Charles Barney Cory was born on January 31, 1857 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. His father was Barney Cory, a wealthy importer of Boston, a descendant of Philip Cory who settled in Rhode Island early in the seventeenth century, and his mother was Eliza Ann Bell of Newport, Rhode Island.
In 1876 Cory entered the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University where he came in contact with J. A. Allen, the noted zoologist, then curator of birds and mammals in the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Just before this he had joined the Nuttall Ornithological Club of Cambridge and made the acquaintance of William Brewster and other local ornithologists so that his interest in birds was greatly stimulated and it became his chief pastime. His college course was never completed.
For nearly forty years, beginning in 1877, Cory devoted his life to travel and the collecting of ornithological specimens, visiting Florida most frequently but also other parts of America, and Europe. He published accounts of his experiences in several volumes, such as Southern Rambles (1881), A Naturalist in the Magdalen Islands (1878), Hunting and Fishing in Florida (1896).
In 1878 he visited the Bahamas and then concentrated his interests on the Cory West Indies. He published Birds of the Bahama Islands (1880), The Birds of Haiti and San Domingo (1885), and The Birds of the West Indies (1889), many papers in The Auk and the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, and a large folio work with colored illustrations entitled, Beautiful and Curious Birds of the World (1880 - 1883).
His home at this time was at Hyannis, where he established a spacious game park which he maintained as a bird sanctuary, one of the first in the United States. He was one of the founders of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1883 and later served it as treasurer, vice-president, and president.
Upon the establishment of the Field Museum at Chicago he presented to that institution his entire collection of birds, and was made curator of ornithology for life with no residence obligations, an assistant caring for the collections under his direction. He was thus enabled to continue his travels and his collecting.
In 1906, when in his fiftieth year, he experienced the crisis of his life—the loss of his entire fortune. He accepted a salaried position in the Museum, and the care-free roving amateur became a hard-working professional ornithologist. About the time of his first connection with the Field Museum he had published a key to the birds of eastern North America and he now prepared a volume on the Birds of Illinois and Wisconsin (1909). He next arranged for the extensive collecting of South American birds by the field force of the museum, and the study and identification of these specimens occupied most of the remainder of his life. In this connection he conceived the Birds of the Americas, a synopsis and synonymy of all the birds of North, Middle, and South America. He published two volumes of this, his most important work, and the Museum later provided for its completion.
Cory’s interest was not confined to his ornithological studies. Among his other publications were Hypnotism or Mesmerism (1888); a number of light opera librettos and a volume of short stories, Montezuma’s Castle and Other Weird Tales (1899).
Charles Barney Cory became the recognized authority on the birds in North America. He collected over 19, 000 bird specimens and about 600 ornithological volumes. He was the first person to describe Cory's shearwater as a species. His major work as an author was the four-part Catalogue of the Birds of the Americas.
(Excerpt from The Birds of the Bahama Islands: Containing ...)
(Excerpt from The Birds of Eastern North America, Known to...)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
Cory was kind and generous in disposition and possessed of a keen sense of humor.
Cory was married in 1883 to Harriet W. Peterson of Duxbury, Massachusetts.
