Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ), where he proved to be an effective and hard-working administrator in addition to his scientific contributions. He worked closely with Thomas Barbour, the museum's director, with whom he had a warm relationship; after Barbour's death in 1946, Griscom reported to the new director, Alfred Romer. Griscom was named Research Ornithologist in 1948. However, Griscom's age and declining health, beginning with a stroke in 1950, led to his retirement in 1955. Professional organizations and related work Griscom maintained a high level of activity in several professional organizations. He joined the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU) in 1908 and was named a fellow in 1925. As the organization shifted focus from museum collections to the study of live birds, he contributed his opinions and talents to its transition. He was elected to the Finance Committee in 1934 and later served on the council, a subcommittee for faunistics, and other committees. Griscom's participation in the AOU was not without friction. At times, he was critical of certain AOU ways and means that he found old-fashioned, in particular the workings of the Check-List Committee; the committee in the 1940s included Alexander Wetmore and James Lee Peters. Peters, who was also Griscom's colleague at the MCZ, was in many ways the antithesis of Griscom: quietly working in the museum while Griscom attracted attention with his rapid field identifications. Once in Boston, in 1927, Griscom joined the Nuttall Ornithological Club, a limited-membership group of ornithologists that was in certain respects a predecessor of the AOU. He was elected treasurer in 1930 (succeeding Charles Foster Batchelder), was subsequently named a member of the council, and served a term as president from 1952. He gave nearly 50 talks at the club's regularly scheduled meetings on his various field trips and on local bird distribution and migration. As at the AOU, he emphasized identification of birds by field marks rather than in the hand, and the organization's meeting minutes expanded to accommodate his notes of recent sightings. Also in 1927, Griscom became an associate member of the New England Museum of Natural History, which was sponsored by the Boston Society of Natural History. He became chair of the Society's Budget Committee in 1937 and went on to assume more administrative and financial responsibilities. By the 1940s, the museum was in financial difficulty, and Griscom (now on the board of trustees) worked with new director Bradford