To South America for Bird Study 



A STORY OF TKAVEI. AND OF STRANGE ilAl-JITS OF BIRDS. 

 PRELIMINARY REPORT BY THE CHERRIE-ROOSEVELT 

 EXPEDITION OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM 



By U E O R G E K.CHE K H I E 



BEFOEE the eud of the Eoosevelt Ex- 

 pedition of 1913-14, while we Avere 

 still in the heart of South America, 

 Colonel Eoosevelt realized that the observa- 

 tions on the life and habits of the animals 

 of the region through which we were rap- 

 idly journeying must of necessity be frag- 

 mentary. The work of that expedition, on 

 which the famous "Eiver of Doubt" was 

 explored, was of necessity mainly geo- 

 graphical. Colonel Eoosevelt accordingly 

 determined that there should be one or two 

 supplementary expeditions for field study 

 of animals, particularly of birds. Mr. Leo E. 

 Miller has already been sent into the field on 

 what might be termed the Miller-Eoosevelt 

 Expedition of the American Museum, and 

 in the fall of 1915 it was decided that 

 the Cherrie-Eoosevelt Expedition should be 

 sent out the following spring. Inasmuch as 

 Dr. Frank M. Chapman, of the American 



Museum of Natural History, was making an 

 expedition into the Andes of Ecuador, Peru, 

 and Bolivia, it was felt that the interests of 

 the Avork would be advanced by combining 

 the forces of the two expeditions. 



Accordingly the Avriter, in company with 

 Dr. Chapman, left New York in May, 1916, 

 for Colon, where we secured a steamer that 

 took us through the Panama Canal and 

 doAvn the west coast of South America. We 

 made our first stop at Guayaquil, Ecuador. 

 From that point Ave Avent into the interior, 

 stopping about half Avay to Quito at the 

 toAvn of Eiobamba, Avliich Ave made the base 

 for our collecting Avork in that region. 

 From Eiobamba, Ave proceeded to the vol- 

 cano of Chimborazo, Avhere Ave camped, and 

 did collecting at an altitude of fourteen 

 thousand feet. We also did more or less 

 collecting in the environs of Quito. 



Eeturning to Guayaquil, aa'o traveled 



rections. Twice he had been beliind the bars in consequence, on one occasion spending three months 

 in a prison of a certain South American state, expecting each day to be taken out and shot." (P. 3.) 



"Of all the party Cherrie's experiences had covered the widest range. This was partly owing to 

 the fact that the latter-day naturalist of the most vigorous type who goes into the untrodden wastes 

 of the world must see and do many strange things ; and still more owing to the character of the 

 man himself. The things he had seen and done and undergone often enabled him to cast the light 

 of his own past experience on unexpected subjects. Once we were talking about the proper weapons 

 for cavalry, and some one mentioned the theory that the lance is especially formidable because of the 

 moral effect it produces on the enemy. Cherrie nodded emphatically ; and a little cross-examination 

 elicited the fact that he was speaking from lively personal recollection. . . ." (P. 179.) 



"Cherrie, in addition to being out after birds in every spare moment, helped in all emergencies. 

 He was a veteran in the work of the tropic wilderness. We talked together often, and of many 

 things, for our views of life, and of a man's duty to his wife and children, to other men, and to 

 women, and to the state in peace and war, were in all essentials the same. His father had served all 

 through the Civil War, entering an Iowa cavalry regiment as a private and coming out as a captain ; 

 his breast-bone was shattered by a blow from a musket-butt, in hand-to-hand fighting at Shiloh." 

 (P. 297.) 



For a man of his achievement, Mr. Cherrie is extremely modest. Colonel Roosevelt is quoted as say- 

 ing that the only occasion on Avhich he ever witnessed any display of vanity in Mr. Cherrie was one 

 day during the exploration of the "River of Doubt" when the party was in a starving condition and 

 Mr. Cherrie came into camp with two howling monkeys he had shot. It was on this "River of Doubt" 

 expedition that Colonel Roosevelt was so impressed with Mr. Cherrie's power as a field naturalist that 

 he conceived the idea of sending him back into the region for intensive study. What he says has been 

 quoted in the .Jofrnal previously, but it is worth repeating: 



"I think that a museum could now confer most lasting Vjonefit. and could do work of most per- 

 manent good, by sending o>it into the immense wildernesses, where wild nature is at lier best, trained 

 observers with the gift of recording what they have observed. Such men should be collectors, for 

 collecting is still necessary; but they should also, and indeed primarily, be able themselves to see, 

 and to set vividly before the eyes of others, the full life-histories of the creatures that dwell in the 

 waste spaces of the world " (P. 161.) 



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