CASSINIA 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE DELAWARE 

 VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB 



No. XIV. PHILADELPHIA, PA. 1910. 



William Gambel, M. D. 



BY WITMER STONE 



The history of American ornithology or of the men to whom 

 it owes its development is always fraught with interest to those 

 of us who continue to cultivate the same study and to follow in 

 the footsteps of predecessors whose minds ran in the same 

 channels, whose thoughts are now our thoughts, and whose en- 

 thusiasm arouses our sympathy. 



This is my excuse for presenting some rather disconnected 

 fragments relative to the life of one of our early ornithologists 

 whose name is familiar in the nomenclature of several of our 

 western birds, such as Gambel' s Sparrow, Gambel' s Quail, etc. 

 William Gambel was a leader among the bird-men of his time 

 and a pioneer in exploration west of the Mississippi. But he 

 has left us no record of his life and I have been unable to find 

 any relatives who might supply it. Indeed, I have found but 

 two men who knew him personally. Consequently of his birth 

 and family I can say nothing. He seems, however, to have 

 been born somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania or southern New 

 Jersey and to have early attracted the attention of Thomas 

 Nuttall, who no doubt encountered him on some of his excur- 

 sions in search of plants and birds and who encouraged and 



