Location
Louie Irby Davis
Topics
Description
Based in Harlingen, Davis was a trained career chemist, but had diverse natural history interests as well – surveying, collecting and reporting on birds, spiders, and plants in south Texas and Mexico. He collected over 20 holotypes of spiders in Cameron County during the mid-1930s, often working with Willis Gertsch, described new species, and published New Spiders from Texas. He also studied avian distributions in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and neotropics, and was noted for his work on bioacoustics, winning a Guggenheim grant for recording and analyzing bird songs. His field research was key to work with his wife, Anna May Tarrence Davis, and the Rio Grande Valley Nature Club in recognizing agricultural clearing’s damage to riparian habitat, and in successfully advocating for creation of the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in 1943.
Location Notes
Davis’ work on petitioning for federal acquisition of old-growth riparian habitat in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and its protection as the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, suggests that a marker at the Refuge would be a good fit.
Files
- Irby Davis, "Acoustic Evidence of Relationship in North American Crows," The Wilson Bulletin, Vol.70, No.2, June 1958, P.151.
- Irby Davis, "Acoustic Evidence of Relationship in Ortalis," The Southwestern Naturalist, Vol.10, No.4, 15 November 1965, P.288.
- Irby Davis, "Biological Acoustics and the Use of the Sound Spectrograph," The Southwestern Naturalist, Vol.9, No.3, 20 August 1964, P.118.
- Irby Davis, "Birds New for the Rio Grande Delta Area," The Wilson Bulletin, Vol.63, No.4, December 1951, P.333.
- Irby Davis, "Brasher's Warbler in Texas," The Auk, Vol.62, No.1, January 1945, P.146.
- Irby Davis, "Voice Structure in Spizella," The Southwestern Naturalist, Vol.9, No.4, 25 December 1964, P.255.
- Irby Davis, "Wintering Warblers in Cameron County, Texas during Seasons 1934-1935," The Wilson Bulletin, Vol.47, No.4, December 1935, P.272.
- Irby Davis, "Yellow-green Vireo Nesting in Cameron County, Texas," The Auk, Vol.62, No.1, January 1945, P.146.
- W.J. Gertsch and Irby Davis. New Spiders from Texas," American Museum Novitates, No. 881, 8 October 1936, P.1
Bibliography
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Irby Davis. Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Central Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press) 1972.
Archives
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Records related to Irby Davis are held in the Dick Heller Jr. Collection, Identifier ELIBR0042, Box 2, Folder 8, in the University Library Special Collections and Archives, at the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg Campus
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Records related to Irby Davis are held in the Minnie Gilbert Collection, Identifier ELIBR0233, Box 01, in the University Library Special Collections and Archives, at the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg Campus