The Condor/Volume 1/Number 2/W. Otto Emerson

Prominent Californian Ornithologists. W. OTTO EMERSON.

MANY of the oologists and ornithologists of today will remember tenderly the time when the writings of the older field workers were read, like fairy tales, with an awe indescribable, and numbered among those who wrought these charms, is the subject of our sketch, Mr. W. Otto Emerson. Mr. Emerson, whose cordial manner and wealth of entertaining bird topics have ranked him as one of the foremost pioneer ornithologists of California, has spent twenty years in active field work at Haywards and along the coast, his work commencing about 1880, ten years after he came to California from his home sixty miles west of Chicago. Almost all of his notes were published in the Ornithologist & Oologist, to the columns of which magazine he was a popular and frequent contributor. Mr. Emerson later contributed to the Nidologist and will henceforth publish his notes in the Bulletin.

Two papers of special value were published in the Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, one on "Winter Birds of San Diego Co., Cal., in 1884. and "Birds and Eggs from the Farallon Islands" in 1887, edited by Mr. Walter E. Bryant. The latter paper comprised the first complete observations ever made on the Island bird life, eighty-one species or varieties being noted in the months of May and June 1887. During Mr. Emerson's field work he has taken ten birds new to the fauna of California and published over thirty papers. His present collection consists of 3,000 skins and 10,000 eggs, many with nests.

Mr. Emerson is now serving his second term as president of the Cooper Ornithological Club, having previously occupied other positions of honor in the Club and having been always one of its active members and supporters. Mr. Emerson is an ardent naturalist within the full meaning of the term, and has made photography as much a part of his collecting as the gun, while his note books, carefully kept for twenty years, contains a wealth of valuable notes on the birds of the coast counties of California. The Bulletin will soon print his list of the Birds of Santa Cruz County. His skill as a taxidermist, and his exquisite touch as an artist are not less pronounced than the other traits which mark him as a true naturalist. Only those who have known Mr. Emerson personally can appreciate his cordiality and he is today one of the most popular ornithologists of the Golden State. The portrait given is one of Mr. Emerson in his artist costume. C. B.