Cliford H. Pope (1899-1974) was a noted American herpetologist. Shortly after his graduation from the University of Virginia, Pope went to the Tropical Research Station at British Guiana, maintained by William Beebe. Later, he spent many years in China with expeditions of the American Museum of Natural History, accompanying Roy Chapman Andrews on the expedition to the Gobi desert that first discovered fossilized dinosaur eggs. Pope mastered the Chinese language and made a total of eight expeditions in Chinese terriroty prior to 1930.[1]

In 1927, the Boy Scouts of America made Pope an Honorary Scout, a new category of Scout created that same year. This distinction was give to "American citizens whose achievements in outdoor activity, exploration and worthwhile adventure are of such an exceptional character as to capture the imagination of boys...". The other eighteen who were awarded this distinction were: Roy Chapman Andrews; Robert Bartlett; Frederick Russell Burnham; Richard E. Byrd; George Kruck Cherrie; James L. Clark; Merian C. Cooper; Lincoln Ellsworth; Louis Agassiz Fuertes; George Bird Grinnell; Charles A. Lindbergh; Donald B. MacMillan; George Palmer Putnam; Kermit Roosevelt; Carl Rungius; Stewart Edward White; Orville Wright. [2]