3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

146 4 Ornithologist and Zoogeographer
expedition members total 31 volumes. Two additional ones by Charles Richmond
(Washington) contain geographical notes on most island groups in the Pacific
prepared at the request of Dr. Sanford since mid-1918 and used during the detailed
planning of the various stages of the expedition. This material is kept in the
Department of Ornithology (AMNH). During World War II some of these volumes
describing work of the expedition in certain islands of the southwest Pacific Ocean
became important source material for US governmental agencies.
Starting in the east, birds of the Society, Christmas, Tuamotu and Marquesas
Islands were collected in 1920–23, followed by those of the Cook, Samoa, Phoenix,
Fiji, and Tonga Islands in 1923–25. The expedition sampled the avifauna of the New
Hebrides (Vanuatu) and Santa Cruz Islands in 1926–1927 prior to collecting on
some of the Solomon Islands and the islands off the southeastern tip of New Guinea
during the period 1927–30. It then continued to the Carolinas, Marianas and Palau
Islands in late 1930 and 1931, and, after the “France” had been sold, worked on
New Britain in 1932–33 as well as on the Admiralty Islands and on the small islands
off New Ireland in 1934–35. Additional work was done by L. Macmillan in the New
Hebrides (Vanuatu, 1936–37), on the Loyalty Islands and on New Caledonia (1938–
39). The expedition ended in mid-1940 in Australia where Macmillan collected
in several inland regions of Queensland (east of Windorah, southeast of Boulia,
eastern edge of Simpson desert, Birdsville area, and Dalby region) to provide
comparative material for the Mathews type collection in New York. 2
The only island groups not visited by the WSSE were the Hawaii Islands in the
north and New Zealand in the south (both already well sampled in previous years)
and the Ellice (Tuvalu), Gilbert (Kiribati) and Marshall Islands in the central
tropical Pacific. No endemics were known from these latter island groups and
none would be expected from there. These are low lying coral atolls and certainly
have been flooded completely during high Pleistocene sea-level stands. No new
subspecies have been described from there in the 70 years since the WSSE bypassed
these islands. Ignoring them was deliberate.
The Whitney Hall of Oceanic Birds at the AMNH was designed with 18 habitat
groups representing a range of Pacific island types from low lying atolls to high
volcanic islands. To obtain the necessary photographs and other information for
these habitat groups, three additional expeditions were undertaken by museum
staff as guests on private yachts to particular Pacific islands in 1934, 1936, and
1940.
The results of taxonomic studies were published in the series “Birds collected
by the Whitney South Sea Expedition” (American Museum Novitates) between
2 The large private collection of G. Mathews was bought by W. Rothschild who had apparently
promised Mathews that it would go to the British Museum of Natural History
(London). Mathews was upset when his collection was sold to the AMNH along with the
rest of the Rothschild Collection in 1932. One of the things Mayr had planned to do was
to finish a list of Mathews’ types, a task that Hartert had begun in Tring. However, Mayr
was unable to complete this type list, but he left at the AMNH his card file of Mathews’
taxonomic names which is still very useful today (M. LeCroy, pers. comm.).