Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy 123

Health 303
I set my alarm clock every day at 6:30 and before getting dressed I have a simple
breakfast (tea, cereal, grapefruit, yoghurt; no egg or bacon) and then I sit down
immediately at my desk and, if we have a weather problem, turn on my television set
(weather forecast). I work about 3 hours before I get dressed. I have an enormous
correspondence, often 3 or 4 personal letters every day, mostly concerning scientific
questions. This costs a lot of time but is very stimulating. At noon I prepare myself
a simple lunch, either a bowl of soup and a slice of bread with sausage or cheese, or
cottage cheese with applesauce. For dinner I get a full meal at our own restaurant.
After dinner I mostly read (with or without the record player turned on) and
around 9:30 or 10 o’clock I go to bed. Weather permitting I take a walk in the
company of a friend between 3:30 and 4:30. On average once a week I drive to
Harvard [where he maintained his office until 2003]. I shall not travel this winter.
I have here everything I need and Christa and Susie visit me regularly to make sure
that everything is in order.
Now you have some idea how I live. […] Cordial greetings Your Uncle Ernst.”
After his wife Gretel had passed away in August 1990, he managed his household
alone but insisted: “No, I don’t cook but I prepare my own meals. No fancy sauces
or other aspects of the culinary art.” He spent a number of winters in Gamboa
(Panama) as a visiting scholar of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Here
he kept track of the most recent developments in tropical biology and did a great
deal of writing particularly for the books published after 1990. Until 2000 he lived,
during the coldest months of the year, in Florida where he was a Distinguished
Scholar of Rollins College in Winter Park near Orlando. Recently he stayed at his
new home in Bedford, Massachusetts where he continued to be as active as he has
always been, publishing more articles and books than most younger colleagues.
He enjoyed occasional formal lectures and special seminars in which, from the
lecture platform, he answered questions by students and fellow scientists and often
enlarged upon the respective subject matter for several minutes. He experimented
with such informal sessions for the first time during his 1959–60 visit to Australia.
Therefore these (highly popular) presentations were referred to as his “Australian
lectures.” Such seminars usually lasting several hours became his specialty from
which he derived much pleasure for himself irrespective whether he spoke in
English in the United States or in German in his former home country. Despite
the fact that he lived in North America for over 70 years his German was without
any accent due to the fact that he and his wife maintained close connections with
their families and many colleagues in Germany. His letters to me began in English
or in German and very often switched over to the other language in the middle
of a paragraph, but when we met in person we usually communicated in German
(unless another English-speaking person was present).
On July 16, 1993 a symposium, organized by John Greene, took place in honor of
Ernst Mayr at Brandeis University during the meeting of the International Society
for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology with Mayr participating
and commenting on each contribution. He considered it “an enormous privilege
to be able to be here, alive and kicking, attending my own memorial meeting.” The