IN MEMORIAM: ERNST MAYR, 1904-2005

Auk, The, Jul 2005 by Bock, Walter J

The move to Cambridge also permitted Ernst and Gretel to achieve another long-desired goal: a home in the countryside to be used on weekends and during the summers. They found a former farm with a badly rundown house, on a dirt road bordering a lake, in the shadow of Pack Momadnock Mountain in Wilton, New Hampshire. It had everything they wanted. "The Farm," as it was known, was purchased in 1954 and was improved over the years. The Mayrs were there every possible weekend from spring to Thanksgiving and every summer that they were not traveling. Ernst could continue his interests as a naturalist and entertain guests in a pleasant setting. Several research projects were carried out on The Farm, such as Hans Loehrl's study of the Red-breasted Nuthatch and Ross Lein's thesis on warbler behavior.

Ernst was a disciplined, hardworking person with a critical, analytical mind. Many workers were awed and ill-at-ease in his presence, which he disliked. Once he remarked to me when I was a graduate student: "My bark is worse than my bite." He was also a dedicated teacher, and as such found it difficult to let an erroneous idea go uncorrected. Yet it was possible to argue with him, though one had to be certain of one's own position, and he would readily change his position if it was shown to be wrong or indefensible. Mayr was very informal, a result of his years living in the United States, and asked younger colleagues and his students, once they obtained their Ph.D., to call him Ernst. This was a bit difficult at first, especially if one was raised to address one's elders formally, but he insisted, and after a while calling him Ernst came naturally. Ernst was fiercely loyal to his friends, with whom he corresponded throughout his life. One of the sad aspects of a long life, as he told me a number of times, was that so many of his old friends were gone. He was generous in discussing research projects with younger workers and reading the resulting manuscripts. Numerous visitors stayed with the Mayrs in their home in Tenafly, Cambridge, and at their rural retreat in New Hampshire. Ernst and Gretel played important roles in the AOU project that sent care packages to European ornithologists following World War II, as well as sending a large number of packages independently of this cooperative ornithological effort.

Detailed coverage of Mayr's work in systematics, evolution, and the history and philosophy of biology was published in honor of his 90th birthday (J. Greene and M. Ruse, "Special issue on Ernst Mayr at ninety" in Biology and Philosophy 9:263-435, 1994). A symposium presented at the 2004 AOU meeting in Quebec in honor of his 100th birthday, with a CD of an accompanying interview, will soon appear in the Ornithological Monographs series. A brief account of his life, "Ernst Mayr at 100," appeared last year (Auk 121:637-651, 2004). A book-length biography with the proposed title Ornithology, Evolution and Philosophy. The Life and Science of Ernst Mayr (1904-2005) "Darwin of the 20th Century" is being completed by Jiirgen Haffer.