Samuel Washington Woodhouse (June 27, 1821 – October 23, 1904) was an American
surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...
, explorer and
naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
.
Woodhouse was doctor and naturalist on the
Sitgreaves Expedition led by Captain
Lorenzo Sitgreaves from San Antonio to San Diego which explored the possibility of a route from the
Zuni River
The Zuni (Zuñi) River is a tributary of the Little Colorado River in the southwestern United States. It has its origin in Cibola County, New Mexico, in the Zuñi Mountains at the Continental Divide. The river flows off the western slopes of the ...
to the Pacific.
[Woodhouse ''Texas to San Diego''] He was the author of ''A Naturalist in Indian Territory: The Journal of S. W. Woodhouse, 1849-50''.
Woodhouse's toad (''Anaxyrus woodhousii'') and
Woodhouse's scrub jay (''Aphelocoma woodhouseii'') were named in his honor. The first
Cassin's sparrow
Cassin's sparrow (''Peucaea cassinii'') is a medium-sized sparrow.
This passerine bird's range is from western Nebraska to north-central Mexico.
Taxonomy
The first Cassin's sparrow was described in 1852 by Samuel W. Woodhouse from a specimen ...
was described in 1852 by Samuel W. Woodhouse from a specimen collected near San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Woodhouse gave it its species name in honor of
John Cassin
John Cassin (September 6, 1813 – January 10, 1869) was an American ornithology, ornithologist from Pennsylvania. He worked as curator and vice president at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and focused on the systemic classification ...
, a Philadelphia ornithologist.
Notes
References
*Woodhouse, S.W., edited and annotated by Andrew Wallace and Richard H. Hevly, ''From Texas to San Diego in 1851: The Overland Journal of Dr. S.W. Woodhouse, Surgeon-Naturalist of the Sitgreaves Expedition'', Texas Tech University Press (2007), hardcover, 358 pages,
**The original is a manuscript in the manuscript collections of the
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, ''Diary of an Expedition Down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers under Captain L. Sitgreaves 1851-52'', 4 volumes, item 387B
External links
* Cassin's Sparrow blog a
CassinsSparrow.org– Long-running science blog that explores the history of Cassin's Sparrow's discovery, what we've learned about the species since, and why it matters.
1821 births
1904 deaths
American ornithologists
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