Bert Heald Bailey 195 



BERT HEALD BAILEY. 



Scientific and collegiate circles in Iowa were deeply affected when 

 the newspapers announced the death of Professor B. H. Bailey, of 

 Coe College. Perhaps most of his associates had no realization of 

 the seriousness of his sickness, since he was confined to his bed 

 only for a short time. 



Dr. Bailey was in the prime of his usefulness and scientific ac- 

 tivity. At the time of his death he had just completed a year's 

 leave of absence from Coe College, which he had spent at the 

 State University of Iowa. Here he had pursued two lines of re- 

 search. He was gathering data toward a complete and revised 

 catalog of the mammals of the State. And he was also completing 

 a study on the food and distribution of the raptorial birds of the 

 State, upon which he had been engaged for a long period of time; 

 a study which grew out of his work for the Coe College museum. 



The museum, of which Dr. Bailey was the Curator, is, perhaps 

 his greatest contribution along scientific lines. While Drs. Fred- 

 erick Starr and Seth E. Meek preceded Dr. Bailey in gathering 

 the nucleus, the bulk of the collecting, the organization, and the 

 arrangement on modern lines, were the work of the latter. This 

 museum is, no doubt, the second largest in the State. And while 

 a full description of it would be entirely fitting in any account 

 of Dr. Bailey's life work, we may simply say that it is especially 

 strong in birds, the group which most interested the Curator. 



Besides containing a good representation of birds native to the 

 State, it possesses a very good collection of birds from British 

 Honduras, which is said to be the third largest collection of birds 

 from this region in this country. Part of this collection was pre- 

 sented by one of the graduating classes of the College, and the 

 remainder was collected by Dr. Bailey himself. 



During the campaign for a five-year closed season on quail and 

 prairie chickens in Iowa in the spring of 1917, Dr. Bailey went to 

 Des Moines on urgent call to assist in the plea to the legislature 

 to pass the bill giving a continuous protection to these birds for 

 this length of time. His name should always be connected with 

 the successful outcome of this piece of conservation legislation in 

 Iowa. 



By no means the least of Dr. Bailey's life work was the inti- 

 mate and sympathetic relation with his students. Such friend- 

 ship was, no doubt, the incentive for many of the contributions 

 which came to the museum from the students and alumni. For 

 some time also he had been the Senior Class Advisor, and was 

 thus brought into close personal contact with all of the gradu- 

 ates of the college. He was deeply interested in the religious 



