Frank Michler Chapman

Frank M. Chapman was born in 1864 and died in 1945. He was the Curator of Birds at the American Museum of Natural History from 1908 to 1942. He founded Bird-Lore magazine, originated the idea of the Christmas bird census, and was the author of Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America, published from 1895 to 1940, The Warblers of North America, and Autobiography of a Bird Lover, My Tropical Air Castle, Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist, among others.

Love of birds as "the most eloquent expression of nature's beauty, joy and freedom," is the gift of every one who hears the call of the outdoor world. "In Memoriam&endash;Louis Agassiz Fuertes," 1928.

But that instinctive, inexplicable passion for birds which arouses an uncontrollable desire to know them intimately in their haunts and to make them part of our lives, and which overcomes every obstacle until in a measure, at least, this longing is gratified, is the heritage of the elect, and few have been more richly endowed than Louis Fuertes. Ibid.

For nearly a third of a century Louis Fuertes was the leading bird artist of this country. During the latter part of his life he was wholly unable to fill all the requests for his services. Ibid.

He brought only beauty and happiness into the world. Every memory of him is joyous. Ibid.

Song Sparrow, Wren and Thrush, Bobolink, Nightingale and Solitaire, every bird whose voice I know, has for me this power to make the past live in the present. Autobiography of a Bird Lover, 1933