IN MEMORIAM: MORTIMER BROOKE MEANLEY, JR., 1915–2007

Abstract

Mortimer Brooke Meanley, Jr., was born at Riderwood, Baltimore County, Maryland, on 19 January 1915, and died at home in Maine on 19 August 2007. He was always called “Brooke” as an adult. Much of his youth was spent in birding and other naturalhistory activities, interests he credits to the Boy Scouts and his teachers.These activities directed him toward a professional career in wildlife biology. He was educated at McDonogh High School in OwingsMill, Maryland—at the time a private, semimilitary school for boys—and graduated in 1934. In June 1934, when he was 19 years old, Brooke and his friend TomGilliard drove a motorcycle on a two-month trip to study and photograph birds at Bonaventure Island at the end of the Gaspe Peninsula, Quebec. They collected and prepared study skins in the field, an activity in which Brooke became proficient. On their