The Whitney South Sea Expedition (1920 - 1941) to collect bird specimens for the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), under the initial leadership of Rollo Beck, was instigated by Dr Leonard C. Sanford and financed by Harry Payne Whitney, a thoroughbred horse-breeder and philanthropist. It was administered by a committee at the AMNH and became a focus for attracting funds for research on the biota of the Pacific islands. The expedition visited islands in the south Pacific region and eventually returned with over 40,000 bird specimens, many plant specimens and an extensive collection of anthropological items and photographs. Using the 75-ton schooner France, with many different scientists and collectors participating over more than a dozen years, the expedition visited thousands of islands throughout Oceania, Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia. The France was sold in 1932 when funds ran out. Specimens from the expedition were displayed in a hall at the AMNH funded by Harry Whitney.
Aims of the expedition The expedition's main aim was to collect birds from various South Pacific islands and the Pacific Ocean, on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History. The AMNH cooperated with the Bishop Museum in Hawaii and the United States National Museum, exchanging specimens and data. Museum officials were aware that research in the Pacific was urgent, as species were becoming extinct through various causes: introduced mammals such as pigs, dogs, cats and mongooses; spread of introduced birds including the myna; human activities such as copra processing, pearl diving and beche-de-mer fishing and lifestyle changes brought on by modernisation. The expedition collected not only bird skins, but also nests, eggs, whole birds preserved in alcohol, and bird stomachs from the skinned birds. Lizards, other reptiles, turtles, small mammals such as bats and rodents, and plants were collected for the AMNH and the Bishop Museum. Expedition members also took many photographs and notes about the wildlife, vegetation, topography and lifestyles of the local people they encountered.
Expedition members
The expedition was led by Rollo H. Beck (1920–1928), Hannibal Hamlin (1928–1930), William F. Coultas (1930–1935), Lindsay Macmillan (1935–1940), and G. Reid Henry (1941). Beck, an expert bird collector himself, hired Ernest H. Quayle to assist with collecting, including the botanical specimens collected by the expedition. Quayle was a Stanford University graduate with a geology degree. Beck, his wife Ida and Quayle based themselves in Papeete in 1920, and in 1922 Charles Curtis, who had been working on a plantation in Tahiti, joined the expedition as Beck was readying to leave Tahiti in the France. Curtis spent five months with the expedition before returning to his previous job. José Correia and his wife Virginia joined the Whitney South Sea Expedition in 1922 to replace Ernest Quayle, with Correia acting as expedition leader for six months in 1923 while Beck was away in New York. Correia was a cooper by trade. While on a trip to the Antarctic as a cooper in 1911, he had met Dr Robert Murphy of the AMNH, who taught him how to prepare bird specimens. Correia then took part in other AMNH expeditions as a bird collector. The Correias left the Whitney expedition at the end of 1926 after contracting malaria, and were replaced by Frederick Drowne. Edwin Bryan, an entomologist from the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, joined the expedition in 1924. He spent ten months collecting plant and insect specimens before returning to his work in Hawaii. Dr Frederick P Drowne joined the Whitney Expedition as a field researcher in December 1926. He was a medical doctor and ornithologist from Rhode Island, with connections to the AMNH. He had taken part in several scientific expeditions previously, and had first met Beck during an expedition to the Galapagos Islands. Drowne left the expedition in 1928 due to illness. In June 1930, depressed about his ongoing ill health, he shot himself. In September 1927, Hannibal Hamlin and Guy Richards, both recent Yale graduates, arrived in the Solomon Islands to join the expedition while Drowne was unwell. Richards left the expedition in 1929 and became a journalist. Hamlin became the expedition leader from March 1928 when Beck left, until January 1930. Coultas then took over and Hamlin left the expedition in August 1930. He returned to Yale and became a neurosurgeon. William Coultas and his friend Walter Eyerdam arrived to join the expedition at the end of August 1929, and in January 1930 Coultas took over from Hamlin as leader. Walter Eyerdam was a mineralogist and skilled collector of molluscs, plants, birds and mammals. He left the Whitney expedition in mid-1930, later taking part in other expeditions. Coultas returned to New York in 1935 to work for the AMNH, and also took part in other expeditions before joining the US Naval Reserve Force in 1942. Ernst Mayr from the Berlin Museum joined the expedition on its trip to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in 1929, after Hamlin had replaced Beck as leader. He left the expedition in February 1930 to return to Germany. Mayr was hired by the AMNH to curate the Rothschild collection in 1933, and he continued to work up the material that returned to the AMNH from the Whitney expeditions. He continued at AMNH until 1953 as curator of birds. John Boyd ("Jack") Riddall, born in England in 1905, joined the expedition as a bird collector and skinner at the Solomon Islands in May 1930. He had until then been working as a clerk at Lever Brothers plantation on Gavutu. Riddall left the expedition in 1932, lived in Australia and in 1942 enlisted as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Australian Air Force. Thomas Lindsay Macmillan became leader of the expedition in 1935 after Coultas left. He was a farmer, born in Vanuatu to an Australian father, and had lived in both countries. Macmillan and his wife Joy collected and processed birds for the expedition in New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, Papua New Guinea and Queensland, Australia. Macmillan left the expedition in 1940 to join the Australian navy. In later life he and Joy ran a mission station in the Australian outback. G Reid Henry led the expedition for a short time in 1940–1941 and was based in Australia.
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