Jack Davies Goodall Callaway (or Galloway?), known as Jack Goodall, a Corresponding Fellow of the AOU since 1952, died in Chile (it is not clear whether in Santiago, Zapallar, or Valparaiso) on 30 December 1980 at age 87 or 88. Goodall was one of the three pioneers of modern Chilean ornithology, the other two being Rodulfo A. Philippi Bañados (1905–1969) and Alfred W. Johnson (1894–1979). All three are buried in the cemetery of the beautiful central Chilean beach town of Zapallar. It is poignant to recall that in 1937 Philippi published a paper on the birds of Zapallar, where now all three rest in peace. The three men are so closely linked in the development of 20th-century Chilean ornithology that a memorial piece about Goodall is not complete without mentioning his two colleagues. Philippi, a rather short, thick-set, and somewhat sickly Chilean-born pediatrician, was the great-grandson of the pioneer naturalist of the same name who, with Ludwig Landbeck, ushered in the era of scientific ornithology in Chile. Johnson was a very tall, rather stoic English-born Quaker who settled in Chile as a businessman. The stocky, discreet, almost reclusive Jack Goodall was for many years Johnson's employee. Together they organized expeditions that took them from the extreme north to the far south of Chile, their goal being nothing less than “completing our knowledge of the avifauna of Chile.” Jack Goodall apparently authored only one item under his name alone, a note on the nest of the Magellanic Tapaculo (Scytalopus magellanicus). Philippi and he described a new subspecies of Grey-headed Sierra-Finch (Phrygilus gayi minor), with Zapallar as the type locality. Between 1941 and 1955, accompanied by either Francisco Behn K. from Concepción (also buried in Zapallar) or by W. (Guillermo) R. Millie from Vallenar, the three colleagues published five important papers on the systematics, geographic variation, ecology, distribution, and nesting habits of Chilean birds based on their fieldwork. This extensive effort, of course, culminated in their seminal two-volume book, Las Aves de Chile, su Conocimiento y sus Costumbres, constantly referred to as “Goodall et al.” (vol. 1, 1946; vol. 2, 1951; supplements to vols. 1 and 2, 1957 and 1964, respectively).

Jack Goodall was born in Bembridge Point (Isle of Wight?), England, in 1892 or 1893, the son of W. (William?) H. Goodall and Alma Callaway (her maiden name is uncertain). I have not been able to establish the exact year of his birth. His tombstone in Zapallar indicates it as 1892 but Manuel Marín (pers. comm.) believes it is 1893. Similarly, I could not verify the correct spelling of his last name. It is indicated as Callaway in a bibliographic entry (p. 99) in Ornithological Books in the Library of Trinity College, Hartford [Connecticut], Including the Library of Ostrom Enders, but believed to be Galloway by Marín (pers. comm.). Apparently, Jack Goodall had only one sibling, a sister, Louisita, perhaps a nickname for Louisa. The lack of details concerning Jack Goodall's life and work are in line with his secretive character. A. W. Johnson wrote that Goodall was “much too inclined to 'hide his light under a bushel'.” Jack Goodall arrived in Chile from England in the early 1920s, at about age 30, to work in the nitrate mines of northern Chile. What he did in England before emigrating or, indeed, exactly what he did in Chile after he reached that country, is not clear. Perhaps Goodall and Johnson, both birdwatchers and oologists, were fellow workers, who joined forces to study local birds. In the 1930s, both men moved to Santiago, where Goodall worked as Johnson's assistant after the latter had set up his own business, Frio-Lux Refrigeración S.A.I., an import-export company.

Because of his carefully crafted color plates in Las Aves de Chile, Jack Goodall is perhaps best known as the illustrator of this work. This mistaken impression is reinforced by Johnson's remark that he had “been fortunate indeed to have [Goodall's] collaboration as an illustrator” (The Birds of Chile, 1965:13) and by the caption of a photograph in Johnson (1965:379) showing Johnson as “The Author” and Goodall (on the right) as the “Illustrator.” In fact, Jack Goodall was much more than an illustrator. Indeed he was the senior author of Las Aves de Chile. During their joint expeditions, Goodall took copious notes on breeding habits and also collected skins, eggs, and nests. It was Goodall's personal collection (now in part belonging to Manuel Marín) that, together with collections of eggs by Johnson and skins by Philippi, constituted the basis for the species accounts in Las Aves de Chile. Even though many details of Goodall's life will probably remain forever lost, he was clearly a full participant in the development of ornithology in Chile from the 1920s to 1960s. Without Jack Goodall and his fruitful association with Alfredo Johnson and Rodulfo Philippi, Chilean ornithology today would be quite different. For years, Goodall drove with pride his beloved and tinny 2-horse- power Chilean-manufactured Citroën (called “citroneta”), an unlikely machine for Chile's topography. He was also proud of his Spanish, which he claimed to speak “perfectamente.” His friends, however, did not wish to offend him by admitting that he still had a rather thick English accent after 40 years in Chile.