CASSINIA 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE DELAWARE 

 VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB 



No. XI. PHILADELPHIA, PA. 1907. 



Adolphus L. Heermann, M.D. 



BY WITMER STONE 



Of the various naturalists who served on the Pacific Railroad 

 surveys, the name of Heermann is probably better known to us 

 than any other. This is not so much from the extent of his 

 publications or from the number of new species that he de- 

 scribed, as from the fact that several familiar birds of our west- 

 ern coast have been named after him; for example, Larus heer- 

 manni and Melospiza cinerea heermanni. 



The practice of naming species of animals and plants after 

 persons has often been decried, but the fact that it perpetuates 

 the memory of collectors and students whose lives no biographer 

 has taken the trouble to chronicle, seems ample justification. 

 Adolphus L. Heermann was one of these: a field ornitholo- 

 gist of the first rank during the forties and fifties to whose re- 

 searches our science owes not a little; yet of his life we have no 

 record. 



From estimates of two who knew him, I infer that he was 

 born about 1818, probably in South Carolina. But on April 

 29, 1845, when elected a member of the Philadelphia Academy, 

 he was spoken of as a resident of that city, and always returned 



