Biographical Memoirs Volume 56 (1987) / Chapter Skim
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Alexander Wetmore
Alexander Wetmore
Pages 596-626
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From page 597... ...
He died at his home in Glen Echo, Maryland, near Washington, on December 7, 1978, of congestive heart failure. He is survived by his second wife, Annie Beatrice Thielen, of Glen Echo, and a daughter, Margaret Fenwick Holland.
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From page 598... ...
Biological Survey as a field agent, rising to the posts of assistant biologist in 1913 and biologist in 1924. He studied the food habits of North American birds and had a chance to meet many of the noted biologists of the day, especially those about the Biological Survey and the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.
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From page 599... ...
States signed a migratory bird treaty with Canada. This took Wetmore to South America, where he spent a year roaming from the Chaco in Paraguay to northern Patagonia, surveying wintering grounds of North American migrants.
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From page 600... ...
On the other was a museum understaffed! by underpaid workers, housed in inacloquate space, and lacking properly funded support functions.6 Wetmore dealt with all these difficulties carefully and me 5"Wetmore oral history," pp.
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From page 601... ...
Taylor oral history transcript, (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Archives, February 27, 1974)
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From page 602... ...
The process was necessarily a slow one, and major results clid not appear until his successor's tenure, but the beginnings were macle uncler Secretary Wetmore, whose insistence on quality was well repaid by the outcome.8 In 1946 Alexander Wetmore had been secretary for two years, and a member of the Smithsonian staff for twenty-two. While he tract spent much time clearing with the Institution's problems, that year brought the Smithsonian a new bureau, the Canal Zone Biological Area, located in Panama (now called the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute)
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From page 603... ...
With over 150 such entries, and almost as many new fossil taxa to his credit, he can certainly be said to have contributect more to his field than any other single person.~° Wetmore's most intensive work on fossil birds was done 9 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1946 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1947)
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From page 604... ...
lust recently the National Museum received specimens possibly representing two new species of Paleochenoides, ant! it seems that they may provide a breakthrough in our understancling of these seabirds.
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From page 605... ...
At one time Wetmore's work on the extensive Oligocene deposits of western North America stood almost alone and was correspondingly important to students of that material. But for Wetmore, some of the most interesting fossil deposits were those found nearest home the Miocene marine beets of the Chesapeake Group.
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From page 606... ...
Together, these studies have made a significant contribution to our knowIecige of the effects of Pleistocene climatic changes on avian distribution. ~5 These brief notes touch upon only a few of Alexancler Wetmore's contributions to avian paleontology and their significance for present and future research;' but perhaps they at least serve to suggest the skill and devotion he spent on this field across a professional lifetime.
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From page 607... ...
In adctition to his membership in the Academy, he was a member of the American Philosophical Society; a director of the Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventive Medicine; a trustee of George Washington University; a trustee of the National Geographic Society, and a member and vice-chairman of its Committee for Research and Exploration. Wetmore was an active member of the American Ornithologists Union (Life Fellow, ~ 9 ~ 9)
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From page 608... ...
Gratifying as these honors were, it may be that Wetmore most appreciated the esteem of colleagues who remembered him in their own work-the colleagues who created for him what he called "my zoo." Some 56 new genera, species, and subspecies of recent and fossil birds, insects, mammals, mollusks, and amphibians bear his name. The latest was a 1976 description of a new genus and species of fossil birc!
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From page 609... ...
What do you expect 20 Watson M Perrygo oral history transcript (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Archives, October 30, 1978)
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From page 610... ...
82. "2"Wetmore oral history," p.
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From page 611... ...
This service was in continuation of a tradition established with previous secretaries who had died in office. The service was attended by members of the Regents, the President of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Chairman of the National Geographic Society Board, with which cognate organizations Dr.
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From page 612... ...
Auk, 31:309-33. A new accipiter from Porto Rico with notes on the allied forms of Cuba and San Domingo.
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From page 613... ...
Wash., 31:83-84. The birds of Desecheo Island, Porto Rico.
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From page 614... ...
Bird remains from the caves of Porto Rico.
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From page 615... ...
Auk, 41:595-96. 1925 The systematic position of Palaeospiza bella Allen, with observations on other fossil birds.
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From page 616... ...
Zool., 24:395-474. Fossil birds from the Green River deposits of eastern Utah.
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From page 617... ...
Mus., 79: 1-66. With Witmer Stone, Jonathan Dwight, Joseph Grinnell, Waldron DeWitt Miller, Harry C
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From page 618... ...
Zool., 75:297-311. Development of our knowledge of fossil birds.
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From page 619... ...
2-Bird remains from a kitchen midden on Puerto Rico.
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From page 620... ...
Mus., 88:529-74. A check-list of the fossil birds of North America.
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From page 621... ...
1945 Observaciones sobre la ornitologia de la zone sur de Veracruz, Mexico.
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From page 622... ...
Phelps, Jr. Observations on the geographic races of the tinamou Crypturellus noctivagus in Venezuela and Colombia.
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From page 623... ...
Check-list of North American Birds, Prepared by a Committee of the American Ornithologists' Union, 5th ea., pp.
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From page 624... ...
Wash.,71: 14. Miscellaneous notes on fossil birds.
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From page 625... ...
In Natural History of Plummers Island, Maryland, Special Publication, Washington Biologists' Field Club, January, 1968.
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From page 626... ...
626 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS 1972 With Pedro Galindo. Additions to the birds recorded in Panama.
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