Francis Hobart Herrick

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Francis Hobart Herrick, around 1902
Drawing from The American Lobster: A study of its habits and development , 1895

Francis Hobart Herrick (born November 19, 1858 in Woodstock , Vermont , † September 11, 1940 in Cleveland , Ohio ) was an American naturalist , ornithologist and professor of biology at Western Reserve University in Cleveland and co-founder of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History .

education

Francis Hobart Herrick was the son of pastor Marcellus Aurelius Herrick and his wife Hannah Andrews Herrick, née Putnam. He grew up in New Hampshire , where he first attended St. Paul's School in Concord and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1881 with a degree in natural sciences. In 1888 he graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore the academic degree of Doctor of Philosophy . Shortly afterwards he was hired by the Western Reserve University as a lecturer in biology ( instructor ) with the task of establishing a department of biology with the core subjects zoology , botany and physiology . In 1891 he was appointed professor, after which he headed the department of biology until he retired in 1929.

Research topics

After graduating from college, Herrick lived in Burlington , Vermont , and worked at the Rock Point Institute . There he wrote numerous articles on the ecology and behavioral biology of Vermont avian life for the Burlington Free Press .

Herrick became known in the professional world a few years later after researching the behavior , morphology and population development of the American lobster between 1890 and 1895 on behalf of the then United States Commissioner of Fisheries and publishing his findings in a book of around 300 pages. In the text and in the appendix, around 100 of his drawings, mostly large-format drawings, were added to the book with great attention to detail. One of the results of his research was that the American lobster turned out to be unexpectedly true to location, which is why the unregulated fishing industry at the time could mean that stocks eliminated by overfishing would only recover very slowly in certain regions.

Then Herrick turned back to ornithology and wrote an extensive, critical, two-volume biography of the ornithologist and draftsman John James Audubon , which was published in 1917. He then spent years researching the behavior and ecology of the bald eagle , but also wrote numerous publications on the habits of other wild birds and the development of their instincts in the course of tribal history and their development in the course of ontogeny . As early as 1907 he described what Konrad Lorenz drew attention to in 1978 that the instinctive movements of the nestlings and the parents who feed them, such as lock and key, fit together, a metaphor that Lorenz developed through his instinct theory and that on which it is based The phenomenon of the key stimulus became widely known.

Honors

Francis Hobart Herrick was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Ornithologists' Union . In 1897 the Western University of Pennsylvania and in 1936 the Western Reserve University each awarded him an honorary doctorate in science.

Fonts (selection)

  • Biology, a sketch of its history. An address delivered by Francis Hobart Herrick, Ph.D. at his inauguration as professor of biology in Adelbert college of Western Reserve university, Cleveland, April 20, 1891. Cleveland, Ohio, 1891, full text .
  • The American Lobster. A Study of is Habits and Development. Government Printing Office, Washington 1895. Full text .
  • Natural History of the American Lobster. Government Printing Office, Washington 1911.
  • with George Wilton Field: The lobster fishery. A special report including suggestions for uniform laws made to the legislature of Massachusetts by the commissioners on fisheries and game. Wright & Potter, Boston 1911.
  • Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time. 2 volumes. D. Appleton, New York and London 1917.
  • The Relation of Instincts to Intelligence in Birds. In: Nature . Volume 27, No. 700, 1908, pp. 847-850, doi: 10.1126 / science.27.700.847 .
  • The Home Life of Wild Birds. A New Method of the Study and Photography of Birds. GP Putnam, New York 1901, full text .
  • The American Eagle: A study in natural and civil history. D. Appleton, New York 1934.
  • Wild birds at home. D. Appleton, New York 1935.

Web links

Commons : Francis Hobart Herrick  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Winfred George Leutner: Francis Hobart Herrick. In: Science . Volume 92, No. 2391, 1940, pp. 371-372, doi: 10.1126 / science.92.2391.371 .
  2. ^ Herrick a Prominent Bird Enthusiast in mid-1880s Vermont.
  3. ^ Francis Hobart Herrick: The American Lobster. A Study of is Habits and Development. Government Printing Office, Washington 1895.
  4. ^ Francis Hobart Herrick: The Blending and Overlap of Instincts. In: Science. Volume 25, No. 646, 1907, pp. 781–782, doi: 10.1126 / science.25.646.775 , full text .
  5. ↑ Konrad Lorenz : Comparative behavior research. Basics of ethology. Springer, Vienna and New York 1978, p. 124, ISBN 978-3-7091-3098-8 .
personal data
SURNAME Herrick, Francis Hobart
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Herrick, Francis H.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American zoologist, ornithologist, and naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Woodstock (Vermont)
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1940
Place of death Cleveland , Ohio