Watkinson Library Ornithology Collection

This composite collection consists of correspondence, diaries, notebooks on ornithology, photographs, and slides, as well as some financial records and house bills from numerous other collections related to ornithology. The correspondence primarily transpire between Frank M. Chapman and Swarthmore College mammologist, Robert K. Enders (1899-1988), between ornithologist Herbert Keightley Job and other ornithologists and naturalists including A.C. Bent, John Burroughs, Frank Chapman, Elliott Coues, and Louis Agassiz Fuertes, as well as correspondence between book dealers and Ostrom Enders, who acquired the bulk of this collection between approximately 1965-1982.

Diaries and notebooks span the 19th and early 20th centuries, ranging from work done by amateur ornithologists such as Alice D. Chamberlain to David Armitage Bannerman’s work. Locations in diaries, notebooks, photographs, and slides documented include the Canary Islands, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Virginia. It contains approximately 326 lantern slides by pioneer wildlife photographer, Herbert Keightley Job, spanning the late 19th century, as well as numerous lantern slides by botanist and ornithologist, Francis Reeve Cope, Jr. of plant and animal life in New Zealand. The collection also includes financial records of Ostrom Enders from his collecting, and a house bill sponsored by ex-president Grover Cleveland presented to the House of Representatives in Massachusetts (March 1908).