Dr. Clinton Hart Merriam, born 1855 and died 1942, was an American zoologist, mammalogist, ornithologist, entomologist, ecologist, ethnographer, geographer, and naturalist. He was commonly known as the father of mammalogy, a branch of zoology referring to the study of mammals. He was one of the original founders of the National Geographic Society. In midlife he switched his primary interest from zoological study to ethnogeography, anthropology and linguistics applied to the studying the Indigenous Peoples aka Native Americans of California.