Check List Of The Birds Of Illinois: Together With A Short List Of 200 Commoner Birds And Allen's Key To Bird's Nests...
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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)
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Check List Of The Birds Of Illinois: Together With A Short List Of 200 Commoner Birds And Allen's Key To Bird's Nests
Benjamin True Gault, Arthur Augustus Allen, Illinois Audubon Society
Illinois Audubon Society, 1922
Birds
The red-winged blackbird a study in the ecology of a cat-tail ma
(This book, "The red-winged blackbird : a study in the eco...)
This book, "The red-winged blackbird : a study in the ecology of a cat-tail marsh (1914)", by Allen, Arthur A. (Arthur Augustus), 1885-1964, is a replication of a book originally published before 1914. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible. This book was created using print-on-demand technology. Thank you for supporting classic literature.
Arthur Augustus Allen was an American ornithologist and scientist. He served as professor of ornithology at Cornell University.
Background
Arthur Augustus Allen was born on December 28, 1885 in Buffalo, New York, United States. He was the son of Daniel Williams Allen and Anna Moore. He grew up in nearby Hamburg, New York, United States, where his father was a businessman active in railroading and land development.
Education
Allen studied at Buffalo High School, and later entered Cornell University in the fall of 1904, earning his Bachelor of Arts degree (1907), Master of Arts degree (1908), and Ph. D. (1911). His dissertation, The Red Winged Blackbird: A Study in the Ecology of a Cattail Marsh (1914), combined the life history of this species with a detailed analysis of its relationship with the environment. Many subsequent researchers structured their studies in a similar fashion.
Career
Allen began working at Cornell as an assistant in ornithology during his senior year in college. Frank M. Chapman, chairman of the Department of Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, invited him to head a museum expedition to Colombia in the late summer of 1911. Suffering from malaria, Allen was compelled to return to Ithaca in the spring of 1912. That fall he began his duties as instructor in zoology at Cornell. He was made assistant professor of ornithology in 1915, and full professor in 1925.
Allen made ornithological expeditions to Labrador (1918), Hudson Bay (1934), and Europe (1938). He returned to Hudson Bay in 1944 and to Labrador a year later. During the latter stages of World War II, he spent some months in Panama researching jungle acoustics for the War Department. Later expeditions were made to Mexico in 1946 and Alaska in 1948.
During the 1920s Allen spent considerable time studying the diseases of the ruffed grouse and successfully devised methods for raising this species in captivity, a challenging task. Later, he did pioneering research on the sex rhythm in this bird and other species, including cowbirds, house wrens, Canadian geese, yellow warblers, and song sparrows.
Allen's Laboratory Notebook (1927) went through five editions and a textbook, The Book of Bird Life (1930), was reprinted a dozen times and revised in 1961. By the 1930s, "Doc, " as Allen was familiarly known, had a nationwide reputation. Until the early 1940's, Cornell was the only institution offering a doctorate in ornithology. An important feature of Allen's "Grad Lab" was the weekly evening seminar at which speakers--usually Cornell faculty or students, although occasionally distinguished visitors--held forth. Invariably, those in attendance would be expected to compare notes on birds observed during the week. The camaraderie among students and faculty during the Allen era was an important element in his program's success. This program, known unofficially as the "Laboratory of Ornithology" for many years, did not become a formal element in the university structure until 1955. In 1957 the laboratory was finally given its own building, which flanked a ten-acre pond and faced Sapsucker Woods, an excellent place for birdwatching. Allen soon took an interest in photography and quickly incorporated both still pictures and movies in his lectures. Many of his observations were not written up for scientific journals but rather provided grist for his lectures and popular articles. These were necessary sources of additional income for his growing family.
He gradually gave up most research work for a successful career of writing and lecturing, which he found more challenging and rewarding. His film commentaries were fascinating, his lecture voice excellent, and his sense of humor pervasive. In 1929 a group of filmmakers went to Ithaca to make sound movies of singing wild birds. Allen and an associate, Peter Paul Kellogg, were inspired to produce a library of sound recordings of various species in their natural settings.
As early as 1912, Chapman, whose own role in popularizing bird study had been notable, urged Allen to contribute to Bird-Lore, Chapman's magazine of popular ornithology. From 1919 until 1934 Allen edited the School Department of this publication. This led to his series of bird "autobiographies, " in which he had each species discuss its life history. Although these were technically accurate, informative, and well written, some critics deprecated what they considered to be Allen's misleading anthropomorphic approach. Yet the articles were well received by teachers. Nearly fifty were published in American Bird Biographies (1934) and The Golden Plover and Other Birds (1939). With these and other publications, Allen had clearly inherited Chapman's mantle as the nation's preeminent popularizer of ornithology. At no time did Allen take any liberties with the facts of bird life.