Walter Edmond Clyde Todd

Walter Edmond Clyde Todd (Smithfield, Ohio, September 6, 1874 - June 25, 1969), generally known as W.E. Clyde Todd, was an American ornithologist.

In 1891 Todd abandoned his studies at Geneva College to take up a post as messenger with Clinton Hart Merriam at the United States Department of Agriculture, where his first job was the sorting and cataloging of a collection of bird stomachs preserved in alcohol. In Washington he met many leading scientists including Robert Ridgway, whom he took as a role model.

Discontented with government work, in 1898 Todd contracted with the fledgling Carnegie Museum to collect bird specimens in western Pennsylvania. He soon joined the museum as Assistant, and remained there the rest of his working life, which was much prolonged beyond any normal retirement age. He continued with field work on Pennsylvania, and later in north-eastern Canada, and would later produce two major works, "Birds of Western Pennsylvania" (1940) and "Birds of the Labrador peninsula and adjacent areas" (1963); along with many descriptions of new taxa and systematic studies based on the Museum's growing collection of neotropical birds.

A long-time Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union, he was elected Fellow Emeritus in 1968.

External links

* [http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v087n04/p0635-p0649.pdf In Memoriam Walter Edmond Clyde Todd - The Auk]