3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

Expeditions to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands 73
collection of mountain birds and was about to return to the United States. 10 He had
mostly collected in the Finisterre, Cromwell and Adelbert Mountains of northern
New Guinea. Beck demonstrated with pride a specimen of a new form of forest
rail and Mayr did not have the heart to tell him that he had got a large number
of specimens of this common, yet shy bird which he (1931l) later described as
Rallicula rubra dryas (today placed in the species Rallina forbesi). Before Mayr
could stop them, the natives had collected 43 specimens of this rail, because they
caught them in rather conspicuous sleeping nests into each of which several birds
crowded at night (2004g). Probably Beck also told Mayr details about the Whitney
Expedition making him even more curious about the meaning of the cable received
earlier.
The Detzner incident. While traveling in former German New Guinea, Mayr
heard about an exciting book by Hermann Detzner entitled “Four Years among
Cannibals” (1920, Scherl, Berlin). The author, an officer of the small colonial police
troop of German New Guinea, had retreated into the interior in 1914, when
the Australians occupied eastern New Guinea at the beginning of World War I.
There he had hidden at the Neuendettelsauer Mission station Sattelberg, near Finschhafen,
throughout the war. His book pretended to report his experiences and
adventures during these years and his success in thwarting all Australian efforts to
capture him. Instead he had been all the time under the protection of the German
missionary Christian Keysser with whom Mayr discussed Detzner’s “adventures,”
fights with the Australians, survival in the remote interior, discoveries of various
mountain ranges, rivers, and untouched human tribes. Most of these stories were
pure inventions! However, upon his return home after the war, the German Geographical
Society of Berlin had honored him with the “Nachtigall Medal” for his
alleged geographical discoveries; the University of Bonn had awarded him an honorary
degree and the government the Iron Cross First Class. The Foreign Office had
given him a good position, and a glorious report on his “researches” was published
(Behrmann 1919). Detzner’s book was reprinted three times in 1921, translated
into Swedish in 1925 and into French in 1935.
Mayr was bothered that German science had become the laughing stock of
the Australians who knew where Detzner had been during the war and mocked
at the naiveté of the Geographical Society of Berlin. Mayr investigated the matter
carefully and in discussions with missionary Keysser collected convincing material
to prove that Detzner’s book was nothing but a fairy tale. Upon his return to
Germany in April 1930 Mayr informed the Geographical Society of Berlin but
heard, after several months delay, that Detzner had been able to defend his stories.
When Mayr then threatened to publish all of his evidence against the veracity
of Detzner’s “discoveries,” the Society appointed a committee of three professors
who investigated the case in more detail and interviewed Mayr later in New York.
They came quickly to the conclusion that Detzner indeed had lied. He was obliged
10 Mayr’s expedition to the Huon Peninsula was financed by the German Research Council
and all birds collected were going to be sent to the museum in Berlin. Probably for this
reason the American Museum of Natural History had asked R.H. Beck to spend some
time collecting in this region before returning home in 1929.