Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy 123

The Farm near Wilton, New Hampshire 309
Fig.9.5c. Celebrating Ernst’s 75th birthday at The Farm on 5 July 1979 (courtesy of Mrs.
S. Harrison)
was devoted to birdwatching and other natural history studies. One little item
published (1976b) was the feeding of birds on egg shells and the long distances
they flew to use them. Virtually all the books and articles published since the
mid-1950s were written largely there, in particular Animal Species and Evolution
(1963b) and The Growth of Biological Thought (1982d). Every ten days or so Mayr
went to Cambridge and filled several cardboard boxes with the necessary new
books and reprints leaving the previous lot at home. The windows of a cozy corner
room where he worked open to meadows and woods. One wall is decorated with
a beautiful etching of the Castle of Moritzburg and another one of a view over
Dresden where he spent the formative years of his youth.
As director of the MCZ (1961–1970) he organized each fall a museum party at
the Farm, when the apple season was at its height. The Mayrs served coffee and
applesauce cake and everybody filled their picnic baskets with as many apples as
they wanted before they returned home. Two of the graduate students, John Smith
and Ross Lein, did the fieldwork for their PhD dissertations at the farm and lived
with the Mayrs for several summers around 1960 and 1970, respectively. The farm
was very important in the life of the Mayr family. He spent there long periods
each year, even when in his nineties and was convinced that the outdoor work
and frequent hikes greatly contributed to the maintenance and improvement of his