3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

264 7 The Harvard Years (1953–2005)
served with distinction until June 30, 1970, when Alfred W. Crompton succeeded
him.
For every year of his directorship, Mayr published a detailed annual report
summarizing new developments and the respective status of the institution, the
turnover of staff, teaching and facilities, discussing future plans and the research
and publications of staff members and visiting scientists. Other topics mentioned
include expeditions and travel, new exhibitions, increase of the collections and
of the main library as well as exchanges with and loans to other museums. Marjorie
Sturm, Mayr’s administrative assistant, recalled: “The annual report was his
baby. He wanted that every year and he really put his heart and soul into the annual
reports; they were down to the last publication of each professor or curator.
A description of what each department had done for that year and he worked on it.”
There were five to six Alexander Agassiz Professors at the MCZ and 12 additional
research zoologists on the curatorial staff as well as a varying number of
administrative personnel. 30–50 graduate students were working in the museum
or under direct guidance of staff members.
From the start of his directorship Mayr pursued vigorously two major objectives:
(1) Construction of a laboratory wing or an “experimental wing” of the MCZ
and (2) Acquisition of a tract of relatively undisturbed land to establish a field
research station fairly close to Harvard University. He pointed out that the modern
museum naturalist increasingly studies the diversity of living nature in all of
its aspects which he investigates in the museum, in the laboratory, and in the
field. Behavior, competition, distribution, niche occupation, population structure,
environmental physiology, and all aspects of evolution, genetics and ecology are
the concern of the systematist in his study of biodiversity. As a naturalist Mayr
appreciated the study of live animals and the ten summers at Cold Spring Harbor
had taught him the necessity to be acquainted with adjacent fields of research. The
new “experimental wing” should be devoted to the integration between classical
taxonomy and modern evolutionary biology. It would provide laboratory facilities
for the researchers and house aquaria, insectaria and aviaries for maintenance of
live animals. Before the end of his term as director Mayr had raised the funds but
by the time the actual construction of the building began in 1970, his successor had
taken over. He invited Mayr to give the opening speech on “Museums and biological
laboratories” when the new wing was inaugurated (Mayr 1973k). Henceforth, the
presence of specialists in behavior, population biology, and biochemical evolution
enriched the intellectual atmosphere of the museum.
Mayr had acquired for the MCZ about 700 acres of lovely woodlands, the Estabrook
Woods in Concord, about 35 min driving from Harvard, and, in 1966,
established headquarters with field laboratories nearby at Bedford, Massachusetts.
Estabrook Woods comprise mixed woodland with streams, wooded swamps, and
ponds. Mayr’s further plan to raise the endowment for a professorship in Environmental
and Conservation Biology was not pursued by his successor and, to his
great regret, nothing was done with respect to this final step in the creation of
a Department of Environmental and Conservation Biology at the MCZ (or to the
establishment of an ongoing field program at Estabrook Woods).