Washburn to right the ship. In a controversial move, Griscom organized the sale of a portion of the Society's books (many of which were duplicated within the Boston area), with much of the library going to the University of Southern California. As the decade ended, Washburn and Griscom perceived the need to expand the museum's attendance. They reorganized the institution as the Boston Museum of Science, and with Griscom as president, the new museum opened its doors in 1951. On the national scene, Griscom became an important member of the National Audubon Society (NAS) in both an editorial and executive capacity. He was a contributing editor to Audubon Magazine and an associate editor of Audubon Field Notes. He joined the board of directors, then became its chairman in 1944, a position he held until 1956. During this period, he worked to refine and moderate the organization's focus on conservation issues as it broadened its membership base. Closer to home, Griscom was active with the Massachusetts Audubon Society (Mass Audubon), contributing articles, book reviews, and observational reports to its Bulletin. He served as a Director of the organization for nine years. Field ornithology and birding Griscom's field work included extensive travel across the United States and several expeditions to Central and South America. For the AMNH, he worked in Nicaragua in 1917. In 1923, he explored Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula, collecting botanical specimens as well as observing birds. He led an expedition to Panama in 1924; members of the party described fifteen new species of birds while he himself published descriptions of the yellow-green brushfinch and the Tacarcuna bush-tanager. In 1925, Griscom was part of a team led by Gregory Mason and Herbert Spinden that collected specimens for the AMNH in British Honduras, the Yucatan Peninsula, and Cozumel Island. With Maunsell Crosby, he visited the Pearl Islands off Panama in 1927 and Guatemala in 1930. Griscom named two new species as a result of the Guatemala trip, the flightless Atitlán grebe (now extinct) and (with Jonathan Dwight) the belted flycatcher. Ludlow Griscom helped to establish the now widely held view that birds can be reliably identified "in the field" by looking at field marks (distinctive plumages, behaviors, etc., that are discernible from far away) rather than "in the hand" (for example, by trapping or killing). The story is told that, as a young birder of about twenty, he impressed senior ornithologists by