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William Beebe (July 29, 1877 – June 4, 1962), American naturalist, explorer, and author.
Charles William Beebe was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was curator of ornithology for the New York Zoological Society from 1899 to 1952. He was a self-styled "naturalist" and everything living seemed to hold a continuing fascination for him. In 1919 he was also made Director of the Department of Tropical Research.
He set up a camp for jungle studies in 1942 at Caripito, Venezuela. In 1950, when he was 73 years old, he bought with his own money 228 acres (92 hectares) of land in the Arima Valley (Trinidad and Tobago) which he named Simla. This land became the New York Zoological Society's Tropical Research Station in Trinidad. It adjoined an old cocoa plantation owned by the remarkable Icelandic woman, Asa Wright, who did so much to care for make scientists working at the Research Station feel at home. Asa Wright's home was later purchased by a non-profit Trust and the Asa Wright Nature Centre was established. The New York Zoological Society later donates the Simla Research Station to the Trust, and the two properties were united into one of the finest bird watching sites in the Caribbean.
He wrote many popular books of his expeditions some of which became best sellers ("my potboilers") in the 1920s and 1930s. He was also a regular contributor to the National Geographic Magazine. The money from the sale of these books helped finance his later expeditions. He also wrote his magnificent A Monograph of the Pheasants (1918-1922), which remains the classic reference on the subject.
His interest in deep-sea exploration led to the development of the bathysphere, a spherical metal diving vessel. In 1934 he made a record descent of 923m (3028 ft.) with Otis Barton off Nonsuch Island in Bermuda in 1934. Beebe made a total of 35 dives in the bathysphere.
He was still very active well into his late 70s and early 80's observing nesting birds through his giant specially-made binoculars on a tripod from the verandah of his home in Simla, and even climbing high into trees to observe the eggs of a rare Bellbird. He was always a kind and patient teacher and did everything he could to encourage budding naturalists.
Among his "many popular books are: Two Bird-Lovers in Mexico (1905); The Bird (1906); The Log of the Sun (1906); Our Search for a Wilderness (1910); Tropical Wild Life (1917); Jungle Peace (1918); Edge of the Jungle (1921); Galápagos: World's End (1924): Jungle Days (1925); The Arcturus Adventure (1926); Pheasants, Their Lives and Homes (1926); Pheasant Jungles (1927); Beneath Tropic Seas (1928); Nonsuch: Land of Water (1932); Exploring with Beebe (1932); Field Book of the Shore Fishes of Bermuda (1933); Zaca Venture (1938); Book of Bays (1947); High Jungle (1949); The Edge of the Jungle (1950); Unseen Life of New York (1953); Half Mile Down (1951); and Adventuring with Beebe (1955), which is a selection from his earlier works.
References
- Carol Grant Gould. The Remarkable Life of William Beebe: Explorer and Naturalist. Shearwater Books. (2004).
- Fairfield Osborn. "My Most Unforgettable Character." Readers' Digest Magazine, July 1968, pp. 140-149.
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