William Doherty (May 15, 1857 in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

– May 25, 1901 in

Nairobi Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper ha ...

) was an American

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

who specialised in

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) is an order (biology), order of insects that includes butterfly, butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 Family (biology), families and 46 Taxonomic r ...

and later also collected birds for the

Natural History Museum at Tring The Natural History Museum at Tring was the private museum of Lionel Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild; today it is under the control of the Natural History Museum, London. It houses one of the finest collections of stuffed mammals, birds, reptiles ...

. He died of

dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...

while in Nairobi.

Travels

From 1877 to 1881, before he became a collector, he traveled widely in Europe, the Middle East and thence to

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. His entomological collecting activities commenced in earnest in 1882 while in South Asia. He collected butterflies in

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 ...

, the

Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...

, Nicobar,

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

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 ...

and British

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historical ...

and described many new

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. After a visit to

Hartert Ernst Johann Otto Hartert (29 October 1859 – 11 November 1933) was a widely published German ornithologist. Life and career Hartert was born in Hamburg, Germany on 29 October 1859. In July 1891, he married the illustrator Claudia Bernadine E ...

at Tring in 1895, he was recruited by

Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild, (8 February 1868 – 27 August 1937) was a British banker, politician, zoologist and soldier, who was a member of the Rothschild family. As a Zionist leader, he was presen ...

, who came to regarded him as his best bird collector. While collecting in Uganda, he fell ill and was carried to a hospital by his Lepcha collectors.

Collections

His collections are shared between the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

, the Carnegie Museum in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, the Brooklyn Museum, the

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 ...

in Cambridge, and the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

in Washington.

Eponyms

Many of the birds he collected for Lord Rothschild were named after him, including

Doherty's bushshrike Doherty's bushshrike (''Telophorus dohertyi'') is a colourful but skulking species of bush-shrike of the family Malaconotidae which is found in forest habitats in north-central Africa. The common name and Latin binomial commemorate the American ...

''Malaconotus dohertyi'',

red-naped fruit dove The red-naped fruit dove (''Ptilinopus dohertyi'') is a species of bird in the family Columbidae. It is endemic to Sumba. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist montane forests. It is threatened by habitat loss Habitat destr ...

''Ptilinopus dohertyi'', Sumba cicadabird ''Coracina dohertyi'' and crested white-eye ''Lophozosterops dohertyi''.

References

External links

BHL
Hartert, Ernst (1896) ''An account of the collections of birds made by Mr. William Doherty in the Eastern Archipelago'' London.
Obituary
by Ernst Hartert (1901) in ''Novitates Zoologicae'', vol. 8, p. 494f. 1857 births 1901 deaths Deaths from dysentery Infectious disease deaths in Kenya American lepidopterists 19th-century American zoologists 20th-century American zoologists {{US-entomologist-stub