Witmer Stone
Witmer Stone | |
---|---|
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | |
Occupation(s) | Ornithologist, botanist, mammalogist |
Spouse | Lillie Mae Lafferty (1904–1939) |
Witmer Stone (September 22, 1866 – May 24, 1939) was an American
Early life
Witmer Stone was born in
Stone graduated from
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
Stone visited the
From 1893 to 1908 Stone was Assistant Curator at the academy; Curator 1908–1918 and Executive Curator 1918–1925; Director 1925–1928; Curator of Vertebrates, 1918–1936; and lastly, three titles (with year of appointment) that Stone held at the time of his death: Vice President (1927), Emeritus Director (1928), and Honorary Curator of Birds (1938).[1]
As a botanist
Stone was an original member of the Philadelphia Botanical Club.[6] He had a knowledge of systematics of the local flora “surpassed only by that of Simon-pure botanists,”[5] and, according to a later eminent botanist, Frans Stafleu, Stone's concentration on ornithology was a “definite loss” for botany.[7] Stone produced 20 botanical writings during his lifetime.[5]
After a joint meeting of the Philadelphia and
The Academy of Natural Sciences preserves many botanical specimens that Witmer Stone collected circa 1910, including many from New Jersey. The Mid-Atlantic Herbarium Consortium[8] was leading a project to digitize herbarium records from the Mid-Atlantic region through volunteer crowd-sourcing as of 2020.[9]
As an ornithologist
Stone's first manuscript to appear in a “serious” publication was “The Turkey Buzzard Breeding in Pennsylvania” in
Witmer Stone had a long association with the
Stone was an honorary member of many foreign ornithological societies, the Nuttall Ornithological Club, the Cooper Ornithological Club, and the Zoological Society of Philadelphia (Stone was also Director of the latter). He was awarded the Otto Hermann Medal of the Hungarian Ornithological Society in 1931 and was a member of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, the Advisory Committee of the
Bird Studies at Old Cape May
For all of his work as one of the preeminent ornithologists of his day, Stone's most enduring popular legacy is undoubtedly his charming Bird Studies at Old Cape May (BSOCM), originally published by the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC) in 1937. This was an ornithological history of the New Jersey coast, with an emphasis on Cape May County, particularly the coastal areas. The bulk of the work consists of species accounts of all the birds that had been found in Cape May County at the time of the writing, with their historical occurrence in the state and notes on seasonality, habits, behavior, etc. gleaned from Stone's own notes and the records of fellow DVOC members. Stone dedicated Bird Studies at Old Cape May to his wife. Stone first visited Cape May in August 1890, and spent most of July–August 1891 there. He made frequent trips there over the years, and became an annual summer resident starting in 1916 and continuing until at least 1937. The largest photograph of Stone hangs in the Cape May Bird Observatory’s Center for Research and Education in Goshen, NJ.
Stone was posthumously awarded the
References
- ^ JSTOR 1374648.
- ^ Weygandt, Cornelius. Philadelphia Folks. D. Appleton Century Co. 1938.
- ^ Stone, Witmer. "Stewardson Brown". Cassinia. 24: 1–7.
- ^ a b "Penn Biographies: Witmer Stone". Archives.upenn.edu. 1939-05-23. Retrieved 2013-04-02.
- ^ .
- ^ JSTOR 41610086.
- JSTOR 1219341.
- ^ "Mid-Atlantic Herbaria Home". midatlanticherbaria.org. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
- ^ Mid-Atlantic Herbaria Consortium (2020). "Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis Project (MAM)". Mid-Atlantic Herbaria Consortiu. Archived from the original on August 1, 2019. Retrieved May 17, 2020. Alt URL
- ^ International Plant Names Index. W.Stone.
- JSTOR 4067130.
- ^ Searchable Ornithological Research Archive. "Searchable Ornithological Research Archive". Retrieved 2013-04-02.
- ^ "William Brewster Memorial Award". Aou.org. Retrieved 2013-04-02.
- ^ Bird Studies at Old Cape May at www.dvoc.org
Further reading
- History of the DVOC.
- McConnell, Scott. Witmer Stone: The Fascination of Nature. Self-published, 2014.
- Rehn, James A. G. "In Memoriam: Witmer Stone" (PDF). Auk. 58: 299–313.
- Stone, Witmer. Bird Studies at Old Cape May. Stackpole Books. 2000.
- Sutton, Clay and Pat. Birds and Birding at Cape May. Stackpole Books. 2006.