NAMES IN THE NEWS : Real James Bond--a Birder--Dies

PHILADELPHIA —  James Bond, a leading ornithologist whose name was adopted by Ian Fleming for the fictional British agent 007, has died at the age of 89.

He died Tuesday at Chestnut Hill Hospital, a hospital spokesman said today. Bond’s contribution to popular culture came after World War II when Fleming saw his book, “Birds of the West Indies,” in Jamaica. Fleming, an avid bird watcher, was writing a thriller at the time and adopted the name for the dashing character portrayed in movies by Sean Connery, Roger Moore and other actors.

“It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born,” Fleming wrote years later to Bond’s wife, Mary Fanning Wickham Bond.