Leonard C. Sanford

Leonard Cutler Sanford (born September 19, 1868 in New Haven , Connecticut , † December 7, 1950 in Stuart , Martin County , Florida ) was an American ornithologist and surgeon.

Life

Sanford was the son of Leonard Jacob Sanford, professor of anatomy and physiology at Yale University . After graduating from Yale University, he worked as a successful surgeon. His interest in ornithology began at an early age. He amassed a collection of hides from North American birds that is now housed in the American Museum of Natural History . In 1902 he became a member and from 1919 a lifelong member of the American Ornithologists' Union . He was more of a hobby researcher because his knowledge of the birds of the world was, in some ways, extraordinarily extensive. In 1908 he accompanied Louis Agassiz Fuertes to the Magdalen Islands and the Rochers aux Oiseaux . In February 1921 he was elected trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, a position he held for nearly 30 years. Even before this period, Sanford was very effective in promoting large-scale ornithological activities. Sanford acquired numerous specimens of extinct birds and rare birds and species for the American Museum of Natural History. He convinced Frederick F. Brewster of Newhaven to finance Rollo Beck's South America expedition from 1912 to 1917. The scientific knowledge about the South American avifauna was published in part by Robert Cushman Murphy in his work Oceanic Birds of South America in 1936 . Through Sanford's influence, the philanthropist Harry Payne Whitney (1872-1930) gave the museum a large sum of money, which was used to build the Whitney Memorial Wing, which houses the bird department of the American Museum of Natural History. In addition, Sanford initiated the Whitney South Seas Expedition in the 1920s under the direction of Rollo Beck, which Payne supported financially and which is considered to be one of the most complex and extensive ornithological expeditions ever carried out.

In 1932, Sanford and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney , the widow of Harry Payne Whitney, who died in 1930, acquired Walter Rothschild's enormous collection of around 280,000 birds for the American Museum of Natural History. Ernst Mayr was entrusted with the curation of this collection.

Sanford was married twice, to Sarah Tracy Whitney, who died in 1901, and one more time to her sister Henrietta Edwards Whitney.

Dedication names

Sanford several species and subspecies have been named, including the Sanford's Sea Eagle ( Haliaetus sanfordi ), the Sanfordschnäpper ( Cyornis sanfordi ), the Nordkönigsalbatros ( Diomedea sanfordi ), the Sanford Laubenvogel ( Archboldia papuensis sanfordi ), the Mexican elf owl ( Micrathene whitneyi sanfordi ), Sanford Braunbauch Forest Skitterer ( Crateroscelis robusta sanfordi ) and the Sanford Maki ( Eulemur sanfordi ). The spectacle bird species Woodfordia lacertosa has the common name Sanfordbrillenvogel .

Works

• Leonard C. Sanford; Bishop, LB; & Van Dyke, TS: The Water-Fowl Family  (= American Sportsman's Library). Macmillan, 1903.

literature

• Robert Cushman Murphy: Obituaries: Leonard Cutler Sanford . In: Auk . 68, No. 3, 1951, pp. 409-410.
• Bo Beolens, Michael Grayson, Michael Watkins: The Eponym Dictionary of Birds. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.

Web links

• Video: Ernst Mayr on Leonard Cutler Sanford