RoIloBeck Old-schoolcollector, memberofan endanteed species

Frank A. Pitelka

tific merits of Robert Cushman rhateverMurphy'sthe scholarlyOceanic and Birdsscien- of SouthAmerica, and they were and still areoutstanding, the database was pri- marilythe result of "thefield worker" (italicsmine). This pivotalfigure for that great work was Rollo Howard Beck(1870-1950). Murphy, summariz- inghis South American field program, made Beck's role perfectly clear: "...The treasure obtained by Mr. Beck and his courageoushelpmeet is a monument to rare skill and indomi- tablepersistence." "Up todate [1936], it is safeto say,no otherornithologi- cal collectorhas carried through a sim- ilar campaign..." And again, "He RolloBeck (4th J•om left) with other members of hislast Galapagos Expedition which was standstoday as the most successful oneand one-half years in duration and was sponsored bythe Academy ofSciences. worker in this branch of Herethey are aboard the yacht ^½ademy, bought especially forthe expedition, which set sail that'theworld hasknown." The speci- onJune 28, 1905.Photo/Archives. California Academy of Sciences. mens obtained for the American Mu- seumof NaturalHistory in New York, tionand identification hardly relaxed. 1929.The first phase began in the 1890s overfive years (1912-1917) totalled 7853, In hisremaining years. he kept in touch whenhe collected birds in various parts plusa "greatbody of associateddata, withJoseph Grinnell and later Alden of California.In 1894,he joined the suchas nests,eggs, notes, and photo- H. Miller, successivedirectors of the AmericanOrnithologists' Union and graphs. "If this openingstatement Museumof VertebrateZoology at the the CooperOrnithological Club and seemsto mimic an overtureto an early Universityof California,Berkeley. In developedfriendships with local col- Verdi opera,one hasmerely to read 1931,Beck sought ¸rinnell's help in lectorsas well as notables such as Rob- moreof Murphy'sintroductory chap- obtainingcollecting permits. and this err Ridgway,Charles Bendire and ter, and Beck'sfive-page autobiogra- sponsorshipcontinued through 1949. WilfredOsgood. His reputation as a phy(as of 1929)therein, to recognize Beckkept up an intermittentcorre- hard-working,efficient collector spread the justiceof the plauditsMurphy spondencewithGrinnell and other Mu- eastward,and in 1897came a "bolt- gave Beck. seumof Vertebrate Zoology personnel, out-of-the-blue"opportunity to be a After the South American years, sendingshipments totalling over 1500 memberof a Rothschild Expedition to Beck went on to field work abroad for specimens,mainly from the San Joa- theGalapagos Islands. This was his in- someten more years,primarily in the quinValley. The last letter to Beck in troductiontooceanic birds. He made westerntropical Pacific,also for the theMuseum's files, dated August 14, threemore trips to the Galapagos. The American Museum of Natural History. 1950,acknowledges thearrival of two lastof these,in theearly 1900 s, was By 1930,he andMrs. Becksettled on boxeswith 155 bird skins, three months sponsoredby the CaliforniaAcademy ruralproperty in Planada.in thesouth- shortof hisdeath. of Sciences,whose director, L. M. ernpart of thecentral California Valley, Beck'slife as an ornithological col- Loomis,was interested inmarine birds, wherethey grew orchards of apricots, lectorpassed through three phases. especiallythe"Tubinares" orprocell- figs, and almonds. The affiliationwith the American ariforms.This relationshipwith the But Beck's drive to collect birds a.nd Museumof NaturalHistory was the Academycontinued, with Beck collect- to chasedown questions of distribu- secondphase, spanning theyears 1912- ingmarine birds off California,the

Volume40, Number 3 385 vent for somesharp comments on the damageto fruit causedby songbirds. He wasfcisty. as well as generous.For staff and students at MVZ, the tradi- tional box of fruit was a special oc- casion. Grinnell to Beck, June 27, 1932: "We, members of MVZ staff, do hereby transmit to you herewith our stomach-feltappreciation of that box of cots. Remember. please. that such fruits ripen sour in the Bay region. We get nothing locally produced to compare with such fruit as yours, in which the sugars are brought out under the hot sun!" With this annual gift of fruit and in other ways, Beck quietly expressedhis appreciationto Beckwith his wife,Ida, picnickingand photographing among adult and immatureRockhopper Grinnell and his succcssors for re- Penguinson one of the Falkland Islands. This picture was taken betweenOctober 13, 1915 and February2, 1916, during whichtime the Beckswere on the Falklandson the Brewster- spondingto and sustaininghis passion SanfordExpeditionfor theAmerican Museum of Natural History. Photo/Archives. California for collectingspecimens and discuss- Academyof Sciences. ing the findings. I must have met Beck first some time west coast of Mexico. and Costa Rica. of comments between Beck and Grin- in the early 1940s,as he visitedthe Mu- A Hawaiian trip was proposed by nell. In February 1938, Beck wrote to seumoccasionally and attendedannual Loomis, but was never launched. Beck, Grinnell, "The intriguingpossibilities meetingsand also, now and then, the following his marriage in 1907, asked of Planadaas a collectingground, now Northern Division meetings of the Loomis for a raise but was denied be- that the Seven Seas are behind me, CooperOrnithological Society. But we cause of financial constraints in the loom larger and largcr before mc as beganto get better acquaintedin 1945 Academy's budget. At a higher rate your identificationsgive riseto conjec- when, prompted by a paper published of pay, he began, in 1908, to collect tureafter conjecture!" Beck was a spir- in 1940by R. T. Orr on subspecificsta- for the Museum of Vertebrate Zool- ited, good-humoredman, and did not tus of dowitchers in California. he col- ogy and continued so for three years. hesitateto tease(as I was to learn first- lected specimensmainly in the San In 1911,L. C. Sanford, a benefactor of hand later). By this time bird skinning JoaquinValley, but alsonear SanJose, the American Museum,hired him away was a form of knitting for him, and he at the southend of San FranciscoBay. from the Museum of Vertebrate Zool- becamenotorious as a whiz in speci- Orr reported the Short-billed form to ogywith a "considerablybetter" salary, menpreparation, leading to somctimes be five times more common that the and Beck went to Alaska with A. C. greasy products and curators' com- Long-billed form. Beck viewed this as Bent and a recent college graduate plaints,probably because in hisenthu- anotherpossible case of "conjecture." namedAlexander Wetmore, collecting siasm he was loaded down with too ashis own collectingdid not agreewith in the Aleutians and on the mainland many birds to process.His enthusiasm Orr. He bcganaccumulating specimens near Nome. Then, from 1912, followed asa sea-faringcollector surfaced briefly of dowitchersslowly in the early 1940s, the secondphase of travel and collect- in 1946, a sign late in life of longing exchangingcomment about them with ing in South American waters and on for the old daysof SouthAmerica and Alden Miller. But by early 1946, his the islands of the western Pacific. the western Pacific. In August 1946, passionfor dowitchershit a peak, and The thirdphase spanned the 21 years Beckacquired a cabinin PacificGrove, one day I was called down to the file 1930-1950, when Beck was a resident on Monterey Bay, and soughtto col- room of the Museum, where there still Californianand pursuedcollecting as lect marine birds as he had some 40 is a long table for incomingand out- a sideline,but still with enterpriseand yearsearlier. A specialcollecting per- going specimenshipments, to meet gusto. Beck read the literature and re- mit was arranged. Right away, he someonewho had broughtin two large peatedly sent specimensto Grinnell, collectedterns that presentedidentifi- boxesof specimens.It wasRollo Beck. collected because of some cue he had cation problems he called to Alden When I approachedhim. aswe greeted pickedup from his recent readings. Miller's attention. In his later years, eachother, he wasspilling, helter skel- Here he was, in the heydayot trinomi- with his orchard maintenance routines ter, onto the table the contents of one, alism (the concept and practice of more or lesssettled in an annualcycle, then the other box, heap after heap of subspeciesnaming), untrainedas a tax- Beck'sactive mind seemed constantly well-made dowitcher specimens--311 onomist, but alert to complexitiesof to seek exercise in the bird world. in all, and all of them of the Long- racial variation in Californian birds, There was a marvelous spinoff for billed form. That moment really got both residentand wintcring, the latter the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology our friendshipon the road, and in the often in populationsof mixed races. from thosePlanada days. Beck'sship- next five years, we were often in touch Thus, SongSparrows, Savannah Spar- ments to the Museum included, almost regarding dowitchers and other bird rows, White-crownedSparrows, Redr annuallyuntil 1949,boxes of fresh fruit matters.The resultwas my immersion wingedBlackbirds, towhces, juncocs, from hisranch, usually apricots, some- in the distribution,taxonomy, and no- Horned Larks andothers were targets times figs. These occasionsgave Beck menclatural chaos of American dow-

386 AmericanBirds, Fall 1986 itchers,ending with the publicationof to the perspicacityand efforts of the members .... " a monographin 1950' which tells the veteran bird collector Rollo H. Beck, I come finally to the phrase in the technicalstory after that dramaticvisit of Planada, California." title of this article--"member of an en- of Beck's. He wasclearly a man of exceptional dangeredspecies." It now should be Beck's characteristic alertness about enterprise and resourcefulnessin the clear that Beck was not a collector who interestingtaxonomic problems. in the field, a goodmanager on expeditions, enjoyed merely acquiringand accumu- case of the dowitchcrs, goes back to and, in hisown way,a remarkablypro- lating; as a self-taught ornithologist 1932, when William Rowan first pub- ductive and successful man. His sur- without professional status, he was lishedan analysisof dowitchcrtaxon- vival throughthe incrediblesequence more than ordinarily selective and omy departingradically from the then of demandingfield trips in the tropics, scientificallygoal-oriented in his col- standard view of one specieswith an on distant islands,and on the open sea lecting. He was an outstandingexam- eastern and western race. In 1933. Beck over 17years says a lot abouthis stam- ple, in thisrespect, among those dozens collected "a couple of dozen" and ina and his intelligence. As a young of men born in the Victorian period asked Grinnell about Rowan's conclu- man, he wascertainly capable of going who grew up enjoying the outdoors, sions, meaning specificstatus for the on to advancedtraining, but we have huntingand collecting,learning to pre- Long-billedform as well as the ques- no knowledgeof what hindered him pare display specimens.then turning tion of a new. interior Canadian race from pursuingloftier goals. One hint to standardscientific specimens and be- of the Short-billed form. Grinnell com- is that he was a lively, independent comingserious collectors finally enrich- mented only on the new race, about cuss,descended from early California ing the researchassets of museumsall whichhe wasskeptical (probably chief- pioneer stock. He did not graduate over the country. Curiously,this phe- ly becausethe breedinggrounds of the nomenon, as such, in its American east coast, nominate race had yet to form has yet to be the subject of a be established).Rowan was. my stud- proper historicalwrite-up. ies showed.the most perceptive and But I digress.Today, members of the correctof thosedevoting any attention younger generationactive in field or- to dowitcher taxonomy. Orr was cor- nithologyare often opposedto collect- rectalso, regarding relative abundance ing, even in the face of legitimate in California, as far as his evidence scientificgoals and even when they are went: The high ratio of Short-billed themselvesformally trained in arian Dowitchersin his sample was the re- biology. Beck would have been dis- suitof heavyrepresentation of saltwa- mayed by all this, if it cast any doubt ter localities, typically inhabited by on his motives or ethics or integrity, Short-billeds, whereas Beck was col- and the morc so if he knew that some lectingmainly in freshwaterlocalities, youngornithologists vocal in their op- inhabited by Long-billeds.My mono- Beckphoto•aphing a frigatebirdon Christ- positionto collectingnevertheless fur- graph provides details, but Beck al- masIsland in the westernPac•c on F&• tively visit museumsand creep about ready sensedthe habitat separation. 14, 1921. Beck was on expeditionfor the exploitingspecimens for critical data On August 19, 1946.he wrote me that Ampican Mus•m of Natural Histo•. on worthy questionsof identification from Merced County in the centralval- Photo/Archives.Cal•omia Academyof Sci- and distribution.This is a curiousplay ley, he had examined a good many •ces. of double standards. I expect Beck dozen more dowitchers than the "301) from grammarschool, probably in part wouldhave agreed. Specimens remain, or so" he brought to the Museum of becauseof demandsof the hmily hrm, no less now than at the turn of the VertebrateZoology, and that he "failed but also in part because.I strongly century, critical to the growth of or- to find specimensof griseus[Short- suspect,of impatiencewith anything nithological knowledge, and on the billed]type." Justrecently, he hadcol- slow-pacedand threateninghis inde- American scene, Beck contributed to lectedsix specimenson San Francisco pendence.His leaningtoward profes- that growth more than is ordinarily Bay,at Aiviso,all Short-biileds.At that sionalismwas not only evident in his recognized. stage,he wanted to get a large series contactswith all of those recognized All I have said here may provide of saltwater dowitchers to test his think- ornithologistsalready named. but also some new details, but overall really ing on the problem, but the California in his "networking" with others, es- only echoes what Robert Cushman Division of Fish and Game decided he peciallythose maintaining active col- Murphy had to sayin 1936in appreci- had collectedenough dowitchersand lections, suchas the artist Allan Brooks ation of Beck the man and Beck the denied him a permit. of BritishColumbia, the physicianMax collector. 1 wish 1 had known him My later studieshelped fill this gap, M. Peet of Ann Arbor, and the busi- b,etter. nessman O. P. Silliman of Salinas, andby the time 1 waswriting the mono- DorothyRiggs Pitelka, my wife,kindly read graph,I had examinedover 2900 spec- California. In 1948, the Cooper Orni- the first draft of this paper, significantlyim- imens, including those of all major thologicalSociety elected Beck to hon- proving its syntaxand grammar and helping North American collections. The first orary membership. Beck to Miller, to clarifyseveral points. I greatlyenjoyed this writingand thankSusan Drennan for inviting sentenceof my acknowledgmentsthere February15, 1948:"An astonishinglet- me to do it. saysit all: "This study owesits origin ter from Doctor Hildegarde Howard advisesme that by unanimousvote... --Museum of VertebrateZoology, *Geographicvariation and the speciesprob- lem in the shore-birdgenus Limnodromus. It has been joyous pleasure .... I Universityof California Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., 50: 1-108, 1950. deeply appreciatethe actionsof the Berkeley, CA 94720

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