William Beebe

Edge of the Jungle (Dodo Press) William Beebe

Charles William ("Will") Beebe (1877-1962) was an American naturalist, explorer, and author. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he went on to become Curator of Ornithology for the New York Zoological Society from 1899 to 1952. He was a self-styled naturalist and everything living seemed to hold a continuing fascination for him. In 1919 he was also made Director of the Department of Tropical Research. He wrote many popular books of his expeditions some of which became best-sellers ("my potboilers") in the 1920s and 1930s. He was also a regular contributor to the National Geographic Magazine. He also wrote his magnificent A Monograph of the Pheasants (1918-1922), which remains the classic reference on the subject. In 1950, when he was 73 years old, he bought with his own money 228 acres (92 hectares) of land in the Arima Valley which he named "Simla". This land became the New York Zoological Society's Tropical Research Station in Trinidad. Amongst his other works are: Two Bird-Lovers in Mexico (1905), The Bird (1906), Tropical Wild Life in British Guiana (1917), Jungle Peace (1919) and Edge of the Jungle (1921).