John Cassin
Encyclopedia
John Cassin was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 ornithologist
Ornithology
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...

.
He is considered to be one of the giants of American ornithology, and was America's first taxonomist, describing 198 birds not previously mentioned by Alexander Wilson
Alexander Wilson
Alexander Wilson was a Scottish-American poet, ornithologist, naturalist, and illustrator.Wilson was born in Paisley, Scotland, the son of an illiterate distiller. In 1779 he was apprenticed as a weaver. His main interest at this time was in writing poetry...

 and John James Audubon
John James Audubon
John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats...

. Cassin drew, printed and hand-colored many of the illustrations for the Pacific Railroad Surveys
Pacific Railroad Surveys
The Pacific Railroad Surveys -A series of explorations of the American West to explore possible routes for a transcontinental railroad across North America. The expeditions included surveyors, scientists, and artists and resulted in an immense body of data covering at least on the American West....

 as the western regions of the United States were explored. He was named curator of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences in 1842, and after John T. Bowen's death, he took control of the Academy. His "Illustrations" was intended to be a 3-volume work, but financial considerations prevented more than one volume being published.

Cassin was born near Philadelphia on September 6, 1813 to a Quaker family whose members had distinguished military and naval service. From his early youth, however, John's favorite study was ornithology. He contributed descriptions of new species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of birds and synoptical reviews of various bird families
Family (biology)
In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science. His publications included "Birds of California", a handsome octavo volume, containing descriptions and colored engravings of fifty species not given by Audubon; a "Synopsis of the Birds of North America"; "Ornithology of the United States Exploring Expedition"; "Ornithology of the Japan Expedition"; "Ornithology of Gillis' Astronomical Expedition to Chili"; and the chapters on rapacious and wading birds in the "Ornithology of the Pacific Railroad Explorations and Surveys".

The best known of Cassin's many publications are his Illustrations of the Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America (1853-56), and Birds of North America (1860), co-authored with Spencer Fullerton Baird
Spencer Fullerton Baird
Spencer Fullerton Baird was an American ornithologist, ichthyologist and herpetologist. Starting in 1850 he was assistant-secretary and later secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C...

 and George Newbold Lawrence
George Newbold Lawrence
George Newbold Lawrence was an American businessman and amateur ornithologist.Lawrence conducted Pacific bird surveys for Spencer Fullerton Baird and John Cassin, and the three men co-authored Birds of North America in 1858.Lawrence left his collection of 8,000 bird skins to the American Museum of...

.

He is memorialized through the names of several North American birds, all of which breed in the western U.S.: Cassin's Auklet, Cassin's Kingbird, Cassin's Vireo (formerly a subspecies of Solitary Vireo), Cassin's Sparrow and Cassin's Finch.

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