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Thomas Barbour (August 19, 1884 – January 8, 1946) was an American
herpetologist
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians ( gymnophiona)) and rep ...
. From 1927 until 1946, he was director of the
Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan cler ...
(MCZ) founded in 1859 by
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...
at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
,
.
Life and career
Barbour, the eldest of four brothers, was born in 1884 to
Colonel
Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations.
In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...
William Barbour, and his wife, Julia Adelaide Sprague. Colonel Barbour was founder and president of The Linen Thread Company, Inc., a successful thread manufacturing enterprise having much business in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, and
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. Although born on
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...
,
, where the family was spending the summer, Barbour grew up in
Monmouth
Monmouth ( , ; cy, Trefynwy meaning "town on the Monnow") is a town and community in Wales. It is situated where the River Monnow joins the River Wye, from the Wales–England border. Monmouth is northeast of Cardiff, and west of London. I ...
,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, where one of his younger brothers,
William Warren Barbour, entered the political arena, eventually serving as
U.S. Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
from New Jersey from 1931 to 1937 and again from 1938 to 1943.
At age fifteen, Thomas Barbour was taken to visit
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, which, entranced by its
Museum of Comparative Zoology
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
, he later attended. At Harvard, he studied under
Alexander Agassiz
Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz (December 17, 1835March 27, 1910), son of Louis Agassiz and stepson of Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, was an American scientist and engineer.
Biography
Agassiz was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland and immigrated to ...
, son of
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...
. Having received his
B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
,
M.A.
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
, and
Ph.D
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...
. from that university, Barbour joined the faculty in 1911 when his doctoral dissertation was published, and he took on the position of
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
of
reptiles
Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsid, sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, Squamata, squamates (lizar ...
and
amphibians
Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...
at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Eventually he became the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and, in 1927, director of the museum. Although primarily interested in reptiles and amphibians, he also studied
birds
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
and
insects
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of j ...
, particularly
butterflies
Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...
. His biological interests, however, were remarkably diversified, and he is considered to be one of the last of a dying breed: a general
naturalist.
His scientific travels took him through
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
,
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
,
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
,
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
, and
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
, among other regions. He particularly enjoyed
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...
,
Costa Rica
Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...
, and
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
, which he visited at length on at least thirty occasions beginning in 1908, generally staying in Soledad at the Harvard Botanical Gardens, now known as the
Jardin Botanico de Cienfuegos. Barbour served as custodian of these gardens from 1927 until his death in 1946. In his book, ''Naturalist in Cuba'', Barbour writes, "I suspect that I am the only living American naturalist who has visited all parts of the island again and again, for I am not only a Cuban by adoption, but a devoted friend of the land and its people." In addition to the expected scientific discussion of the island's
flora
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''.
E ...
and
fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as '' biota''. Zoo ...
, Barbour provides a description of Cuban society and culture.
He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1916.
In 1923 and 1924, he was one of the scientists and financial benefactors who founded the
Barro Colorado Island
Barro Colorado Island is located in the man-made Gatun Lake in the middle of the Panama Canal. The island was formed when the waters of the Chagres River were dammed to form the lake in 1913. When the waters rose, they covered a significant part ...
Laboratory in
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...
, location of the
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI, es, Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales) is located in Panama and is the only bureau of the Smithsonian Institution based outside of the United States. It is dedicated to understa ...
. The island, originally a hilltop, sits in the middle of
Gatun Lake
Gatun Lake ( es, Lago Gatún) is a large freshwater artificial lake to the south of Colón, Panama. At approximately above sea level, it forms a major part of the Panama Canal, carrying ships of their transit across the Isthmus of Panama. Gatun ...
, which was created when the
Chagres River was dammed during the
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit ...
building project.
Along with better than 400 scholarly articles, Barbour wrote several books including the autobiographical ''Naturalist at Large'' (1943), ''Naturalist in Cuba'' (1945), ''A Naturalist's Scrapbook'' (1946), and ''That Vanishing Eden'' (1944), which explores the natural world of a remote, undeveloped
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
.
In 1906, Barbour married Rosamond Pierce of
Brookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...
.
A two-year honeymoon took them through remote reaches of the
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
,
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, and
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea).
It is a simplified version of ...
with Barbour's wife helping him to photograph animals and collect specimens. Their union resulted in six children and eleven grandchildren. The family home was on Clarendon Street in
Boston's Back Bay
Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...
, with summers spent in
Beverly Farms
Beverly Farms is a neighborhood comprising the eastern part of the city of Beverly, Massachusetts, in Massachusetts's North Shore region, about 20 miles north of Boston. Beverly Farms is an oceanfront community with a population of about 3,500, ...
, Massachusetts.
In 1927 Barbour was made director of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and, in 1931, organized and sent an expedition to Australia for the dual purpose of procuring specimens - the museum being "weak in Australian animals and...desires
ngto complete its series" - and to engage in "the study of the animals of the region when alive."
The
Harvard Australian Expedition (1931–1932)
The Harvard Australian Expedition of 1931–1932 was a six-man venture sent by then Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) director Thomas Barbour to Australia for the dual purpose of procuring specimens and studying native (living) wildlife i ...
, as it became known, was a six-man venture led by Harvard Professor
William Morton Wheeler
William Morton Wheeler (March 19, 1865 – April 19, 1937) was an American entomologist, myrmecologist and Harvard professor.
Biography Early life and education
William Morton Wheeler was born on March 19, 1865, to parents Julius Morton Wheeler ...
, with the others being Dr.
P. Jackson Darlington, Jr. (a renowned coleopterist),
Dr.
Glover Morrill Allen
Glover Morrill Allen (February 8, 1879 – February 14, 1942) was an American zoology, zoologist.
He was born at Walpole, New Hampshire, the son of Reverend Nathaniel Glover Allen and Harriet Ann (Schouler) Allen, and studied at Harvard University ...
and his student Ralph Nicholson Ellis, medical officer Dr. Ira M. Dixon, and
William E. Schevill (a graduate-student in his twenties and Associate Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology).
[About the Exhibits by Elizabeth Hall and Max Hall (Museum of Comparative Zoology "Agazziz Museum" Harvard University. Third Edition, Copyright 1964, 1975, 1985, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College] Barbour said at the time "We shall hope for specimens' of the kangaroo, the wombat, the Tasmanian devil and Tasmanian wolf," and the mission was a success with over 300 mammal and thousands of insect specimens returning to the United States.
He was a trustee of the
Carnegie Institution
The Carnegie Institution of Washington (the organization's legal name), known also for public purposes as the Carnegie Institution for Science (CIS), is an organization in the United States established to fund and perform scientific research. Th ...
from 1934 until he died in 1946.
During the last two years of his life he was in failing health, following a blood clot that had developed while he was in Miami. He was at the Museum of
Comparative Zoology as usual on January 4, 1946, and in happy mood at home in Boston that evening. But he was stricken later in the night with
cerebral hemorrhage
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as cerebral bleed, intraparenchymal bleed, and hemorrhagic stroke, or haemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain, into its ventricles, or into both. It is one kind of bleed ...
, and died on January 8, without regaining consciousness.
Frog drop experiment
For many years, Barbour and Darlington had friendly arguments about Barbour's advocacy of faunal dispersion by land bridges versus Darlington's advocacy of exreme-wind-borne dispersal of small animals over isolated islands. To test his ideas, Darlington dropped several live frogs from a window on the fifth floor of the Museum. Barbour and a crowd of spectators observed the experiment. The dropped frogs were stunned
and remained still for a few seconds, but almost immediately they started to recover and in a few minutes were hopping normally.
Legacy
Thomas Barbour is commemorated in the scientific names of the following species and subspecies of reptiles.
[ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Barbour", p. 16).]
Also, the street he grew up on was named after him, Thomas Barbour Drive, in
Melbourne, Florida
Melbourne is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is located southeast of Orlando. As of th2020 Decennial Census there was a population of 84,678. The municipality is the second-largest in the county by both size and population. ...
; the street on which Ballard Park is located.
See also
*
Ballard Park
Ballard Park is a public park located at 924 Thomas Barbour Drive, Melbourne, Florida and is situated on the Indian River Lagoon and the Eau Gallie River in what was historically Eau Gallie, FL. It contains diverse recreational facilities and am ...
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*Barbour, Thomas. ''Naturalist at Large''. Little, Brown and Company; Boston, Massachusetts, 1943.
*Barbour, Thomas. ''That Vanishing Eden: A Naturalist's Florida''. Little, Brown, and Company (An Atlantic Monthly Press Book); Boston, Massachusetts, 1944.
*Barbour, Thomas. ''A Naturalist in Cuba''. Little, Brown and Company; Boston, Massachusetts, 1945.
*Barbour, Thomas. ''A Naturalist's Scrapbook''. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1946.
*Barbour, Thomas and Charles T. Ramsden. ''The Herpetology of Cuba'' (with an introduction by Rodolofo Ruibal). Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles; Missouri, 2003. .
*Barbour, Thomas (nephew of Thomas Barbour). ''Our Families (Volumes 1 & 2)''. Self-printed. 1983.
*Weeks, Edward. ''In Friendly Candor''. Little, Brown and Company; Boston, Massachusetts, 1959.
*
Loveridge A (1946). "Thomas Barbour—Herpetologist, 1884–1946". ''Herpetologica'' 3 (2): 33–39.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barbour, Thomas
1884 births
1946 deaths
American herpetologists
American taxonomists
American naturalists
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Harvard College alumni
Harvard University faculty
20th-century American zoologists
20th-century naturalists
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni