3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

University Student in Greifswald and Berlin 23
study of each specimen before it can be placed. Actually, to an experienced worker
there are some intangible differences which greatly facilitate the identification.
The beginner might require two or three days to carefully identify 150 specimens
and even then there is a good chance that he has made about thirty or forty per
cent misidentifications. To make a long story short, I came back to Dr. Stresemann
after half an hour and had, with one or two exceptions, every specimen identified
correctly. It turned out that I had realized and recognized the intangible differences
in about one glance, and, therefore, had little difficulty in doing the job. ‘You are
a born systematist’ he exclaimed, and [in early 1925] he prevailed upon me to give
up my medical studies and enter in the museum career. This is what I eventually did
and I do not think that I have ever been sorry for it. The one point that I believe is
brought out in this story is that there is something like a born systematist. Of course,
anybody with intelligence and discrimination can do fairly good work. But there
is no question that certain authors have been able to straighten out one taxonomic
‘mess’ after the other that had stumped all the preceding workers” (E. Mayr to
Professor E. Anderson on January 28, 1941; Harvard University Archives, E. Mayr
Papers).
University Student in Greifswald and Berlin
In the spring of 1923, Mayr entered the University of Greifswald as a medical student
(Fig. 1.8). Recorded in an early notebook, the thought had been continuously in
the back of his mind: Could his father’s early death not have been prevented by
Fig.1.8. Ernst Mayr (left) as a medical student in Greifswald, 1924. (Photograph courtesy of
E. Mayr.)