Scientist. He was a prominent American Ornithologist, one who studies birds. He did pioneer work in recording bird activity. He was a curator of Ornithology for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City from 1908 to 1942. He photographed and collected data on North American birds for over 50 years, and did much to popularize bird watching in the 20th Century. His father, Lebbeus Chapman, Jr., was the senior member of a New York law firm and counsel for a large bank, and his mother, Mary, was a "born musician." He spent his childhood with his parents on a large and prosperous farm, which his grandfather had purchased years before. When he was twelve, his father died. His interest in birds began as a student. He never went to college, but self-taught himself. After graduating from a private academy at 16, he gained a position at the American Exchange National Bank of New York, which taught him the meaning of the word work with his days often ending near midnight, but eventually being promoted to management. His hobby of bird watching filled his spare time, learning from books and other more experienced bird watchers. As a novice bird watcher, he spent 171 hours as a volunteer in a survey of the spring bird migrations along a shoreline, made a report on 103 species on his first participation, and his report was the best one that had been received from the Atlantic District. Two years later, he resigned from the bank as he knew his calling. His first scientific paper was published in January of 1888, recording the results of his observations on the nocturnal migration of birds, as seen through a 6-inch telescope. The paper was presented at a meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union and the excellent paper was later published in 20 books. After being personally requested to take a position as an assistant to Dr. J. A. Allen at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, he began this new adventure on March 1, 1888. Besides cataloguing birds, he gave lectures to the public, applying his beautiful photography of birds to the study and teaching of the species. To draw the public's interest in the museum, he advocated seasonally changing the museum's display of birds, which was preserved by taxidermy and solicited the funding for this project. With the museum's collection reaching second in the world, his greatest acquisition was the Lionel Walter Rothschild collection in 1932, with 280,000 specimens. In 1894 he was appointed associate editor of the scientific journal, "The Auk," for the American Ornithologists' Union. and in 1899 he established "Bird-Lore," the forerunner of the magazine "Audubon Magazine" for the Audubon Society, serving continuously as its editor for more than 34 years. In February 24, 1898, he married Fannie Bates Embury, who shared his interest in birds. On Christmas Day 1900, he started the community service project, the Christmas Bird Count, which is still strong in 2022. After ten years at the museum, he had published thirty-four papers on birds and eleven on mammals. He published in 1907 the textbook "The Warblers of North America." In 1908 after a trip to Mexico, Central and South America, he published "Camps and Cruises of an Ornithologist." After receiving an honorary Doctorate Degree of Science from the prestigious Brown University in Rhode Island in 1913, he was referred to as "Dr. Chapman." During World War I, he and his wife volunteered with the Red Cross, which gave them an opportunity to travel to France with the war effort, where their son, Frank, a United States Marine, was recuperating from wounds. After the war, they traveled to England to "watch birds." In 1918 the National Academy of Sciences awarded him the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal in recognition for his text "Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia", and in 1921, he was elected to the Academy as a member. Politically, Chapman fought for laws to protect wild birds from slaughter to use their beautiful feathers for the hat-making industry and large-city markets. As a part-time Floridian, he helped to save the Everglades by persuading President Theodore Roosevelt to declare Pelican Island, Florida, a reservation in 1904. For the next two decades, he traveled around the world, cataloguing birds. In the 1930s he detailed the life history of tropical bird species. In 1928 he was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Medal of the Roosevelt Memorial Association. In 1933 he published "Autobiography of a Bird Lover." His wife died in September of 1944, yet, his son, Major Frank M. Chapman, Jr. returned home after World War II. His own health was declining with aging, and with him retiring in 1942 from the museum, he died three years later. His only grandchild, Buff Cobb, became an actress and the second wife of Mike Wallace, a television journalist known for the CBS program "60 Minutes