CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

INTRODUCTION 3

CHAPTER ONE
The Culture of Collecting 9

Roosevelt’s Museum 9

The Culture of Collecting 10

Quantitative Dimensions 13

Collecting Conflicts 17

CHAPTER TWO
Desiderata: Bird Collecting and Community 20

Recruiting Ridgway 20

Early American Collections 22

Collecting Networks 24

Serial Collecting 27

Sporting Naturalists 30

Collecting and Identification Guides 33

Perilous Pursuits 40

Women Ornithologists 43

CHAPTER THREE
Forging Boundaries, Creating Occupational Space 46

The Gathering 46

The Nuttall Club 47

Creating the AOU 50

“Amateurs” and the AOU 54

Forging a Profession I 57

Forging a Profession II 61

The Shufeldt Affair 63

Membership Redux 67

CHAPTER FOUR
Nomenclatural Reform and the Quest for Standards and Stability 74

Disciplining Ornithology 74

The Geography of Species 77

The “American” Subspecies Concept 79

The AOU and Nomenclatural Reform 85

Plain English 88

Trinomial Woes 95

CHAPTER FIVE
Embracing and Abandoning Bird Protection 102

Chapman's Parakeets 102

Discovering Extinction 107

Embracing Bird Protection 111

Grinnell's Audubon Society 117

Critics of Conservation 120

Permit Perturbations 122

Abandoning Bird Protection 125

CHAPTER SIX
Protecting Birds, Protecting Ornithologists 127

Reviving the Movement 127

Dutcher's Push for Protection 128

Redefining Ornithology 134

Conserve the Collector 141

A Crisis in Conservation 146

Renewing the Conservation Commitment 150

CHAPTER SEVEN
Birdwatchers, Scientists, and the Politics of Vision 154

Cooperation and Conflict 154

A Field Guide to Birdwatching 155

Constructing Observational Networks 165

Birdwatching, Bird Banding, and the Biological Survey 169

Cooperative Life-History Studies 172

The Problem of Sight Records 175

Palmer's Qualms 180

CHAPTER EIGHT
Reforming American Ornithology 182

The State of the Union 182

Graduate Training in Ornithology 184

Enter Ernst Mayr 190

Making Space for Nice 195

Reforming the AOU 198

CONCLUSION 206

NOTES 213

BIBLIOGRAPHY 271

INDEX 315