Background
He was born in San Francisco and enrolled at Stanford University in 1891.
He was born in San Francisco and enrolled at Stanford University in 1891.
In 1897 he received a Doctor of Philosophy from Stanford University.
As of 1895, he organized the herpetology department of the California Academy of Sciences. Additionally, he earned a Doctor of Medicine from Johns Hopkins in 1902 and subsequently practiced medicine in San Francisco, while again serving as curator of the herpetological collections of the California Academy of Sciences. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 he was instrumental in rebuilding the lost herpetology collections through new expeditions and also acquisitions of other collections.
In 1922, he published the two-volume The Reptiles of Western North America.
He died in 1924 while on vacation in Hawaii.