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William Orville Ayres (September 11, 1817 – April 30, 1887) was an American
physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner ( Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through t ...
and
ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of October ...
. Born in Connecticut, he studied to become a
doctor Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles ** ...
at
Yale University School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...
.


Life and career

Ayers, the son of Jared and Dinah (Benedict) Ayres, was born in New Canaan, Conn, September 11, 1817. He graduated from
Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
in 1837. For fifteen years after graduation he was employed as a teacher as follows in Berlin, Conn. (1837–38), Miller's Place, L. I. (1838–41), East Hartford, Conn. (1842–44),
Sag Harbor Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, United States, in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton on eastern Long Island. The village developed as a working port on Gardiner's Bay. The population was 2,772 at t ...
, L. I. (1844–47), and
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- m ...
, Mass (1845–52). He began the study of medicine in Boston, and in 1854 received the degree of M.D. from Yale College. He then removed to
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, Cal., where he remained for nearly twenty years, engaged in practice. He also served as Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the Toland Medical College in that city. He removed to Chicago shortly before the great fire of 1871, in which he suffered considerable pecuniary loss. About 1878 he returned to
New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...
, and opened an office for the practice of his profession. From 1879 he also held an appointment as Lecturer on Diseases of the Nervous System in the Yale Medical School. He removed his residence, early in 1887, to
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, beh ...
, N. Y., his health having already begun to fail; and he died in Brooklyn, on the 30th of April, in his 70th year. He married, November 23, 1847, Maria J. Hildreth, of Sag Harbor, L. I, who survived him, with one of their two daughters. Besides his specialty of nervous diseases, Dr Ayers had made notable acquisitions in certain departments of natural science, especially in ichthyology, on which he had published a large number of memoirs, in the '' Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History'' and of the ''California Academy of Sciences''. While in San Francisco he was a deacon in the First Congregational Church.  This section incorporates public domain material from the 1887
Yale Obituary Record
'.


Ornithology

Ayres was also interested in natural science, however, particularly in
ornithology Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...
. He became friends with famed ornithologist and painter
John James Audubon John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin; April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was an American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictoria ...
, who named a
woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions ...
(now called the
northern flicker The northern flicker or common flicker (''Colaptes auratus'') is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker speci ...
) after him, mentioning him by name in his '' Birds of America'': :I have named this handsome bird after my young and learned friend W. O. AYRES, Esq., who is well known to science as an excellent ichthyologist; and who also is well conversant with the birds of our country. As the first Curator of Ichthyology of the
California Academy of Sciences The California Academy of Sciences is a research institute and natural history museum in San Francisco, California, that is among the largest museums of natural history in the world, housing over 46 million specimens. The Academy began in 1853 ...
, Ayres wrote several many papers on the fish of
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the mo ...
, despite poor facilities. In a letter to a colleague at the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...
Ayers pleaded for support for the fledgling academy: :I am working along here in the dark as well as I can, with almost nothing in the way of books or means of reference, and what mistakes I make, some of you more advantageously situated must correct. Since there were no established
scientific journals In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as ...
available, he turned to local newspapers to publish his descriptions of fish. In 1882 Ayres wrote an article in ''
The American Naturalist ''The American Naturalist'' is the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society of Naturalists, whose purpose is "to advance and to diffuse knowledge of organic evolution and other broad biological principles so as to enhance th ...
'', "The Ancient Man of Calaveras" about the Calaveras Skull, a human skull purported at the time to have been found in a mine in
Calaveras County, California Calaveras County (), officially the County of Calaveras, is a county in both the Gold Country and High Sierra regions of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 45,292. The county seat is San Andreas. Angels ...
. He defended the claim that the skull was indeed of ancient origin. That the skull was of ancient provenance is now generally believed to have been a hoax. Ayres's name (cited in
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
as ''ayresii'') is used in the
binomial name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bo ...
s of several species of
bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
s and
fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of liv ...
.


See also

* :Taxa named by William Orville Ayres


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ayres, William Orville American ichthyologists American curators 1817 births 1887 deaths People associated with the California Academy of Sciences University of California, San Francisco faculty Yale School of Medicine alumni Yale School of Medicine faculty People from New Canaan, Connecticut Physicians from Connecticut 19th-century American zoologists Yale College alumni