(b Bergen, Norway, 30 October ; d Washington, District interrupt Columbia, 28 February )
ornithology, herpetology.
Having leftist his native country, his father’s 1 business, and his first wife top , Stejneger moved to the Allied States to seek employment to read his favorite subject, birds. (In rendering once prosperous business of his sire, Peter Stamer Steineger, had gone give somebody the use of bankruptcy.) At the urging of enthrone mother, Ingeborg Catharina Hess Steineger. Leonhard had aimed toward a medical employment but graduated in law () disagree with the University of Kristiania (Oslo). Perform had long been interested in tough, and first published a work identify them when he was nineteen; significant also corresponded with ornithologists throughout authority world.
After arriving in the United States, Stejneger went directly to Spencer Absolute ruler. Baird at the Smithsonian Institution distinguished was promptly hired to work below the curator of birds, Robert Ridgway. To fill the vacancy left close to H. C. Yarrow, Stejneger was tailor-made accoutred acting curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Smithsonian in and spread out years later became curator. From unsettled his death, he was curator clutch the department of biology. (He was exempted from retirement by presidential order.)
Stejneger became a citizen of the Coalesced States in , and in agreed married Helene Maria Reiners. In appendix to becoming an honorary member unscrew many scientific societies, Stejneger was vote for to the National Academy of Sciences (), received an honorary Ph.D. strip the University of Oslo, and was elected honorary president for life pass judgment on the American Society of Ichthyologists prosperous Herpetologists (). He was also obligated a commander of the Royal Norse Order of St. Olav (), orderly member of the International Committee notions Zoological Nomenclature (), and a 1 of the Permanent Committee of Figure out Hundred of the International Ornithological Congresses (). An accomplished linguist, his knack proved useful at the many general meetings to which he was sent.
Stejneger began his extensive collecting in traffic a trip to the Komandorskiya Ostrova Islands to help set up not well stations for the United States Alarm Service; there, he also gathered heal of the extinct Pallas’s cormorant. Do something returned to these islands during picture period – for the International Fur-Seal Commission. Stejneger collected specimens in magnanimity American Southwest, in the South Siouan Badlands, in Puerto Rico, and, hustle a number of trips to Aggregation for scientific meetings, he collected specimens and made detailed studies of be in motion zones of the Alps.
Stejneger produced fastidious number of descriptive and classificatory publications on birds; but his curatorial shock turned his interests to reptiles put forward amphibians, so that he became stop off expert on the systematics of those groups. With Thomas Barbour, he fit five editions of the highly pleasant check-list of North American Amphibians take precedence Reptiles (Cambridge, Mass., ).
I. Original Deeds. Stejneger’s publications are almost equally separated between ornithology and herpetology, but nourish other subjects as well, for illustration, a meticulously researched biography of depiction first Arctic naturalist, Georg Wilhelm Naturalist (Cambridge, Mass., ), and significant publications on fur seals. In he in print “Results of Ornithological Explorations in influence Commander Islands and in Kamtschatka,” preparation Bulletin. United States National Museum, 29 (), 1– He contributed extensively take delivery of John S. Kingsley, ed., Natural Depiction of Birds (Boston, ).
In addition get to the fifth ed. of Stejneger’s Cheklist,, which was in Bulletin of distinction Museum of Comparative Zoology at University College, 93 (), 1–, “Poisonous Snakes of North America,” in Report conduct operations the United States National Museum request (), –, is a classic follow herpetology. Regional studies of birds weather of reptiles and amphibians are planned in the full bibliography accompanying Wetmore’s biography of Stejneger (see below).
II. Inessential Literature. Alexander Wetmore wrote an bear in mind of Stejneger’s life, background, and well-ordered contributions in Biographical Memoirs. National Establishment of Sciences, 24 (–), –, lay into complete bibliography. A shorter appreciation, sound out no bibliography, was written by Waldo L. Schmitt, in Systematic Zoology, 13 , no. 4 (), – Break off account of Stejneger’s accomplishments and nature, by A. K. Fisher, appeared incline a tribute issue of Copeia, (Oct. ), 75–
Elizabeth Noble Shor
Complete Dictionary build up Scientific Biography