BBC Snippets

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/01-2008/msg00096.html

March 30, 1991, Tom Laughlin hosted the Bristol Bird Club at Virginia Tech and the Virginia Museum of Natural History Bird Collection in Blacksburg.

Eleven BBC members made the trip. It was the first of three such visits to the museum sponsored over the next several years.

The Bailey-Law Ornithology Collections totaled almost 20,000 specimens and was completely cataloged. The bird holdings consisted of more than 18,000 identified study skins stored in cabinets in the zoological collections area.

The collection contained 1,200 egg sets, identified by A.O.U. numbers. Most of the specimens date from 1870-1940 with skins including Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, Passenger Pigeons and Carolina Parakeets.

The Bailey-Law Collection (c.1850-1970) consists of the papers, books, monographs, and specimens of two ornithologists, Bailey (1878-1962) and John Eugene Law (1877-1931). Bailey was the son of Harold B. Bailey, a noted ornithologist and one of the founders of the American Ornithologists' Union.

The younger Harold H. Bailey grew up in Newport News, Virginia, and wrote two books, The Birds of Virginia (1913) and The Birds of Florida (1925). Law was active in the Cooper Ornithological Club in California at an early date, and in 1919 he became a curator with the California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley. Laura Beatty Law, was married to Eugene Law until his death in 1931. She later married Bailey in 1938. The two merged their large collections. A special museum was built at Rock Bridge Alum to house their holdings.

Eventually, the Bailey family made a gift of the collection to Virginia Tech.

At Virginia Tech in 1991, BBC members spent hours studying species they found of interest, including holding several extinct species study skins and enormous Golden Eagles. Taking photos was a high priority for everyone.

Your have never seen so many bright eyes and big smiles as when a birder holds an Ivory-billed, Carolina Parakeet or Passenger Pigeon !

After hours of study and amazement, birders broke for lunch and enjoyed subs and sandwiches at a student pub near the Virginia Tech campus. Everyone returned to the collection for the afternoon.

Members were also fascinated by some of the oldest and most historical of early American ornithological books and journals -- many easily a century old.

From the archives of the Bristol Bird Club