explorer ornithologist Zoologist
He took part in about forty expeditions, mostly to Central and South America, including Theodore Roosevelt"s South American Expedition of 1913–1914, when Cherrie was collecting specimens for the American Museum of Natural History. In 1915, he went to Bolivia with the Alfred Collins-Garnet Day expedition. In 1925 he was the zoological collector for the Simpson-Roosevelts Asiatic Expedition.
Cherrie recounted his experiences in his memoir Dark Trails: Adventures of a Naturalist (1930).
He is commemorated in the names of a number of animals, including the Cherrie"s tanager. In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America made Cherrie an Honorary Scout, a new category of Scout created that same year.