American clergyman, botanist and ornithologist who studied the birds and plants of Nebraska in particularly. Born in Connecticut, in the town of Wallingford, John Bates graduated with a BA from Trinity College, Hartford in 1872. Two years later he received a master's degree from the same institution, before training as a minister at the Berkeley Divinity School in Middleton, Connecticut. Becoming an Episcopal clergyman he worked in this state for a few years before moving west. Between 1883 and 1886 Bates served as chaplain and headmaster of Bethany College in Topeka, before moving to Nebraska. After working at Valentine in the Sand Hill region of that state (1888-1902) he settled in Red Cloud, southern Nebraska, where he remained for the final 28 years of his life.

Interested in birds for some time Bates published few ornithological works, tending to pass on his observations to others to develop, and in this way he contributed a great deal to Lawrence Bruner's Some notes on Nebraska Birds (1896). It was not until the age of 43 that Bates began to study botany and so his herbarium is primarily made up of specimens from Nebraska. He was particularly keen to study the economic value of fodder plants in this state and also the sedges, publishing On the Sedges of Nebraska in 1914. A correspondent of the Biological Survey for 36 years he contributed many notes on species distribution and migration and was also an associate of the American Ornithologists Union from 1899. Bates died suddenly in the Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital of Hastings, Nebraska, just ten days after attending an excursion in Fontenelle Forest and presenting a paper at the Nebraska Ornithologists Union in Omaha.

Sources:
T.S. Palmer, 1931, "Rev. John Mallory Bates", The Auk, 48(1): 161-165
F.A. Stafleu and R.S. Cowan, 1976-1998, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition (TL-2).