3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

240 5 Biological Species and Speciation—Mayr’s First Synthesis
if published at all, were often buried in the introductions of taxonomic revisions
or even in the species accounts of faunal papers and thus inaccessible to workers
outside their specialty. However, in the field of evolutionary systematics Mayr
had also considerable difficulties to obtain suitable manuscripts and set out to
recruit selected manuscripts himself with partial success. He wanted discussions
of general biological aspects of systematics, explanation and analysis of evolution
as illustrated in particular groups of animals or plants. However, he was unwilling
to risk the journal’s reputation and rejected papers which supported processes
like orthogenesis or macromutation that could not be justified by current genetic
knowledge. He did confess though (1997g) that he published in the first 2 years
several papers that he would not have accepted if he would have had a larger supply
of manuscripts. In 1949, Mayr introduced a new feature, a set of critical “Comments
on recent evolutionary literature,” and continued publishing such reviews
until 1952, when the eighth installment in this series appeared. It included a total
of 163 of his reviews of papers ranging from paleontology and ornithology to
genetics and behavior. His principal objective was to counteract the narrowness
of many evolutionists and to make known to American readers papers from the
international literature.
Although asked to serve another term as editor, Mayr stepped down in 1949.
His health had suffered while preparing the “Biology of Birds” exhibition (see
p. 129 and 302). His successor as editor was the paleontologist E. Colbert. Mayr
was elected president of the evolution society. In subsequent years, he took his
reform efforts to the Society of Systematic Zoology (resulting in a sharp increase
in the number of papers devoted to evolutionary systematics that appeared in its
journal Systematic Zoology; Hull 1988; Cain 2000b: 257), to Harvard’s MCZ, to the
National Academy of Sciences and to the National Science Foundation (see below).
Mayr summarized his activities during the late 1940s in a letter to W. Meise in
Berlin:
“You are quite correct when you say that I seem to be leading a busy life. My main
job is, of course, the curating of our collections and the daily correspondence. Most
time-consuming, however, is perhaps the editing of ‘Evolution’ and the enormous
correspondence connected with that job. During the last year I have also helped in
editing a volume of a symposium on evolution [Jepsen et al. 1949]. For a time there
was a great deal of correspondence with several European ornithologists about
literature and reprints. It took a lot of my time even though Gretel handled most
of the work. In addition, there are always two or three volunteers working in the
Department who require much of my time. Last spring I taught at the University
of Minnesota and next spring I plan to teach at Columbia University. Fortunately
I have a very good secretary who takes care of most of my routine matters. Also,
I have a Dictaphone and can dictate my correspondence in the evenings so that I can
devote myself to museum matters when I am in the museum. My correspondence is
really quite enormous. The other day, after a three-day absence from the museum,
I found no less than fifty-three pieces of mail on my desk. The unfortunate result
is that I don’t have nearly as much time for ornithological research as I would like.