Francis Harper, 1886–1972

OBITUARY FRANCIS HARPER, 1886-1972 FRANCIS HARPER Mount Holly, New Jersey, 4 October 1950 800 Francis Harper, a Charter Member of this Society, its corresponding secretary in 19311932, and an honorary member beginning in 1959, was born in Southbridge, Massachusetts, on 17 November 1886. He died at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on his 86th birthday17 November 1972. Francis was an undergraduate and graduate student at Cornell University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1925. My first letter from Francis (whom I had not met) was a considerable indictment of a major museum, and more, in the same vein and on numerous topics, arrived thereafter for about 28 years. Francis could be impossible, but he was unfailingly loyal to those whom he regarded as kindred spirits. He was religious, he explained, only in the sense that he had approached Quakerism but had gone on by on a curving trajectory, i.e. he was a parabolic Quaker. It would be trite to refer to him simply as an all-around naturalist, because he was as technically qualified when writing on plants or fishes as on quadmpeds, birds, or the lives of early naturalists, and he was an efficient field collector and an extraordinarily talented editor. Because of his breadth of interests and his wide contacts, he was a major influence in a considerable area of American biology for more than a half century. Francis published about 135 titles, the earliest on mammals that I find being on Neofiber in the second issue of this journal. His paper on the mammals of the Okefinokee Swamp August 1973 OBITUARY 801 region (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 38:191-396, 1927) was-and still is-a model regional study. His largest work restricted to mammals was the volume on Extinct and Vanishing Mammals of the Old World (Amer. Comm. Internat. Wildlife Prot., Spec. Pub!. 12, 1945); he was not on salary when proofs arrived, but managed to support himself and family while he devoted the greater part of his time for a year to checking all matters cited against the original sources-a practice now almost forgotten. His most complicated task of editing resulted in two long papers on the Bartrams (Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., n.s., 33, pt. 1, 1942, and pt. 2, 1943). His Bartram studies culminated in the naturalist's edition of The Travels of William Bartram (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 1958 )-undoubtedly the most thorough and scholarly book yet done on any of our early naturalists. After Francis settled in Chapel Hill in 1960, he resumed his studies of Okefinokee folklore, which he had been forced to lay aside 40 years earlier. This work, also a biography of William Bartram, remain in manuscript. The reader is referred to The Auk (July 1973) for additional information on Francis-his characteristics, activities, accomplishments, and heirs-also by the undersigned.-RALPH S. PALMER, New York State Museum and Science Service, Albany, New York 12224.  (...truncated)