THE AUK A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY Vo•.. 56 Ju•.Y, 1939 No. 3 IN MEMORIAM: JOHN CHARLES PHILLIPS, M.D. BY GLOVER M. ALLEN Plate 8 AT rare intervalsin a lifetime one findsa man who correspondsto one's cherishedideal; who at each contact rings true and clear; who seems,as Marcus Aureliussaid, to 'live with the Gods.' John Phillips was sucha one. Endowedwith high qualitiesof mind and spirit, imbuedwith a keen senseof human responsibilityand a desirefor service,he measuredup to lofty standards. Tall and lithe of figure,with clear-cuthandsome features, and a merrytwinkle in hisdark eyes,he wasa personalityto be remembered for his quiet force,a straightforwardnessthat couldcountenance no sham, and an earnestnessof purposethat without show or apparenteffort ac- complishedgreat things. Bred to wealthand position,he carriedforward the best traditionsof his New Englandheritage. He wasborn in Boston,Massachusetts, on Novem- ber 5, 1870,the sonof JohnCharles and Anna (Tucker)Phillips; he wasa great-grandsonof JohnPhillips, first Mayor of Boston,and a great-nephew of WendellPhillips. He preparedfor collegeat Milton Academyand grad- uated from the Lawrence ScientificSchool of Harvard University in the Classof 1899, thus continuingthe long line of Harvard graduatesthat his forbearshad created,beginning with SamuelPhillips of the Classof 1050. His seriousinterest led him to enter the Harvard Medical School,from which he receivedthe degreeof M.D. in 1904. After graduationhe acted as House Officerat the BostonCity Hospital for two years, thereby gainingfurther experience,but he neverpracticed medicine in a professionalcapacity. On January 11, 1908, he married Miss EleanorHyde of Bath, Maine. Two sonsand two daughters,their children, survive him, as do his wife, two brothers and two sisters. From his youth Dr. Phillips was keenly interestedin outdoorlife, par- ticularlyin hunting,fishing, canoeing, and this soondeveloped into a love 221 Tns AvI•, Von. 56 Pna•cs 8 222 ALLEN,In Memoriam: John Charles Phillips [July[Auk of intelligent travel which often led him in later years to far horizons. Alwayshis journeyshad in view a first-handacquaintance with natural conditionsin distant regions,and the pursuit or observationof wildlife. He appearsto havekept a journalof importantevents from boyhood,and in 1915,he publishedhis 'Boy Journals,1887-1892' in a very smalledition for private distribution. This valuable habit no doubt made easier the frequentpreparation of brief accountsof his observationsand reflections. In variousshorter journeys he visitedmany parts of the westernUnited States and Canada, and in 1900 publisheda short accountof his first bighorn-sheephunt in Wyoming. The region of the present Glacier National Park attracted him long before it was thoughtof as a public reservation,and severalof its prominentgeographic features now bear the nameshe gavethem. In 1896,while still in the midstof his collegecareer, he accompaniedPeary as far as Greenland,on one of the North Polar expeditions. Ten yearslater, we find him with his friend TheodoreLyman, visitingJapan and Korea, with a digressioninto SouthChina to hunt tiger. More seriousexpeditions he undertookin 1912-13 to the Blue Nile valley and the bordersof Abyssinia(now Ethiopia), and in 1914 to Sinai and Palestine, bringing back important collectionsof birds and mammals whichhe presentedto the Museumof ComparativeZo61ogy. Other travels took him to out of the way cornersof North America: Newfoundland, Alaska,Lower California;he spentpart of a winter in hunting mountain lions and peccariesin the mountainsof Arizona, and in 1938 with Dr. ThomasBarbour, visited Cuba and Florida. His last extensiveexpedition wasin 1923-24,when with his wife and son, John, he traveled through Kenya Colony,to Ugandaand the easternBelgian Congo, partly with a view to seeingthe African gamefields, with their contrastsof plain and forest. He was the first secretaryof the Harvard Travellers Club, organizedin 1902. It wasmy owngood fortune to haveaccompanied Dr. Phillipson his Blue Nile journey, now well over a quarter of a century ago. The memoriesof that trip, in spite of its many difficulties,still remain an abidingdelight, quite as muchfor the joy of associationwith one of his geniusas for the addedknowledge of this part of the earth. For Dr. Phillips took a keen interestin the thingshe saw,whether his fellowmen, the wild game,or the gloriouscountry. As a campmate his even temper and bright senseof humor helpedto carry over temporarydiscomforts. I well recall our first day out with camels--it was Christmas--andhis amusementat the announcementofour absurd little 'dragoman'George :'Sir, it is verywonder- ful what hashappened to our lunch.' It seemedthat stray dogshad made way with it during the previousevening. Thereafter, the task of provi- sioningwas not left wholly to George. AlthoughDr. Phillipsenjoyed the Vol.1939 56]J Ar.r.rN, In Memoriam:John Charles Phillips ß223 thrill of goodhunting, he caredlittle about the shootingof animalsfor trophies,but preferredthat the gamehe seenredshould be properlypre- served for museumstudy. Followingthe outbreakof the GreatWar, Dr. Phillipsfelt that hismedical knowledgeshould be turned to accountto help his fellowmen, with the result that in November 1915, he joined the SecondHarvard Surgical Corpsfor serviceabroad. He wascommissioned an HonoraryLieutenant in the Royal Army MedicalCorps and assignedto GeneralHospital No. 2 of the BritishExpeditionary Force. On the completionof that servicehe returnedhome, but in September1917, with the entranceof this country into the struggle,he was given a commissionin the United StatesArmy MedicalCorps as First Lieutenant. In Decemberof the sameyear, he was madea Captain,and in May 1918,as Major, he wasappointed Commanding Officerof the 33d Field Hospitalof the Fourth RegularArmy Division. He took part in three importantoffensives in Franceand afterwardwas with the Army of Occupationiri Germany. He returnedto the United Statesin July 1919,after twenty-sixmonths of war service,of whichfour- teenwere spent in Franceand Germany. The wideextent of Dr. Phillips'sinterest in naturalhistory is wellreflected in his publishedwritings, a list of whichhe preparedand issuedin 1933. A glanceat this list with its 169 titles, to whichhe later added35 more, revealsthe progressof his thoughtfrom mattersconcerning hunting and field observationto more seriousstudies of problemsin genetics,with occasionalfaunal and systematicpapers, especially on the ducksand geese, while in later yearsthe difficultiesand needsof conservationbecame in- creasinglymatters of concern.Foremost in his interestwere the waterfowl. On the shoresof WenhamLake, borderinghis beautiful estate,he main- taineda duckingstand where annually he followedthe arrivaland departure, the changesand fluctuationsin numbersof the manyducks and geesethat stoppedthere on passage.Shooting was a passionwith him, not only of waterfowlbut alsoof uplandgame. With a well-traineddog, he delighted to tramp the coversfor woodcockor grouse,enjoying quite as muchthe exhilarationof beingin the fieldsand woodsas the thrill of an occasional successfulshot. Alwayshe wasa 'sportsman'in the bestsense, bellevlng in fair playfor the game,moderation in hunting,and careful protection where conditionsshowed the need. Natural resourceshe regardedas a heritage to be enjoyedlegitimately, administered wisely, and handed on to the cominggenerations with the leastimpairment possible. In this, unfortu- nately he often foundhis fellowsportsmen far lessopenminded, a stateof affairsthat frequentlycalled forth from his pen straight-flungwords of warningand protestagainst short-sighted policies. In his bibliography,the first item was a short accountin 'Forestand 224 ALLEN,In Memoriam:John Charles Phillips [July•'Auk Stream'for 1900of his first hunt for bighornin Wyoming;this wasfollowed by other notesin the samejournal on night-huntingfor Black Duck, the gamevalue of the newlyintroduced pheasants, the gameanimals of Glacier National Park, and noteson the habits of moose. In 1910, appearedhis first article in 'The Auk,' a paper on the autumnalmigration of Canada Geesein Massachusetts,and in succeedingyears there followed other papers on the waterfowl migrations. In these years, too, he carried out several interestingexperiments with the collaborationof ProfessorW. E. Castle in transplantinggerminal tissue in guineapigs,and up to the outbreakof the War, he made a number of valuablestudies on hybridizationin ducks and pheasants.He maintainedfor a numberof yearsa largecollection of living waterfowl,pheasants, and cranesat his Wenham estate, finding much of scientific as well as esthetic interest in the characteristic behavior and appearanceof thesehandsome birds. With an ever-increasingappreci- ation of the needsof conservation,we findhim from 1915onward, preparing frequentcommunications on suchsubjects as the suggestedintroduction of ibex into our Southwest,the oppositionto the new FederalMigratory Bird Law, propagationof game,the needof sanctuaries,cruelty in sport, the sportsmanand the 'zorphile,'the legitimateuse and encouragementof wild- life resources.His specialinterest in ducksat lengthbore fruit in the pro- ductionof hisfour splendidquarto volumes on 'The Natural History of the Ducks,' 1922-26,in the preparationof whichhis thoroughgoingmethod of work wasevidenced in the employmentof a skilledlinguist for severalyears in the cullingand transcriptionof importantpublished notes from scientific and otherpublications in nearlyevery