NELSON — DR. JOEL ASAPH ALLEN 
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Allen began his work. The contrast between the conditions confronting 
the embryo naturalist then with the easy road of scientific research today 
may be likened in a material way with that between an old stage coach 
traversing a rough country road and the modern automobile on its 
cement highway. 
In the early days of his career, from 1850 to the early seventies, 
fellow naturalists as well as scientific publications, scientific libraries, 
and collections, were exceedingly rare, and the young student in any 
branch of natural science was looked upon as following a pursuit of no 
importance or value to the community. Under such handicaps per- 
sistence in making natural science a life work meant the devotion of an 
enthusiast. We might paraphrase an old saying by stating that “A 
naturalist is born, not made,” with full force in its application to a 
man like Doctor Allen, who at the age of 13 was irresistibly drawn to the 
path which he followed to the end of his life. 
He was fortunate in having been born in eastern Massachusetts, 
where he eventually became one of that small group of men who studied 
under Agassiz and who afterwards became notable leaders in their 
various branches of science. He was also fortunate in having an 
opportunity as a young man to do field work under such varied condi- 
tions as those presented in New England, Brazil, Florida, the Mississippi 
Valley, and some of the Rocky Mountain States. This field experience 
was invaluable to him subsequently during his many continuous years 
of laboratory work. It broadened his knowledge of birds and mammals 
in life and their relationships to their environment, giving him a fund 
of invaluable facts which were most useful in his philosophical con- 
sideration of problems of evolution and of distribution. 
Doctor Allen had a philosophical mind which looked into the mean- 
ing of the facts of Nature, and his ideas concerning evolution and the 
distribution of life in faunal areas were set forth in numerous papers. 
One of the earliest and most notable of these was his ^ ^Mammals and 
Winter Birds of East Florida.” His writings exerted a marked in- 
fluence among American naturalists in directing their attention to 
fascinating fields of investigation of broader scope than that of identi- 
fying species and recording technical characters. 
He was one of the leaders in organizing the Nuttall Ornithological 
Club, at Cambridge, and later was one of the three men who issued 
the call to organize the American Ornithologists’ Union, which was 
the child of the Nuttall Club. Through the enthusiasm aroused by 
this organization American ornithology developed with extraordinary 
