Thank You, Linnaean Society!
Straight Talk on How 007 Got His Name

The Real James Bond at the AMNH

Screen Shot 2021-02-11 at 3.28.04 PMIn my Zoom talk for the Linnaean Society earlier this week, I noted that the ornithologist James Bond also spoke to the group  -- at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC on April 11, 1944.

Turns out that Bond visited spoke at the AMNH earlier -- I just didn't know the date. ThanScreen Shot 2021-02-11 at 3.28.34 PMks to a newspapers.com search yesterday, I think I found the answer...

Early into my research for the book, I came across a clipping in a scrapbook  (in the James and Mary Bond archive at the Free Library of Philadelphia, as I recall) that reported on a Bond talk at the American Museum of Natural History.

I loved the sepia-toned clipping because it shows that Bond was a conservationist way back in the 1930s.

The clipping was marked with "NY Times" and "1936?"

I now believe it was neither. I think it may have been from the Philadelphia Bulletin, though I can't say for sure.

In my recent newspapers.com search, I came across an article Screen Shot 2021-02-11 at 4.03.11 PMin the Des Moines Register from Nov. 26, 1933.

The article was about a gathering of 400 ornithologists at the AMNH for the Golden Jubilee of the American Ornithologists' Union.

And there was a paragraph about "Dr." James Bond lashing out against collectors and so-called scientists for killing so many birds.

The same pitch at the same place, with the same misidentification of Bond as a doctor of ornithology.

By the way, Bond has been criticized by some ornithologists for not collecting enough samples of various species for research.

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

The comments to this entry are closed.