Rollo Howard Beck was a collector of bird skins and eggs and despite an 8th grade education, he went on to become one of the best-known bird and reptile collectors of his time.
He was born in Los Gatos, California on August 26, 1870, to Thomas Beck (1844-1911) and Laura Vance (1850-1918), both from England. Thomas was a blacksmith.
Rollo began collecting eggs in 1889 (age 19) and within a few years possessed an excellent collection of native species. Between 1895 and 1906, he collected on the California Channel Islands, multiple Baja Islands and the Galapagos Islands for the California Academy of Sciences. Several birds and a lizard have been named in his honor. He also collected in Berryessa where he lived in California, other counties and through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
In 1907, he married Ida Menzies (1883-1970), and they didn’t have children. Ida and Rollo took a voyage across the Pacific to collect bird specimens for the American Museum of Natural History in 1920. They returned with 40,000 bird skins and a large anthropological collection.
The Federal censuses have Rollo’s occupation as a farmer (1900), taxidermist (1910) and thereafter a fruit farmer.
He was a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and Cooper Ornithological Club and is listed in the 1898 Naturalists Directory. He wrote several articles for the Nidiologist, Condor and Cooper Ornithological Club’s Newsletter.
Rollo died on November 22, 1950, in Planada, CA at the age of 80. His collections can be found in the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, California Academy of Sciences, American Museum of Natural History, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, to name a few.
1899 biography of Rollo Beck by Chester Barlow, editor of The Condor (Volume 1, number 5). Biography by Islapedia.
Sources: Islapedia.com, Biodiversitylibrary.org, Ancestry.com
Franklin Pember has three birds in the collection and W.J.B. Williams has seven sets of eggs. The birds were collected in 1890 and 1891 while the eggs were collected in 1896. Williams acquired the sets directly from Rollo in November 1896.
