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Teaching natural history at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2011

MARY E. SUNDERLAND*
Affiliation:
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Email: mary.sunderland@berkeley.edu.

Abstract

During its centennial celebrations in 2008, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) at the University of California, Berkeley paid homage to its founding director, Joseph Grinnell. Recognized as a leading scientific institution, the MVZ managed to grow throughout the twentieth century, a period often characterized by the decline of natural history. To understand how and why research flourished at the MVZ, this paper looks closely at Grinnell's undergraduate course, the Natural History of the Vertebrates (NHV). Taught by MVZ affiliates since 1914, the NHV offers an important window on Grinnell's approach and legacy. This paper argues that the NHV contributed to the MVZ's long-term success by acting as, first, a gateway to natural history; second, a vector for the MVZ's research programme; and third, a shared faculty responsibility. Grinnell's significance in the history of science is understated, in part because his writing style de-emphasized the importance of his theoretical contributions, including his development of the niche concept, his emphasis on population thinking and geographic isolation in studies of evolution, and his effort to integrate speciation questions and genetics. Studying the NHV highlights these contributions because Grinnell freely communicated his ideas to his students. An analysis of Grinnell's course material shows that his theoretical and methodological approach pre-dated the evolutionary synthesis and inspired natural-history research throughout the past century.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2011

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References

1 For more on the history of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology see Elihu M. Gerson, ‘The American system of research: evolutionary biology, 1890–1950’, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1998; Gerson, Elihu M. and Griesemer, James R., ‘Collaboration in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology’, Journal of the History of Biology (1993) 26, pp. 185203Google Scholar; Griesemer, James R., ‘Modeling in the museum: on the role of remnant models in the work of Joseph Grinnell’, Biology and Philosophy (1990) 5, pp. 336CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Material models in biology’, in Arthur Fine, Micky Forbes and Linda Wessels (eds.), PSA 1990, v.2, East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, 1991, pp. 79–93; idem, ‘Niche: historical perspectives’, in Evelyn Fox Keller and Elisabeth A. Lloyd (eds.), Key Words in Evolutionary Biology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 231–240; Rodriguez-Robles, Javier A., Good, David A. and Wake, David B., Brief History of Herpetology in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California Berkeley, with a List of Type Specimens of Recent Amphibians and Reptiles, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003Google Scholar; Stein, Barbara, On Her Own Terms: Annie Montague Alexander and the Rise of Science in the American West, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kohler, Robert, All Creatures: Naturalists, Collectors, and Biodiversity, 1850–1950, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006Google Scholar.

2 On the problematic nature of commemorative practices see Abir-Am, Pnina, ‘Commemorative practices in science: historical perspectives on the politics of collective memory’, Osiris (1999) 7, pp. 133CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This paper recognizes the biased perspective of commemorative agendas, but does not explore the ramifications of the MVZ's centennial celebrations in depth.

3 Griesemer, ‘Niche: historical perspectives’, op. cit. (1); Grinnell, Joseph and Swarth, H., ‘An account of the birds and mammals of the San Jacinto area of Southern California with remarks upon the behavior of geographic races on the margins of their habitats’, University of California Publications in Zoology (1913) 10, pp. 197406Google Scholar.

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6 Carla Cicero, staff curator of birds at the MVZ, first learned about the MVZ when she took the NHV course in 1981. Cicero completed her PhD at the MVZ in 1993 and was then hired as the staff curator of genetic resources (1994). Monica Albe, a senior museum specialist at the MVZ, also learned about the MVZ through the NHV in 2000. Hired as a curatorial assistant in 2001, Albe transitioned into her current position in 2004.

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11 Although there are additional university-based natural history museums that have retained active research programmes, such as Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology stands out in the sense that its current research programme is the realization of its long-standing research goal to monitor faunal change over time in California. For more on the Museum of Comparative Zoology see Winsor, op. cit. (10).

12 Diffusion of the Grinnellian approach is worth noting because his influence is often acknowledged, especially in the mammalogy and ornithology communities; see Ned K. Johnson, ‘Ornithology at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley’, in W.E. Davis Jr and J.A. Jackson (eds.), Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, Cambridge, MA: Nuttall Ornithological Club, 1995, pp. 183–221; Pitelka, Frank, ‘Academic family tree for Loye and Alden Miller’, The Condor (1993), pp. 10651067CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J.O. Whitaker, ‘Academic propinquity: III. The Joseph Grinnell/E.R. Hall group (Berkeley and Kansas)’, in Elmer C. Birney and Jerry R. Choate (eds.), Seventy-Five Years of Mammalogy, 1919–1994, Provo: American Society of Mammalogists, 1994, pp. 129–134; J. Knox Jones Jr, ‘Genealogy of twentieth-century systematic mammalogists in North America: the descendants of Joseph Grinnell’, in Michael A. Mares and David J. Schmidly (eds.), Latin American Mammalogy: History, Biodiversity, and Conservation, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991, pp. 48–56. After Grinnell served as president of the American Society of Mammalogists (1937–1938), many of his students, grand-students, and great-grand-students followed suit, including Walter P. Taylor (1940–1942), E. Raymond Hall (1944–1946), Tracy Storer (1949–1951), William H. Burt (1953–1955), William B. Davis (1955–1958), Robert T. Orr (1958–1960), Stephen D. Durrant (1960–1962), Emmet T. Hooper (1962–1964), Donald F. Hoffmeister (1964–1966); Randolph L. Peterson (1966–1968), Richard G. Van Gelder (1968–1970), J. Knox Jones Jr (1972–1974); Sydney Anderson (1974–1976), William Z. Lidicker (1976–1978), Robert S. Hoffmann (1978–1980), James S. Findley (1980–1982), J. Mary Taylor (1982–1984, who graduated from the MVZ under Alden Miller and became the first female president of the ASM), Hugh Genoways (1984–1986), Don E. Wilson (1986–1988), Elmer C. Birney (1988–1990), James H. Brown (1990–1992), Robert J. Baker (1994–1996), O. James Reichman (1998–2000), Thomas H. Kunz (2002–2004), Guy N. Cameron (2006–2008) and Michael A. Mares (2010–2012). Since Grinnell 73% of the ASM presidents have had a Grinnellian lineage. Thanks to William Z. Lidicker who compiled this information and presented it in a talk titled ‘Mammalogy at MVZ: a brief overview’ at the MVZ Centennial Celebrations, 12 December 2008. Grinnell also served as president of the American Ornithologists’ Union, as did his student Alden Miller and grand-students Charles Gald Sibley (1986–1988) and Ned K. Johnson (1996–1998), among others.

13 The important relationship between teaching and research has been explored in the physical sciences and engineering; see Kaiser, David (ed.), Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005Google Scholar; idem, Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005Google Scholar; Olesko, Kathryn, Physics as a Calling: Discipline and Practice in the Königsberg Seminar for Physics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991Google Scholar; and Warwick, Andrew, Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004Google Scholar. Studies of research schools have explored the role of teaching in chemistry and physiology research; see Holmes, Frederic L., ‘The complementarity of teaching and research in Liebig's laboratory’, Osiris (1993) 5, pp. 121164Google Scholar; Geison, Gerald L., Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978Google Scholar; Geison, Gerald L. and Holmes, Frederic L. (eds.), ‘Research schools: historical appraisals’, Osiris (1993) 8Google Scholar; and Morrell, Jack B., ‘The chemist breeders: the research schools of Liebig and Thomas Thomson’, Ambix (1972) 19, pp. 146CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

14 Joseph Grinnell to Benjamin Wheeler, 1 July 1910, President Correspondence 1908–1919, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley (subsequently PC).

15 For an analysis of the Grinnell Resurvey Project see Nijhuis, Michelle, ‘The ghosts of Yosemite’, High Country News, 17 October 2005Google Scholar; Brower, Kenneth, ‘Disturbing Yosemite’, California Magazine (2006) 117, pp. 1421Google Scholar, 41–44; Shavit, Avelet and Griesemer, James R., ‘There and back again, or, the problem of locality in biodiversity surveys’, Philosophy of Science (2009) 76, pp. 273294Google Scholar; Shavit and Griesemer, ‘Transforming objects into data: how minute technicalities of recording “species location” entrench a basic challenge for biodiversity’, in Alfred Nordmann and Martin Carrier (eds.), Science in the Context of Application, forthcoming. For published results from the Grinnell Resurvey Project see Moritz, Craig et al. , ‘Impact of a century of climate change on small-mammal communities in Yosemite National Park, USA’, Science (2008) 322, pp. 261264Google Scholar.

16 Previous efforts to evaluate the success of research programmes have focused primarily on research schools, which Geison defined as ‘small groups of mature scientists pursuing a reasonably coherent program of research side-by-side with advanced students in the same institutional context and engaging in direct, continuous social and intellectual interaction’. Geison, Gerald, ‘Scientific change, emerging specialties, and research schools’, History of Science (1981) 19, pp. 2040Google Scholar, 23, original emphasis.

17 Henson, op. cit. (8).

18 Geison, op. cit. (13); Geison and Holmes, op. cit. (13); Morrell, op. cit. (13).

19 Geison, Gerald L., ‘Research schools and new directions in the historiography of science’, Osiris (1993) 8, pp. 226238Google Scholar, 232; Kohler, Robert E., Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994Google Scholar. In contrast, the role of training in research that involves work beyond the laboratory remains largely uncharted, with the exception of Kushner, David, ‘Sir George Darwin and a British school of geophysics’, Osiris (1993) 8, pp. 196223Google Scholar; Hagen, Joel B., ‘Clementsian ecologists: the internal dynamics of a research school’, Osiris (1993) 8, pp. 178195Google Scholar; Rainger, Ronald, ‘Adaptation and the importance of local culture: creating a research school at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography’, Journal of the History of Biology (2003) 36, pp. 461500Google Scholar.

20 This is confirmed by a variety of sources, including conversations with Professor Emeritus Dale McCullough, who was required to take the NHV by his PhD supervisor, Aldo Starker Leopold, and conversations with Professors Emeriti William Z. Lidicker and James L. Patton, who indicated that new graduate students in both the MVZ and the Department of Zoology were expected to participate in the NHV if they were without prior organismal training. A letter from Joseph Grinnell to Annie Alexander indicates that half of the students enrolled in the NHV were graduate students. Joseph Grinnell to Annie M. Alexander, 20 April 1929, Annie Alexander papers, 1929, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley (subsequently AA).

21 For more on Grinnell's life see Grinnell, H.W., ‘Joseph Grinnell: 1877–1939’, The Condor (1940) 42, pp. 334Google Scholar; Juan Ilerbaig, ‘Pride in place: fieldwork, geography, and American field zoology, 1850–1920’, PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2002; Miller, A., ‘Joseph Grinnell’, Systematic Zoology (1964) 13, pp. 235242CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hall, op. cit. (5).

22 Grinnell and Swarth, op. cit. (3). Ilerbaig pointed out that Grinnell actually tried to use the chickadee work for his doctorate, but his major professor, Charles Gilbert, judged it to be too short and speculative (Ilerbaig, op. cit. (21), p. 253).

23 Grinnell, Joseph, Joseph Grinnell's Philosophy of Nature: Selected Writings of a Western Naturalist, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943Google Scholar.

24 Joseph Grinnell, 1 July 1930, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology Annual Report, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, Folder: Annual Reports, Miscellaneous History cabinet (Subsequently AR-MVZ).

25 Grinnell, op. cit. (21); Gerson and Griesemer, op. cit. (1), pp. 186–187; Stein, op. cit. (1), p. 75.

26 Kohlstedt, Sally G., ‘Review: museums: revisiting sites in the history of the natural sciences’, Journal of the History of Biology (1995) 28, pp. 151166Google Scholar; Stein, op. cit. (1), pp. 76–87.

27 Grinnell, op. cit. (23).

28 Joseph Grinnell to Benjamin Wheeler, op. cit. (14).

29 ‘The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley, what we do, and why’, at http://mvz.berkeley.edu/General_Information.html, accessed 9 June 2009.

30 Joseph Grinnell to Benjamin Wheeler, op. cit. (14).

31 Juan Ilerbaig, ‘The view-point of a naturalist’, in Joe Cain and Michael Ruse (eds.), Descended from Darwin, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2009, pp. 23–48.

32 The laboratory–field distinction has been a productive topic of scholarship in the history and philosophy of sciences, but it is not addressed in depth here. See Kohler, Robert E., Landscapes and Labscapes, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002Google Scholar; and idem, op. cit. (19). The naturalist–experimentalist dichotomy was introduced by Garland Allen, in Allen, op. cit. (7), and has had staying power, in part, because of the reinforcing field–laboratory distinction. Work at the MVZ challenges these distinctions. For an in depth discussion see Mary Sunderland, ‘Collections-based research at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology’, forthcoming.

33 Gerson, op. cit. (1), p. 31.

34 de Vries, Hugo, Die Mutationstheorie. Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Entstehung von Arten im Pflanzenreich, 2 vols., Leipzig: Veit, 1901–1903CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Joseph Grinnell, 7 May 1925, speech notes ‘To Doctor Gilbert and Professor Price’, JHGP, Box 9, Folder 5.

35 Lesch, John E., ‘The role of isolation in evolution: George J. Romanes and John T. Gulick’, Isis (1975) 66, pp. 483503Google Scholar; Gerson, op. cit. (1).

36 Gerson and Griesemer, op. cit. (1), pp. 193–196.

37 Joseph Grinnell to Annie M. Alexander, 14 November 1907, as cited in Stein, op. cit. (1), p. 77.

38 Stein, op. cit. (1); Ilerbaig, op. cit. (21).

39 Creager, Angela and Landecker, Hannah, ‘Technical matters: method, knowledge and infrastructure in twentieth-century life science’, Nature Methods (2009), pp. 701705Google Scholar.

40 Joseph Grinnell, ‘Suggestions for field notes’, JHGP, Box 9, folder 8.

41 Carson, Cathryn, ‘Writing, writing, writing: the natural field journal as literary text’, Townsend Newsletter (2007), pp. 68Google Scholar.

42 Joseph Grinnell, ‘Suggestions as to collecting’, revised by Alden H. Miller, 2 July 1942, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, Drawer – Miscellaneous History cabinet, Folder – Methods; Hall, E. Raymond, Collecting and Preparing Study Specimens of Vertebrates, Lawrence: University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, 1962Google Scholar; idem, The Mammals of North America, 2nd edn, New York: Wiley, 1981Google Scholar; Herman, Steven G., The Naturalists Field Journal, Vermillion: Buteo, 1986Google Scholar; Remsen, J.V. Jr, ‘On taking field notes’, American Birds (1977) 31, pp. 946953Google Scholar.

43 Grinnell, op. cit. (34); Johnson, N., Mahoney, M.J., Patton, J.L. and Stebbins, R.C., Vertebrate Natural History Laboratory and Field Syllabus, University of California, Berkeley, 2003, p. 118Google Scholar.

44 Grinnell, op. cit. (42), underlining in original.

45 Herman, op. cit. (42); Johnson et al., op. cit. (43).

46 Carson, op. cit. (41); J.D. Perrine and J.L. Patton, ‘Letters to the future: field notes and the Grinnell resurvey project’, in Michael Canfield (ed.), Field Notes on Science and Nature, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 211–250.

47 Carson, op. cit. (41); Perrine and Patton, op. cit. (46).

48 Grinnell, op. cit. (40).

49 Grinnell, op. cit. (40), underlining in original.

50 Grinnell, op. cit. (40), underlining in original.

51 Merriam, C. Hart, Life Zones and Crop Zones of the United States, US Department of Agriculture Division of Biological Survey Bulletin No. 10, 1898Google Scholar; Grinnell, Joseph and Hall, H.M., ‘Life-zone indicators in California’, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences (1919) 9, pp. 3767Google Scholar.

52 Grinnell and Hall, op. cit. (51).

53 Joseph Grinnell, 6 April 1937, ‘Some life-zone indicators for California’, JHGP, Box 9, Folder 8.

54 Grinnell, op. cit. (53).

55 Joseph Grinnell, 8 April 1937, ‘Speciation: things entering the problem of species-making in vertebrate animals’, JHGP, Box 9, Folder 8.

56 Grinnell, Joseph, ‘An account of the mammals and birds of the Lower Colorado Valley with especial reference to the distributional problems presented’, University of California Publications in Zoology (1914) 12, pp. 51294Google Scholar; idem, ‘Barriers to distribution as regards birds and mammals’, American Naturalist (1914) 48, pp. 248254Google Scholar; Griesemer, ‘Niche: historical perspectives’, op. cit. (1).

57 Grinnell, Joseph, ‘Significance of faunal analysis for general biology’, selection from ‘A distributional summation of the ornithology of Lower California’, University of California Publications in Zoology (1928) 32, pp. 1300Google Scholar, 13–18, reprinted in idem, op. cit. (23), p. 143, as cited in Griesemer, ‘Modeling in the museum’, op. cit. (1), p. 17. See also idem, ‘Niche: historical perspectives’, op. cit. (1).

58 Joseph Grinnell, 9 February 1928, ‘Mid-term Examination Zool. 113’, JHGP, Box 9, Folder 8.

59 Grinnell, op. cit. (58).

60 Grinnell, op. cit. (40).

61 Joseph Grinnell, 7 May 1935, ‘Final Examination Zoology 113’, JHGP, Box 9, Folder 8.

62 Grinnell, op. cit. (24).

63 Joseph Grinnell to Benjamin Wheeler, op. cit. (14).

64 Announcement of Courses, 1910–1911, Berkeley, 1910, 130, CCC-B.

65 Joseph Grinnell to Benjamin Wheeler, op. cit. (14).

66 Joseph Grinnell to Benjamin Wheeler, 1 April 11, PC; Benjamin Wheeler to Joseph Grinnell, 10 April 1911, PC.

67 Gerson and Griesemer, op. cit. (1); Stein, op. cit. (1); Joseph Grinnell, 1 July 1926, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology Annual Report, AR-MVZ.

68 Annie M. Alexander to Joseph Grinnell, 8 April 1929, AA.

69 Joseph Grinnell to Annie M. Alexander, op. cit. (20), underlining in original.

70 Announcement of Courses, 1911–1912, Berkeley, 1911, p. 134, CCC-B.

71 Announcement of Courses, 1913–1914, Berkeley, 1913, p. 232, CCC-B.

72 Announcement of Courses, 1918–1919, Berkeley, 1919, p. 262, CCC-B.

73 Hilda Wood Grinnell, 22 August 1922, ‘Mr Grinnell Zool 116’, JHGP-B, Box 9, Folder 12.

74 Grinnell, op. cit. (73).

75 Although a history of American ecology is beyond the scope of this article, see Hagen, op. cit. (4); Kingsland, op. cit. (4); and idem, The Evolution of American Ecology 1890–2000, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005Google Scholar; Duprée, Hunter, Science in the Federal Government: A History of Policies and Activities to 1940, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1957Google Scholar.

76 Grinnell correspondence, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology correspondence files, Berkeley, CA.

77 Announcement of Courses, 1920–1921, Berkeley, 1920, 232, CCC-B.

78 Duprée, op. cit. (75); Hall, op. cit. (5).

79 California Division of Fish and Game correspondence folder, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley.

80 Henson, op. cit. (8), tells a version of this story in her study of John Henry Comstock's schools of entomology at Cornell and Stanford, but, unlike Grinnell's programme, Comstock's school did not last long after his death in 1931. Henson attributes the fall of Comstock's research school to ‘competing fields in biology’. After his retirement, many of Comstock's entomology courses were moved to the School of Agriculture, where their focus was shifted from evolution to economics.

81 After Grinnell's death in 1939, Aldo Starker Leopold, son of the famous Aldo Leopold, was hired in 1946 as the MVZ's first official ‘conservationist’ (General Catalogue, Fall and Spring Semesters, 1946–47, Berkeley, 1946, 429, CCC-B). Under Leopold, Grinnell's Economic Vertebrate Zoology (which Grinnell changed to ‘Applied Vertebrate Zoology’ in 1937) became Introduction to Wildlife Conservation (1947). Although conservation was recognized as an applied science with economic and political dimensions, it retained a place in the increasingly molecular-oriented Zoology Department throughout most of the 1960s. In 1969, when Leopold transferred his faculty position from Zoology to the Department of Forestry and Conservation, the course moved with him, along with four other courses that had formally been in the Zoology Department and taught by MVZ faculty. Although Applied Vertebrate Zoology lost its original departmental affiliation, the NHV remained a core course within the Zoology Department. Although the NHV was not officially a required course within the Zoology Department, the majority of zoology majors enrolled because the NHV simultaneously fulfilled multiple general course requirements. The NHV retained high enrolment until 1998, a decade after the Zoology Department became the Department of Integrative Biology, in response to curriculum changes. The reorganization of the biological sciences at Berkeley is described in the General Catalog, 1989–90, Berkeley, 1989, p. 89, CCC-B. Thanks to James L. Patton for describing the changing enrolment trends in the NHV during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s during a conversation at the MVZ, 13 December 2009.

82 Announcement of Courses, 1920–21, Berkeley, 1920, p. 232, CCC-B.

83 Announcement of Courses, 1931–32, Berkeley, 1931, p. 299, CCC-B; Announcement of Courses, 1932–33, Berkeley, 1932, p. 305, CCC-B.

84 General Catalogue, 1937–38, Berkeley, 1937, p. 400, CCC-B.

85 General Catalogue, 1948–49, Berkeley, 1948, p. 491, CCC-B.

86 Huxley, Julian, The New Systematics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940Google Scholar; Mayr, Ernst, ‘Speciation phenomena in birds’, American Naturalist (1940) 74, pp. 249278Google Scholar; idem, Systematics and the Origin of Species, New York: Columbia University Press, 1942Google Scholar.

87 General Catalogue, Fall and Spring Semesters, 1961–62, Berkeley, 1961, p. 572, CCC-B.

88 Robert T. Orr, 26 December 1991, personal written recollections, OPPOH, main folder.

89 Grinnell, 1937, op. cit. (53).

90 Mayr, op. cit. (86).

91 For more on the evolutionary synthesis see Smocovitis, Vassiliki Betty, Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996Google Scholar; Mayr, Ernst and Provine, William (eds.), The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and more recently Cain, Joe, ‘Rethinking the Synthesis period in evolutionary studies’, Journal of the History of Biology (2009) 42, pp. 621648Google Scholar; and Ilerbaig, op. cit. (31).

92 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

93 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

94 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

95 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

96 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

97 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

98 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

99 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

100 Grinnell, op. cit. (55).

101 Ilerbaig, op. cit. (31).

102 David Wake, 8 September 1978, ‘Annual Report July 1, 1977–June 30, 1978’, ARF.

103 Geison, op. cit. (13), p. 237; Krebs, Hans A., ‘The making of a scientist’, Nature (1967) 215, pp. 14411445Google Scholar.

104 Geison, op. cit. (13), p. 237.

105 Johnson, op. cit. (12), p. 8; Pitelka, op. cit. (12), p. 95; Jones, op. cit. (12).

106 Alden Holmes Miller to Robert G. Sproul, 13 December 1943, Alden H. Miller Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (subsequently AHMP-B), Carton 3, folder Correspondence Rec'd.

107 CCC-B, 1914–2005.

108 The turnover of instructors increased substantially after 2002 for a number of reasons, including Harry Greene's departure from the MVZ in 1998, James Patton's retirement in 2002, and the death of Ned Johnson in 2003. Jim McGuire was hired as a new curator of herpetology in 2003 and has since been teaching the NHV course. Rauri Bowie was hired as a new bird curator and began teaching the NHV in 2008. During this transitional period within the MVZ there have been a number of different instructors involved with the NHV, usually MVZ advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

109 Ned Johnson, ‘Introduction to Integrative Biology 104’, Ned Johnson Teaching Files, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley (Subsequently NJ-MVZ), folder: Vertebrate Speciation, underlining in original.

110 Donald Hoffmeister to Oliver P. Pearson, 6 December 1992, Oliver P. Pearson Papers, Pearson home, Orinda, California.

111 Personal communication with James L. Patton, 14 December 2009, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, California. Information about instructors was gathered by systematically surveying the University of California, Berkeley, Course Catalogues (1905–2005) in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and corroborated by personal discussions with William Z. Lidicker and James L. Patton.

112 Joseph Grinnell, 15 February 1937, ‘Individual field project in ornithology’, JHGP-B, Box 9, Folder 8.

113 Grinnell, op. cit. (112).

114 Grinnell, op. cit. (112).

115 Johnson, op. cit. (109).

116 Alden H. Miller, ‘1957 Zoology 113 Speciation’, NJ-MVZ, folder: Vertebrate Speciation, underlining in original.

117 Miller, op. cit. (116).

118 David Wake, 20 September 1973, ‘Annual Report July 1, 1972–June 30, 1973’, Annual Report Files, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Reprint Room, Berkeley (Subsequently ARF); Wake, 26 September 1974 ‘Annual Report July 1, 1973–June 30, 1974’, ARF.

119 Mayr, Ernst, ‘Alden Holmes Miller’, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (1973) 43, pp. 177214Google Scholar.

120 Hall, op. cit. (5).

121 Hall, op. cit. (5), p. 412.

122 Among many others, Storer, Hall, Benson and Miller promoted the Grinnellian approach in the MVZ and also later at the University of California, Davis (Storer) and the University of Kansas (Hall), and more broadly within the American Society of Mammalogists and the American Ornithological Union. See footnote 12 above.

123 Grinnell to Alexander, op. cit. (20).