Biological Survey members in the field at Lone Pine, Owens Valley, California, 13 June1891. Left to right: V.O. Bailey, C.H. Merriam, T.S. Palmer, and A.K. Fisher.
Vol. 16, No. 3: March 1935 (PDF version)
Vol. 16, Nos. 4-6:
April-June 1935 (PDF Version)
Bureau of Biological Survey members working at the U.S. National Museum at the turn of the century. From left to right: A.K. Fisher, E.W. Nelson, W.H. Osgood, and V.O. Bailey.
Excerpts from "The Survey"--A Newsletter from the Early 1920s to 1930s of the Bureau of
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center,
National Museum of Natural History
Washington, D.C. 20560
The Survey was a newsletter issued monthly for the personnel of the Bureau of Biological Survey in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1935, several issues of The Survey were devoted to the history of the Bureau as it celebrated its 50th anniversary. These pages chronicled the early years and work of the Biological Survey and gave brief biographical sketches of some of the individuals who made the organization a driving and guiding force in the biological sciences in North America. It would be only a few years until the Bureau of Biological Survey would be merged with the Bureau of Fisheries to become the Fish and Wildlife Service, and more than another half century before the intellectual descendants of those workers became part of another, albeit short-lived, Biological Survey. The basic mission of cataloging and understanding the biota of North America has not changed, although it has expanded in ways unimagined in the early years.
We believe that it is important that present day biologists know something of their roots. With that knowledge should come a greater appreciation for the background we often take for granted.
These pages were retyped from the original by Linda Wolfe of the Biological Survey Unit of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, USGS, the unit housed at the U.S. National Museum of Natural History that still curates and studies the specimen material collected by those discussed in these numbers of The Survey.
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