Waldron DeWitt Miller
Waldron DeWitt Miller was an American ornithologist.
He served as an associate curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Along with Alexander Wetmore he developed a scheme for classifying birds for the American Ornithologists' Union.
Biography
Miller, son of a major, grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and began observing birds and their habitats, such as the Western wood pewee. He later graduated from the East Greenwich Academy and enrolled in an insurance company in New York City. Works of John Burroughs deepened his interest in ornithology and he became associate member of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1896 and a corresponding member of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club in Philadelphia in 1900. He also co-founded the John James Audubon Society of New Jersey in 1897 and served as its vice president until his death.Miller met Frank Michler Chapman via whom he became assistant in the Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History in 1903. Hitherto having mainly studied birds of the east coast of the United States, reading the works of Elliott Coues further developed his interest in general ornithology. He subsequently worked as a taxidermist, particularly focusing on birds from Mexico and Panama.
He became assistant curator of the A.O.U. in 1911 and finally an associate curator at the American Museum in 1917.
In 1917, he undertook a field study of avian life in Nicaragua with Ludlow Griscom, who had just become assistant curator at the American Museum. This resulted in a comprehensive report on the living conditions, local distributions, relationships, and diet of the local birds.
He also worked on the classification of feathers based on descriptions of kingfishers and woodpeckers. In 1922, he became a foreign member of the British Ornithologists' Union. Together with Alexander Wetmore, he developed a scheme for classifying birds for the American Ornithologists' Union. This list was begun in 1926 with the classification of crows and ravens.
He also engaged in cataloging falcons and general bird studies in the state of New Jersey. In 1928, he and undertook an extensive field study in the forested areas of the western United States, also addressing issues of forest conservation. He also wrote a comprehensive treatise on the occurrence of snakes in New Jersey.
Miller died at St. Peter's Hospital, New Jersey after a road accident on August 4, 1929.