3 The New York Years (1931–1953)

86 2 The Budding Scientist
he brought back a rare black hawk. He received two sticks of tobacco and paraded
through the village like a king. From that day on he went out hunting every day.
On 19 December, he arrived with a collection that beat everything anybody had
achieved previously. He earned four shillings and his father, the chief, was happy
like a child.
When the expedition broke camp and returned to the coast at Kirakira on 22–23
December, they had assembled nearly 400 birds. A splendid record, but at the
expense of much sweat and fatigue. Some additional specimens from the coast
brought the total to over 400 (“which is more than the entire expedition collected
during the three preceding months,” Mayr). The San Cristobal collection included
13 species new to science and 67 new subspecies; the most outstanding discoveries
described several years later were Edithornis silvestris, Zoothera margaretae and
Vitia (Cettia) parens.
“The trip to the mountains had started from the residence of the chief magistrate
of San Cristobal, where we had left behind everything not absolutely necessary,
and this included a box with beer, whiskey, and special food for Christmas. After
our hard work in the mountains we were very much looking forward to a happy
Christmas celebration with the food and liquor we had left with the magistrate.
Alas, during our absence he ran out of his own liquor and ‘borrowed’ ours. When
we returned it was all gone, so we had a dry and very un-Christmasy Christmas. The
only music we had was produced by an old hand-operated Victrola (phonograph)
and two or three records of popular music hall ditties. It surely was the worst
Christmas I ever had in my life.”
(7) Santa Ana Island. From Kirakira the expedition went on December 28th to
Santa Ana Island off the eastern end of San Cristobal. They did some collecting,
while the planter Mr. Kuper from Hamburg took care of them until they sailed
to Tulagi on board the “Hygeia” 9–12 January 1930. Meanwhile the “France” had
been repaired and H. Hamlin was in good spirits, when he rejoined the expedition.
Mayr received a letter from E. Stresemann who more or less ordered him to return
to Germany. He was quite ready to go but in view of his contract for one year
(or until June 1930) he cabled back: “I wish to work the Carolines. I cannot leave
the ship without permission from New York.” He also felt he had a real chance to
get a position in America. H. Hamlin who enormously admired his knowledge of
birdshad,overthepastmonths,fullyinformedDr.SanfordaboutMayr’simportant
contributions to the expedition. This reputation was in part responsible for the later
offer from New York. Ernst Mayr talked in detail about Hamlin and his enthusiasm
about Mayr’s ornithological knowledge in an interview of November 2003 (Bock
& Lein 2005, CD-ROM in Ornithological Monograph 58).
On January 1, 1930 Mayr wrote in his diary: “The first day of the new year.
I wonder what it will bring me. If I’m not very much mistaken it may well turn out
to be the most important year of my life—when it will be decided whether I can
obtain a good position outside of Germany or remain an untenured assistant in
Berlin without pension rights.”