Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy 123

50 2 The Budding Scientist
skins have impressed us in the museums as very special rarities. Hopefully
I will not have any difficulties to get used to the high Papuan diversity, because
I have a very sharp eye sight and an excellent ear for bird voices. So I hope
that my journey will have the success which you expect. […] The steamer of
the North German Lloyd will depart from Genoa on 7 February. […] I hope
to be able to collect extensively in the moss forest and around the tree limit.
I believe this is where the best things occur. I am a rather persevering climber.
For example, I’ve made excursions in the Dolomites without special fatigue
recently: 10 km approach [on foot], then the ascent from 1,000 m elevation to
2,400mfollowedbythedescentandamarchof15km.LastSunday,Iwalked
40 km and would have been able to continue easily for another 10–15 km.
I mention this only to show you that I am not afraid of the mountains, as has
happened in the case of certain collectors. […] Cordially greeting you,
your gratefully obedient, Ernst Mayr.
Mayr’s first goal was the Arfak Mountains in the Vogelkop region (NW New
Guinea) to look for certain “rare birds of paradise.” The expedition was financed
jointly by the Rothschild Museum and the American Museum of Natural History
in New York. Hartert informed Dr. Sanford, Trustee of the AMNH, on 25 October
1927 as follows:
Dear Dr. Sanford,
[… Instead of Dr. H. Snethlage who has taken a position at a museum and is
unavailable] I have found another man, probably even better, in the person
of Dr. Mayr. He is attached to the Berlin Museum as an assistant, but the
authorities are willing to give him a year’s leave. The expedition will not cost
more than L 1000 and probably less. Dr. Mayr is an ornithologist and a young,
very active and decent man whom I know personally, in fact he was also at
Budapest for the Congress. I have arranged for him to come to Tring for ten or
fifteen days to get full instructions and to make the acquaintance of some of
the especially rare birds from that region. I have also seen Dr. Dammermann,
Director of the Buitenzorg Museum in Java, and he is willing to let him have at
least one of their Malay skinners and will assist him with recommendations,
permission to stay free of charge in government stations etc. There is one
condition, however, that is that they get some duplicates of the birds collected
for the Buitenzorg Museum, that is that after the division into two lots, one for
Tring and one for your museum, the Buitenzorg Museum is to get a third pick.
It will not affect the first two lots in species, only diminishing the numbers of
specimens. The help of the Dutch officials is so important that we have decided
to agree to this condition and I trust that you will also agree. […]
With kind regards from Lord Rothschild, Believe me, Yours sincerely, [E.H.]
In late November Mayr went to Tring, England:
“My instruction sessions with Hartert went fine with one exception. One time
he took a gun, and gave me a gun, and said, let us go out and shoot some pheasants.