Charles B. (Charles Barney) Cory

Born in Boston in 1857, Charles B. Cory became known as an ornithologist, explorer, and author with a special interest in the birds of the West Indies and the Americas. He published several major works on bird life, including studies of Haiti and Santo Domingo, the West Indies, and later the birds of Illinois and Wisconsin.

Cory was also closely connected with museum work. He served at the Field Museum in Chicago, where his collecting and research supported the growth of one of the country's important natural history collections. His large project, Catalogue of the Birds of the Americas, was left unfinished at his death in 1921 and later completed by Carl Eduard Hellmayr.

Remembered both as a field naturalist and as a writer who helped organize knowledge about American birds, he stands out as one of the energetic bird students of his era. His career reflects a period when ornithology was moving from private collecting toward more formal museum-based science.