In Memoriam: Milton Bernhard Trautman, 1899-1991

Abstract

Milton Bernhard Trautman was born on 7 September 1899 in Columbus, Ohio, and died in that city on 31 January 1991. It will surprise some people to learn that Milt Trautman was an ornithologist, for in some scientific circles he is remembered as an ichthyologist, whose name is immortalized in the name of a species of fish he discovered, the Sciota Madtom (Noturus trautmani). His classic The Fishes of (1957, revised 1981, State Univ. Press, Columbus) has been called an indispensable reference for anyone studying the freshwater fishes of North America. His fame is wider for his work on fishes than for his contributions on birds, but he was an important figure in ornithology. Of his more than 150 published papers, two-thirds are about birds. His most important work was the monumental Birds of Buckeye Lake (1940, Univ. Michigan Press, Ann Arbor), which James L. Peters described as the most comprehensive study of the bird life of a limited area in the United States. This book is much more than its title promises. It offers not just the usual report on local birds but a detailed account of the natural history of a region from glacial times to the present. For decades, Milt Trautman was the authority on the distribution of the birds of Ohio; he published state lists in 1932 and 1935, and, with his wife Mary, the Annotated List of the Birds of Ohio (Ohio J. Sci. 68:257-332) in 1968. His interests in bird distribution, ecological rela-