http://www.nemesisbird.com/2008/05/other-wood-sandpipers/ birding and ornithology in Pennsylvania and beyond Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.nemesisbird.com/2008/05/other-wood-sandpipers/#comment-75 Mark Brown Sat, 17 May 2008 22:33:58 +0000 http://www.nemesisbird.com/?p=132#comment-75 I suggest to the NY rare bird committee that they should read The Specimen Dealer: Entrepreneurial Natural History in America's Gilded Age . Journal of the History of Biology. v.33 No.3 Dec. 200 by Mark V. Barrows Jr., the dude who wrote the “A Passion for Birds” book. The article mentions Frank Haak Lattin born in Gaines, who was a natural history dealer. Lattin also published the Oologist from Albion New York, but he lived in Gaines. He later sold his business to Edward H. Short. Short wrote a bird list for Western New York which got slammed by J. A. Allen in the Auk. Lattin wrote an article about birds from Orleans County in the Auk, in which he sort of slammed Short for not identifying a Baird’s Sandpiper. The same article implies Short was a taxidermist. Mr. Short sounds like just the sort of bird skins dealer who would not be able to pick out a Wood Sandpiper from a Solitary Sandpiper. Not that he necessarily shot the bird, the collecting of egg sets and skins was a big fad during this time. Mr. Ray out in California was a famous defender of oology. He wrote an article in the Condor about this. And he had a boatload of money with which he bought eggs and skins. The connection from Ray to Lattin or Short is not a stretch. Someone should find one of Lattin or Short’s specimens and compare them to the Wood Sandpiper. I suggest to the NY rare bird committee that they should read The Specimen Dealer: Entrepreneurial Natural History in America’s Gilded Age . Journal of the History of Biology.
v.33 No.3 Dec. 200 by Mark V. Barrows Jr., the dude who wrote the “A Passion for Birds” book.
The article mentions Frank Haak Lattin born in Gaines, who was a natural history dealer. Lattin also published the Oologist from Albion New York, but he lived in Gaines. He later sold his business to Edward H. Short. Short wrote a bird list for Western New York which got slammed by J. A. Allen in the Auk. Lattin wrote an article about birds from Orleans County in the Auk, in which he sort of slammed Short for not identifying a Baird’s Sandpiper. The same article implies Short was a taxidermist. Mr. Short sounds like just the sort of bird skins dealer who would not be able to pick out a Wood Sandpiper from a Solitary Sandpiper. Not that he necessarily shot the bird, the collecting of egg sets and skins was a big fad during this time. Mr. Ray out in California was a famous defender of oology. He wrote an article in the Condor about this. And he had a boatload of money with which he bought eggs and skins. The connection from Ray to Lattin or Short is not a stretch. Someone should find one of Lattin or Short’s specimens and compare them to the Wood Sandpiper.

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