Charles M. Hoy

Charles McCauley Hoy (1897–1923) was a field naturalist who obtained series of mammal and bird specimens for United States National Museum, travelling on expeditions to Australia, China and elsewhere. The large collections of specimens and notes he made in Australia from 1919 to 1922 followed a period of dramatic decline in its mammalian fauna, and have been examined by later workers in efforts to determine the causes of the event. Born in China to foreign missionaries, Hoy returned there in 1922 with a commission from W. L. Abbott to continue collecting specimens for the institution. His successful collecting in that region included becoming the first occidental researcher to obtain a species of rare river dolphin, but his works were curtailed due to an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot injury – and he died there in 1923 from complications following an operation on a gangrenous appendix.

Biography Charles M. Hoy was the son of Christian missionaries from the United States of America, active in Japan and China.