Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy 123

126 3 The New York Years (1931–1953)
and Lorenz, Meise and Tinbergen as Corresponding Fellows. Those are the ones
who, in my opinion, deserve it most.”
It is understandable that one or two of his colleagues misinterpreted Mayr’s
drive for improving the AOU and believed that this foreigner, with ample selfconfidence
and energy, was primarily interested in himself assuming one of the
leading positions in the organization.
In 1937, President Friedmann established a Research Committee with various
subcommittees of which E. Mayr headed the one for “Migration, homing and
related phenomena.” He as well as H. Friedmann, L. J. Cole and P. A. Taverner
presented their reports at the 1938 annual meeting (see Auk 56:113, 1939). The
reformer had been successful. Mayr remained involved in the affairs of the Society
and introduced many changes in the time to come. For example, he submitted
a proposal to regulate the election of vice-presidents and, in 1957–1959, he served
as the President of the AOU. In this capacity he managed the planning and invitation
of international guest speakers for the Society’s 75th anniversary in October 1958
(Fig. 3.11).
Through his activities in the AOU and the Linnaean Society of New York Mayr
contributed effectively to “biologize” North American ornithology. In later years,
several of his PhD students at Harvard studied the behavior of herons, flycatchers,
tits, and wood warblers (p. 262).
Ecology and Behavior of Birds
As a curator at the AMNH Mayr had only little time for studies on the ecology and
breeding biology of birds, although he was able to complete a number of projects
(e.g., Mayr 1935e) and to discuss the territory theory in birds (1935c). Also, during
the early 1930s, he directed the research of several members of the Linnaean Society
of New York who, at his suggestion, investigated the life history of selected bird
species in the surroundings of this city (pp. 109–110). In the spring of 1940 Mayr
studied several small colonies of Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) in
northern New Jersey to test an idea that colonies of social birds would start nesting
the earlier the larger the colony, also to see to what extent there was polygamy, and
how the territory borders change with the seasons. He went out every morning at
about 5:00 am and was back home shortly before 8:00 to start the commuting trip
to New York. His findings indicated that the small colonies comprising only two
or three territories in the small potholes withbushesandtreeswereestablished
earlier than the larger colonies in the big cattail marsh where the birds had to wait
until this year’s cattail stalks were tall enough to support the nests. Hence the rule
established for sea birds did not apply to these inland colonies (1941l). Mayr also
watched birds while crossing the North Atlantic on board a passenger ship (1938h)
and visiting the Bahama Islands (1953g), he described anting by a song sparrow
(1948f) and gulls feeding on ants (1948g). During the early 1940s he intended to
study the nature of behavioral isolating mechanisms in birds experimentally but
failed because of logistic difficulties (p. 228).