James Paul Chapin

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James Paul Chapin 1904

James Paul Chapin (born July 9, 1889 in New York City , † April 7, 1964 ) was an American ornithologist . He took part in numerous expeditions to the Belgian Congo and described the bird life in the area in his work Birds of the Belgian Congo from 1932 to 1954, which is one of the most important works in the field of African ornithology. In addition, he has been involved since his youth as an employee of the American Museum of Natural History , to whose ornithological collection he contributed several thousand exhibits.

Life

Childhood and Adolescence (1889–1908)

James Paul Chapin was born in Manhattan on July 9, 1889, to Gilbert Granger and Nano Chapin , and grew up in Staten Island , where his family moved in 1892. On the then still very rural island off New York, he developed an interest in nature. The director of his high school , a Amateurornithologe gave Chapin BirdLife and the Handbook of North American Birds by Frank Chapman to read. At the age of 15 he became a member of the Natural Science Association of Staten Island , in whose newsletter he published numerous messages and notes until 1909. After graduating from high school in 1905, Chapin initially decided against college studies and instead took a job at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, where he took care of the preparations . The following year he went to Columbia University , where he studied biology .

Congo expedition (1909-1915)

During Chapin's sophomore year, the American Museum of Natural History presented an exhibition of ethnological exhibits from what was then the Belgian Congo , made available to him by King Leopold II . On this occasion, the Presidium of the Leopold II Museum suggested a scientific expedition to the Belgian Congo under the direction of Herbert Lang , the head of the museum's preparation department, who had previously undertaken research trips to East Africa . Lang agreed, but did not want to take over the management alone. He therefore asked Chapin, who was nineteen at the time, who immediately agreed to participate.

The porters of the Congo expedition

The American Museum Congo Expedition took five and a half years to complete. Although Lang and Chapin got along well, they separated for up to a year and worked in different areas, only to meet again afterwards. The pieces collected in the Belgian Congo included around 5,800 mammals, 6,400 birds, 4,800 reptiles and amphibians, 6,000 fish and over 100,000 invertebrates, plus 3,800 anthropological exhibits and ethnographic documents, mainly photographs of the population made by Lang. In total, over 126,000 exhibits and 9,890 photographic negatives came together, as well as around 300 watercolor drawings of observed species. In addition, Lang and Chapin documented their finds in detail with notes, descriptions and measurements.

The transport of the pieces in particular became a problem. Initially, some were temporarily stored in Medje , Niangara , Avakubi and Faradje . Of the latter she had locals in a 65-day walk to Stanleyville , the next port, be transported, as the preparations during transport with dugouts had been damaged by water and the Nilroute due to a sleeping sickness epidemic was blocked. In addition, the locals refused to work as porters for more than six days, and in the rainforest they returned to their villages after a few days. Around 38,000 porters were used during the expedition.
The expedition covered a total of around 24,000 km without any major accident or illness, although the Belgian Congo was considered a particularly dangerous region at the time. The return of Chapin and Lang in 1915 coincided with the start of the First World War . However, fears that the cargo could fall victim to submarines during transport across the Atlantic were not fulfilled.

First World War, first marriage and academic career (1919–1939)

Chapin resumed his studies at Columbia and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1916 . At the same time he resumed his work at the American Museum of Natural History as an ornithological assistant. After the United States entered World War I, Chapin also did military service. His knowledge of French enabled him to serve as a quartermaker in the French army, which he did from 1917 to 1919. During this time he met his first wife Suzanne Drouel, whom he married on October 31, 1921. With Drouel he had four children: Mary Louise, Suzanne Caroline, who died as a child, James Drouel and Pauline Thomas.

After serving in the war, he returned to New York and was promoted to Assistant Curator of the American Museum of Natural History in 1923 . At the same time he devoted himself to the study of the preparations that he had collected together with Lang in the Congo and the results of which Chapin later published in his four-volume work Birds of the Belgian Congo . This work was repeatedly interrupted, for example by study visits to the Canadian Rockies , Panama (1923), the Galápagos Islands (1930) or Polynesia (1934). Chapin also continued his academic career and graduated in 1932 as the first student with a PhD in Field Ornithology . The first half of the first volume of Birds of the Belgian Congo served him as a dissertation . The work and the associated research established his later fame among specialist colleagues and earned him numerous awards, such as the Belgian Crown Order , the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal of the National Academy of Sciences or the honorary membership of the British Ornithologists' Union , the German Ornithological Society and of the Cercle Zoologique Congolaise.

Second World War, second marriage and Magnum opus (1939–1964)

In 1939, James Paul and Suzanne Chapin divorced. He married a second time in 1940: Ruth Trimble , who had previously been Assistant Curator of Birds at the Carnegie Museum , subsequently worked with Chapin in the field of ornithology. The Office of Strategic Services sent Chapin again to Africa and Ascension , which he used again to explore the local bird life.

Shortly before his 60th birthday in 1949, Chapin officially retired after 40 years, but continued his work for the American Museum of Natural History. In 1953 he went with Trimble again to the east of the Belgian Congo for five years to complete his opus Magnum on the local bird world, the fourth and last volume of which was finally published in 1954. Between 1941 and 1960 he shared a lively correspondence with Reginald Ernest Moreau , who had devoted himself to the bird fauna of East Africa. Chapin remained a defender of Belgian colonial rule in the Congo throughout his life and also stood before Leopold II, despite the worldwide outrage over the killing and mutilation of thousands of Congolese under his rule. In the last years of his life, Chapin expressed deep concern about the political situation in the Congo, which was shaken by the war of independence with Belgium. At the same time, his physical health deteriorated, but he stuck to his job and went to his office the day before his death. He died on April 7, 1964 in his Manhattan apartment.

plant

The Congo peacock ( Afropavo congensis ) was first described by James Paul Chapin. Previously it was assumed that they were juveniles of the blue peacock ( Pavo cristatus ).

The importance of Chapin's work lies above all in the development and description of the sparsely recorded bird world of inner Africa. In years of work he collected detailed data on the birds of the Belgian Congo. The finished work comprised 3,055 pages, 72 plates and 328 additional illustrations. In addition, Chapin left countless notes, records, and comments on the work to the American Museum of Natural History. At the same time, Birds of the Belgian Congo is also one of the most extensive ornithological works devoted to one region alone.
In the course of his work, Chapin also described several previously unknown species. In 1913, for example, he found an arm swing of a bird he was not familiar with, which he could not assign to any species. During a research stay at the Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika in 1936, he was able to assign the feather to two specimens that were wrongly referred to there as the young of the blue peacock ( Pavo cristatus ). Chapin was able to prove, however, that it was not a blue peacock released in the Congo, but a separate species, the Congo peacock ( Afropavo congensis ). This discovery of a very large bird caused a similar sensation at the time as that of the okapi in 1901.

Honors

Chapin received numerous honors in the course of his life that recognized his contributions to science:

Numerous species were also named after Chapin:

Publications

  • Descriptions of three new birds from the Belgian Congo. 1915.
  • Fresh-water fishes from the Congo Basin obtained by the American museum Congo expedition, 1909–1915. 1917.
  • Description of four new birds from the Belgian Congo. 1921.
  • The American Museum Congo Expedition collection of Insectivora. 1922.
  • Sciuridae, Anomaluridae, and Idiuridae collected by the American Museum Congo Expedition. 1922.
  • Contributions to the herpetology of the Belgian Congo based on the collection of the American Museum Congo Expedition, 1909–1915. 1923.
  • The preparation of birds for study; Instructions for the proper preparation of bird skins and skeletons for study and future mounting. 1923.
  • The macruran, anomuran and stomatopod crustaceans collected by the American Museum Congo Expedition, 1909-1915. 1926.
  • The parasitic worms collected by The American Museum of Natural History Expedition to the Belgian Congo, 1909-1914. 1929.
  • Birds of the Belgian Congo. 1932-1954.
  • Hyraxes collected by the American Museum Congo Expedition. 1936.
  • The future of the American Ornithologists' Union : a report to the members and friends of the AOU 1942.

literature

Web links

Commons : James Paul Chapin  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herbert Friedmann: In Memoriam: James Paul Chapin. In: The Auk 83 (2), 1966. p. 240
  2. ↑ a b c Gordy Slack: James Paul Chapin diglib1.amnh.org, January 2003. Retrieved December 26, 2009.
  3. ↑ Friedmann 1966, p. 241
  4. ↑ Nancy J. Jacobs: Birders of Africa. History of a Network. Yale University Press, New Haven 2016, p. 183.
  5. ↑ a b Friedmann 1966, pp. 242-243
  6. ↑ a b c d Friedmann 1966, pp. 246-247
  7. ↑ Jacobs 2016, p. 220.
  8. ↑ Friedmann 1966, pp. 244-246
personal data
SURNAME Chapin, James Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ornithologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1964
Place of death New York City