoans call the “near north side,” Irving Park and Rogers Park. When he was 6 years old, his father left the family, and he and his younger brother were raised by his mother through the difficult days of the Great Depression. Despite the hard times, his mother encouraged his growing interest in natural history. By age 12 he had become an enthusiastic falconer, and his high school years were spent capturing and training hawks, and spending many hours observing raptors in the Cook County For- est Preserves. His high school biology teach- ers Doris Plapp and Susan Arenberg also encouraged his passion for raptors, taking him on field trips and, together with his English teacher Fred Thompson, encour- aging him to write. His first scientific paper, published in 1943 in the J/linois Audubon Society Bulletin, was completed while he was still in high school.
Upon his graduation in 1944, Jim enlist- ed in the Army Air Force and served until
PRESIDENTS 5D
after World War II, being discharged in 1946. While stationed in the southeastern U.S., he met Philip S. Humphrey, the well- known ornithologist who now directs the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History. Through his influence, Jim devel- oped a broad interest in birds and was com- mitted to ornithology when he enrolled in Cornell University in 1947 after a freshman year at Chicago City Junior College. How- ever, during his sophomore year he took the vertebrate zoology course taught by Ed Ra- ney and Bill Hamilton, and henceforth fish- es and mammals also competed for his in- terest. He completed his B.A. degree in 1950 still uncommitted to a particular vertebrate group, until Hamilton offered him an assis- tantship to work on mammals. In that year, he not only acquired a mentor, but also a wife when he was married to Lois Linder- oth; they have five children, all daughters: Linda, Kimberly, Jamie, Susan, and Rachel.
Jim continued to publish during his Air Force and undergraduate