In 1923, Abbott retired from active fieldwork but continued to provide funding on several occasions to the
United States National Museum for other collecting expeditions.
He died at his farm on the
Elk River in
Maryland of heart disease after a long illness, leaving his books, papers and 20% of his estate to the Smithsonian Institution.[2] At the time of his death, he was the largest single contributor to the collections of the museum.[4] Abbott's name is commemorated in the names of numerous animal taxa, including those of
Abbott's crested lizard (Gonocephalus abbotti ),[5]Abbott's day gecko (Phelsuma abbotti ),[5]Abbott's booby (Papasula abbotti),
Abbott's starling (Cinnyricinclus femoralis),
pygmy cuckoo-shrike (Coracina abbotti),
Abbott's sunbird (Cinnyris sovimanga abbotti), the
western grey gibbon (Hylobates abbotti) and
Abbott's duiker (Cephalophus spadix). Plants named after him include Cyathea abbottii, a tree-fern native to Hispaniola.
Exploration and collecting expeditions
Journeys of exploration and collecting made by Abbott include:[2]
1894 – As well as travelling in eastern Turkestan, India and
Ceylon, he went to Madagascar to enlist in the native "Hova" army against the second
French occupation of the island, until local suspicion of foreigners forced his resignation[10]
1909 – The onset of partial
blindness, caused by
spirochetosis, forced him to sell the "Terrapin" and largely suspend his collecting in the
tropics. After treatment in Germany, from 1910 to 1915, he travelled in Kashmir, though making a brief collecting visit to the
Maluku Islands and
Sulawesi with his sister in 1914.[2]
^
abcdeBoruchoff, Judith. (1986). Register to the William Louis Abbott Collection. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution: Washington.
[1]
^Taylor, Paul Michael (1985). "The Indonesian collections of William Louis Abbott (1860-1936): invitation to a research resource at the Smithsonian Institution". Museum Anthropology9 (2): 5-14.
^
abBeolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp.
ISBN978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Abbott, W.L.", p. 1).
^Greenway, J. C. (1967). Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World. New York: American Committee for International Wild Life Protection. pp. 331–332.
ISBN978-0-486-21869-4.