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86-472: 14 recognized species, see text Nesomimus Ridgway , 1890 Orpheus Swainson, 1827 Mimus is a bird genus in the family Mimidae . It contains the typical mockingbirds . In 2007, the genus Nesomimus was merged into Mimus by the American Ornithologists' Union. The genus name is Latin for "mimic". The following species are placed here: The Nesomimus group includes

172-565: A Ph.B. in July 1862. That summer, he and several friends borrowed one of Yale's rowboats for a trip along the shores of Lake Champlain and a series of Canadian rivers, then returned to New Haven for the fall regatta. In October 1862, on a visit to the home of his former professor, George Jarvis Brush , King heard Brush read aloud a letter he had received from William Henry Brewer telling of an ascent of Mount Shasta in California, then believed to be

258-509: A breeder of New England and southern Canada, has since been recognized as a distinct species. From specimens collected in 1888, Ridgway was the first to describe hood mockingbird , Española cactus finch , Geospiza conirostris , and medium tree finch , all endemic to the Galápagos. The latter two are members of the so-called Darwin's finch group of tanagers , significant for their impact on Charles Darwin 's reasoning about evolution and

344-488: A certain fatherly responsibility over our youth." Brewer eventually gave his permission even though King had no real plan. The duo, however, started to run out of provisions before they even made it to Mount Whitney so, they had to turn back. After reuniting back at camp, they discover that Brewer is suffering from an awful toothache, so King took him to Visalia to get it pulled. During this King got permission to attempt to climb Mount Whitney again but he had to rendezvous with

430-566: A close friend from high school and college (who spelled his last name Gardner at the time). They associated with a group of American artists, writers and architects who were admirers of Ruskin. In February 1863, King became one of the founders, along with John William Hill , Clarence Cook and others, of the Ruskinian Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art , an American group similar to

516-487: A co-editor of the work. In 1901, however, the tension between the committee's broad vision of commercial applications for the project and Ridgway's narrow objective of a naturalist's reference book ended the Ridgway-Smithsonian collaboration in the endeavor. Ridgway published Color Standards and Color Nomenclature himself in 1912, financed in part by a loan from his friend and colleague Zeledón. The work became

602-512: A committee on nomenclature and classification , serving the newly founded AOU, to reconcile the various systems and catalogs. In 1886, the committee released The Code of Nomenclature and Check-List of North American Birds , both a consistent checklist and a set of rules for the naming of birds to be described in the future. The Code settled the disagreement about capitalization of species names and established today's order of presentation, with waterbirds first and passerines last. Several of

688-527: A creek named Genesee, Brewer found fossils of the Jurassic or Triassic age. This find would help them pinpoint the age of the Mother Lode gold belt, which was one of their goals on this journey. Near Lassen Peak in northern California, Brewer and King investigated hot springs and other thermal features. At nights around the campfire, geologic concerns such as the young Cascade volcanoes, the age of gold veins, and

774-412: A female Galápagos mockingbird and a male from the long-tailed mockingbird subspecies Mimus longicaudatus punensis that have interbred. They raised a hybrid offspring to adulthood. [REDACTED] Media related to Mimus at Wikimedia Commons This Mimidae -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Robert Ridgway Robert Ridgway (July 2, 1850 – March 25, 1929)

860-547: A great deal, and he died in 1848, so Clarence was brought up primarily by his mother. By 1848, his two sisters, named Florence King and Grace King, had passed away early in their lives. Clarence developed an early interest in outdoor exploration and natural history, which was encouraged by his mother and by Reverend Dr. Roswell Park, head of the Christ Church Hall school in Pomfret, Connecticut , that Clarence attended until he

946-596: A means to study birds. Birds named for Ridgway include the buff-collared nightjar , Caprimulgus ridgwayi (once known as Ridgway's whip-poor-will); the turquoise cotinga , Cotinga ridgwayi ; the Caribbean subspecies of the osprey , Pandion haliaetus ridgwayi ; a Big Island subspecies of the ʻelepaio , Chasiempis sandwichensis ridgwayi ; Ridgway's hawk , Buteo ridgwayi ; Ridgway's rail , Rallus obsoletus ; Juniper Titmouse, Baeolophus ridgwayi; and many other species and subspecies. The monotypic genus Ridgwayia

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1032-496: A month later, on August 6, the wagon train arrived at Carson City, Nevada which is when King, Gardiner, and Hyde decided to leave the wagon party to head towards Gold Hill a town nearby because Hyde's dad owned a ranch and foundry there. That night the foundry caught on fire burning everything the three guys owned, including King's letter to William Henry Brewer at the California Geologic Survey. As they helped rebuild

1118-421: A new house on 8 acres (3.2 hectares) that they had purchased in 1906, and named the place Larchmound for two large larch trees growing on the property. Ridgway also acquired a tract of 18 acres (7.3 hectares) located in the country, to be called Bird Haven, which he developed as a private nature reserve for birds and as a nursery for cultivation of non-native plants. His skill in landscaping and tending to

1204-466: A second edition in 1896, and was described by Montague Chamberlain as "far away the best thing we have for the working naturalist." Nevertheless, its bulk was unwieldy for use in the field, and its identification keys depended on characteristics of the bird in the hand, not field marks . Harry Oberholser characterized the quality of the illustrations as "rarely equaled, never excelled" in beauty and accuracy. With Stephen Alfred Forbes , he wrote

1290-497: A serious depression, his mother married George S. Howland in July 1860 and had a daughter with him named Marian Howland. Howland financed Clarence's enrollment in the Sheffield Scientific School affiliated with Yale College in 1860. At Yale, King specialized in "applied chemistry" and also studied physics and geology. One inspiring teacher was James Dwight Dana , a highly regarded geologist who had participated in

1376-600: A single taxon , but he also would describe tens of new forms in a single publication, as in a paper describing 22 species from the Galápagos Islands or his Manual of North American Birds (four new genera, 39 new species and subspecies). As subsequent research has revised the taxonomy of birds, not all of the forms that Ridgway described remain recognized as distinct, but his contributions are still substantial. During his lifetime, no other ornithologist described more new taxa of American birds than Ridgway. While most of

1462-560: A standard reference used by ornithologists for decades after Ridgway's death, as well as specialists in such wide-ranging fields as mycology , philately , and food coloring . The book named 1,115 colors, illustrated with painted samples reproduced on 53 plates. Special care was taken to ensure consistency of color reproduction across the edition, as well as the prevention of fading. The color samples were printed as large sheets by A. Hoen & Co. , cut into swatches one inch by one-and-one-half inches, and pasted into each bound book. In

1548-421: A teaching appointment. He is sometimes referred to as "Dr. Ridgway," particularly by writers from his home state of Illinois. Ella Dean's profile is an example. In 1899, Robert Ridgway joined E. H. Harriman on his famous Harriman Alaska Expedition . John Muir , Louis Agassiz Fuertes , John Burroughs , Edward S. Curtis , and a number of other scientists and artists made a four-month expedition to study

1634-503: A train. On the train King met the Speers family and being the friendly person, he was known to be, he decided to entertain the Speers children while they traveled to St. Joseph, Missouri. The Speers, grateful for King's help with entertaining their children, invited King, Gardiner, and Hyde to join their wagon party. The three men would be provided food as long as they helped care for the livestock that

1720-525: A two-volume work, The Ornithology of Illinois . Ridgway's contributions were published in two parts, in 1889 and 1895. Ridgway also published a number of papers dealing with the woody plants of his region. He contributed twenty short pieces to Forest and Stream , a magazine edited by George Bird Grinnell . Robert Ridgway published two books whose goal was to standardize the names of colors used by ornithologists to describe birds. The first, A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, appeared in 1886, and

1806-575: Is named for him; it consists of Aztec thrush, R. pinicola . In 1919, Ridgway was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences for his Birds of North and Middle America . The academy elected him to membership in 1926. In 1921, he was the first to receive the AOU's William Brewster Memorial Award , which recognizes "an exceptional body of work on birds of

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1892-504: Is the present site of Sequoia Lake, where they stayed for a week studying the Sequoia trees. The party used triangulation as their main method of mapping the areas they traveled through. At one point they reached a spot where the animals could not continue so they made base at an unknown mountain lake. The next day Hoffmann and Brewer climbed the unknown peak nearby (now known as Mount Brewer) and soon they sadly discovered that they were not on

1978-824: The American Philosophical Society in 1871. King made a persuasive argument for how his research would help develop the West. He received federal funding and was named U.S. Geologist of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel , commonly known as the Fortieth Parallel Survey, in 1867. He persuaded Gardiner to be his second in command and they assembled a team that included, among others, Samuel Franklin Emmons , Arnold Hague , A. D. Wilson ,

2064-674: The Commissioner of Patents , seeking advice on the identification of a bird he had seen. He enclosed a full-sized color drawing of what turned out to be a pair of purple finches . His letter eventually was referred to Spencer Fullerton Baird of the Smithsonian Institution . Baird replied, identifying the bird and praising the boy's artistic abilities, yet cautioning him to learn and use the scientific names of birds in further correspondence. The mentor and protégé continued their exchange of letters, which led to Ridgway's appointment, in

2150-615: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood , and was elected its first secretary. But he was anxious to see the mountains of the American West, and his friend Gardiner was miserable in law school. As Gardiner and King started to quickly plan for the journey, their final destination being San Francisco, another friend named William Hyde became interested and decided to join them. So, they all met in April 1863 at Niagara, New York, and boarded

2236-516: The Sierra Nevada . He had written most of his portion of King's report by 1872, but the "Ornithology" section was not published until 1877. Upon his return to Washington, Ridgway illustrated and wrote for Baird and Thomas M. Brewer's History of North American Birds project. He formally joined the Smithsonian in 1874, under the supervision of curator George Brown Goode . In 1880 he received

2322-570: The United States Exploring Expedition , a scientific expedition to the South Atlantic, South Pacific and the west coasts of South and North America. At Yale, King enjoyed many sports, as he was a skilled athlete, but rowing was his main passion. He joined the rowing team at the university, and eventually became its captain. The Undine team competed on a four-man rowing boat, with King at the stroke oar. King later graduated with

2408-530: The flora and fauna of Alaska 's coastline. However, the trip did not yield significant publications by Ridgway. Robert and Julia Ridgway had one son, Audubon Whelock Ridgway (May 15, 1877 – February 22, 1901). "Audie" had begun a promising career in ornithology at the Field Museum of Natural History when his life was cut short by a fatal bout of pneumonia. Robert Ridgway's second-born brother, John Livzey Ridgway (February 28, 1859 – December 27, 1947),

2494-549: The geological history of the West as a mixture of uniformitarianism and catastrophism . This book was well received at the time and has been called "one of the great scientific works of the late nineteenth century". In 1879, the US Congress consolidated the number of geological surveys exploring the American West and created the United States Geological Survey. King was chosen as its first director. He took

2580-687: The Chicago Academy of Sciences; and was a foreign member of the British Ornithologists' Union . He was a member of the permanent ornithological committee of the first international congress at Vienna in 1884. Ridgway was also honorary member of the Nuttall Ornithological Club of Cambridge, Massachusetts , for which he contributed illustrations and 48 articles to its Bulletin . The short-lived Ridgway Ornithological Club of Chicago, Illinois (active from 1883 to about 1890)

2666-485: The South. He decided that he would help the nation by exploring and mapping the West for his fellow Americans to later live. King was known to be an avid thinker and daydreamer. Because of this, he had many views on art and science. He couldn't ever decide if he was an artist or scientist, because he thought geology had both art and science involved with it. King seemed to embrace that the two were intertwined and learned about

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2752-408: The Speers were bringing. On May 1, 1863, with St. Joseph as their starting point the three men officially started to travel west. Five days later just past Troy, Kansas the party succeeded in hunting two buffalo, which was a welcomed treat. Near Fort Kearny , 200 miles into their journey, King tried hunting buffalo, but he did not succeed and ended up with a wounded leg and a dead horse. On May 29,

2838-495: The U.S., and Costa Rica . The Smithsonian exchanged study skins with other museums, either by donation or loan, and provided material and publications to collectors such as José Castulo Zeledón of the Costa Rican National Museum in exchange for specimens. Ridgway was articulate and literate, and served as the Smithsonian's mouthpiece and representative for many years in the study of birds. He welcomed visits to

2924-635: The Western Hemisphere." The American Birding Association has established the Robert Ridgway Award for Publications in Field Ornithology , which recognizes professional achievements in field ornithology literature. Clarence King Clarence King was born on January 6, 1842, the son of James Rivers King and Florence Little King. Clarence's father was part of a family firm engaged in trade with China, which kept him away from home

3010-415: The action of glaciers was discussed. During one of these conversations, Brewer brought up Whitney's plan to propose a geologic study across the continent, and King thought that there may be a chance of funding this because as Whitney noted railroad companies would really benefit from it. As soon as he got back from this first expedition of his, King immediately began preparing to do another one. This time he

3096-457: The age of 18, was an article about the belted kingfisher . In the course of the next 60 years, he would go on to publish more than 500 titles and 13,000 printed pages, most of it concerning North American birds. Ridgway collaborated with Brewer and Baird on the five-volume History of North American Birds (three volumes on the land birds published in 1874, and two volumes published as The Water Birds of North America in 1884). In its time,

3182-426: The art of science and the science of art. In his scientific reflections, he would vividly explain natural things that he encountered in his adventures in an artistic manner, blending the two subjects together. King wanted people to admire the beauty of his findings of the land in the West. He didn't like when the mountains and plains were described as dull or bland. King respected nature very much and thought it to be

3268-739: The book's foreword, Ridgway acknowledged the assistance of many, among them his brother John, Zeledón, and ornithologist John Thayer . With more than a thousand colors to be named, Ridgway devised some of his own imaginative identifiers (such as Dragons-blood Red and Pleroma Blue). He also paid tribute to colleagues, including Rood (with colors like Rood's Lavender), Bradley (Bradley's Blue), field guide pioneer Frank Chapman , watercolorist Samuel Prout , and others. A significant proportion of Ridgway's output consisted of formal scientific descriptions of new forms of birds (new genera, species, and subspecies), many of them native to Central and South America. Many of these papers were short reports dealing with

3354-493: The culmination of the "Bairdian school" of bird study. However, as ornithology around the turn of the twentieth century began to focus on bird behavior , reproduction strategies, and other aspects of the living organism, Ridgway fell behind the advances made by his colleagues of the succeeding generations. Paradoxically, because the overwhelming Bulletin 50 was so authoritative, no new publication could replace it for many years. Accordingly, systematics declined in importance as

3440-593: The director of the survey Josiah Whitney . In 1863, with the permission of Whitney, King was asked by Brewer to accompany him on his exploration of the northern part of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. While King is on this expedition, Gardner would stay in San Francisco. On this trip with Brewer and King was a mule packer named John Hoesch. As the group traveled, they passed through the Sierra gold fields, and at

3526-401: The emergence of new species. Robert Ridgway's career-crowning work, on bird systematics, was the monumental 6,000-page The Birds of North and Middle America, published by the Smithsonian in eleven volumes between 1901 and 1950. He began the work in 1894 at the direction of Goode. A major objective of the work was to resolve problems of naming and classification in the scientific literature of

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3612-575: The evening trading stories with Brewer. King during this time expressed his willingness to work for the survey without pay because he liked Brewer and knew it would be a good experience. Little did King know at the time but joining the California Geological Survey was a good choice because it ended up being the first step in King's career. Once Gardner and King arrived at the California Geological Society's office, they met

3698-451: The fall of 1868, the members of the team were reduced for funding reasons, but Ridgway returned in 1869 for more work in Utah. In an undertaking that lasted nearly two years, Ridgway collected 1,522 bird-related specimens (753 nests and eggs and 769 skins) and served as a key member on one of the four great surveys of the American West. He observed 262 species, most of these on the western slope of

3784-454: The favor that Baird had paid him, he responded to letters from the public to identify birds and provided artist's materials to a painter in California. Nevertheless, friends and colleagues described him as almost painfully shy, and he generally shirked publicity and the limelight. Among Ridgway's colleagues at the Smithsonian was Pierre Louis Jouy , who provided an important collection of Asian birds in 1883. Charles Wallace Richmond joined

3870-527: The first topographic, botanical, and geologic survey of a vast area. In September 1864, upon the designation by President Abraham Lincoln of the Yosemite Valley area as a permanent public reserve, King and Gardiner were appointed to make a boundary survey around the rim of Yosemite Valley. They returned to the East Coast by way of Nicaragua the following winter. King suffered from several bouts of malaria in

3956-530: The following species endemic to the Galápagos Islands : The Nesomimus group is endemic to the Galápagos Islands . These mockingbirds were important in Charles Darwin 's development of the theory of evolution by natural selection . Previous to the merger between Nesomimus and Mimus scientists have proved in 1971 that both groups can produce hybrids. Robert I. Bowman and Anne Carter have studied

4042-549: The forms described and named by Ridgway came from outside the United States, in one instance he identified a new taxon first collected no earlier than 1881, in the Catskill Mountains of New York , an area already well-explored by ornithologists. From two specimens collected by Eugene Bicknell , Ridgway wrote the description of Bicknell's thrush as a subspecies of gray-cheeked thrush , naming it for Bicknell. The bird,

4128-437: The foundry King and Gardiner were able to save up enough supplies to continue on while Hyde decided to stay with his father. Planning to walk the rest of the way by foot, Gardiner and King left Gold Hill near the end of August 1863. On September 1, the two friends boarded a steamboat heading towards San Francisco. While on the steamboat King met Brewer and explained to him what happened to the letter which then led to them spending

4214-436: The grounds was such that his expertise in that area was in some demand. Bird Haven, in part, is now an Olney city park. Evvie's death on May 24, 1927, was a severe blow to Robert. Robert continued to live at Larchmound, tending to his beloved trees and shrubs, until his death on March 25, 1929, at the age of 78. Robert was buried at Bird Haven where Julia's ashes had been scattered. Robert Ridgway's first publication, at

4300-481: The handbook's innovations were adopted by other branches of zoology, and were incorporated into the 1905 version of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature . The committee's work served to standardize the way that birds are described, identifying them at the subspecies level and using a three-part trinomial name . While American ornithologists embraced the descriptive detail, European researchers of

4386-434: The institution in 1893 (at first, as a night watchman) and was soon tasked by Ridgway with writing reviews and other short pieces. During Samuel Pierpont Langley 's tenure as Secretary, Ridgway assisted Langley's aviation research. He provided calculations of the wing loading and other aerodynamic characteristics of species like the wandering albatross , turkey vulture , and other soaring birds. In 1883, Robert Ridgway

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4472-475: The job title of curator (variously, of ornithology or of the department of birds); he was titled Curator of Birds from 1886 until his death. Working with the institution's collection of approximately fifty thousand bird skins, Ridgway devoted himself to unraveling the taxonomic relationships among North American bird species. As well, he continued his field work to collect new specimens, making several trips to his home state of Illinois , Florida , other states of

4558-478: The key to science and art. King spent his last thirteen years leading a double life. In 1887 or 1888, he met and fell in love with Ada Copeland , an African-American nursemaid and former slave from Georgia , who had moved to New York City in the mid-1880s. As interracial marriage was strongly discouraged in the nineteenth century, and illegal in many places, King hid his identity from Copeland. Despite his blue eyes and fair complexion, King convinced Copeland that he

4644-496: The main Sierra Nevada Crest like they thought they were. Brewer and Hoffmann also named Mount Tyndall , Mount Goddard , and Mount Whitney while they were up there. King upon hearing what Hoffmann and Brewer saw begged to be allowed to backpack up Mount Whitney with Cotter. In King's own words, "It was a trying moment for Brewer when we found him and volunteered to attempt a campaign for the top of California, because he felt

4730-482: The main group in two weeks at Clark's Station. King did not end up making it to the top on this expedition, which greatly disappointed him. On his way to the meeting point, King ran into some trouble with bandits but his new horse was able to outrun them saving his life. He made it to the rendezvous point on time, but the rest of the group ran into trouble and was three weeks late. Both Gardner and King were unpaid volunteers for this expedition, but they had helped create

4816-628: The mining ventures he was involved in were not successful enough to support his expensive tastes in art collecting, travel and elegant living, and he went heavily into debt. He had a busy social life, with close friendships including Henry Brooks Adams and John Hay , who admired him tremendously. But he suffered from physical ailments and depression. King grew up in the North and his grandmother, Sophia Little, influenced his views on slavery . She would not eat fruits and other Southern grown products because they were grown with slave labor. Because of this, King

4902-413: The most accurate. In the words of his biographer Daniel Lewis, Ridgway "may have had the best grasp of bird coloration in the country." With the publication of A Manual of North American Birds in 1887, Robert Ridgway condensed what was known about the continent's birds into a relatively compact 642 pages and 464 outline drawings. A prototype of today's field guides , it was quite successful, going into

4988-475: The museum from colleagues and the general public alike, and would give tours. One of his responsibilities involved assembling public exhibits. In the interest of accessibility, he made books available for browsing and displayed examples of birds described in popular natural histories. As well, he showed birds from well-known poetry, species like the nightingale that are not found in North America. Returning

5074-482: The photographer Timothy H. O'Sullivan and guest artist Gilbert Munger . Over the next six years, King and his team explored areas from eastern California to Wyoming. During that time he also published his famous Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada (1872). While King was finishing the Fortieth Parallel Survey, the western U.S. was abuzz with news of a secret diamond deposit. King and some of his crew tracked down

5160-401: The position with the understanding that it would be temporary and he resigned after twenty months, having overseen the organization of the new agency with an emphasis on mining geology. James Garfield named John Wesley Powell as his successor. During the remaining years of his life, King withdrew from the scientific community and attempted to profit from his knowledge of mining geology, but

5246-496: The rest of the job. King's next big job would be a scientific exploration into the southern Sierra mountains. Leaving in May 1864, the party consisted of Brewer, Hoffmann, Gardner, King and a man named Dick Cotter . During the early stages of this journey, in Visalia, King was able to acquire a new horse, a decision that would later save his life. Leaving Visalia, the team ended up at what

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5332-507: The second half of the nineteenth century, the need for reorganizing the system of names used to describe North American birds grew commensurately. For example, certain names assigned by William Bartram in his catalog of 1791 were now deemed unusable. Robert Ridgway addressed this need with two publications in 1880 and 1881, while Elliott Coues published a competing checklist in 1882. Ridgway and Coues, along with Joel Asaph Allen , William Brewster , and Henry W. Henshaw , came together as

5418-522: The secret location in northwest Colorado and exposed it as a fraud, now known as the diamond hoax of 1872 . He became an international celebrity through exposing the hoax. In 1878, King published Systematic Geology , numbered Volume 1 of the Report of the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, although it appeared later than all but one of the other seven volumes. In this work he narrated

5504-508: The spring and summer of 1865 while Whitney, also in the East, worked on securing funding for further survey projects. King, Gardiner, Whitney, and Whitney's wife sailed back to San Francisco in the fall, where Whitney lined up a survey project for King and Gardiner in the Mojave Desert and Arizona under U.S. Army auspices. They returned to San Francisco in the spring. King returned to Yosemite in

5590-470: The spring of 1867, as the naturalist on Clarence King 's Survey of the 40th Parallel . After a brief, intensive stint of training in Washington, where he learned to prepare study skins , Ridgway joined the expedition in May. Starting from Sacramento , California , the team explored parts of Nevada , Utah Territory , and Idaho Territory . A highlight of the trip was a stop at Nevada's Pyramid Lake . In

5676-503: The summer of 1866 to make more field notes for Whitney. When King heard of the death of his stepfather, he and Gardiner resigned from the Whitney survey and once again sailed to New York. They had been developing a plan for an independent survey of the Great Basin region for some time and, in late 1866, King went to Washington to secure funding from Congress for such a survey. He was elected to

5762-487: The tallest mountain in the United States. King began to read more about geology, attended a lecture by Louis Agassiz , and soon wrote to Brush that he had "pretty much made up my mind to be a geologist if I can get work in that direction". He was also fascinated by descriptions of the Alps by John Tyndall and John Ruskin . In late 1862 or early 1863, King moved to New York City to share an apartment with James Terry Gardiner ,

5848-447: The time and to identify synonyms . Dry, rigorous, and technically detailed in its language, the book was not considered to be accessible by the general reading public. Continuing the pattern of the Manual (and Baird's earlier Review of American Birds ), each volume featured an appendix of engraved outline drawings of generic characteristics. Ridgway published the eighth installment of

5934-633: The time were reluctant to adopt it. Ridgway was an enthusiastic supporter of trinomial nomenclature, although his thinking in later life became more moderate. Robert Ridgway was a corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London ; was associated with the Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Natural Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences , the Brookville, Indiana , Society of Natural History, and

6020-516: The traveling party passed the very large 325-foot landmark called Chimney Rock in northwest Nebraska and a few days after that they arrived at Fort Laramie in what is now Wyoming. On June 29 the party crested the ridge of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah to see the Great Salt Lake below them, a place of refuge before they began to travel across the desert to the west of the lake. More than

6106-514: The two projects in the first decade of the century. He used his own color terms extensively throughout Bulletin 50 . Spencer Fullerton Baird and his followers emphasized precision of description, traceability through the literature, the accumulation of empirical evidence (that is, numerous specimens), and deductions drawn from facts — in opposition to the so-called "European school" of the time, which depended on personal authority. Harris calls Robert Ridgway and his Birds of North and Middle America

6192-500: The work was considered the standard work on North American ornithology. While Ridgway primarily contributed illustrations to the land bird volumes, he wrote the bulk of the water bird volumes. Ridgway provided full-color illustrations for his own books and those of others. He was at the peak of his artistic proficiency in the late 1870s. Even though certain of his contemporaries (for instance, Daniel Giraud Elliot ) may have produced more artistically pleasing renderings, Ridgway's were

6278-475: The work, commonly known as Bulletin 50, in 1919. Although he continued to work on the project, outlining a projected two more volumes, it was incomplete at the time of his death in 1929. Following Ridgway's plan but doing his own writing, Herbert Friedmann of the Smithsonian completed the final three volumes. The Birds of North and Middle America and Color Standards and Color Nomenclature are complementary works, and indeed Ridgway divided his time between

6364-473: The world continue to cite Ridgway's color studies and books. Ridgway was born in Mount Carmel, Illinois to David and Henrietta (née Reed) Ridgway. He was the oldest of ten children. He was educated at common schools in his native town, where he showed a special fondness for natural history . This interest to explore nature, both shooting with a gun given to him by his father, as well as drawing from life,

6450-534: Was a founding member of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) and he became an associate editor of the organization's journal The Auk . He was prevailed upon to serve as an officer of the organization, but on the condition that he not be required to preside at public meetings. He served as a vice president of the AOU (September 1883 – November 1891) and as its president (November 1898 – November 1900). As scientific knowledge expanded quickly in

6536-832: Was a nationally prominent bird illustrator who worked for many years at the United States Geological Survey , as well as the Smithsonian, the California Institute of Technology , and the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art . The two brothers often collaborated on illustrations, sometimes with Robert doing the drawing and John the coloring. In early June 1913, Robert Ridgway and his wife Julia ("Evvie") moved to Olney, Illinois , to reduce physical and mental stress so that he might complete The Birds of North and Middle America , of which five of eight parts had already appeared. They built

6622-472: Was against slavery and African American injustice. While at Yale, he was known as an enthusiastic abolitionist and had lots of rage against the Confederates . He aligned with the militant anti-slavery advocate Wendell Phillips . King even considered joining the war efforts to fight for his beliefs. But by the time King was graduating, he decided to go back to his pacifist ways, and renounced his anger against

6708-548: Was an African-American Pullman porter named James Todd. The two entered into a common law marriage in 1888. Throughout the marriage, King never revealed his true identity to Ada, pretending to be Todd, a black railroad worker, when at home, and continuing to work as King, a white geologist, when in the field. Their union produced five children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Their two daughters married white men. Their two sons served, classified as black during World War I. King finally revealed his true identity to Copeland in

6794-629: Was an American ornithologist specializing in systematics . He was appointed in 1880 by Spencer Fullerton Baird , secretary of the Smithsonian Institution , to be the first full-time curator of birds at the United States National Museum , a title he held until his death. In 1883, he helped found the American Ornithologists' Union , where he served as officer and journal editor. Ridgway was an outstanding descriptive taxonomist , capping his life work with The Birds of North and Middle America (eight volumes, 1901–1919). In his lifetime, he

6880-411: Was encouraged by his parents, his uncle William, and his aunt Fannie Gunn. In 1871 he met Julia Evelyn Perkins, the daughter of one of the engravers for The History of North American Birds. Ridgway's courtship of the girl who became known as "Evvie" lasted until she reached the age of eighteen, and they were married on October 12, 1875. In 1864, at the age of thirteen, the young Ridgway wrote to

6966-462: Was formed, with scientific illustrator William Henry Holmes as chairman and Richard Rathbun (newly appointed assistant secretary) as one of its five members. Children's game inventor Milton Bradley , who had devised a color wheel for instructional use, was consulted by the project. Langley thought it important that the work include spectral information about the colors to be cataloged, and he proposed physicist and color theorist Ogden Rood as

7052-473: Was named in Ridgway's honor, and he was an honorary member. Although he lacked formal post-secondary education, Ridgway received an honorary master's degree in science from Indiana University in 1884, as a sign of gratitude for his supplying them with bird specimens after their museum burned down. He was listed with the title of Professor in Smithsonian annual reports and staff directories, despite his lack of

7138-422: Was relatively small in scope, illustrating 186 colors. It proposed a simple classification system, doing away with many subjective and evocative names that were currently popular. Ridgway sought to improve and expand upon this work. By 1898, he was in discussions with Secretary Langley about a new, expanded dictionary of color, to be published by (or at least supported by) the Smithsonian. An advisory committee

7224-488: Was ten. He then attended schools in Boston and New Haven and, at age thirteen, was accepted to the prestigious Hartford High School . He was a good student and a versatile athlete, of short stature but unusually strong. His mother received an income from the King family business until it met with a series of problems and dissolved in 1857. After a few years of straitened circumstances, during part of which Clarence suffered from

7310-532: Was traveling with a mining engineer named William Ashburner , and a topographer named Charles Hoffmann . The trio's job was to survey the Mariposa Estate, a place that was one of the most important gold-vein regions in the area. During this job, King had a habit of staring at views as opposed to working like he was supposed to which irritated his fellow team members. Eventually, after his coworkers brought their concerns to him, he refocused on his assigned work for

7396-408: Was unmatched in the number of North American bird species that he described for science. As technical illustrator , Ridgway used his own paintings and outline drawings to complement his writing. He also published two books that systematized color names for describing birds, A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists (1886) and Color Standards and Color Nomenclature (1912). Ornithologists all over

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