Spare the Birds!: George Bird Grinnell and the First Audubon Society 9780300224924

Citation preview

SPARE THE BIRDS!

Merchant-final.indb i

4/28/16 8:34 PM

George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938)

Merchant-final.indb ii

4/28/16 8:34 PM

SPAR E the B IR DS! George Bird Grinnell and the First Audubon Society

• Carolyn Merchant •

NE W HAV EN AND LONDON

Merchant-final.indb iii

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Published with assistance from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

Copyright © 2016 by Carolyn Merchant. All rights reserved. Th is book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Jacket image and color plates of birds are from the National Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio edition of Audubon’s Birds of America, with text by Roger Tory Peterson and Virginia Marie Peterson (New York: Abbeville Press, 1981). Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Designed by Amber Morena Set in Arno Pro type by Motto Publishing Services Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Control Number: 2016933636 ISBN 978-0-300-21545-8 (cloth : alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Th is paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Frontispiece: George Bird Grinnell (fig. 1)

Merchant-final.indb iv

4/28/16 8:34 PM

For Charlie

Merchant-final.indb v

4/28/16 8:34 PM

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Preface ix PART I. George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

1. Lucy and John James Audubon’s Influence on Grinnell 2. Grinnell’s Audubon Society

3

15

PART II. George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon

and Alexander Wilson in The Audubon Magazine 3. Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings 45 4. The Life of John James Audubon George Bi r d Gr i n n el l

70

5. The Character of John James Audubon George Bi r d Gr i n n el l

93

6. Incidents of Audubon’s Life 100 George Bi r d Gr i n n el l 7. Audubonian Sketches 105 R[obert] W. Sh u feldt 8. Biography of Alexander Wilson 116 George Bi r d Gr i n n el l

Merchant-final.indb vii

4/28/16 8:34 PM

viii • Contents PART III. Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

9. Introduction to Grinnell’s Monthly Birds 10. Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I

149

155

11. Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II 200 12. Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements 234 APPENDIXES

1. Other Early and Recent Biographies of Audubon

243

2. Producing Audubon’s Birds of America and Grinnell’s Monthly Birds 3. Timeline: Alexander Wilson

256

4. Timeline: John James Audubon and Lucy Bakewell Audubon 5. Timeline: George Bird Grinnell Notes

248

258

262

265

Bibliography

303

Index 315 Color illustrations follow p. 178

Merchant-final.indb viii

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Preface

When explorer and conservationist George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938) started The Audubon Magazine in 1887, a year after he founded the Audubon Society, he introduced each issue with an editorial that he wrote himself about the life and character of John James Audubon (1787–1851). To bring birds to the public’s attention, he also chose one of Audubon’s bird paintings, which he himself described, as a special feature of each issue. Grinnell’s knowledge of Audubon was deeply influenced by his experiences growing up on Audubon’s estate in New York City, where he attended the school taught by Audubon’s widow, Lucy. The impact of Lucy, John James, and their two sons on Grinnell’s desire to preserve wildlife was profound and is reflected in Grinnell’s work. The Audubon Magazine, however, lasted only two years, after which for practical reasons Grinnell felt obliged to dissolve both the society and the journal. But within five years, women, along with men, took on leadership roles in reviving the Audubon movement. In this book, I analyze Grinnell’s work to found the 1886 Audubon Society, his publication of The Audubon Magazine, and the gendered issues underlying his role in saving avifauna. A major goal of the following text is to reprint Grinnell’s serialized biography of Audubon and other writings in the magazine (making them available to the public) and to interpret them in the context of Grinnell’s achievements. A primary reason that Grinnell’s biography of Audubon has not been recognized as such is that Grinnell was the sole editor of The Audubon Magazine and his editorials were unsigned. In fact, from the time that

Merchant-final.indb ix

• ix

4/28/16 8:34 PM

x • Preface

Grinnell took over the editorship of Forest and Stream in 1880 (after having moved up in 1876 from his position as its natural history editor), he made it his practice not to sign his editorials. He strongly believed, according to Grinnell historian John Reiger, that as editor he should not add his name, as doing so would personalize the content and thereby detract from the authority of the magazine itself. He was scrupulous, however, in att ributing other articles and letters in both magazines to their authors. In his editorials, he also carefully placed selections from other authors in quotation marks. Grinnell listed the address of The Audubon Magazine (which was published by Forest and Stream Publishing Company) as 40 Park Row, New York City, NY, asking that all letters and articles be sent to that address. Grinnell was a prodigious writer and editor as well as a public champion for conservation of wildlife. But ultimately the task of editing two journals (one weekly, the other monthly) and maintaining the Audubon Society and the Boone and Crockett Club, which he cofounded with Theodore Roosevelt the same year he started publishing The Audubon Magazine, took too much of his time and energy. By early 1889 he felt obliged to discontinue both the society and the magazine (see chapter 2). In part I, I discuss Grinnell’s life on Audubon’s New York City estate (which by then was known as Audubon Park) and the forces that shaped his character and goals. Here I draw on a “memoir” written by Grinnell that describes his life up until 1883 and was deposited at Yale University due to the efforts of historian John Reiger. I am deeply grateful to John for his very helpful comments on Grinnell’s background and writings. I also discuss the gendered issues underlying conservation, including the shooting, use, and preservation of birds that led to Grinnell’s founding of the Audubon Society, the publication of The Audubon Magazine (1887– 1889), the concerns it covered during its two years of existence, and the factors that led to its cessation in 1889. I then look at the revival of the Audubon movement in the mid-1890s in the form of state Audubon societies and the founding of a new journal, Bird-Lore. Here I emphasize the leadership roles played by both women and men and the passage of legislation to stem the decline of birdlife. In part II, I discuss Grinnell’s biographical writings that introduced each issue of The Audubon Magazine. I compare his biography of Audubon to Audubon’s own ornithological journals and to two early biographies of Audubon by women and place them in the context of other biographies of Audubon. I then reproduce the scanned, digitized descriptions of Au-

Merchant-final.indb x

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Preface • xi

dubon by Robert W. Shufeldt and the editorials written by George Bird Grinnell pertaining to Audubon’s life, character, and incidents, making these documents available to the public. Another major, unrecognized contribution is Grinnell’s serialized biography of Audubon’s predecessor and fellow artist Alexander Wilson (1766–1813) that occupied the fi nal eight issues of The Audubon Magazine. Grinnell’s attention to the contributions of Wilson and Audubon brought the two great founders of American ornithology to the attention of the American public. In part III, “Grinnell’s Monthly Birds,” I introduce and reproduce Grinnell’s chosen Audubon birds, along with the descriptions he wrote himself but likewise left unsigned. Appearing each month, and written for a popular audience, as a group they constituted an early field guide for a public beginning to be aroused by the plight of America’s vanishing birds. As these descriptions attest, Grinnell was not only a keen observer of birds, but also adept at writing potrayals of avifauna, a skill honed during his many years as natural history editor and then editor of Forest and Stream. In reproducing the text, spelling was slightly altered as needed. In the epilogue, I assess Grinnell’s achievements with respect to his efforts to preserve birdlife, and I briefly review his many other outstanding accomplishments. The book also includes timelines of the lives of John James and Lucy Audubon and of George Bird Grinnell that reveal the continuity of their efforts to illustrate, write about, and preserve birdlife. In an appendix, I also discuss the complex technologies of lithography and photography that allowed both Audubon and Grinnell to publish images of the birds of America. As a whole the book offers an important perspective on three individuals who were critical to the study and conservation of birds in America: Alexander Wilson, John James Audubon, and George Bird Grinnell. It also highlights women and men who supported and promoted their work. Today, copies of the fi rst The Audubon Magazine are preserved in eleven libraries in the United States, plus two in Canada and one in Ireland. Scanned copies of The Audubon Magazine and Forest and Stream are available through the Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Internet Archive (see the bibliography). In producing this book, I am grateful to the University of California, Berkeley’s Committee on Research for support through both Faculty Research Grants and Humanities GSR (Graduate Student Researcher) Grants, which provided funds for assisting with the project. I thank Dylan

Merchant-final.indb xi

4/28/16 8:34 PM

xii • Preface

Esson, who assisted in comparing Grinnell’s biography of Audubon with other contemporary biographies, and Ted Grudin, who read and checked the manuscript. I also thank Caroline Ho for assistance in scanning The Audubon Magazine editorials on a SPUR grant from UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources. In addition, I was very happy to receive a grant from the Pasadena Audubon Society in support of the project. I thank the Society and Furthermore: A Program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund for support. I began working on women in the conservation and Audubon movements in the 1980s and published a 1984 article titled “Women of the Progressive Conservation Movement, 1900–1916” in Environmental Review, portions of which I have incorporated into this book. Inspired by the women’s movements of the twentieth century, many women and men have written on the role of women and the environment as well as women in the environmental movement. I am grateful to Jennifer Price for her foundational research on how raising consciousness about women whose hats were made of bird feathers stimulated the early Audubon movement. I likewise appreciate the work of Nancy DeStefanis on the great blue herons of Stowe Lake, San Francisco, and on the role of Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and other women revivers of the Audubon movement in the 1890s. The inspiration for the book’s title, Spare the Birds!, comes from Charles Hallock’s 1875 editorial, “Spare the Birds,” from Forest and Stream, volume 4, number 7 (March 25, 1875): 104; and George Bird Grinnell’s article, “Spare the Swallows,” in Forest and Stream, volume 21, number 7 (September 13, 1883): 121. The snowy egret on the book’s jacket, painted by John James Audubon, is, in the words of Kenn Kaufman, “the founding symbol” of the Audubon movement. He writes, “The plight of the ‘plume birds’ was the catalyst that sparked the Audubon movement. At the dawn of the twentieth century, feathers from all manner of wild birds were being used in fashion, but the nuptial plumes of great egrets and snowy egrets were the most prized, selling for twice their weight in gold” (Audubon, Special Centennial Issue, 100 Years of Conservation 106, no. 5 [November–December 2004]: 1–100, quotation on p. 43). I am especially grateful to John Reiger for sharing his extensive knowledge of George Bird Grinnell’s life and manuscripts and for confi rming that the many editorials and descriptions in The Audubon Magazine that were left unsigned were in fact the writings of Grinnell. I also very much appreciate the suggestions of Frederick Davis for improving the manuscript. I thank Jean Thomson Black of Yale University Press for her as-

Merchant-final.indb xii

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Preface • xiii

tute insights and her support for publishing the book as a combination of analysis and sources and Abbeville Press for the use of colored images from Audubon’s Birds of America in part III on Grinnell’s monthly birds. I am grateful to the American Ornithologists’ Union, the American Philosophical Society, the National Audubon Society, and the New-York Historical Society for allowing me to reproduce images not in the public domain, and to the UCLA Library Special Collections for scanning images from The Audubon Magazine. I especially thank Heather Yager and Kelly Jensen of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco for allowing me to examine their four-volume, double-elephant copy of Audubon’s The Birds of America with assistance from Ted Grudin and Susan Fawcett. I am grateful to the interlibrary loan librarians of UC Berkeley and Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library for facilitating the loan of microfi lms from the George Bird Grinnell papers at Yale. I am deeply grateful to Celeste Newbrough who prepared the index for this book as well as several of my previous books. The fi rst Audubon Society, founded by George Bird Grinnell in 1886, became the National Association of Audubon Societies in 1905 and the National Audubon Society in 1940. Grinnell’s publication, The Audubon Magazine (1887–1889), was re-established as Bird-Lore in 1899 and Audubon Magazine in 1931, and in 1966 became simply Audubon (see below, “Epilogue,” pp. 238–239 and p. 297, note 10). I am indebted to the American Society for Environmental History, the Forest History Society, and Oxford University Press for allowing me to include portions of my articles “Women of the Progressive Conservation Movement, 1900–1916,” Environmental Review 8 (Spring 1984): 57– 85; and “George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society: Bridging the Gender Divide in Conservation,” Environmental History 15, no. 1 (January 2010): 3–30. I thank Wadsworth Cengage for permission to publish the captions and cartoons about gender and birding from my book Major Problems in American Environmental History, 3rd ed. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage, 2012), pp. 410–413. Responsibility for any errors is my own. I especially thank my husband, Charles Sellers, for many years of birding companionship, exploration, and photography.

Merchant-final.indb xiii

4/28/16 8:34 PM

This page intentionally left blank

Figure 1. George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938). Reproduced from Nathaniel Pitt Langford, Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in 1870 (St. Paul, MN: J. E. Haynes, 1905), following p. xxvi.

Merchant-final.indb 2

4/28/16 8:34 PM

CHA P T ER O N E

Lucy and John James Audubon’s Influence on Grinnell

The year was 1857. In that year, the seven-year-old George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938), later to become founder of the Audubon Society, moved with his family to Audubon Park in New York City. The thirty-acre wooded property on the Hudson River, between today’s 155th and 158th streets, had been acquired by artist and ornithologist John James Audubon (1785– 1851), who moved there in 1841. On January 1, 1857, the day the Grinnells arrived, it was snowing on the slushy road, hampering the horses and delaying the party’s entry into the house Grinnell’s father had leased on the estate. Th ree years later, the elder Grinnell purchased land from Audubon’s widow, Lucy, and the family built a home on what had been the Audubon’s cow pasture (figs. 1–4).1 Lucy Audubon (1787–1874) soon became a dominant force in Grinnell’s early life, even as the now-deceased John James Audubon became an inspiration and idol. Lucy had been Audubon’s mainstay throughout his career, raising their two artist sons, Victor Gifford Audubon (1809– 1860) and John Woodhouse Audubon (1812–1862), and helping to support him by teaching during the years he sought subscribers for the publication of his Birds of America (1827–1838). His success enabled the Audubon family to purchase the estate in Manhattan in 1841 and to move into their new house in 1842. John James named the new home “Minnie’s Land” after the Scott ish word for mother, his term of endearment for Lucy (figs. 5–11). After Audubon’s death in 1851 and the lingering illness of Gifford, their elder son, Lucy took up teaching again in 1857 at the age of sev• 3

Merchant-final.indb 3

4/28/16 8:34 PM

4 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

Figure 2. Audubon Park map, 1851. Reproduced from Matt hew Dripps, Map of the City and County of New York North of 50th Street, Surveyed and Drawn by R. A. Jones (New York: M. Dripps, 1851).

enty. Th is time she taught on the Audubon estate. Her schoolroom was in Gifford’s house and her students were Gifford’s six children and Woodhouse’s nine children, for a total of fi fteen grandchildren. In addition, her schoolhouse included children from other homes on the estate—among these students was George Bird Grinnell.2 Here her dynamic personality, dedication to educating the young, and love of birds and animals made an indelible impression on her youthful charges. But following the death of both her sons, Lucy sold Audubon Park in 1863 at the age of seventy-five and moved to a boardinghouse in Washington Heights.3

Merchant-final.indb 4

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Figure 3. Audubon Park showing Grinnell property, 1873. Detail from Map of the City of New York North of 155th Street, Compiled and Drawn by Edward S. Ewen, entered according to act of Congress in the year 1873, by Edward S. Ewen, in the office of the Library of Congress at Washington, 1873. htt p:// www.audubonparkny.com/AudubonParkMap1870s.html.

Figure 4. Grinnell home, “The Hemlocks,” Audubon Park, New York City, built about 1857. Plate 2 from A. K. Fisher, “In Memoriam, George Bird Grinnell,” The Auk 56, no. 1 (Jan. 1939): 1–14, facing p. 8. Used by permission of the American Ornithologists’ Union.

Merchant-final.indb 5

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Figure 5. John James Audubon (1785–1851). Painting by Frederick Cruikshank, about 1831. From Francis Hobart Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1917), frontispiece.

Figure 6. Lucy Bakewell Audubon (1787–1874). Painting by Frederick Cruik shank, 1835. From Maria R. Audubon, ed., Audubon and His Journals, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897), p. 64.

Merchant-final.indb 6

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Figure 7. Victor Gifford Audubon (1809–1860). Painting by Frederick Cruickshank, 1838. From Maria R. Audubon, ed., Audubon and His Journals, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897), p. 384.

Figure 8. John Woodhouse Audubon (1812–1862). Painting by Frederick Cruickshank, 1838. From Maria R. Audubon, ed., Audubon and His Journals, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897), p. 412.

Merchant-final.indb 7

4/28/16 8:34 PM

8 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

Figure 9. Audubon home, “Minnie’s Land,” Audubon Park, New York City, 1852. From Mrs. Horace St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World: His Adventures and Discoveries (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee and Company, 1861), title page. Painting by William Rickarby Miller (1818–1893), July 4, 1852, engraved by Richardson and Cox, in Anonymous, Homes of American Authors Comprising Anecdotal, Personal and Descriptive Sketches, by Various Writers (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1853), pp. 1–20, illustration on p. 3.

Looking back on his life on the Audubon estate and his relationship with the Audubon family, Grinnell wrote in 1916: My father [George Blake Grinnell, 1823–1892] was for many years a near neighbor of the Audubons [fig. 12]. I attended a school conducted by Madam Audubon in the Victor [Gifford] Audubon house, where she lived, and as a boy I often saw Victor. I remember him as bedridden from an injury, and he died, I think, in August, 1860. John Woodhouse I knew very well in the way that a small boy may know a middle aged man. I used to play with the sons of Victor and John Woodhouse about the houses and barns of the Audubon family, and John [Woodhouse] Audubon as a friend of my father’s was often at my father’s house. He was a bluff, gruff, but friendly man, and was always willing to talk about birds, mammals, or, indeed, any natural history object, to any boy who asked him questions. It was to him that I took a small “pigeon” which I had killed near

Merchant-final.indb 8

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Lucy and John James Audubon’s Influence on Grinnell • 9 our home, which he identified as a ground dove (Chamapelia passerina). I noted the taking of this bird many years afterward. John Woodhouse Audubon died in 1862. The Audubon family and many of their kinsfolk were, of course, well known to their near neighbors. I used to see some of the Berthouds, Bachmans, Talmans and Mallorys, the latter being relatives of Mrs. Victor Audubon, Victor’s second wife, who was Georgine R. Mallory.4

Grinnell’s formative years, from the age of seven until the age of fourteen—when he left for Churchill Military School in Ossining, New York, in 1863 and then Yale University in the fall of 1866—were spent roaming

Figure 10. Home of John James Audubon in “Minnie’s Land,” New York City. Taken in 1852, the year after Audubon’s death. Individuals probably include widow, Lucy Audubon, dressed in black on right side of porch; son John Woodhouse Audubon with second wife, Caroline Hall; son Victor Gifford Audubon with second wife, Georgiana Mallory; granddaughters Lucy and Harriet (children of John Woodhouse and fi rst wife, Maria Bachman); and other grandchildren. Reproduced from Bird-Lore 34, no. 3 (1932): 101. Courtesy National Audubon Society. Caption on illustration in Bird-Lore says, “Museum of the City of New York, J. Clarence Davis Collection.”

Merchant-final.indb 9

4/28/16 8:34 PM

10 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

Figure 11. Lucy Bakewell Audubon and granddaughters Lucy and Harriet. Reproduced from Bird-Lore 34, no. 3 (1932): 102. Courtesy National Audubon Society. Caption on illustration in Bird-Lore says, “Taken from original negative belonging to Miss Harriet Audubon, ninety-one years of age, now of Louisville. Courtesy Kentucky Club Women.”

the wooded lands of Audubon Park and exploring Audubon’s collections of specimens and paintings in his workshop. Chestnuts, oaks, and hemlocks overlooked the Hudson River, while the land itself was fi lled with country roads, wandering deer and elk, and flocks of migrating robins and passenger pigeons. Grinnell later wrote that he played in “an old barn” near Audubon’s house “which may have been built by the naturalist for the accommodation of some of his wild animals” and which “was a favorite place for climbing about by the small boys.” He noted that “close up under its roof, bats used to spend the day, and several were caught here during my investigations of the roof beams.”5 In his “Memoirs” (written in 1915), covering his life until 1883, Grinnell vividly described the influence of Audubon’s collections and of Lucy’s teachings. The houses occupied by Victor [Gifford] and John Woodhouse Audubon were interesting because they were so full of material pertaining to the great naturalist. On the walls were the antlers of deer and elk, supporting rifles and shotguns, . . . powder horns and shot, and ball pouches. There were many trophies from the Missouri River, a region which in those days seemed infi nitely remote and romantic with its tales of trappers, trading posts and Indians. Paintings of birds and animals adorned the walls of the rooms, many from the brush of John James Audubon and others from those of his sons or . . . his assistants. I remember particularly the painting of pheasants and spaniels . . . the painting of the eagle and the lamb, . . . and two or three portraits of the naturalist, at least one of them by himself.6

Merchant-final.indb 10

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Lucy and John James Audubon’s Influence on Grinnell • 11

Grinnell learned not only arithmetic and reading from “Grandma Audubon,” but a respect for birdlife that would later shape his efforts to preserve vanishing plume birds through founding the Audubon Society. He recalled one of his experiences as follows: One morning in late winter or early spring, on my way to school, I had almost reached the Victor Audubon house when I saw a dozen or twenty small greenish birds feeding on the grass under a pine tree. I approached them slowly, trying to see what they were; and they did not fly, even when I was within a few feet of them. I did not know them, and they were so tame that I resolved to try to catch one. The crab net used in summer always hung in the area under the Victor Audubon piazza, and backing away from the birds I ran there, secured the net, and returned. It was not difficult for a cautious lad to get near enough to the litt le birds to pass the net over one, and when I had caught it I rushed into the house and up to Grandma’s room, and showed her my prize. She told me that the bird was a Red Crossbill—a young one—pointed out the peculiarities of the bill, told me something about the bird’s life, and later showed me a picture of it. Then after a litt le talk she and I went downstairs and out-of-doors, found the birds still feeding there, and set the captive free.7

Figure 12. George Bird Grinnell in front of Audubon home, Audubon Park, New York City, 1917. From Francis Hobart Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1917), facing p. 236. Figure of Grinnell identified by John Reiger, personal communication.

Merchant-final.indb 11

4/28/16 8:34 PM

12 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

Figure 13. Lucy Audubon in 1871. From Francis Hobart Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1917), facing p. 304. The caption there reads, “After an unpublished photograph taken in 1871. Published by courtesy of Miss Florence Audubon.”

He described Lucy Audubon as “a beautiful, white-haired old lady with extraordinary poise and dignity; most kindly and patient and affectionate, but a strict disciplinarian of whom all the children stood in awe” (fig. 13). He not only admired her but att ributed Audubon’s success to her steadfast support and encouragement. She “molded his character, shaped his aims, gave substance to his dreams, and fi nally, by the exercise of that self-denial which he was incapable of as a long-sustained effort, won for him the public recognition and reward of his splendid talents.”8 But Grinnell’s early life was formed not only by appreciation of nature but also by sport hunting. His fi rst shooting experiences occurred in 1860 or 1861, when he was around eleven or twelve years old, in the company of older boys on the estate. Borrowing guns and powder, they tracked and shot small birds such as “meadowlarks, robins, golden-winged woodpeckers and occasionally a wild pigeon.” With more experience they expanded their territory and prey to include “small sandpipers and small herons” and occasionally a duck. A year or two later, Grinnell received his fi rst double-barreled gun from his uncle and began hunting at a nearby lake,

Merchant-final.indb 12

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Lucy and John James Audubon’s Influence on Grinnell • 13

where quail and snipe were to be seen, and closer to home, practicing on a woodcock in the garden. Green herons in the swamps, ducks and geese on the river, and eagles and crows in the treetops provided constant challenges and excitement for the young shooters.9 Linking birding and shooting was Grinnell’s increasing skill at skinning and preserving the birds and animals he captured. In his later hunts and expeditions, he skinned and described for the benefit of science the organisms that fi lled the forests, prairies, and plains on which he spent so many of his waking hours. And when he became natural history editor and then editor of Forest and Stream, and later became editor of The Audubon Magazine, he put his talent for description to continual use. Much of Grinnell’s future work was influenced by the gender divide into which he was socialized. The nineteenth-century cult of domesticity presumed that men’s sphere was outside the home, working in industry, developing new technologies, and exploring new territories, while women’s was inside the home, providing a moral focus, raising children, and countering the amoral, get-ahead mentality of the workplace. The case of the Audubons was no different: John James was the explorer and wanderer, Lucy the mainstay and supporter. Yet it was Lucy’s steadfast determination that Audubon should succeed in painting and publishing The Birds of America that made it possible for the painter, with his lack of business acumen, to achieve his goals. In Grinnell’s case, the powerful influence of Lucy Audubon led him not only to appreciate birdlife, but to found fi rst the Audubon Society in 1886, while simultaneously being socialized into the masculine practices of hunting, shooting, and exploring the Great West, and then the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887 with Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). Grinnell’s experiences as an explorer in the West and as a sport hunter would influence his view that conservation should be guided by a sportsman’s code of conduct, which would preserve animals and birds that could be shot in season as game, but would not exploit them for profit or poach them for the market.10 Although, in looking back at his early years, Grinnell may have exaggerated Lucy’s influence on his own consciousness in his desire to emphasize his connection to the Audubons, Grinnell certainly did gain much of his knowledge and appreciation of avifauna from his years on the Audubon estate. And throughout his life he continued to relive those experiences as he resided in the family’s home on the original Audubon estate and worked in downtown Manhattan (at 40 Park Row) editing Forest and Stream and The Audubon Magazine.11

Merchant-final.indb 13

4/28/16 8:34 PM

14 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

In what follows, I present a narrative of Grinnell’s work with the Audubon Society and The Audubon Magazine during the years 1886–1889. I discuss the formative role played by gender both in creating the Audubon Society and in serving as background to Grinnell’s biography and analyses of Audubon as serialized in The Audubon Magazine. At the core of that narrative is George Bird Grinnell’s work on behalf of birdlife. Grinnell played a foundational role in raising women’s consciousness regarding the plundering of avifauna during the 1880s, although he became less visible after he dissolved the Audubon Society in 1889, when the women whose awareness he had aroused became more central to the story. It was Grinnell’s great achievement, however, to propel forward the preservation of birdlife and to found the fi rst Audubon Society.

Merchant-final.indb 14

4/28/16 8:34 PM

CHA P T ER T WO

Grinnell’s Audubon Society

George Bird Grinnell’s early life on John James Audubon’s New York City estate in the 1850s and 1860s occurred during a period of changing gender roles in American society. Moreover, his appreciation of birdlife and his development of a sportsman’s code of hunting reflected his connections to an incipient conservation movement. Also formative were his experiences attending Yale University from 1866 to 1870 and accompanying paleontologist O. C. Marsh on an 1870 expedition to the American West. During the ten-year period between 1870, when he received his BA, and 1880, when he was awarded his PhD in paleontology, both from Yale, his interests in avifauna, megafauna, and mineralogy coalesced. Expeditions to the West, editorial work for Forest and Stream, and membership on the American Ornithologists’ Union’s Committee on the Protection of North American Birds set the stage for his 1886 founding of the Audubon Society. In this chapter, I place Grinnell’s efforts to save American birds in the context of changing gender roles in American society. I detail his work to found the Audubon Society and The Audubon Magazine and the forces that led to their decline and subsequent revival. I emphasize the influence that women who responded to the loss of birds for the hat trade had in raising the consciousness of other women.1

• Nature and Gender in Nineteenth-Century America Nature in America was threatened in the late nineteenth century as in no previous era. Infatuation with vanishing nature affected women and

Merchant-final.indb 15

• 15

4/28/16 8:34 PM

16 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

men in different but significant ways. The conservation movement can be understood in part by examining how gender roles changed under the growth of industrial capitalism during this period. Both domestic economic development and expanding geographical boundaries framed a changing patriarchal society. In the largely agrarian society of the earlyand mid-nineteenth century, male identity was defi ned by land ownership and female identity by household management. Patriarchy constituted a separation of male economic and female household spheres, with the male realm superior to that of the female but with both equally necessary to the success of the economic unit. As industrial capitalism expanded during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the identities of many males, previously defi ned as heads of household units comprising land and labor in a single location, evolved in new directions. Men began to see themselves as white-collar managers or as blue-collar workers in factory locations outside the home. Within the home, women assumed stronger roles as moral models for and teachers of boys and girls within an increasingly amoral capitalist society.2 In the last quarter of the century, men experienced a contraction of options for engaging with undeveloped nature. In 1890, the census declared the end of the unbroken frontier. Men’s identities as frontiersmen, explorers, fur traders, and soldiers truncated, while their employment as industrial laborers, mechanics, and businessmen expanded. Yet these changes also initiated new possibilities for challenging encounters with nature that reinforced masculinity. Outdoor clubs such as the Appalachian Mountain Club (1886), the Boone and Crockett Club (1887), the Sierra Club (1892), and the Mazamas of Portland, Oregon (1894) created opportunities for testing male strength and endurance. Male virility could be reinforced by the hunt for big game and collection of trophies. The appearance of outdoor-oriented journals such as American Sportsman in 1871, Forest and Stream in 1873, and Outdoor Life in the 1890s stimulated the male imagination and inculcated a desire for outdoor engagement.3 During the same period, women’s roles expanded too. Whether as educated single women or as homemakers supported by successful husbands, many gained opportunities for public service and activities outside the home. Like men, they joined outdoor hiking and mountaineering clubs and appreciated wild nature through botany, birding, and animal study. And like men they also became hunters and fishers as well as conservationists. During the 1890s and early 1900s, they spoke out forcefully on behalf of vanishing resources such as forests, wildlife, and birds and joined

Merchant-final.indb 16

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 17

in efforts to mitigate the detrimental effects of garbage, sewage, smoke, and noise. They participated in movements such as the country life movement; in groups such as the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Women’s National Rivers and Harbors Congress; and in local and national campaigns to improve the environment for future generations. Likewise, the sanitation movement enlisted women in urban areas who saw their roles as homemakers expand outward to municipal housekeeping.4

• Gender and Conservation Relevant to the conservation of fauna and avifauna in the late nineteenth century was the role of women as sport hunters. Women’s voices found a place in Forest and Stream in the 1870s through the early 1900s under the editorships of Charles Hallock and George Bird Grinnell. In 1873 the journal published a letter, “To the Ladies,” and by 1874 six women were regular contributors to the journal. Then, in 1877 it introduced a feature titled “Our Ladies’ Department.” Th roughout the remainder of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Forest and Stream worked with women to publish articles by and about women’s experiences as hunters and fishers. A major goal of the journal was to elevate sport hunting above subsistence and market hunting by introducing a “gentlemen’s” code of conduct. Embracing women as hunters helped to promote the class interests of hunting as a sport with codes that dictated which animals, birds, and fish were acceptable for taking in which seasons. Andrea Smalley argues that “while historians have stressed the connections between ‘blood sports’ and masculinity, turn-of-the-century sportsmen wielded gender in a far more complicated and contradictory way. Outdoor periodicals advanced a defi nition of sport hunting that included both primitive, virile masculinity and modern, respectable femininity. While men represented the long human history of hunting, women symbolized those qualities of recreational hunting that elevated the sport above all other forms of wildlife use. It was on that basis that sportsmen argued for conservation legislation. Using a gendered language of conservation, journals located legitimate hunting within the realm of genteel leisure while characterizing other forms of hunting as low-brow, disreputable, and unsportsmanlike.”5 Within the conservation movement, birds represented a unique intersection of gender tensions that both united and divided male and female

Merchant-final.indb 17

4/28/16 8:34 PM

18 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

identities. Male virility could be demonstrated by hunting large game animals such as elk, bear, bison, and mountain sheep, with mounted trophies displayed in homes and mountain cabins. Skill and craft iness could be established in fishing through casting, trolling, nett ing, and spearing. Accuracy and ability with the gun could be proven by shooting game birds on the wing. But shooting small game birds in the fields and forests did not add as much prestige to the trophy cabinets of the would-be top-ranked hunter as did much larger game animals. Birds, moreover, had an association with femininity as garments of headwear that marked women as objects of beauty and wealth, sett ing them out at the upper echelons of their social circles. The market hunters who supplied these ladies of fashion with their feathers were looked down upon by recreational sport hunters who achieved their male identities through the sportsman’s code of hunting. Birds thus held a complex place in establishing and maintaining gender identities. And that very crosscutt ing, multifaceted location was reinforced by the roles played by male and female conservationists.6 In the turn-of-the-century conservation movement, men who saved forests, mountains, and big game held more prestige than those who worked with women to save birds and flowers. In his article, “Political Hermaphrodites” (a turn-of-the-century term used to denigrate men who joined with women in reform movements), Adam Rome argues that some men embraced the contributions of women to conservation, while others distanced themselves from women’s actions and rhetoric. John Muir welcomed women’s support and was pictured instructing women of the Sierra Club, but was lampooned as dressed in a skirt and apron using a broom to sweep back the flood waters of the Hetch Hetchy Project (fig. 14). John Burroughs was photographed with women naturalists supporting what he called the “feminine idiosyncrasy,” but vigorously opposed sentimentality in writing about nature. In praising the Audubon Society, Theodore Roosevelt wrote glowingly of spring bird songs and the beauty of flowers, but was cautious about using florid language in public and cultivated a civic persona of sportsman and hunter. Gifford Pinchot initially welcomed the contributions of women to saving the nation’s forests, but during the controversy over damming Hetch Hetchy Valley in the early twentieth century backed off from seeking their support. Frank Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, welcomed the support of women, however, and worked with Mabel Osgood Wright to edit Bird-Lore (which he founded in 1899 as the successor to Grinnell’s The Audubon Magazine). Yet Chapman, like Muir, was

Merchant-final.indb 18

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Figure 14. John Muir sweeping back the flood of the Hetch Hetchy waters. Reproduced from San Francisco Call, December 13, 1909, page 1. Between 1909 and 1913, John Muir led a nationwide campaign for the preservation of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park in opposition to San Francisco’s proposal to dam the valley as a water source for the city. San Francisco’s city engineer, Marsden Manson, in 1910 wrote that opponents of San Francisco’s plan consisted largely of “short-haired women and long-haired men.” During the controversy, this cartoon of a long-haired John Muir—dressed in a flowered hat, white-collared dress, bloomers, and apron, and sweeping back the waters of Hetch Hetchy—appeared in the city newspaper, The San Francisco Call. It reflects the impression that supporters of retaining the valley as part of Yosemite National Park were largely nature-loving women and sentimental men.

Merchant-final.indb 19

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Figure 15. Frank Chapman leading women to save the birds. Reproduced from The Condor 3, no. 2 (Mar.–Apr. 1901): 55. Ornithologist Frank M. Chapman (1864–1945) of the American Museum of Natural History became an ardent advocate for bird protection after the experience of shooting several rare Carolina parakeets fi lled him with chagrin at his own actions. But this cartoon, which appeared in 1901 in the California ornithological journal The Condor, lampoons his efforts to work with women. It shows Chapman with camera and field glasses leading an army of women from state Audubon societies (A.S., including Conn., N.Y., Mass., and D.C.) carrying binoculars and signs promoting bird preservation. The signs read: “Hurray for the 2 Teddies: T. P. and T. R.” [Theodore Sherman Palmer (1868–1955), ornithologist, and Theodore Roosevelt, president]; “Witmer Stone [1866–1939]/William Dutcher [1846–1920],” [both well-known American ornithologists]; “Down with Milliners [manufacturers of women’s hats decorated with feathers]/Vive Lacey [John F. Lacey, sponsor of the Lacey Act of 1900 making it unlawful to import wildlife]”; and “Subscribe to BirdLore” [journal of the National Association of Audubon Societies]. A woman beats a drum labeled “Audubon Society,” while on the right, women with Audubon Society bonnets chastise a male plume hunter who holds a rifle and several dead birds. Chapman himself carries a stack of books titled Bird-Lore,

Merchant-final.indb 20

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 21

lampooned as outfitted with binoculars and camera, leading an army of women bearing binoculars in support of birdlife, while chastising bird hunters who used guns (fig. 15). Rome’s work on “political hermaphrodites” reflects an emerging gender differentiation in women’s and men’s work in conservation by the turn of the century.7

• Grinnell’s Role in Bridging the Gender Divide How did Grinnell, as founder of the Audubon Society in 1886 and the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887, fit into this gender-based framework that emerged between the 1880s and 1900s? What were the influences that allowed him to work with both women and men in the conservation of birds and bison? One of them was the forceful role played by the Audubon family in shaping Grinnell’s early life and arousing his interest in saving avifauna.8 Another influence was Grinnell’s work with paleontologist O[thniel] C[harles] Marsh of Yale University and his 1874 and 1875 excursions to the West that reinforced his appreciation of the rugged frontier, the skills of native peoples, and the tragedies of vanishing nature. His efforts to save the bison, his editorship of the sportsman’s journal Forest and Stream (through which he promoted conservation), and his founding of the Boone and Crockett Club with Theodore Roosevelt gave him full confidence in his own masculine ability to confront the frontier. In his Ornithological Biography (published in five volumes between 1831 and 1839) Audubon detailed his own life on the frontiers of America along with accounts of the country’s loss of wildlife and of the habits of the birds he shot and painted. Like Audubon and Roosevelt, Grinnell was not only a nature lover but also a hunter. These formative influences on Grinnell’s identity left him open to working with both women and men during the years that he edited Forest and Stream and launched the Audubon movement.9

Figure 15 (continued). Bird Papers, Hand Book of Birds, Bird Life, and Bird Studies. An assistant carries a case of photographic dry plates labeled with Chapman’s initials, FMC. In the lower right, a shield bearing the phrases Bonum Opus (Good work) and Sumus Vobiscum (We are with you) shows a bird in the bush (on the left) as equal to two dead birds (on the right), while below them an arrow and gun are contrasted with a camera and paintbrush.

Merchant-final.indb 21

4/28/16 8:34 PM

22 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

Several gender-linked issues dominated the early years of concern over vanishing avifauna: hunters who shot migrating birds during both the spring and fall migrations, men who hunted birds with guns under the pretext of being scientific collectors, boys who collected and sold eggs from bird nests, and women who wore hats adorned with feathers and sometimes even entire birds atop their heads.10 Of these issues, the hat trade inspired the greatest public protest. By the 1880s, hundreds of thousands of birds, including song birds, herons, egrets, swallows, and terns, were being sacrificed for fashion. Louis Antoine Godey, producer of Godey’s Ladies’ Book featured bonnets of “sapphire blue-velvet trimmed with flowers and a gay colored bird”; hats of ruby velvet trimmed with lace, birds, and aigrette; and “coquett ishly bent hat(s) of white leghorn, with . . . trimmings of white plumes and chiffon.”11 Then in 1886 Grinnell founded the Audubon Society amid mounting concern over the decline of melodious songbirds (such as warblers and bluebirds), showy plume birds (such as egrets and herons), and even game birds (such as pheasants and quails) that were being hunted all over the United States to serve as decorations for women’s hats.12 During the course of promoting the society, Grinnell eventually became convinced that women were key to the project of stopping the hat trade. In order to achieve that outcome he needed to martial female bird lovers to convince female hat lovers to cease wearing birds in their bonnets. The society lasted until 1889, when Grinnell dissolved it for practical and fi nancial reasons, which are discussed later in this chapter. The story of Grinnell’s work to save the nation’s avifauna is one of dramatic upturns and downturns, hope and despair, and critique and counter-critique. Th at saga, played out in the pages of Grinnell’s two journals—Forest and Stream and The Audubon Magazine, illustrates the complexity of bridging the gender divide in conservation.13 What follows is a detailed narrative of the period between 1880 and 1905. I call this narrative type a gendered dialectic. It moves back and forth between male and female blame and responsibility. It moves from men blaming women for wearing bird hats to men blaming market hunters (as opposed to collectors and ornithologists) to men accepting personal responsibility for losses of bird species. Similarly, it moves from women recognizing the loss of birds to headgear worn by their sisters to assuming responsibility for raising female awareness to full-blown activism by female organizations that were trying to halt the feather trade. It moves onward to women and men working together to form Audubon societies in their

Merchant-final.indb 22

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 23

states and to pass legislation to preserve avifauna. At the core of the gendered narrative is Grinnell and his two journals. Grinnell plays a formative role in bridging the gender divide as the dialectic progresses, but becomes less visible after the Audubon Society dissolves. Then, the women whose awareness he aroused become more central to the story. The following is Grinnell’s story, its ups and downs, and the tale of how gender played a formative role in the narrative.

• Grinnell’s Early Work Leading up to the founding of the Audubon Society was Grinnell’s work for Forest and Stream: A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun, Angling, Shooting, the Kennel, Practical Natural History, Fishculture, Protection of Game, and the Inculcation in Men and Women of a Healthy Interest in Out-Door Recreation and Study. The most prominent of several sportsmen’s journals of the period, Forest and Stream grew out of an effort to transform commercial hunting for profit into sport hunting for pleasure. One of its major goals was to wage war against the exploitation of wildlife made easier by better guns, ammunition, transportation, and distribution networks that put fish and game on the tables of urbanites. The belief behind the journal was that killing for fun or for the market, poaching for profit, and shooting defenseless quarry should give way to a sportsman’s code of conduct that would preserve declining populations. For the sportsman, game birds could ethically be shot in season, but nongame birds should be left untouched. Traffickers, however, were decimating game birds for the pot, and plume birds and songbirds for the hat. Of significance for the movement to save birds from the fate of the hat was the appeal in the journal’s subtitle (given at the beginning of this paragraph) to the outdoor interests of both women and men.14 Forest and Stream’s fi rst editor, Charles Hallock, had already reprinted articles from British publications on the destruction of birdlife and in 1875 had written an editorial, titled “Spare the Birds,” against the wearing of feather hats. “Every bird whose gift of glorious plumage makes him a mark for the adornment of a lady’s hat,” he lamented, “is eagerly sought for in the market, and the coming fashion of ornamenting dresses also, is increasing the demand and corresponding slaughter.”15 During the 1880s, Grinnell continued to use the journal to call attention to the widespread destruction of avifauna. Th rough editorials, articles, letters, and contri-

Merchant-final.indb 23

4/28/16 8:34 PM

24 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

butions, the publication documented the increasing concern among readers of the consequences of that decline for agriculture, forests, and other life forms. Anticipating the need for action regarding avifauna, several articles appeared in Forest and Stream during the early 1880s. On September 13, 1883, Grinnell issued an appeal to “Spare the Swallows,” that heralded the value of birds as insect control agents and anticipated his lifelong goal to “spare the birds” that would be the inspiration for the Audubon Society. To supply the milliners’ demands, their agents shot thousands of swallows under the eaves of barns to obtain wings and breasts for hats. But the real value of birds as insectivores went unappreciated. “The laws,” Grinnell stated, “forbid the killing of insectivorous birds: let the laws be enforced.”16 By that time, laws protecting nongame birds had been passed in some twenty eastern and midwestern states. In the era before insecticides, birds were one of the primary means of biological control of insect pests.17 A gender differentiation soon became apparent, however, with some writers laying the major blame on men for shooting songbirds, and others defending men while blaming women for wearing headgear adorned with songbirds. In April 1884, a correspondent for Forest and Stream called for a new law to prevent the shooting by men and boys of insectivorous songbirds, urging that they lay down their guns and abandon their cabinets of stuffed bird skins in favor of sketching and painting. Another correspondent, however, defended young boys, noting that the greatest ornithologists—Audubon, Alexander Wilson, Spencer Fullerton Baird, Elliott Coues, and others—were themselves once boys who learned to love birds by shooting them and stealing eggs. Then he asked the opposite question, “Do the ladies themselves really care for the birds?” He noted that killing for millinery far exceeded killing for private collections of skins.18 In August of 1884, Grinnell penned a long editorial in Forest and Stream titled “The Sacrifice of Song Birds.” He railed against the commonplace practice of wearing bird bonnets as a virtually accepted feature of civilization. The hundreds of thousands of birds used in the hat trade did not come from South America or Africa, as many assumed, but from the United States itself, he said. “From Florida to Maine,” he wrote, “the bird butchers are shooting, nett ing, snaring and poisoning, seven days in every week and every week in the season. Middlemen gather up the sanguinary harvest and forward it to the milliner-taxidermists’ shops, where the skins are prepared and then sent to the dealers. . . . The milliners’ campaign against the birds strikes directly at the farmer. Diminution of insec-

Merchant-final.indb 24

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 25

tivorous birds is always surely and swift ly followed by an increase in the hordes of noxious insect pests. . . . [D]estruction of birds means destruction of crops. . . . It is a hard price for farmers to pay for feminine feathered fi nery.”19 In his “Natural History” column in the same issue, Grinnell elaborated on the growth of the trade and the hundreds of individuals who shot birds. Boxes of dead birds were delivered to taxidermists, who employed young girls to skin them, after which the taxidermists sold the skins to milliners. He called on all to join with the ornithologists in developing a love of birds and expressing opposition to the practice.20 In a seeming parody of Grinnell’s main message, however, the last pages of each issue of Forest and Stream were fi lled with advertisements for guns, ammunition, decoys, hunting dogs, and shooting suits. One ad for Allen’s Specialties showed a cartoon of a man in a rowboat falling off his seat shooting waterbirds that mock him as they fly away with cries of “We ain’t afraid of your kind,” and “If you want to get us, use Allen’s Bow Facers” (that is, Allen’s Bow-Facing Rowing Gear). Whereas these ads presumably appealed to the sportsman who shot game birds in season, to some readers they might increasingly seem to contradict Grinnell’s larger message.21 A note published in the August 6, 1885, issue brought mixed news: “The fashion for ornamenting ladies’ hats with small bird skins is declining, and the use of the long shafted wing and tail feathers of much larger species is coming in. Th is is good: the bay birds will have a rest, not, however, as they should until all spring shooting ceases.”22 Amid the wider issues of sportsmanship and the preservation of all forms of wildlife that engaged the readers of Forest and Stream, the accelerating devastation of nongame birds presaged the need for a special nationwide effort to save them.

• Founding the Audubon Society The Audubon Society emerged from the recognition by professional ornithologists that birds all over the United States were declining in numbers and from the reluctance of the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) to take on the role of building a popular movement. Th is gap between professional science and public outreach created the occasion for Grinnell to rise to the challenge. Grinnell had become a member of the six-person

Merchant-final.indb 25

4/28/16 8:34 PM

26 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

Committee on the Protection of North American Birds, established at the second annual meeting of the AOU in 1884 and expanded to a ten-person committee in 1885. In addition to Grinnell, the committee included ornithologist William Brewster, who was its fi rst chair; Frank Chapman of the American Museum of Natural History, who in 1899 founded BirdLore; and William Dutcher, who in 1905 became the fi rst president of the National Association of Audubon Societies. In 1886, the committee published 100,000 copies of a supplement to Science that contained a “model law” to be adopted by each state, along with a collection of articles documenting the destruction of birdlife. The need to arouse the public to the problems associated with declining avifauna provided an ideal opening for Grinnell’s journal.23 Against this background, in the February 11, 1886, issue of Forest and Stream, Grinnell announced the formation of a new organization to be named the Audubon Society. In an editorial of that name, he laid out the foundations for an organization “dedicated to halt the decline of American birds by arousing public sentiment.” He urged the public to rise in opposition to the killing of birds for the millinery trade and reached out to women to take the lead in opposing the practice. “The reform in America, as elsewhere,” he wrote, “must be inaugurated by women, and if the subject is properly called to their notice, their tender hearts will be quick to respond.”24 The traffic in bird skins had grown to hundreds of thousands of birds, as indicated by statistics showing that a single middleman might slaughter as many as 70,000 birds in a four-month period. The decline especially affected farmers who depended on birds for keeping down crop pests. But the new movement, Grinnell warned, would be slow unless everyone took an interest in the project of awakening the public in the place where it would have the most effect—the pocketbooks of the traffickers. Grinnell wrote, “Very slowly the public are awakening to see that the fashion of wearing the feathers and skins of birds is abominable. . . . If the women of America will take hold . . . they can accomplish an incalculable amount of good.”25 Grinnell then put forward the rationale for the name Audubon Society, stating that Audubon’s paintings had done more to teach Americans about their beautiful birds than had the efforts of any other person. In the fi rst half of this century there lived a man who did more to teach Americans about birds of their own land than any other who ever lived. His beauti-

Merchant-final.indb 26

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 27 ful and spirited paintings and his charming and tender accounts of the habits of his favorites have made him immortal, and have inspired his countrymen with an ardent love for the birds. The land which produced the painter naturalist, John James Audubon, will not willingly see the beautiful forms he loved so [much be destroyed].26

Grinnell then proposed that a new organization dedicated to the protection of wild birds and their eggs be called the Audubon Society. Its membership would be free to anyone willing to lend a helping hand. The goals would be to prevent, as much as possible, “(1) the killing of any wild birds not used for food, (2) the destruction of nests or eggs of any wild bird, and (3) the wearing of feathers as ornaments or trimming for dress.” The aim of the society was “the protection of American non-game birds.” He called for the formation of branch societies all over the country that would distribute information locally. The work would be in cooperation with and ancillary to that of the AOU. He urged all those who would like to join to send their names to Forest and Stream, 40 Park Row, New York City, NY.27 In subsequent issues of Forest and Stream, Grinnell continued to develop his proposal. He noted that it was only within the past few years that such action was needed due to the recent slaughter of massive numbers of birds, which was in defiance of laws already on the books of many states. Until public outcry halted the practice, the laws would have no efficacy. He compared the protest needed to outcries against the slaughter of bison.28 Grinnell was enormously encouraged by the initial response to the society.29 Soon after the announcement of its formation, he received enthusiastic responses from prominent men who laid the onus for the decline of birds on the millinery trade and the women who were complicit in it, continuing the male-dominated phase of the gendered dialectic. Clergyman Henry Ward Beecher expressed his wholehearted sympathy for the protection of birds, writing that only women could halt the trade by halting the demand for feathers. He wrote, “As only women create a demand, it rests upon them to stay this wanton destruction. I am sure that it is only necessary to bring before American women the cruelty of this ‘slaughter of the innocents’ that fashion is carrying on to secure a renunciation of this ornament and the salvation of birds.”30 Writer John Greenleaf Whitt ier stated that hunters, taxidermists, and women who wore feathers should bear the same penalty as the An-

Merchant-final.indb 27

4/28/16 8:34 PM

28 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

cient Mariner who shot the albatross: “I heartily approve of the proposed Audubon Society. We are in a way to destroy both our forests and our birds. . . . I could almost wish that the shooters of the birds, the taxidermists who prepare their skins, and the fashionable wearers of their feathers might share the penalty which was visited upon the Ancient Mariner who shot the Albatross.”31 G. E. Gordon, president of the American Humane Society, wrote from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that women needed to be educated in the crime they perpetrated by wearing feathers. He wrote, “Fashion is so imperious that it leads the best hearts astray. If the women could only know what they are doing! They don’t know, and hence they carry and flaunt, as a decoration, that which is destined before long to mark the commission of a crime against the Nature we all love. . . . Your Audubon Societies, for the protection of our birds will enroll many thousands of women as ardent bird protectors who are now, unconsciously, accessories in the wanton, wholesale and most disastrous destruction of the most beautiful denizens of our fields, orchards and woods.”32 Additional indictment of women who wore birds on their heads came from the ornithological community itself. In 1886, ornithologist Frank Chapman made a checklist as he walked through New York City of the birds worn on women’s heads. He said of this list, “In view of the fact that the destruction of birds for millinery purposes is at present attracting general attention, the appended list of native birds seen on hats worn by ladies in the streets of New York may be of interest. It is chiefly the result of two late afternoon walks through the uptown shopping districts, and, while very incomplete, still gives an idea of the species destroyed and the relative numbers of each.” Robin, four. Brown thrush, one. Bluebird, three. Blackburnian warbler, one. Blackpoll warbler, three. Wilson’s black-capped flycatcher, three. Scarlet tanager, three. White-bellied swallow, one. Bohemian waxwing, one. Waxwing, twenty-three.

Merchant-final.indb 28

Great northern shrike, one. Pine grosbeak, one. Snow bunting, fi fteen. Tree sparrow, two. White-throated sparrow, one. Bobolink, one. Meadow lark, two. Baltimore oriole, nine. Purple grackle, five. Bluejay, five. Swallow-tailed flycatcher, one.

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 29 Kingbird, one. Kingfi sher, one. Pileated woodpecker, one. Red-headed woodpecker, two. Golden-winged woodpecker, twenty-one. Acadian owl, one. Carolina dove, one. Pinnated grouse, one. Ruffed grouse, two.

Quail, sixteen. Helmet quail, two. Sanderling, five Big yellowlegs, one. Green heron, one. Virginia rail, one. Laughing gull, one. Common tern, twenty-one. Black tern, one. Grebe, seven.

Chapman’s head count accentuated the despair felt by many ornithologists. “It is evident,” he noted, “that, in proportion to the number of hats seen, the list of birds given is very small; but in most cases mutilation rendered identification impossible. Thus, while one afternoon 700 hats were counted and on them but 20 birds recognized, 543 were decorated with feathers of some kind. Of the 158 [hats] remaining, 72 were worn by young or middle-aged ladies and 86 by ladies-in-mourning or elderly ladies. Percentage of hats with feathers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Without feathers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Without feathers, worn by ladies-in-mourning or elderly ladies . . . . . . . . . 12”33

Yet Chapman’s efforts as an ornithologist represent a new step on the men’s side of the gendered dialectic. His work illustrates the move by men toward assuming personal responsibility for the care of avifauna. In 1884 Chapman had forsaken his career in banking to take up ornithology. He gathered bird migration data for the AOU before collecting bird specimens for the American Museum of Natural History. On a field expedition to Florida in 1889, however, he shot a total of fi fteen rare Carolina parakeets, an act that left him fi lled with chagrin and sadness at what he had done. Such experiences turned him into an ardent advocate for bird protection and he began to work with women who opposed killing birds for the millinery trade.34 But other professional ornithologists, now on the defensive for the need to shoot and collect birds for scientific study, turned against women in an attempt to exonerate themselves. J. A. Allen, president of the AOU, had been among the fi rst to raise the alarm about the near extinction of American vertebrates (such as the American bison, gray wolf, and pan-

Merchant-final.indb 29

4/28/16 8:34 PM

30 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

ther) and avifauna (such as the whooping crane, sandhill crane, passenger pigeon, and Carolina parakeet). Recognizing that the problem of shooting birds for the hat trade might also implicate ornithologists who shot birds, including rare and endangered ones, for scientific study, Allen relied on an argument of scale. He wrote that only about five hundred thousand American birds had been collected for scientific study or for exhibition in museums in the United States and abroad. But of the fi ft y million Americans, twenty-five million were of the “dead bird wearing gender” and some ten million were of the “bird wearing age.” Fortunately, he noted, not all the birds came from North America. Most birds on women’s hats could, in fact, be identified by a knowledgeable ornithologist as coming from places as far away as South America, Africa, and India.35 As the dialectical narrative began to encompass women, the fi rst concerns were economic. The feather trade undermined one of the means of support available to unmarried women. In a letter to Forest and Stream dated February 25, 1886, Midy Morgan of the New York Times analyzed the impact on women’s work for wages that resulted from the shift from flowers to birds in women’s hats. The slaughter of living birds for decorative millinery was not only a travesty but a double offense to “working girls” who had been employed in large numbers creating artificial flowers for hats.36 But many men who wrote to Forest and Stream continued the earlier strategy of trying to dissuade women by poking fun at their delinquency in wearing birds. A writer named E. R. from Rochester, New York, noted that prisons were fi lled with individuals who had broken laws no less binding than those protecting birds. “Every one of the ten thousand women in Rochester who has a stuffed songbird on her hat,” he warned, “is liable to imprisonment for a year or a fi ne of $25.” And those who wore more than one bird would be subject to a triple fi ne. “Th ink seriously of it ye fair and gentle dames who have broken your country’s laws,” he warned. “Picture yourself under arrest, then indicted and on trial . . . where in case of conviction . . . you will be solemnly sworn to tell your age, whether you are married or single . . . and were you ever before convicted.”37 In the spring of 1886, Grinnell exuberantly issued a report titled “The Progress of the Work,” which highlighted the developments of the past several weeks. Circulars and news items had been distributed over states ranging from Maine to Florida and as far west as California. Young college women had formed branch societies.38 Thousands of pledges had come in from all over the country.39 He was heartened that a national

Merchant-final.indb 30

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 31

movement was in the making and that Forest and Stream had reached even those in remote sett lements. Milliners were shift ing from birds to flowers and beads. And although, he said, “the head gear of the women on the streets is a moving museum of stuffed birds and fragments of birds . . . the shop windows reflect back few feathers excepting the graceful plumes of the ostrich. These are gratifying results from a movement which is but yet in its infancy. . . .”40 But opposition to the Audubon Society’s goals mounted. Collectors objected that those who gathered nest eggs for scientific purposes should be exempted; hunters said that noxious birds—hawks, vultures, owls, crows, and jays—that were of no use to the economy of nature should be exempted. Some women stated that feathers already collected should be exempted and that penalties would be ineffective in the face of continued demand for feathered headgear. Grinnell countered that collectors should study live birds, that noxious birds destroyed reptiles, mice, and larger insects, and that using feathers in millinery was the greatest drain of all on birds.41 Another objection came from a “Cincinnati gentleman,” who argued that the millinery trade could have no appreciable effect on the three billion birds of the Americas because most feathers came from non-songbirds, as well as from South America and other countries. To this argument, Grinnell responded that such vast numbers of songbirds had already been destroyed for women’s hats that they might never be restored.42 In June 1886, Grinnell proudly proclaimed that the movement was taking hold, with one thousand new members per week and the fi rst ten thousand members in sight by the end of June.43 The next moment in the narrative came from women opposed to other women wearing feather hats. A Smith College “lady professor” reported that two-thirds of the students had given up wearing bird bonnets, that bird observation field trips were being conducted, and that children were being encouraged to hunt birds without a gun. John Burroughs had spent several days with a group of students and through field trips inaugurated them into the joys of bird life. The Smith College Audubon Society was organized by students Florence Merriam [Bailey] and Fannie Hardy [Eckstorm]. Merriam, a strong supporter of the Audubon movement, contributed to The Audubon Magazine and would become a wellknown, prize-winning ornithologist. (Hardy contributed a series of articles on game laws in Maine to Forest and Stream in 1891 and on birds to Bird-Lore and The Auk after 1899.)44 But by July, Grinnell, again under fi re, felt obliged to defend the fact

Merchant-final.indb 31

4/28/16 8:34 PM

32 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

that the Audubon Society had been founded by the editor of Forest and Stream—a renowned sportsman’s journal. A Chicago religious editor, he said, was “grieved because a letter received by him from this office relating to the Audubon Society was written on a sheet of paper bearing at its head the pictured rod and gun—implements of bird destruction.” Moreover, he reported that a Cincinnati doctor (Frank W. Langdon), “wants people to go on killing songbirds because the Audubon Society was founded by a journal devoted to the interests of a class of men who shoot birds for sport.” To these detractors, Grinnell differentiated between game birds and songbirds. He defended sportsmen who shot game birds, arguing that these birds had been created for that very purpose and that hunters had helped to put conservation laws into place. In turn, he chastised those who shot songbirds, whose main purpose, he said, was to gladden men’s hearts and exterminate noxious pests.45 Nevertheless, the society continued to make inroads into the decline of avifauna. By August 1886, it had enlisted more than eleven thousand members, and a “Certificate of Incorporation of the Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds” in the state of New York was published in Forest and Stream.46 The AOU Committee on the Protection of North American Birds reported that a special issue of Science magazine, prepared by the committee and containing articles and a draft bird law, had been distributed to legislators, school superintendents, and members of the Audubon Society.47 Despite the gains that the Audubon Society made during its fi rst half year, an ominous note was reprinted from Harper’s Weekly in September pointing out that millinery shops were once again featuring stuffed birds. “[T]he woman,” it stated, “who wears a dead bird for ornament is in danger of being regarded by intelligent persons as they regard a fantastic barbarian.”48 Yet some reports indicated that milliners were shift ing from songbirds to game birds, with hats now featuring snipe feathers. Shooting game birds for feathers was a more difficult issue for Grinnell, however, because shooting game birds in season was legal and was a practice supported by Forest and Stream.49 Amid these mounting concerns about the confl icting goals of professional ornithologists and about criticisms of the use of a sportsman’s journal to promote bird preservation, Grinnell made the decision to launch a new journal devoted entirely to education about birds and their place in the natural world.

Merchant-final.indb 32

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 33

• Publishing The Audubon Magazine In February 1887, the one-year-old Audubon Society published the fi rst issue of The Audubon Magazine. “The purpose of the Audubon Magazine,” Grinnell wrote, “is to advance the interests of the Audubon Society.” Although membership in the Audubon Society was free (“there are no fees, no dues, nor any expenses of any kind”), the annual subscription rate for the magazine, as listed on the cover of each issue, was fi ft y cents per year or six cents per issue, a cost that Grinnell deemed to be within the reach of most interested parties.50 In the fi rst issue, Grinnell recounted the founding of the Audubon Society a year earlier and its incorporation into the state of New York on August 6, 1886. Noting his own role in founding the new society, he pointed out that as a scientific organization the AOU had declined to engage in a popular movement. He wrote, “The idea of founding the Audubon Society originated with Dr. George Bird Grinnell of the Forest and Stream Publishing Company of New York. As a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, he had given much study to the subject in all its aspects. The Union, while it laid stress upon the importance of public agitation for the preservation of our birds, declared plainly that it would not head such a movement.” Grinnell listed himself as “President pro tem” and fi ft y others as honorary vice presidents and a secretary, comprising twentysix women and twenty-four men. Included on that list were his mother, Mrs. George B[lake] Grinnell (1827–1904), and two of Audubon’s grandchildren, Miss  Maria R[ebecca] Audubon (1843–1925) and Miss  Mary E[liza] Audubon (1845–1917).51 The lead article in issue 1 was the fi rst of eight episodes in the life of Audubon, written by Grinnell himself and accompanied by Audubon’s own self-portrait. In subsequent issues Grinnell added “The Character of John James Audubon” and “Incidents of Audubon’s Life” followed by episodes in the life of Audubon’s rival, Alexander Wilson. He also reprinted from The Auk (the journal of the AOU) a piece by R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches.”52 As the dialectical narrative moved forward, women’s voices became stronger. In the fi rst issue of the new magazine Grinnell included a powerful article by Celia Thaxter, who was a lover of birds and the well-known author of Among the Isles of Shoals (1873) and who had become an early member of the Audubon Society. Thaxter’s article, “Woman’s Heartless-

Merchant-final.indb 33

4/28/16 8:34 PM

34 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

ness,” was a clarion call for bird preservation and framed the dilemmas Grinnell hoped to highlight. She started on a note of deep despair, admitting that women had not in fact rallied to the cause out of compassion for the lives of birds. “When the Audubon Society was fi rst organized,” she wrote, “it seemed a comparatively simple thing to awaken in the minds of all bird-wearing women a sense of what their ‘decoration’ involved. We flattered ourselves that the tender and compassionate heart of woman would at once respond to the appeal for mercy, but after many months of effort we are obliged to acknowledge ourselves mistaken in our estimate of that universal compassion, that tender heart in which we believed.”53 Thaxter lamented the disdain that some women expressed for birds: “One lady said to me, ‘I think there is a great deal of sentiment wasted on the birds. There are so many of them they never will be missed, any more than mosquitoes! I shall put birds on my new bonnet.’” After excoriating women who wore bonnets decorated with the withered corpses of birds spiked with arsenic, she expressed sorrow that all birds could not be transported to another planet where they could live in peace and where they would be treated with respect and love.54 But vanishing avifauna, Grinnell argued, affected the entire nation. Those who had noticed the disappearance of birds included not only scientifically minded men who studied birds and their habits, but also farmers who worried about fewer birds being around to keep insects in check and vacationers from cities who liked to get out into the woods and fields. Grinnell was heartened, however, by the support of “active lady members” who were “quite shocked when they learned . . . what a fearful sacrifice of bird life was entailed” for hats and by the intercontinental character of the movement, which was joined by many Canadians.55 In defense of ornithologists, the third issue contained a tribute to the 1884 work of the AOU Bird Protective Committee and noted the passage of a bird protection act by New York State in May 1886.56 Th roughout the two years of the magazine’s existence, Grinnell worked closely with ornithologist and nature writer Florence Merriam Bailey (1863–1948), who had founded the Smith College Audubon Society in 1886. She wrote a monthly column (beginning with issue 5 of volume 1 of The Audubon Magazine in June 1887 and ending with volume 2 in February 1888) titled “Hints to Audubon Workers: Fift y Common Birds and How to Know Them,” featuring particular birds that were subsequently collected in her book, Birds Through an Opera Glass (1889). Florence Merriam Bailey was a distinguished contributor to ornithological studies

Merchant-final.indb 34

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 35

in the Southwest and author of Handbook of Birds of the Western United States (1902), which became a standard reference in the field, and Birds of New Mexico (1928), which was awarded the Brewster Medal (commemorating original scientific work) by the American Ornithologists’ Union. She collaborated with her husband, Vernon Bailey, who was the chief field biologist in the Southwest for the United States Biological Survey, which was based in Washington, DC, and directed by her brother, C. Hart Merriam. She also wrote several books, such as A-Birding on a Bronco (1896) and Birds of Village and Field (1898), that brought birding and conservation to public attention.57 Other articles in The Audubon Magazine included “Our Smith College Audubon Society,” “Song Birds in Europe and America,” and “The Trade in Bird Skins.” The magazine also featured stories for children, reports of the value of birds to farmers and the economy, and an “Audubon Notebook” containing membership reports, announcements, and communications from members. In marked contrast to the advertisements featuring guns and fishing rods in Forest and Stream, those in The Audubon Magazine were for artists’ materials, photographic instruments, and walking shoes.58 The magazine chastised hunters who killed for the millinery trade and pleaded with them to halt the devastation. An article titled “Wholesale Destruction of Birds in Florida” announced that “the war of extermination” against egrets, herons, and spoonbills had been “waged so successfully that the very plume hunters, seeing their occupation gone, are pleading for protection in the breeding season.” It concluded that the extermination of plume birds by millinery hunters was a war against God and nature.59 Another article by W. M. Chauvenet, titled “How I Learned to Love and Not to Kill,” recounted the pathos felt by the former hunter on beholding the shooting of a loon that, wounded by rifle power, sat on the ground “head erect, with the white ring round its coal black throat, and the softest melancholy in the large eyes, that were fi xed with longing on the far away lake. . . Unable to stand on the land, it lay there wounded and helpless with such a dignity that all were moved who saw it.” No longer able to kill birds himself, Chauvenet wrote, “I learned to love the loons; they were such strangely shy creatures and fi lled me with longings for the far off and lonely places reached by their swift fl ight. . . . Hard enough was it for a loon to leave the lake . . . but once in air, with a strange cry like a weird laughter, he would circle round and round, and at length shoot away

Merchant-final.indb 35

4/28/16 8:34 PM

36 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

like an arrow for some distant and more lonely spot, disappearing from my longing sight, for somehow I always wanted to go with the loons.”60 The November 1888 issue broke the news that feather millinery was again on the rise. Grinnell voiced despair that the membership of the Audubon Society, despite its growth and devoted numbers, was less than one in a thousand of the country’s population and that the society was known to less than one in a hundred of its people. He acknowledged that change would ultimately have to come from “a small coterie of American women, numbering at most only a few hundreds; the acknowledged social leaders in our principal cities.”61

• Cessation of The Audubon Magazine Finally, in January 1889, after two full years of publication of The Audubon Magazine, Grinnell posted a notice that that issue would be the magazine’s last. He explained his decision as follows: [W]hile the Society was established on philanthropic grounds, and with the clear understanding that it would involve some cost to its promoters, it was hoped that the Magazine would have been in such demand as to render it selfsupporting. But after two years of effort . . . we have no such subscription list as is fairly remunerative for the trouble and expense involved in the publication of the magazine; we have consequently decided to suspend its issue with the close of the second volume.62

Grinnell went on to clarify that “we have maintained the Audubon movement at our own cost,” but that the magazine itself was not essential to the movement and that the labor of putt ing it out each month was more than the staff could devote to it. “We believe,” he said, “that this decision will carry a feeling of relief to our many local secretaries who have exerted themselves to procure subscriptions, an uncongenial task at the best.” He noted that the membership of the society had reached 48,862 by the end of December 1888, just shy of a noteworthy level of 50,000 (and inasmuch as the society was inaugurated on February 14, 1886, they still had six weeks to achieve it). (See table 1.)63 Thus, ironically, the very success that the Audubon Society and The Audubon Magazine did achieve led to so many subscribers and to so much additional work for Grinnell that it limited his ability to continue

Merchant-final.indb 36

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 37 Table 1. Membership of the Audubon Society January 1887–December 1888 Months January February March April May June July August September October November December

1887

1888

19,830 22,397 26,751 29,956 32,570 36,024 37,453 38,981 39,750 40,783 42,246 42,897

43,683 44,308 45,154 45,651 46,484 47,095 47,415 47,644 47,841 48,046 48,518 48,862

Source: Robin W. Doughty, Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation: A Study in Nature Protection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), table 6, p. 102. Used by permission of Robin W. Doughty.

his other endeavors. “So many joined the new organization,” states John Reiger, “that Grinnell found all his time being consumed by its functions. Because membership was free, no money was coming in to offset the costs. Only by discontinuing it in 1889 could he maintain Forest and Stream at the high level he demanded.”64 The two volumes of The Audubon Magazine, Grinnell wrote, “include complete biographies of John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson, the two great pioneer naturalists of America; each monthly number has a bird portrait, reproduced from Audubon’s world renowned plates, and the chapters on descriptive and economic ornithology contain an amount of interesting and instructive information about birds and their importance in the economy of nature.” The two volumes would each be bound and sold for a dollar apiece, and “in all other respects the work of the Society will be conducted as heretofore and printed supplies furnished free of cost as at present.”65 After three years of intense effort, passion, and dedication, George Bird Grinnell suspended his attempt to preserve avifauna through the Audubon Society and The Audubon Magazine. He did not, however, abandon his efforts to preserve wildlife or his many interests in natural his-

Merchant-final.indb 37

4/28/16 8:34 PM

38 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society

tory and anthropology. In 1887, he founded the Boone and Crockett Club with Theodore Roosevelt, and then he went on to write extensively on the American Indians of the West and to promote the establishment of Glacier National Park. But his efforts to save birdlife did not fall by the wayside. Within a few years, the Audubon movement would be reborn.

• Reviving the Audubon Movement A new Audubon movement, this one spearheaded by women, arose in the mid-1890s. Because of the efforts of Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and Minna B. Hall, both of whom knew Grinnell’s work, the Massachusetts Audubon Society was founded in 1896. Hall and Hemenway invited several Bostonians to found the society, which elected William Brewster as its president. Vice presidents included Mrs. Louis Agassiz, president of Radcliffe College, and Mrs. Julia J. Irving, president of Wellesley College. In a letter in the April 18, 1896, issue of Forest and Stream, Minna B. Hall wrote, “I enclose a circular of the Massachusetts Audubon Society, just started here. . . . The purpose of the society is to discourage buying and wearing for ornamental purposes the feathers of any wild bird, and to otherwise further the protection of our native birds.”66 The following year Florence Merriam Bailey cofounded the Audubon Society of the District of Columbia, and in 1898 “a score of ladies met in Fairfield [Connecticut]” to form the Connecticut Audubon Society. They elected as president Mabel Osgood Wright, who became the Audubon department editor of the society’s new journal, Bird-Lore. Wright was a popular author of children’s books on nature, including The Friendship of Nature (1894), Birdcraft (1895), Citizen Bird (1897), and Birds of Village and Field (1898). She also taught bird classes to children, and wrote numerous articles in the New York Times and the New York Evening Post.67 Audubon clubs were soon formed in Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Iowa, Minnesota, and Rhode Island. In 1899, Bird-Lore, the Audubon Societies’s new official journal, was founded by Frank Chapman as a successor to Grinnell’s The Audubon Magazine. With the publication of its fi rst issue, Mabel Osgood Wright took on the tasks of editing the magazine’s Audubon section and of reporting the latest developments in the politics of bird preservation. She requested that the secretaries, all but one of whom were women, of the fi fteen Audubon societies that were listed send in news items and notes to strengthen the movement.68

Merchant-final.indb 38

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 39

In addition to Wright, contributors to the journal included women writers such as Olive Thorne Miller, author of the popular Bird Ways (1885), In Nesting Time (1888), Little Brothers in the Air (1892), and A Bird Lover in the West (1894); Florence Merriam Bailey, who wrote Birds Through an Opera Glass (1889) for young people and A Birding on a Bronco (1896), which was modeled on Miller’s earlier success; Neltje Blanchan (Doubleday), among whose achievements were Bird Neighbors (1897) and Birds That Hunt and Are Hunted (1898); and many other women who sent in short articles of general interest.69 Women and men worked together (in accordance with the gender roles of the time), with men assuming roles as presidents of the state societies and women serving as vice presidents and secretaries while also doing much of the organizational work. The Audubon societies worked closely with women’s organizations, such as the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, who lobbied their members to cease wearing bird hats. In 1905 the societies banded together as a loose confederation of independent entities called the National Association of Audubon Societies. William Dutcher became president, and Wright, Grinnell, and others acted as directors. Dutcher served as president from 1905 to 1910, when he was succeeded by T. Gilbert Pearson.70 The effort to stem the destruction of plume birds was not without controversy, however. Women who continued to wear bird-feather hats made statements and staged protests. A report on the 1899 annual meeting of the New York Audubon Society that appeared in Forest and Stream stated, “Several women, among those who attended the annual meeting of the Audubon Society of this State in the lecture hall of the American Museum of Natural History, yesterday morning wore birds’ wings and feathers on their hats, although sentiments condemning the destruction of birds were applauded with marked unanimity.”71 Also at the meeting, a letter from Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), an avid bird-watcher and then governor of New York State, was read that came out strongly in favor of protecting birds: My Dear Mr. Chapman: I need hardly say how heartily I sympathize with the purpose of the Audubon Society. I would like to see all harmless wild things, but especially all birds, protected in every way. I do not understand how any man or woman who really loves nature can fail to try to exert all influence in support of such objects as those of the Audubon Society. Spring would not be spring without bird songs any more than it would be spring without birds and flowers, and I only wish that, besides protecting the songsters, the birds

Merchant-final.indb 39

4/28/16 8:34 PM

40 • George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society of the grove, the orchard, the garden, and the meadow, we could also protect the birds of the seashore and of the wilderness. The Loon ought to be, and, under wise legislation, could be a feature of every Adirondack lake; ospreys, as every one knows, can be made the tamest of the tame; the terns should be as plentiful along our shores as swallows around our barn. A tanager or a cardinal makes a point of glowing beauty in the green woods, and the cardinal among the white snows. When the bluebirds were so nearly destroyed by the severe winter a few seasons ago, the loss was like the loss of an old friend, or at least like the burning down of a familiar and dearly loved house. How immensely it would add to our forests if the great logcock were still found among them! The destruction of the wild pigeon and the Carolina parakeet has meant a loss as severe as if the Catskills or the Palisades were taken away. When I hear of the destruction of a species I feel just as if all the works of some great writer had perished; as if we had lost all instead of only a part of Polybius or Livy. Very truly yours, Theodore Roosevelt.72

Roosevelt wrote further in poetic tones about the beauty of “frigatebirds soaring in circles above the storm, or a fi le of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad of terns flashing in the light of midday as they hover in a shift ing maze above the beach.” He said that their “loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old times.”73 In 1905 the Audubon Society requested help from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC). In cooperation with that request, the GFWC, at its own 1910 biennial convention, appealed to women by stating, “Our work for the Audubon Society is not as active as it should be. Can we logically work for conservation and expect to be listened to, while we still continue to encourage the destruction of the song birds by following the hideous fashion of wearing song birds and egrets upon our hats?” And at the 1912 National Conservation Congress, Marion A. Crocker of the GFWC’s conservation committee asked a personal favor of the women present when she said, “Th is fall when you choose your fall millinery . . . I beg you to choose some other decoration for your hats. . . .” The appeals did not go unanswered, for by 1913, women’s organizations were promoting Audubon “Save the Birds” hats in lieu of plumes.74 By the 1900s, the conservation societies and organizations had begun to achieve concrete results in bird preservation. Their combined work was influential in the passage of the Lacey Act of 1900, prohibiting trade in illegally taken wildlife. In 1903, President Roosevelt established Pelican Is-

Merchant-final.indb 40

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Audubon Society • 41

land in Florida as a preserve for native birds, the fi rst of a total of fi ft y-one federal bird sanctuaries he ultimately established during his term. In 1905 twenty-eight states passed the AOU’s model law. Then, the Tariff Act of 1913, which outlawed the importation of wild bird feathers, was followed in 1918 by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. George Bird Grinnell’s campaign to preserve birds and to convince women to change their hat styles had fi nally met with success.75

Merchant-final.indb 41

4/28/16 8:34 PM

This page intentionally left blank

CHA P T ER T H R EE

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings

In 1887, thirty years after George Bird Grinnell moved to Audubon Park as a child and one year after he founded the Audubon Society, he published the fi rst issue of The Audubon Magazine. Its lead article was the fi rst of eight episodes written by Grinnell on the life of Audubon.1 In these episodes, Grinnell drew heavily on John James Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, published in five volumes between 1831 and 1839, in which Audubon detailed his life on the frontiers of America. He also relied substantially on his teacher Lucy Audubon’s The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, published in 1869.2 Grinnell’s motivation to found the Audubon Society and to use John James Audubon as its namesake and symbol in the campaign to save America’s birdlife was made possible by Audubon’s unusual combination of talents. He was not only an outstanding painter who set his birds in dynamic postures and landscapes but also a colorful writer who captured the drama of a woodsman exploring the lands of the American continent. Following the serial publication of the double-elephant folio edition of The Birds of America in Edinburgh and London (between 1827 and 1838), Audubon’s Ornithological Biography was published in Edinburgh and Philadelphia (between 1831 and 1839). The Ornithological Biography included vivid descriptions of birds, along with dramatic events and details of his adventures in the New World.3 Audubon’s writings became the foundation not only for Grinnell’s biography but also for two earlier, substantive biographies both written by women. The fi rst was by Mrs. Horace St. John (Jane Elizabeth Roscoe St.

Merchant-final.indb 45

• 45

4/28/16 8:34 PM

46 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

John), the second by Audubon’s wife and Grinnell’s teacher, Lucy Audubon. Like Grinnell, both women were profoundly influenced by Audubon and his birds. In this chapter, I compare the three biographies and introduce Grinnell’s other writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson.

• Jane Elizabeth Roscoe St. John The fi rst book-length biography of Audubon appeared in England in 1856, five years after his death in 1851. Written by Jane Elizabeth Roscoe St. John and published under the name Mrs. Horace St. John (wife of Horace St. John, 1832–1888), it was titled Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World. His Adventures and Discoveries and was published in London by Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman. St. John’s biography appeared in several subsequent editions in New York and Boston and later in a special edition for juveniles. Yet her deep connection to Audubon through her family in Liverpool, England, where Audubon landed in 1826 in his search for subscribers for his Birds of America, has not heretofore been recognized.4 Born Jane Elizabeth Roscoe (ca. 1830–1906), she later came to be known as Mrs. Horace St. John. Jane Elizabeth’s family history seems to have fostered her intense interest in Audubon and ultimately in writing his biography. She was the “daughter of Mr. Thomas Roscoe, and granddaughter of William Roscoe, of Liverpool, the well-known historian.” Significantly for Jane Elizabeth’s future interest in Audubon, “W[illiam] Roscoe, Esq., of Toxteth Park, near Liverpool,” was one of the fi rst subscribers to Audubon’s Birds of America. Her family history and connections evidently led her to take a deep interest in natural history as she grew up and became educated.5 In the introduction to volume 1 of his Ornithological Biography, Audubon writes about the kindness shown to him in Liverpool by the Roscoes and others. As I approached the coast of England, and for the fi rst time beheld her fertile shores, the despondency of my spirits became very great. I knew not an individual in the country. . . . Indeed, as I for the fi rst time walked on the streets of Liverpool, my heart nearly failed me. . . . But how soon did all around me assume a different aspect! The Rathbones, the Roscoes, the Traills, the Chor-

Merchant-final.indb 46

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 47 leys, the Mellies, and others, took me by the hand; and so kind and beneficent, nay, so generously kind, have they all been towards me, that I can never cancel the obligation. My drawings were publicly exhibited, and publicly praised. Joy swelled my heart.6

In tribute to the Roscoes’ kindness, the bird now called the common yellowthroat was originally called Roscoe’s yellow-throat by Audubon. And similarly, in tribute to the Rathbones, what is now the yellow warbler he fi rst named the Rathbone warbler.7 Jane Elizabeth’s grandfather, William Roscoe (March 8, 1753–June 30, 1831), subscriber to Audubon’s Birds of America, was a banker and historian who wrote The Life of Lorenzo de Medici (1796) and The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth (1805) and was also an outspoken abolitionist and Unitarian. In opposing slavery (which supported a number of businesses in Liverpool), he wrote a poem titled The Wrongs of Afr ica (1787–1788) and a pamphlet called “A General View of the African Slave Trade” (1788), and he served briefly in the British House of Commons, where he voted to abolish the slave trade. He and his partners owned a banking house but were forced into bankruptcy by economic conditions in 1820, obliging him to sell his library. But he later emerged to continue his writings and publications.8 Relevant to William Roscoe’s subscription to Audubon’s doubleelephant folio edition of The Birds of America was the creation of the Liverpool Botanic Garden, which he spearheaded in the early 1800s. Later in life, his longtime interest in plants led him to a new writing venture. In 1828 he published a folio, consisting of 112 colored plates and text, on Linnaeus’s class of Monandrian plants. In the book he described the plants in one or two pages of text and proposed a new taxonomic arrangement for the classification. Drawn by Thomas Allport from specimens in the Botanic Garden of Liverpool, the plates were hand colored by George Graves using the new technique of lithography (invented in 1796), from plates produced by Charles Hullmandel. It was William Roscoe’s deep interest in botany and natural history that apparently encouraged him to view and subscribe to Audubon’s serial printings of The Birds of America. Audubon had traveled to England in 1826 seeking subscriptions, and his fi rst double-elephant folio appeared in 1827, a year before Roscoe published his Monandrian Plants and before he died in 1831. These passions ultimately inspired his granddaughter’s biography of the soon-to-be-famous artist of American birds.9

Merchant-final.indb 47

4/28/16 8:34 PM

48 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Jane Elizabeth’s father, Thomas Roscoe (June 23, 1791–September 24, 1871) was born at Toxteth Park in Liverpool. He was the fi ft h son of William Roscoe. Thomas died at the age of eighty in St. John’s Wood, London, where his daughter lived during her marriage to Horace St. John and where she published her biography of Audubon. Thomas Roscoe, father of seven children, was a prolific writer not only about history but also about the landscapes he encountered in his travels to Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, Belgium, and North and South Wales. Like her father, Jane Elizabeth and her siblings were probably privately tutored. Relevant to Thomas’s encouragement of his daughter’s education and interests in natural history, for example, is his 1837 Wanderings and Excursions in South Wales, written with Louisa Ann Twamley, the naturalist. Twamley had written The Romance of Nature in 1836 before moving on in 1839 to live in and write extensively about Australia during her marriage to Charles Meredith.10 In 1855, Jane Elizabeth married Horace St. John, author of two books on India (History of British Conquests in India [1852] and The Indian Archipelago: Its History and Present State [1853]) and one on Christopher Columbus (The Life of Christopher Columbus [1850]), and moved to St. John’s Wood, outside of London. Horace St. John apparently knew the Roscoes well, as he dedicated his 1853 book, The Indian Archipelago, to Jane Elizabeth’s father. A year after her 1855 marriage, Jane Elizabeth Roscoe published her biography of Audubon under her new name, Mrs. Horace St. John. That she was the author of at least three books is evident from the title page of her subsequent book, Masaniello of Naples: The Record of a Nine Days Revolution, published in London in 1865. Th is page identifies her as “Mrs. Roscoe St. John, Author of ‘Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World,’ ‘Englishwomen and the Age,’ etc.”11 Might Jane Elizabeth have grown up when Audubon’s serialized bird prints were arriving at the Roscoe home in Toxteth Park in Liverpool? Might she even have met Audubon as a young girl? Assuming she was born in the early 1830s, as was her husband, she would have been around twenty-six years old when she published her biography in 1856. Her grandfather, who had subscribed to The Birds of America, passed away in 1831, but because the double-elephant prints were produced in a series between 1827 and 1838, they would have continued to arrive at the family home. Stunning in their size and color, their periodic delivery by postal carriage would have generated considerable excitement and comment, occasions in which a young girl could have been swept up. In 1837, Au-

Merchant-final.indb 48

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 49

dubon made his last visit to England, and it is on that occasion that the young Jane Elizabeth might have met or seen him. She writes, “Touching on his homeward course . . . he again paused at Liverpool, for the pleasure of once more greeting his numerous friends there.” In 1839, Audubon left England for the last time and returned to New York, where he stayed for the remainder of his life. But the five volumes of his Ornithological Biography, produced between 1831 and 1839, like the bird prints would have continued to arrive at the Roscoe home where Jane Elizabeth lived during her teenage years in the mid-1840s.12 It is clear that Jane Elizabeth not only saw the prints of The Birds of America and read Audubon’s Ornithological Biography but also talked with those who had met Audubon. In her biography, she refers to “that marvelous collection of drawings perpetuated in the Birds of America,” and writes, “Th is work is one of unequalled magnificence, and in the tints of its gorgeous illustrations, as in illuminated characters, the fame of its author remains inscribed.” 13 In the preface, she tells us further, “The materials of this [her own] narrative have been derived from Audubon’s works, from the recollections of friends, and from fragments published in the United States. The writer’s object has been exclusively to follow the adventurous American through those episodes of romance and discovery which constituted his career as a naturalist. To the criticism of [Charles] Waterton and others [see note], on his Ornithology, all reference has been omitted, to avoid controversy on points of scientific detail. —St John’s Wood, January 25 [1856].”14 St. John’s Wood, where her 1856 preface was signed, is located in Westminster, a part of London to which she had moved following her marriage the year before. The area is described as being part of the great forest of Middlesex in the medieval period and the site of a church and garden in the nineteenth century, land that might have been rich in birdlife and of continued inspiration to the young author.15 The London edition of Mrs. Horace St. John’s book, Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World. His Adventures and Discoveries, published by Longman, Green, Brown, and Longman in 1856, was 172 pages long. At the end, it advertised the three books by her husband, of which one, The History of the Indian Archipelago (1853), was also published by Longman, Green, Brown, and Longman.16 Mrs. Horace St. John wrote in vivid language, sett ing out the chronology and events of Audubon’s life and including detailed descriptions drawn from Audubon’s own accounts of his travels and adventures. His

Merchant-final.indb 49

4/28/16 8:34 PM

50 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Ornithological Biography is organized in a format in which five to six descriptions of birds are followed by colorfully depicted episodes and adventures. Audubon does this, he tells us, in order to relieve the reader of the tedium of endless descriptions of birds, by presenting “occasional descriptions of the scenery and manners of the land.” His fi rst description in volume 1 is of “the Ohio.” That is followed by “the Great Pine Swamp,” “the Prairie,” “the Regulators,” and so on, in no particular chronological order, a pattern that is continued in subsequent volumes. Later, in 1926, these descriptions were collected together in the order they appeared and published under the title Delineations of American Character and Scenery.17 St. John’s biography, however, drew on Audubon’s own descriptions of his adventures, paraphrasing and sometimes quoting from Audubon’s text but putt ing the events in chronological order. Th is was no mean feat, as Audubon had not presented his accounts in any set order. Not having been to the American continent herself, St. John relied on Audubon’s own depictions of the country in which he had traveled so extensively, but she placed them in the context of his unfolding life. She introduced her book, not with a statement about his birth and youth, but with several colorful pages about the beauty of nature in the New World and Audubon’s desire to unite with it, all drawn from Audubon’s “Introductory Address” in his Ornithological Biography. “He longed to understand nature,” she wrote, “and the hidden agency by which the spells of her enchantment were wrought. . . . In order for this he must ally himself with her—he must devote himself to her. . . . He was inspired with an ardent wish to possess the productions of nature.”18 Into this background, St. John inserted details about Audubon’s childhood, his father’s early gift of a book of ornithological illustrations, his early lessons in art, his move as a young man to a farm in Pennsylvania, and his marriage, all based on Audubon’s “Introductory Address” in volume 1. She eulogized him as having a noble character that was constantly grappling with the elements, wilds, swamps, challenges, and solitudes of nature in the American lands in pursuit of his dream. And she presented herself as the biographer who must pay strict attention to the details of his life, following him “step by step” through his “fascinating story.”19 St. John captured the events of Audubon’s life and times in fi fteen chapters, utilizing the five volumes of his Ornithological Biography to supply details, color, and adventure. She concluded her Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World with a few simple words: “On the 27th of January,

Merchant-final.indb 50

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 51

1851, the ‘darkness of death spread for him a sable curtain’ over the scene of this life, from which the great naturalist of America for ever departed. The traveler was at rest.”20 The U.S. edition of St. John’s biography was published in 1856, the same year as the London edition, but by C. S. Francis and Company in New York City (which published many of Audubon’s other works). The publisher altered the title slightly to Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World: His Adventures and Discoveries. The preface eliminated the sentence about Waterton, added a paragraph about Audubon’s original language being French, and concluded, “It has been found necessary to correct the English edition in many particulars of fact, and in the order of events, which are better known on this side of the water. Some additions have been made by the American publishers.” Chapter 16, a four-page “Note and Addenda by the American Publishers,” begins: We have taken the liberty of transposing some portions of the foregoing pages from the London edition, having ascertained that chronological mistakes had been made by the fair authoress in preparing her interesting sketch of Audubon, and we would further say, that as she appears not to have been aware of the publication of his second great work, the “Quadrupeds of North America” (which has not been advertised, we believe, in Europe), it has been deemed by us essential to mention it, and to subjoin the following particulars:—21

The subsequent “particulars” included several chapters excerpted from Audubon’s Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which had been published with the aid of John Bachman between 1847 and 1848. These chapters were all about charismatic American animals, including the mink, buffalo, opossum, beaver, jaguar, Rocky Mountain goat, black bear, and grizzly bear. A second printing of St. John’s American edition was made in Boston by Crosby, Nichols, Lee and Company in 1861 and again in 1864 (copyrighted 1856), with the author listed as Mrs. Horace St. John and followed by the words, “Revised and Corrected With Additions, and Illustrated With Engravings by J[ohn] W[illiam] Orr, From Original Designs.” The illustrations included a drawing of Audubon’s home in Audubon Park on the title page and an illustration (from a portrait painted by Audubon’s son John Woodhouse) of Audubon with his gun and dog on the facing page. A third printing by A. L. Burt appeared in New York in 1894 that

Merchant-final.indb 51

4/28/16 8:34 PM

52 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

lacked the Orr engravings. A quotation on the title page read, “Nature counts nothing that she meets with, base / But lives and loves in every place.”22 In 1869, an edition appeared for a juvenile audience, titled Boy’s Life of Audubon, The Naturalist of the New World: His Adventures and Discoveries. Published in New York by Allen Brothers and copyrighted 1856, it included the engravings by J. W. Orr. The book was reprinted in 1870 and 1871.23 St. John’s biography was the fi rst book-length work to set out the events of Audubon’s life and make them available to an audience gripped by the beauty of his drawings and the excitement of his life as an American woodsman.

• Lucy Bakewell Audubon Mrs. Horace St. John’s biography of Audubon was followed in the late 1860s by Lucy Audubon’s The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, compiled at the age of eighty-one. With the help of a friend, later identified as Reverend Charles Coffi n Adams, minister of St. Mary’s Church in Manhattan, Lucy assembled the manuscript and sent it to a publisher in England who had expressed interest in producing it. In 1863, at the age of seventy-five, she had sold her home in Audubon Park to meet debts, and, with her granddaughter Hatt ie, had moved to a boardinghouse in the Washington Heights area of New York City. It was in those years that she evidently did most of the work on her book (completed in 1867), drawing on her husband’s letters, journals, and manuscripts.24 Lucy’s biography, like that of St. John, was based on Audubon’s accounts of his life and travels in his Ornithological Biography but also included many items from his journals and letters. Lucy Audubon, of course, had the advantage of being present with her husband during many of the events of his life, as well as being the recipient of his letters and holder of his journals. She had also transcribed and copied his Ornithological Biography while in Edinburgh for the purpose of obtaining the U.S. copyright. Her biography of her husband was structured chronologically, with selections from his letters and journals interspersed with chapters on his adventures in the rivers, prairies, swamps, and forests of the American continent. Because most of Audubon’s journals are no longer extant,

Merchant-final.indb 52

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 53

these selections are of great interest in helping to reconstruct the chronology of Audubon’s life and travels. The London publisher, S. Low, Son and Marston, to whom Lucy sent her manuscript engaged Scott ish poet and writer Robert Buchanan (1841–1901) to edit the compilation, and it was published in 1868 under Buchanan’s name. In his editor’s preface, Buchanan states:25 In the autumn of 1867, the publishers placed in my hands a large manuscript called the Life of Audubon, prepared by a friend [Charles Coffi n Adams] of Mrs. Audubon’s, in New York, chiefly consisting of extracts from the diary of the great American naturalist. It needed careful revision, and was, moreover, inordinately long.  .  .  . My business, therefore, has been sub-editorial rather than editorial. I have had to cut down what was prolix and unnecessary and to connect the whole in some sort of running narrative,—and the result is a volume equal in bulk to about one-fi ft h of the original manuscript.26

Lucy was not happy with Buchanan’s editing of her manuscript, which had been boiled down to a fi ft h of its original size and published under his own name as editor. Moreover, she was upset about disparaging remarks he made about Audubon in the preface, especially since he seemed to favor Scott ish ornithologist Alexander Wilson over her husband. Therefore, in 1869, a second edition was published under the name of Lucy Audubon herself, now titled, The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson [1832–1914]. Th is version was published in 1869 in New York by G. P. Putnam and Son, and copyrighted by Mrs. John J. Audubon in 1868. It stated: “To my kind friend Gen. Ja[me]s Grant Wilson, this volume is respectfully dedicated, as a slight mark of gratitude by Lucy Audubon.”27 In his introduction, Wilson wrote: In the summer of 1867, the widow of John James Audubon, completed with the aid of a friend [Charles Coffi n Adams], a memoir of the great naturalist, and soon after received overtures from a London publishing house for her work. Accepting their proposition for its publication in England, Mrs. Audubon forwarded the MSS., consisting in good part of extracts from her husband’s journals and episodes, as he termed his delightful reminiscences of adventure in various parts of the New World. The London publishers placed these MSS. in the hand of Mr. Robert Buchanan, who prepared from them a

Merchant-final.indb 53

4/28/16 8:34 PM

54 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson single volume containing about one fi ft h of the original manuscript. The following pages are substantially the recently published work, reproduced with some additions, and the omission of several objectionable passages inserted by the London editor.28

Wilson urged that the manuscript be returned to Mrs. Audubon so that the remaining material, sufficient for four volumes and including many “charming episodes,” as he called them, might be published. But the manuscript that was then in the possession of Robert Buchanan was either lost or destroyed, to the detriment of posterity. Thus, most of the letters and journals that would have been in the larger manuscript are no longer extant. Only a few of the journals for particular years have since been published. Although most biographers of Audubon att ribute the work on the manuscript either to Lucy’s friend (Charles Coffi n Adams) or to Buchanan, it was Lucy who had the materials in her possession and the lifetime of knowledge required to assemble them in chronological order. It would seem, therefore, that most of the credit for the scholarly effort necessary to produce both the 1868 and 1869 editions of Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist is owed to Lucy. Lucy’s 1869 edition of the biography covers thirty-six chapters, beginning with Audubon’s ancestry, education, marriage, and fi rst business ventures in Henderson, Kentucky, and ending with Audubon’s death at Audubon Park in 1851. Chapters 1 and 2 (chapters 1–6 of Buchanan’s 1868 edition) are a prose account of Audubon’s early life up until the time he was visited by Alexander Wilson in Louisville in 1810. These introductory chapters (which were already contained in the manuscript Buchanan received from the London publisher) were based on the now-lost writings by John James and were probably written or rewritten by Lucy, perhaps with the assistance of her friend Charles Coffi n Adams. That they were not written by Buchanan, who prided himself on being a distinguished writer, poet, and dramatist, may be gleaned from his rather disparaging footnote, which states, “The fi rst five or six chapters are merely the preliminary to the series of episodes which follow, and are marked by none of the restless motion and bright color of the naturalist’s life. Still, they will be acceptable to those whom Audubon interests personally. —R. B.”29 Lucy Audubon’s biography followed the artist after their marriage through his travels in the United States to Kentucky, New Orleans, Louisville, Philadelphia, and then back to New Orleans, where he set sail for Liverpool in 1826 for the purpose of obtaining subscribers for The Birds of

Merchant-final.indb 54

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 55

America. It detailed his work in Edinburgh (1826) and Paris (1828), his return to London (1828), and his voyage back to the United States. The book continued to follow him as he journeyed again to England and Edinburgh with Lucy in 1830. These events were introduced by prose descriptions and, where they fit the chronology, followed by Audubon’s journal entries and extracts from the Ornithological Biography. Chapters 15–22 gathered together nine episodes taken from the Ornithological Biography concerning Florida (1831–1832), while chapters 23–31 reproduced his travels in Maine, New Brunswick, Labrador, and Nova Scotia (1832). The remaining chapters (32–36) covered Audubon’s further travels in the United States in 1833, his return to England and Edinburgh in 1834, and his journey back to the United States with his family for the last time in 1839, when Audubon began a long desired trip to the western part of the country. It ends with the couple sett led down in Audubon Park (Minnie’s Land), where they built a home, remaining there until Audubon’s fi nal days in 1851. All in all, The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, as compiled and organized by Lucy Audubon (with her friend Charles Coffi n Adams’s assistance), was not only an engaging and readable book, but also a work of scholarship that provided new personal information about her husband’s life, letters, and travels. For anyone interested in the background to The Birds of America, it was a significant contribution. Subsequent printings of Lucy’s edition appeared in 1873, 1883, and 1890. The 1890 edition included on its title page the J. W. Orr engraving of the Audubon home in Audubon Park, from Mrs. Horace St. John’s 1864 biography.

• George Bird Grinnell Th irty years after Mrs. Horace St. John’s biography of Audubon and eighteen years after Lucy Audubon’s biography, Lucy’s pupil and protégé George Bird Grinnell founded the Audubon Society. The following year, in 1887, he began circulating The Audubon Magazine, which was “published in the interests of the Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds.” He used this podium to educate Americans about the imminent loss of wildlife, due to both market hunting and the killing of birds for decorating women’s hats. He kicked off his educational campaign each month with accounts of Audubon’s life and character. Where did Grinnell obtain his information and what was the structure of his serialized biography? Grinnell’s life of Audubon, as serialized in the fi rst eight issues of The

Merchant-final.indb 55

4/28/16 8:34 PM

56 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Audubon Magazine, covered Audubon’s travels, vicissitudes of life, and ultimate triumphs in publishing The Birds of America and the Ornithological Biography. His biography drew on volume 1 of Audubon’s Ornithological Biography and on chapters 1 and 2 of Lucy Audubon’s biography. Th is can be discerned from several direct quotations from both of these sources in Grinnell’s biography.30 Grinnell’s biography is succinct, articulate, and engaging. Its structure followed that of Lucy’s biography but was expressed in Grinnell’s own words. He began, “John James Audubon was born on his father’s plantation near New Orleans, Louisiana, May 4, 1790. His father was a Frenchman, and the naturalist himself spent a considerable part of his early life in France. What we know of his ancestry he tells us in the following language.” Audubon’s birthdate and birthplace were determined from later documents, however, to be April 26, 1785, in Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti).31 Grinnell quoted directly from Audubon himself, as taken from Lucy’s biography: “John Audubon, my grandfather, was born at the small village of Sable d’Olonne, in La Vendée, with a small harbor, forty-five miles south from Nantes. He was a poor fisherman with a numerous family, twenty-one of whom grew to maturity. There was but one boy besides my father, he being the twentieth born, and the only one of the numerous family who lived to a considerable age.”32 John James’s father failed in his attempt to have his son become a sailor or an engineer and to study mathematics, drawing, geography, fencing, and music. But to the benefit of the future artist, it was under his mother’s tutelage that he was allowed to wander the countryside seeking out birds’ nests, eggs, stones, plants, and moss and to become devoted to drawing. The elder Audubon, accepting the fact that his son would never enter the military, decided to send him to Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, where, after recovering from a bout of yellow fever in New York City, he was charged with superintending his father’s property. It was here that the young man indulged in hunting, fishing, and drawing and here that he met his nextdoor neighbor’s daughter, Lucy Bakewell, whom he would subsequently marry.33 In issue 2 of The Audubon Magazine, Grinnell included (as had Lucy in her biography) a long quotation from Audubon’s fi rst encounter with Alexander Wilson in March 1810. The quotation was taken from the episode titled “Louisville in Kentucky” at the end of the fi rst volume of the Ornithological Biography. Grinnell ended his account with the following as-

Merchant-final.indb 56

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 57

sessment: “Wilson was a man of extremely nervous and sensitive temperament, and it can hardly be doubted that he was jealous of the work which he saw was being done by Audubon and looked upon him as a possible rival.”34 Whereas issue 2 was primarily a long quotation from Audubon, Grinnell’s issue 3 was largely his own prose account of Audubon’s life during the eight years between 1810 and 1818. After Audubon failed in his effort to set up a store in Louisville, Kentucky, he decided to move downstream, fi rst to Henderson and St. Genevieve, then down the Mississippi. Quoting from Lucy’s biography, Grinnell writes, “We were now indeed in winter quarters, and we made the best of it. The Indians made baskets of cane, Mr. Rope played on the violin, I accompanied with the flute, the men danced to the tunes, and the squaws looked on and laughed, and the hunters smoked their pipes with such serenity as only Indians can, and I never regretted one day spent there.”35 Grinnell also referenced the Regulator Law and the earthquakes Audubon experienced in the Mississippi Valley in 1812, episodes described in the Ornithological Biography. The eight years of Audubon’s life in Kentucky were marked not only by travels to paint birds but also by attempts to fi nd ways to earn a living. After a visit to Philadelphia in 1812, Audubon returned to Henderson in an unsuccessful venture to establish a steam mill, then traveled back to Louisville, where he began to draw portraits to make a living. Next, he moved on to Cincinnati to take up a temporary curatorship in a museum.36 In issue 4, Grinnell illustrated Audubon’s life in Kentucky using the chapter “Kentucky Sports” from Audubon’s Ornithological Biography. Despite their ups and downs, Grinnell judged the Kentucky years to be among the happiest of Audubon’s life, for here he was able to spend time with his family, draw and study the habits of birds, enter into the lives of the people he encountered, and explore the woods, rivers, and wilds of nature.37 Grinnell depicted Audubon’s 1820 trip down the Mississippi River as an ornithological expedition in issue 5. As Audubon wrote in his journal (taken again from Lucy’s biography) for October 25, “Since I left Cincinnati, October 12, 1820, I have fi nished sixty-two drawings of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two snakes, fi ft y portraits of all sorts, and have subsisted by my humble talents, not having a dollar when I started. I sent a draft to my wife, and began life in New Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and much anxiety to pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of America.” Finally, after fourteen months, Lucy and the boys joined him in

Merchant-final.indb 57

4/28/16 8:34 PM

58 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

New Orleans, much to the delight of all. But the reunion was to be temporary, as it was decided that Lucy would become a governess in Bayou Sara, Louisiana, while Audubon would return to Louisville with their eldest son, Victor. There he would try to raise funds to travel to Philadelphia and seek a publisher for his birds.38 But, as revealed in issue 6, Audubon failed to fi nd an engraver for his drawings in either Philadelphia or New York and decided to raise money to travel to England to seek support. Wending his way westward via Rochester, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls, he then headed south via Pitt sburgh and Cincinnati toward a reunion in Bayou Sara, where he “once more held in his arms his beloved wife.” Income there from teaching classes in dancing and fencing, combined with Lucy’s savings, enabled him to board a ship in New Orleans for Liverpool, England, where he arrived in 1826. There, and in Edinburgh, his paintings garnered both praise and subscriptions. The fi rst plates of The Birds of America, engraved by William Lizars and hand colored for printing, appeared in 1827. In March 1827, he issued the prospectus for his publication, a document that exuded courage and hope. Here Grinnell again quotes Lucy, who says, “He was in a strange country, with no friends but those he had made within a few months, and not ready money enough in hand to bring out the fi rst number proposed, and yet he entered confidently on this undertaking, which was to cost over a hundred dollars, and with no pledge of help, but on the other hand discouragements on all sides, and from his best friends.” But in June 1828, with Lizars unable to continue the engravings, Audubon arranged to have the work transferred to London to be done by Robert Havell and his son.39 Audubon left London for Paris in September of 1828 (issue 7), accompanied by the ornithologist William Swainson. In Paris he received an enthusiastic endorsement from geologist Georges Cuvier but achieved litt le success in enlisting subscribers because of the great expense of the work. Back in London, he initiated plans to return to the United States. To pay for his journey, he painted birds all the way from New York through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Louisville, fi nally arriving in Bayou Sara and into the arms of Lucy once more. The two then set out together to return to London, where Audubon continued the work of engraving his new paintings and, with Lucy’s help, seeking new subscribers. While traveling through England to Edinburgh, the couple began work on the Ornithological Biography. Audubon wrote night and day, with Lucy transcribing his manuscript and Scott ish ornithologist William MacGillivray later

Merchant-final.indb 58

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 59

refi ning his bird descriptions and polishing his English in the adventurous episodes inserted throughout the five volumes. In 1831, Audubon returned to the United States, traveling southward to Charleston, where he met the scientist and reverend John Bachman, with whom he would later write The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America and whose daughters would marry his sons. In 1834, he returned once more to London, continued on to Edinburgh, and then went back to London, where he continued his work on The Birds of America before making another trip to the southern United States for painting. Finally, after returning again to Edinburgh, the last volume of his Ornithological Biography was published in May of 1839. With the work in Europe completed, Audubon “with his family returned to New York, where the remainder of his days were spent.” In tribute to both MacGillivray and Bachman, Audubon named the MacGillivray’s fi nch (now the seaside sparrow) and MacGillivray’s warbler (now the mourning warbler) after the former and Bachman’s warbler, Bachman’s fi nch (now Bachman’s sparrow), and Bachman’s oystercatcher (now the black oystercatcher) after the latter.40 Issue 8 began with the following ominous announcement: “The sun of Audubon’s life was sinking westward and the indomitable spirit and energy were breaking. . . .” Yet Audubon still desired to fulfi ll a lifelong dream of painting the birds of the Yellowstone region of the United States, which he did in 1843. Bringing the biography back to the point at which his own life intersected with that of the Audubons, Grinnell described Audubon’s estate at Audubon Park on the Hudson and his final years of happiness with his wife, children, and grandchildren. Grinnell concluded by noting that at the end of Audubon’s life, he was “cared for and protected by loving hearts and tender hands” and that “he passed down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and on the morning of January 27, 1851, the long adventurous, useful life ended.”41 Grinnell closed his serialized biography of Audubon by noting the importance of Audubon’s work to science and by assessing Audubon’s unique artistry as going beyond that of Alexander Wilson, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, William Swainson, and Thomas Nuttall. Audubon, said Grinnell, differed from all of them “as the artist differs from the skilled mechanic” and as “immobility” differs from “arrested motion.” Grinnell observed that, above all, Audubon’s courage, vigor, and faith in himself allowed him to pursue his life’s dream.42 Most significantly, however, because of Grinnell’s association with the

Merchant-final.indb 59

4/28/16 8:34 PM

60 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Audubons while growing up and, in particular, because of Lucy’s major role in his education, he concluded his biography with a laudatory homage to her. One person there was who from the beginning shared [Audubon’s] hopes and fears, who encouraged him in times of depression and doubt, who labored in order that he might have money with which to carry on his investigations, and who, whether by his side or separated from him by the width of an ocean, was ever his closest friend and his fi rmest supporter. To Lucy Audubon, his beautiful wife, as much as to the naturalist himself, do we owe the great works which have made famous the name of Audubon. Many of those who read these pages will remember her majestic yet benign presence, and can understand the power for aid which so strong a character as hers must have exerted on the lighthearted and enthusiastic husband, whom she survived for twenty years. In beautiful Trinity Cemetery, within hearing of the lapping waters of the broad river, on whose banks they had lived together, and hardly a stone’s throw from the house where their declining years were passed, John James Audubon and Lucy, his wife, repose side by side. No towering shaft rises toward heaven to mark their resting place or commemorate their deeds, but on the gray granite of a simple vault is carved the name: AUDUBON43

• Grinnell’s Evaluations of Lucy and John James Audubon Grinnell did not stop with his serialized biography of Audubon. He felt compelled to assess both Audubon’s strengths and shortcomings, especially in terms of his relationship with Lucy. Issues 9 and 10 of The Audubon Magazine dealt with “The Character of John James Audubon.” In providing that assessment, Grinnell began with two eloquent encomiums to Audubon. The fi rst, from an anonymous writer, was quoted by James Wilson in his introduction to Lucy Audubon’s 1869 edition of The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist. Wilson wrote, “For sixty years or more [Audubon] followed, with more than religious devotion a beautiful and elevated pursuit, enlarging its boundaries by his discoveries, and illustrating its objects by his art. In all climates and in all weathers; scorched by burning suns, drenched by piercing rains, frozen by the fiercest colds; now diving fearlessly into the densest forest, now wandering

Merchant-final.indb 60

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 61

alone over the most savage regions; in perils, in difficulties, and in doubts; with no companion to cheer his way, far from the smiles and applause of society; listening only to the sweet music of birds, or to the sweeter music of his own thoughts, he faithfully kept his path.”44 The second encomium, also from Wilson’s introduction, was made by Robert Buchanan, editor of the 1868 edition of The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist. Wilson wrote, “In the preface to the London edition of this work, I fi nd the following just and generous words:— Audubon was a man of genius, with the courage of a lion and the simplicity of a child. One scarcely knows which to admire most—the mighty determination which enabled him to carry out his great work in the face of difficulties so huge, or the gentle and guileless sweetness with which he throughout shared his thoughts and aspirations with his wife and children.” In this instance, at least, Buchanan evaluated Audubon in a highly positive light, despite the reservations expressed by both Lucy Audubon and James Wilson.45 In issue 9, Grinnell presented a more nuanced evaluation of Audubon, one in which he lauded Lucy’s influence. Grinnell said that Audubon himself admitted that he lacked the capacity for self-denial in his early years, liking “to hunt in black satin breeches, wear pumps when shooting, and dressed in the fi nest ruffled shirts I could obtain from France.” It was Lucy, Grinnell states, who “molded his character, shaped his aims, gave substance to his dreams, and fi nally, by the exercise of that self-denial which he was incapable of as a long-sustained effort, won for him the public recognition and reward of his splendid talents.” It was her influence, combined with Audubon’s own craving for distinction and undue sensitivity to criticism, that, along with his “loft y nature,” shaped him as a “great naturalist.”46 In issue 10, Grinnell went even further in his evaluation and praise of Lucy. He wrote, “But while we do justice to the enthusiasm with which [Audubon] prosecuted the work, . . . we should never lose sight of the fact that it was his wife’s faith in his work and genius which gave substance to his dreams, her prudence which foresaw and prepared for the fi nal difficulties, her self-denial which devoted him to the work, and furnished him with the means of success, won by her own rare energy and talents.” Grinnell argued that Audubon at fi rst did not fully appreciate the role and contribution of Lucy. He gloried in the sunshine of his own success and felt gratitude for the fame and recognition accorded to him in Europe. It was only late in life that he realized how much he owed to her. “And now gradually there appears to have dawned on him,” Grinnell wrote, “a correct es-

Merchant-final.indb 61

4/28/16 8:34 PM

62 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

timate of the character of his devoted wife, and of the important part she had played in the achievement of his success. . . . Audubon was humbled by the discovery, but elevated also; the emotion of reverence pointed to an ideal standard of excellence outside of himself, and went far to form and strengthen his character.” Grinnell’s fi nal assessment is that only working together as a couple could they have consummated an achievement of the magnitude of The Birds of America. He commented that “as they breasted the fierce storms of adversity together their union became so complete that the individuality of each was merged in the other, forming that ideally perfect union so rarely witnessed.”47 Although most accounts do indeed praise the role of Lucy, it was Grinnell’s personal experience of her, the influence she had on his early life, and the role she played in Audubon Park that pushed him to give full recognition to her talents. Issue 11 was titled “Incidents of Audubon’s Life.” Grinnell introduced it with an analysis of how different it was in Audubon’s day to roam the wilds of the United States compared with taking a day’s outing rambling through the woods or climbing a mountain in the 1880s. Taking a litt leknown path through the forest, resting in the shade of a tree, and listening to the sweet songs of birds could hardly compare to feeling utter solitude, traveling the pathless wilds, or encountering life-threatening terrors in the 1820s. The incident that Grinnell replicated to illustrate those dangers was from Audubon’s encounter with pioneers, taken directly from “The Prairie” in volume 1 of Audubon’s Ornithological Biography. In this encounter, Audubon sought shelter in a remote cabin only to have the female occupant and her drunken sons threaten his life as she tried to steal his watch. He was rescued by two “stout travelers” who entered suddenly and saved him. The young men were self-assigned “regulators” who settled crimes in remote areas beyond the control of law and order. His rescue was assisted by a friendly but wounded Indian who had also taken shelter in the cabin.48

• Robert W. Shufeldt’s Commentaries on Audubon The next two opening editorials of The Audubon Magazine were not by Grinnell, but were instead two accounts by Robert W. Shufeldt (1850– 1934) that Grinnell chose to introduce the issue. Shufeldt grew up next door to the Audubons in Washington Heights, New York City, and was a

Merchant-final.indb 62

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 63

military surgeon who also published numerous studies on bird anatomy and taxonomy. He later married one of Lucy’s granddaughters, Florence Audubon, who became his second wife. The fi rst of his two articles in The Audubon Magazine was titled “Audubonian Sketches” and was reprinted from an 1886 issue of The Auk, the journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU). The article reproduced a self-portrait of Audubon along with three of his early sketches of birds, all gift s from Mrs. E. C. Walker of Woodstock, Louisiana. The Walkers were the family for whom Lucy Audubon had been a governess.49 Shufeldt related how Audubon’s self-portrait came temporarily into his possession in Fort Wingate, New Mexico, when Mrs. Walker came to visit her daughter, and that he had had a photograph made of it. Shufeldt was both interested in and adept at the new techniques of photography, and it is of interest that he had a photograph made of the portrait and then electrotyped the photograph. The drawings, of which he also had photographs made, were from three different periods in Audubon’s early life and comprised a European magpie, a coot, and a green woodpecker. Shufeldt presented an insightful analysis of the evolution of Audubon’s artistic talents, showing that whereas the two earlier sketches displayed the work of a juvenile artist, the third sketch of the green woodpecker revealed some of the characteristics and prowess that Audubon would later bring to perfection. The plumage is delicate and flossy, the bird is placed in a lifelike pose, the colors are soft, and the tree trunk provides an authentic background. Along with the pictures, Mrs. Walker sent Shufeldt a letter in which she explained that “Mrs. Audubon was governess in my father’s family for several years, also in that of a neighbor of ours. . . . I was but a child at the time. [Audubon] was with us eight months [in Louisiana], but during the greater part of the time was wandering all over the State. . . .”50 In the next issue, Shufeldt offered additional details of the artist’s life as revealed in some letters and articles that he received after his account in The Auk was published. One of them related a story of Audubon’s swimming prowess while he and Lucy were living in Henderson, Kentucky. They were diving from a steamboat and swimming under it lengthwise, a feat “regarded by all who witnessed it as a most remarkable and dangerous undertaking.” The article added that “Mrs. Audubon was also a great swimmer. Mr. H. E. Rouse told us that he had frequently seen her go into the river at the foot of First street and swim to the Indiana shore. She dressed in a regular swimming costume and was regarded by all who knew her as the next best to her husband, if not his equal.”51

Merchant-final.indb 63

4/28/16 8:34 PM

64 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Shufeldt’s reputation was later called into question on several grounds. His second wife, Florence Audubon, accused him of having an affair with their Norwegian housekeeper (whom he later married) after two months of marriage and fi led for divorce and for alimony, which he refused to pay. He published an article—titled “Of Female Impotency,” which contained a nude photograph, possibly of Florence—in which he stated his affi liation with the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian dismissed him for it and the AOU distanced itself from him. He also published Studies of the Human Form for Artists, Sculptors, and Scientists (1908), which contained nude photographs, and two books that espoused racial supremacy, The Negro: A Menace to American Civilization (1907) and America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro (1915).52

• Grinnell’s Biography of Alexander Wilson In volume 2 (1888), Grinnell devoted eight issues (5–12) to a serialized biography of Audubon’s predecessor, ornithologist and artist Alexander Wilson (1766–1813), in which he compared Wilson’s achievements to those of Audubon. Wilson’s multivolume American Ornithology, or The Natural History of the Birds of the United States appeared prior to Audubon’s Birds of America and was published in Philadelphia between 1808 and 1814. Grinnell’s episodes on the life of Alexander Wilson, however, were no longer the lead articles in the magazine but had been replaced by Grinnell’s own descriptions of his featured Audubon bird.53 Grinnell based his biography on and took his quotations primarily from William Jardine’s “The Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” which served as the preface to Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte’s new four-volume set of Wilson’s American Ornithology, published in 1831. Sir William Jardine (1800–1874) was a Scott ish naturalist known for his forty-volume set, The Naturalist’s Library, issued during the decade 1833–1843. The series contained four sections (ornithology, mammalia, entomology, and ichthyology), the fi rst section consisting of fourteen volumes on ornithology.54 Both Jardine and Grinnell, however, drew on George Ord’s Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, Author of the American Ornithology, which had been published in Philadelphia in 1828. George Ord (1781–1866), who lived in Philadelphia, was a long-time supporter and champion of Wilson, whom he believed was the better of the two ornithologists. Ord’s oppo-

Merchant-final.indb 64

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 65

sition to Audubon was one of the reasons the latter was unable to obtain subscriptions in the United States. Ord accompanied Wilson on some of his travels and later completed two volumes of Wilson’s American Ornithology after Wilson’s death.55 Grinnell introduced his biography of Alexander Wilson in section 1 with the sentence: “Alexander Wilson has sometimes been styled the father of American Ornithology, but it was not until the year 1804 that he thought seriously of studying for the task of describing and illustrating the birds of North America.” It was indeed George Ord who had given Wilson that famous identity. Ord wrote, “The poor despised weaver of Paisley takes his rank among the writers of our country; and after ages shall look up to the Father of American Ornithology.”56 Grinnell portrayed Wilson as having a clear purpose and a practical nature, in contrast to Audubon the dreamer. Under Grinnell’s pen, Wilson became an individual with talent and likeability rather than the distant critic who appears in Audubon’s journal. Following the outline of Jardine’s biography, in sections 1 and 2 Grinnell traced Wilson’s early life from his birth in Paisley, Scotland, to his apprenticeship to a weaver at the age of thirteen. During that time, Wilson was constantly escaping into matters of the mind, writing poetry, and rambling “among the woods of Castle Semple, or by the banks of the river Calder”—a “beautiful and romantic mountain stream.” His sedentary occupation as a weaver soon gave way to the wandering life of a peddler and poet, and Wilson published his fi rst volume of poems. Unable to make a living in this way, he took up writing for political agitators, which ultimately resulted in a jail term. But with time to reflect, he had the idea to emigrate to the United States, which he did in May of 1794.57 In section 3 of his life of Wilson, Grinnell relates how Wilson, after his arrival in Philadelphia in 1794, again tried a variety of ways to support himself, with litt le success. But the tables turned when he was appointed as a schoolmaster in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, and made the acquaintance of his next-door neighbor, the distinguished naturalist William Bartram (1739–1823), “who had a charming place on the western bank of the Schuylkill, known as ‘Bartram’s botanical garden.’” Under Bartram’s tutelage Wilson took up drawing birds, at which he eventually attained great skill and enthusiasm and fi nally found the passion and calling of his life’s work.58 Grinnell tells readers in section 4 that Wilson began traveling and collecting material in 1804 for his natural history, and he began consulting

Merchant-final.indb 65

4/28/16 8:34 PM

66 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

with Bartram. Sending an initial twenty-eight drawings to Bartram in July 1805, Wilson wrote, “Any hint for promoting my plan or enabling me to execute better I will receive from you with much pleasure. . . . To your advice and encouraging encomiums I am indebted for these few specimens, and for all that follow.” Wilson’s fi nal sentence was italicized: “They may yet tell posterity that I was honored with your fr iendship, and that to your inspiration they owe their existence.” Grinnell commented, “Expressions such as that given above in italics indicate that in spite of his enthusiasm and no mean measure of self-reliance, there was in Wilson a tendency to so modest an appreciation of his own abilities, that at this decisive stage of his career he would hardly have ventured on the struggle for the consummation of his dreams unless encouraged by those in whose judgment he had implicit confidence.”59 With his new mission in life now clear, Wilson was hired by Samuel F. Bradford, a Philadelphia publisher, to be an assistant editor of an encyclopedia. Soon Bradford, who was highly impressed by Wilson’s skills, agreed to publish his American Ornithology, a project funded and fi nalized by the Philadelphia company of Bradford and Inskeep between 1808 and 1814.60 Over the next four years (section 5), in preparing the contents of volume l, Wilson threw his energies into the project and fi nally, as Grinnell quotes Ord in praise of the outcome, “In the month of September, 1808, the fi rst volume of the ‘American Ornithology’ made its appearance. . . . But as yet no one appeared to entertain an adequate idea of the treat which was about to be afforded to the lovers of the fi ne arts, and of elegant literature; and when the superb volume was presented to the public their delight was equaled only by their astonishment that America, as yet in its infancy, should produce an original work in science which could vie in its essentials with the proudest productions of a similar nature of the European world.”61 Wilson’s success (described in section 6) in fi nding the two hundred fi ft y subscribers needed for volume 1 (1808) made possible the appearance of volume 2 in January of 1810, with a printing of five hundred. In section  6, Grinnell reprinted Wilson’s letters from 1808 to 1810 relating Wilson’s own account of his travels in search of both birds and customers through Pennsylvania by way of the Allegheny mountains and Pittsburgh, at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, where he obtained several new subscribers. In his account of his travels, Wilson states, “Gentlemen here assure me that the road to Chilocothee [sic] is impass-

Merchant-final.indb 66

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 67

able on foot by reason of the freshets. I have therefore resolved to navigate myself in a small skiff which I have bought and named the ‘Ornithologist’ down to Cincinnati, a distance of five hundred and twenty-eight miles, intending to visit five or six towns that lie in my way.” From there Wilson continued through broken ice with a small supply of provisions down the Ohio, and, as the weather improved and the ice disappeared, Wilson “felt his heart expand with joy” . . . as he “listened with pleasure to the whistling of the red birds on the banks,” . . . and “contemplated the forest scenery as it receded with increasing delight.” Wilson’s letters, wrote Grinnell, were deeply interesting for their vivid accounts of nature and the life of the times.62 In section 7 of his life of Wilson (issue 11, December 1888), Grinnell quoted extensively from Wilson’s letters describing his voyage down the Ohio River rowing his own skiff, including Wilson’s 1810 meeting with Audubon. His narrative included the people he encountered migrating southward in “arks” loaded with provisions, as well as the birds, Indian fortifications, and fossilized relics he saw along the way. As Wilson put it, “The landscape on each side lay in one mass of shade, but the grandeur of the projecting headlands . . . was charmingly reflected in the smooth glassy surface below. . . and . . . in the more solitary places, the big horned owl made a most hideous hallooing that echoed among the mountains.”63 In his fi nal episode (section 8), Grinnell described Wilson’s expeditions to collect and paint birds and the three years he lived primarily in Philadelphia superintending the publication of his work. These years found him in declining health, punctuated by heart palpitations that slowed his progress. After the publication of volume 7, he and Ord went together to Egg Harbor, New Jersey, to collect materials on marine waterfowl for volume 8. Here Wilson, after chasing his desired birds and swimming through several rivers and creeks, contracted a cold, which ultimately led to his death on August 23, 1813. “The immediate cause of his death,” says Grinnell, “was dysentery to which he had acquired a chronic tendency by previous exposure, and to this last and fatal attack he succumbed after an illness of ten days at the early age of forty-seven years.”64 Grinnell’s assessment of Wilson in comparison with Audubon is as follows: “In instituting a comparison between the result of the labors of Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon, it should always be borne in mind that the latter were the fruits of a long life time, while Wilson’s labors were concentrated into the litt le space of seven years. His private life was irreproachable, his character estimable, and many of those with

Merchant-final.indb 67

4/28/16 8:34 PM

68 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

whom his literary labors brought him in contact became warmly attached friends.”65 Prophetically, the same issue of The Audubon Magazine, published in January 1889, that contained Grinnell’s fi nal account of Wilson’s life and his comparison between Wilson and Audubon was also the last issue. After two full years of publication, Grinnell found that the magazine (along with his many other commitments) took too much of his time and energy to sustain its continuation (on the cessation of The Audubon Magazine, see chapter 2 of this book). Nevertheless, in publishing the eight episodes of Audubon’s life, his assessments of Audubon’s character, and the eight episodes of Wilson’s life, Grinnell brought the two ornithologists to the attention of an American audience beginning to be aroused by both the beauty and the decline of American birds.

• Conclusion Grinnell’s depictions of the life, adventures, and paintings of John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson not only engaged the readers of his day but aroused a nation’s concern over vanishing birdlife. Audubon’s talent as an artist of American birds in dramatic poses in natural sett ings, along with his remarkable abilities as a writer, made the pending losses even more dramatic. That Grinnell gave Audubon’s name to the society he founded was designed both to flame the passions of birders and to promote the preservation of birds. The chapters that follow reproduce Grinnell’s own biographies of and observations about John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson, writings that have gone unrecognized because of Grinnell’s strongly held belief that as editor of The Audubon Magazine they should remain unsigned and instead stand under the name of the journal itself. Chapter 4 reprints Grinnell’s life of Audubon from issues 1–8 (February–September 1887) of The Audubon Magazine. Chapter 5, taken from issues 9–10 (October– November 1887), and chapter 6, taken from issue 11 (December 1887), capture Grinnell’s assessment of Audubon’s character and his tribute to Lucy as well as additional incidents in Audubon’s life. Chapter 7 of reproduces Robert W. Shufeldt’s description of Audubon’s early drawings in The Audubon Magazine (volume 1, issue 12 [January 1887] and volume 2, issue 1 [February 1888]). The March, April, and May issues of volume 2 of The Audubon Magazine do not contain biogra-

Merchant-final.indb 68

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings • 69

phies and are not reproduced in this book. Of note, however, is that in the March issue Grinnell wrote an obituary of Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823– 1887), commissioner of the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries and author of North American Birds (1858), and in the April issue he wrote an article about the Audubon monument. In the May issue, Grinnell penned an obituary of Henry Bergh (1813–1888), founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Chapter 8 contains Grinnell’s account of the life of Audubon’s predecessor, Alexander Wilson, taken from the fi nal eight issues of The Audubon Magazine (June 1888–January 1889). Together the chapters in part II of this book constitute George Bird Grinnell’s heretofore unrecognized biographies and assessments of John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson. They are noteworthy as evidence of Grinnell’s extensive knowledge of the history of ornithology and his commitment to the preservation of birdlife. Wherever possible I have added notes that reveal the sources used by Grinnell to create his accounts.

Merchant-final.indb 69

4/28/16 8:34 PM

C H A P T ER F O U R

The Life of John James Audubon By George Bir d Gr in nell From The Audubon Magazine 1, nos. 1–8 (Feb.–Sept. 1887)

•1

• 70

John James Audubon was born on his father’s plantation near New Orleans, Louisiana, May 4, 1780 [Actually, Apr. 26, 1785, Les Cayes, SaintDomingue, now Haiti]. His father was a Frenchman, and the naturalist himself spent a considerable part of his early life in France.1 What he knew of his ancestry he tells us in the following language: “John Audubon, my grandfather, was born at the small village of Sable d’Olonne, in La Vendée, with a small harbor, forty-five miles south from Nantes. He was a poor fisherman with a numerous family, twenty-one of whom grew to maturity. There was but one boy besides my father, he being the twentieth born, and the only one of the numerous family who lived to a considerable age.”2 The father of the naturalist was sent out into the world to seek his fortune at the age of twelve years. Shipping at Nantes as a “boy” on a fishing vessel bound to America, at the age of twenty-one he was in command of a vessel, and at twenty-five not only captain but owner of his craft. His voyages were successful, and he at length found himself at St. Domingo, where he purchased a plantation. Here he accumulated a fortune, and was later sent to France by the Governor of St. Domingo in an official capacity during the days of the First Empire. His acquaintance with prominent men of the time soon led to his receiving an appointment to the command of a vessel of war in the Imperial Navy. Previous to this, and while residing in the West Indies, he had made various purchases of land in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, and

Merchant-final.indb 70

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 71

had married Anne Moynette, a Louisiana lady of Spanish extraction. A daughter and three sons were born to him, the youngest of the latter being John James. The fi rst years of the boy’s life were spent in Louisiana, but later the family removed to St. Domingo, where, in the rising of the negroes, Madame Audubon was killed. Soon after this Commodore Audubon returned to France, where he married a second time, and again sailed for America, leaving John James in the charge of his wife. She proved a loving and indulgent guardian to the self-willed boy, who was prett y much his own master until the return of his father to France. It was the father’s desire that the boy should become either a sailor or an engineer, and as a preparation for whichever profession should be determined on for him, he received especial instruction in mathematics, drawing, geography, music and fencing. But the boy cared only for an outdoor life which brought him in contact with nature. It was his delight even in his earliest years to make long excursions alone into the country, returning laden with the natural objects which he met with in his walks. Thus birds’ nests and eggs, plants, insects and stones became early his playthings. He was certainly not an ardent student of books, and we are told that differences of opinion between his father and himself as to the progress he made in his studies were frequent. Of drawing he was very fond, and even at Nantes he began to make drawings of French birds—drawings which gave him only temporary satisfaction, for he says: “My pencil gave birth to a family of cripples. So maimed were most of them that they resembled the mangled corpses on a field of batt le, compared with the integrity of living men. These difficulties and disappointments irritated me, but never for a moment destroyed the desire of obtaining perfect representations of nature. The worse my drawings were, the more beautiful did I see the originals. To have been torn from the study would have been as death to me. My time was entirely occupied with it. I produced hundreds of these rude sketches annually, and for a long time, at my request, they made bonfi res on the anniversaries of my birthday.”3 As the boy approached manhood his father was desirous that he should enter the French army, but war no longer seemed to the youth the most glorious of pursuits, and instead of becoming a soldier he was sent out to America to look after his father’s property. On reaching New York he was stricken with yellow fever, and after his recovery was put in charge of his father’s estates at Mill Grove, Pa. Here his life was one of quiet enjoyment, devoted to shooting, fishing and drawing. It was here that he met

Merchant-final.indb 71

4/28/16 8:34 PM

72 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Miss Lucy Bakewell, the daughter of a neighbor, who afterwards became his wife, and who all through his eventful and checkered career helped to cheer him by her love and to aid him by her strong common sense. Life at Mill Grove was pleasant, but it was at length rudely interrupted by the arrival of a certain [François] Da Costa, an agent sent out from France by the elder Audubon to look after his son and his property. Th is man not only attempted to put restraints on young Audubon, but even objected to his proposed marriage with Miss Bakewell. Outraged by this treatment he started for New York, and after considerable difficulties and delays took passage for Nantes, where he arrived and laid the condition of things before his father. Da Costa was removed, and a conditional assent granted to the marriage with Miss Bakewell. For a year Audubon remained in France. The Empire was then shaken by preparations for the invasion of Russia, and there seemed danger that he might be obliged to join the army. To avoid this he volunteered in the navy and received an appointment as midshipman. After one short cruise, leave of absence was obtained for the young man, and in company with a friend named Rosier, he sailed for America, the two having agreed to a nine years’ partnership. The vessel on which they sailed was overhauled by a British privateer, the crew of which plundered the passengers, but after considerable delay and adventure they reached New York. Back again at Mill Grove, with the disturber of his peace removed, Audubon entered once more upon his pleasant country life, but he now desired to marry, and it was evident that he must fi rst have some sett led occupation. He accordingly entered the counting house of Benjamin Bakewell of New York, but gave most of his time to collecting birds. It was during this period that he met Dr. Samuel Mitchell, at that time one of the leading scientific men of New York. It took but a short time to convince Mr.  Bakewell that it would be impossible to instill business habits into the nature of young Audubon, and the latter, therefore, returned to Mill Grove. He and Rosier now planned a commercial expedition to Kentucky, and the estate at Mill Grove was sold and the proceeds invested in goods. Before starting, the marriage with Miss Bakewell took place on the 8th of April, 1808. The business journey to Louisville thus became as well a wedding tour, and was made for the most part on a flat boat. Now followed nearly twenty years of wandering life, interspersed with attempts in commercial pursuits, which were never successful. Audubon was by turns merchant, portrait painter, curator of a museum, danc-

Merchant-final.indb 72

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 73

ing master and school teacher. During all this time he was making collections, observations, drawings. When his money quite gave out he would put his skillful hand to something which would bring in bread, and then, when his accumulations were enough to last for a litt le while, would turn his back on civilization and take to the woods again. Though often depressed, he was never discouraged, but kept the main object of his life steadily in view. Th rough the adventures of those years we will follow him in subsequent chapters.

•2 The journey down the Ohio terminated at Louisville, Kentucky, and, established here with his young wife in his pleasant home, Audubon began his business career. Th is did not last long, though the prospects for success were very good. The naturalist would not endure the confi nement of store and office, and most of his time was spent in the open air, the business being thus left more and more in the hands of his partner, Rosier. The planters about Louisville were kindly, hospitable and fond of outdoor sports, and among them Audubon, with his similar tastes and habits, became at once popular. His chief pursuit was still collecting birds and making drawings of them. It was here in Louisville, in March, 1810, that Audubon fi rst met Alexander Wilson, who has been called the Father of American Ornithology. Wilson was traveling in the West, collecting material for his work and securing subscribers for it. The meeting between the two is described by Audubon in the fi rst volume of the “Ornithological Biograph[y],” and is interesting, for it gives us some hints as to the characters of the two men. He says: One fair morning, I was surprised by the sudden entrance into our countingroom at Louisville of Mr. Alexander Wilson, the celebrated author of the “American Ornithology,” of whose existence I had never until that moment been apprised. Th is happened in March, 1810. How well do I remember him, as he walked up to me! His long, rather hooked nose, the keenness of his eyes, and his prominent cheek bones, stamped his countenance with a peculiar character. His dress, too, was of a kind not usually seen in that part of the country; a short coat, trousers and a waistcoat of gray cloth. His stature was of the middle size. He had two volumes under his arm, and as he approached

Merchant-final.indb 73

4/28/16 8:34 PM

74 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson the table at which I was writing, I thought I discovered something like astonishment in his countenance. He, however, immediately proceeded to disclose the object of his visit, which was to procure subscriptions for his work. He opened his books, explained the nature of his occupations, and requested my patronage. I felt surprised and gratified at the sight of his volumes, turned over a few of the plates, and had already taken a pen to write my name in his favor, when my partner rather abruptly said in French, “My dear Audubon, what induces you to subscribe to this work? Your drawings are certainly far better; and again, you must know as much of the habits of American birds as this gentleman.” Whether Mr. Wilson understood French or not, or if the suddenness with which I paused disappointed him, I cannot tell; but I clearly perceived that he was not pleased. Vanity and the encomiums of my friend prevented me from subscribing. Mr. Wilson asked me if I had many drawings of birds. I rose, took down a large portfolio, laid it on the table, and showed him—as I would show you, kind reader, or any other person fond of such subjects—the whole of the contents, with the same patience with which he had shown me his own engravings. His surprise appeared great, as he told me he never had the most distant idea that any other individual than himself had been engaged in forming such a collection. He asked me if it was my intention to publish, and when I answered in the negative his surprise seemed to increase. And, truly, such was not my intention; for, until long after, when I met [French ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte, 1803–1857] the Prince of Musignano in Philadelphia, I had not the least idea of presenting the fruits of my labors to the world. Mr. Wilson now examined my drawings with care, asked if I should have any objections to lending him a few during his stay, to which I replied that I had none. He then bade me good morning, not, however, until I had made an arrangement to explore the woods in the vicinity along with him, and had promised to procure for him some birds of which I had drawings in my collection, but which he had never seen. It happened that he lodged in the same house with us, but his retired habits, I thought, exhibited either a strong feeling of discontent or a decided melancholy. The Scotch airs which he played sweetly on his flute made me melancholy too, and I felt for him. I presented him to my wife and friends, and seeing that he was all enthusiasm, exerted myself as much as was in my power to procure for him the specimens which he wanted. We hunted together and obtained birds which he had never before seen; but, reader, I did not subscribe to his work, for, even at that time my collection was greater than his. Th inking that perhaps he might be pleased to publish the results of my researches, I offered them to him, merely on condition that what I had drawn, or might afterward draw and

Merchant-final.indb 74

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 75 send to him, should be mentioned in his work as coming from my pencil. I at the same time offered to open a correspondence with him, which I thought might prove beneficial to us both. He made no reply to either proposal, and before many days had elapsed left Louisville, on his way to New Orleans, little knowing how much his talents were appreciated in our litt le town, at least by myself and my friends. Some time elapsed, during which I never heard of him, or his work. At length, having occasion to go to Philadelphia, I, immediately after my arrival there, inquired for him and paid him a visit. He was then drawing a white-headed eagle. He received me with civility, and took me to the exhibition rooms of Rembrandt Peale, the artist who had then portrayed Napoleon crossing the Alps. Mr. Wilson spoke not of birds or drawings. Feeling, as I was forced to do, that my company was not agreeable, I parted from him; and after that I never saw him again, but judge of my astonishment some time after, when on reading the thirty-ninth page of the ninth volume of “American Ornithology,” I found in it the following paragraph: March 23d, 1810. I bade adieu to Louisville, to which place I had four letters of recommendation, and was taught to expect much of everything there; but neither received one act of civility from those to whom I was recommended, one subscriber, nor one new bird; though I delivered all my letters, ransacked the woods repeatedly, and visited all the characters likely to subscribe. Science or literature has not one friend in this place.4

Wilson was a man of extremely nervous and sensitive temperament, and it can hardly be doubted that he was jealous of the work which he saw was being done by Audubon and looked upon him as a possible rival.

•3 Audubon’s fi rst experience of really wild life came soon after his fi rst meeting with Wilson. The business in which he was engaged in Louisville was not as successful as it was thought it ought to be, and arrangements were made for transferring it to Henderson [Kentucky], one hundred and twenty miles down the Ohio River. Th is place was then a litt le frontier sett lement, and with most limited accommodations, and before starting on his new venture, Audubon took his wife and son back to her father’s house at Flatland Ford, in Pennsylvania, where they remained for a year.5

Merchant-final.indb 75

4/28/16 8:34 PM

76 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Henderson, however, was too small a place for a successful store, and it was determined after a while to make another change, moving to St. Genevieve, on the Mississippi. During this journey their boat was frozen in, and they were obliged to remain for some time camped upon the river bank, waiting for the ice to break up. Here Audubon was brought into close contact with bands of wandering Shawnee and Osage Indians, who were gathering mast and hunting, and he beguiled the time by joining them in their expeditions after game, and thus learned many things about the ways of the forest. The time passed pleasantly enough to him, though to his partner, Rosier, the delay was exceedingly irksome. Taking advantage of each thaw, they worked their way slowly along until they came within sight of Cape Girardeau, when cold weather came on again and they were fi nally frozen in for the winter. The account of this journey given by Audubon is most graphic. Of this last delay he says: “We were now indeed in winter quarters, and we made the best of it. The Indians made baskets of cane, Mr. Rope played on the violin, I accompanied with the flute, the men danced to the tunes, and the squaws looked on and laughed, and the hunters smoked their pipes with such serenity as only Indians can, and I never regretted one day spent there.”6 By and by, however, the ice broke up, and the arduous labor of working the boat up the river was resumed. A short stop was made at Cape Girardeau, and then pushing on to St. Genevieve, a market was found for their goods. But Audubon soon became restless again, and longed to be back at Henderson where his wife now was, in the family of Dr. Rankin, who lived near that place. He therefore sold his interest to Rosier, purchased a horse and started off across the country for home. Th is trip was one of some adventure, for at a cabin where Audubon spent the night, his carelessness in exposing his watch aroused the cupidity of his hostess, who with her two sons plotted his death. The timely arrival of two travelers at the door prevented a struggle, which would no doubt have resulted in the death of the would-be murderers. They were captured and bound, and the following day were severely punished after the so-called Regulator Law of the day, their cabin burned and their goods given to a friendly Indian, who the night before had warned Audubon of his danger. The autumn of 1812 was remarkable for the number and severity of the earthquake shocks which visited the Mississippi valley, and Audubon’s journal contains many references to these convulsions. During his residence at Henderson, Audubon was induced to enter a new business at New Orleans, but this proved even less successful than

Merchant-final.indb 76

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 77

his previous venture. Notwithstanding the fact that he had put all his available means into the business of Audubon & Co., the senior partner did not devote himself to it, but remained in Kentucky, and before long he received news of the failure of the concern and the loss of all his money. It was about this time that his father died. Commodore Audubon left to his son an estate in France and a sum of money amounting to about $17,000, but the heir was not destined to benefit by this legacy. For some reason or other he failed to receive the legal notice of his father’s death for more than a year. He then went to Philadelphia to obtain money, but was unable to do so. The cash had been deposited with a merchant in Richmond, V[irgini]a, who declined to part with it until Audubon should give satisfactory proofs that he was the heir, but before this was done the merchant died a bankrupt. No effort was made to obtain possession of the estate in France, and years afterward Audubon sent one of his sons there for the purpose of legally transferring it to his sister [Rose]. From Philadelphia, Audubon, now absolutely without resources, returned to Henderson. He managed to raise a litt le money, and purchasing a small stock of goods at Louisville, again went into business at Henderson. Here for the moment he was moderately successful, so much so that he seems to have been quite contented, and refused a colonel’s commission offered him by a certain General Toledo, who was raising volunteers for a fi libustering expedition to South America. It was not long, however, before he was approached by a visionary friend, who induced him to erect a steam mill at Henderson. The project seems to have been hopeless from the start, and it was only kept alive by a process of taking in at frequent intervals new partners, whose means prolonged the life of the venture but did no more, and again Audubon found himself literally penniless, having given up all his possessions to his creditors. He now returned with his family to Louisville, where for a while they remained with a relative. Money must be had, however, and now Audubon’s skill with his pencil stood him in good stead. He began to draw portraits, and the fame of his skill soon spread through the neighboring country, so that before long he had more work than he could attend to. Money became again abundant, his family were with him, he had leisure in which to gratify his roving tastes, and life was once more pleasant. Shortly after this, he accepted an invitation to become curator of the museum at Cincinnati, taking especial charge of the department of ornithology. While occupying this post, he opened a school for drawing in connection with it. In this he was successful, but at length several of his

Merchant-final.indb 77

4/28/16 8:34 PM

78 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

pupils set up opposition schools, and the competition proved too severe. About this time, too, the work at the museum ended, and Audubon was obliged once more to fall back on his painting. Eight years passed with varying fortunes in this pleasant Kentucky life. In his journal he tells us much of the sports and pastimes of those early days, and in our next chapter we shall give some extracts from his writings on this topic.

•4 The State of Kentucky, at the time when Audubon moved thither, still preserved much of its frontier character. It had been sett led about thirty-four years, and had been one of the States of the Union for sixteen, but the actors who had taken part in the stirring events of its conquest were still alive, and the memory of the pleasures and hardships of their march from Virginia through the forests and over the mountains to the banks of the Ohio, were still fresh in their memory. Men not yet past middle life had taken part in the Indian wars of the early days, and had been members of Colonel [George Rogers] Clark’s litt le band of two hundred men, who wrested from the British, Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and secured to the State of Virginia the fertile territory of Illinois. These stalwart sons of the Old Dominion, gigantic in strength and stature, self-reliant, and ignorant of fear, were devoted to outdoor life, and had been trained in the severe school which made them experts in the use of weapons of the chase or of war. In those early days, the rifle had been as much a part of a man’s equipment as the ax. It was not less necessary for defense than to supply food to the family, and instruction in its use was a necessary part of the education of every boy. Traveling through a trackless wilderness, where turkeys, deer, bears and buffalo were everywhere abundant, and where the fierce savage had his home, the handling of the rifle was part of a man’s work, not his recreation. At the time of which Audubon writes, this state of things had measurably passed away. The necessity for this expertness no longer existed, but the training which had induced it still remained. Now, men used the arm in hunting for sport as much as for a supply of food, and this practice, together with the frequent trials of skill in the use of this weapon, still kept the Kentuckians the best rifle shots on the frontier. Living among such a

Merchant-final.indb 78

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 79

people, and interested as he was in all that pertained to outdoor life, we may imagine that exhibitions of this skill would have had a fascination for Audubon. He tells us of the methods in which it was exhibited in the following language: We have individuals in Kentucky, that even there are considered wonderful adepts in the management of the rifle. To drive a nail is a common feat, not more thought of by the Kentuckians than to cut off a wild turkey’s head, at a distance of a hundred yards. Others will bark off squirrels, one after another, until satisfied with the number procured. Some, less intent on destroying game, may be seen under night snuffi ng a candle at the distance of fi ft y yards, off-hand, without extinguishing it. I have been told that some have proved so expert and cool, as to make choice of the eye of a foe at a wonderful distance, boasting beforehand of the sureness of their aim, which has afterward been fully proved when the enemy’s head has been examined. . . . Some individuals who conceive themselves expert in the management of the gun are often seen to meet for the purpose of displaying their skill, and bett ing a trifl ing sum, put up a target, in the center of which a common-sized nail is hammered for about two-thirds of its length. The marksmen make choice of what they consider a proper distance, which may be forty paces. Each man cleans the interior of his tube, which is called wiping it, places a ball in the palm of his hand, pouring as much powder from his horn upon it as will cover it. Th is quantity is supposed to be sufficient for any distance within a hundred yards. A shot which comes very close to the nail is considered as that of an indifferent marksman; the bending of the nail is, of course, somewhat better; but nothing less than hitt ing it right on the head is satisfactory. Well, kind reader, one out of three shots generally hits the nail, and should the shooters amount to half a dozen, two nails are frequently needed before each can have a shot. Those who drive the nail have a further trial amongst themselves, and the two best shots out of these generally sett le the affair, when all the sportsmen adjourn to some house, and spend an hour or two in friendly intercourse, appointing before they part, a day for another trial. Th is is technically termed Driving the Nail.7

Another style of rifle shooting is termed barking off squirrels. It requires great skill, and Audubon was fortunate in seeing it practiced fi rst by Daniel Boone, the pioneer sett ler and Indian fighter of early Kentucky days. He says:

Merchant-final.indb 79

4/28/16 8:34 PM

80 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson We walked out together and followed the rocky margin of the Kentucky River, until we reached a piece of flat land thickly covered with black walnuts, oaks and hickories. As the general mast was a good one that year, squirrels were seen gamboling on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale, athletic man, dressed in a homespun hunting shirt, bare-legged and moccasined, carried a long heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it, he said had proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which he hoped would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to show me his skill. The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six-hundred-thread linen, and the charge sent home with a hickory rod. We moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so numerous that it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these animals, which had observed us, and was crouched on a branch about fi ft y paces distant, and bade me mark well the spot where the bead should hit. He raised his piece gradually until the bead (that being the name given by the Kentuckians to the sight) of the barrel was brought to a line with the spot which he intended to hit. The whip-like report resounded through the woods and along the hills in repeated echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the piece of the bark immediately beneath the squirrel, and shivered it into splinters, the concussion produced by which had killed the animal, and sent it whirling through the air, as if it had been blown up by the explosion of a powder magazine.8

Th is method of shooting squirrels is still practiced in Kentucky and Ohio. Perhaps the most difficult of any of these exhibitions of skill is what is termed “snuffi ng the candle.” Of this Audubon says: The snuffing of a candle with a ball I fi rst had an opportunity of seeing near the banks of Green River, not far from a large pigeon roost to which I had previously made a visit. I heard many reports of guns during the early part of a dark night, and knowing them to be those of rifles, I went to the spot to ascertain the cause. On reaching the place, I was welcomed by a dozen tall, stout men, who told me they were exercising for the purpose of enabling them to shoot under night at the reflected light from the eyes of a deer or wolf, by torchlight. . . . A fi re was blazing near, the smoke of which rose curling among the thick foliage of the trees. At a distance which rendered it scarcely distinguishable, stood a burning candle, as if intended for an offering to the goddess of night, but which in reality was only fi ft y yards from the spot on which we all stood. One man was within a few yards of it, to watch the effects of the shots, as well as to light the candle should it chance to go out, or to replace it should

Merchant-final.indb 80

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 81 the shot cut it across. Each marksman shot in his turn. Some never hit either the snuff or the candle, and were congratulated with a loud laugh; while others actually snuffed the candle without putt ing it out, and were recompensed for their dexterity by numerous hurrahs. One of them who was particularly expert, was very fortunate, and snuffed the candle three times out of seven, whilst all the other shots either put out the candle, or cut it immediately under the light.9

It was amid scenes such as these that Audubon passed what were no doubt some of the happiest years of his life. He entered with his whole soul into the life of the people, and has left many faithful and graphic pen pictures of the primitive amusements of the time. He describes a barbecue, a maple sugar camp, a coon hunt, wolf trapping and many other features of Kentucky life, which, while they were common enough then, have now long passed into desuetude, and are almost forgotten. But during all these pleasant years Audubon did not forget his beloved birds. His principal occupation was still studying their habits, looking for new species and investigating new facts about those well known to him. In our next chapter we shall accompany him on an ornithological expedition down the Mississippi River.

•5 It was in October, 1820, that Audubon started from Cincinnati with an expedition which had been sent out to make a survey of the Mississippi River. He was furnished with letters of recommendation from General [Henry] Harrison and Henry Clay, and had in mind a long excursion through the Southern States, which was to include Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Arkansas. Captain Cumming was at the head of the surveying party. The journey from Cincinnati to the mouth of the Ohio was made in a flat boat and occupied fourteen days. Arriving at Natchez [Louisiana], Audubon made this town his headquarters for a time, and received much kindness there. Mr. [Nicholas] Berthoud, a relative, resided here, and did much to make his stay pleasant. Natchez seems to have delighted the naturalist, not less on account of its beautiful environs and the abundance of its bird life, than by its size, it having then 3,000 inhabitants. Although his surroundings were in many respects pleasant, he was

Merchant-final.indb 81

4/28/16 8:34 PM

82 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

greatly troubled by the lack of funds, for he had been unable to collect money which was due him at Cincinnati, and was really penniless. An incident which occurred here shows how reduced were his fortunes. It happened that his shoes, and those of one of his companions, were worn out, and neither of the two had money enough to purchase a new pair. Audubon stopped at a shoemaker’s and stated the case, informing him that they were without money, but offering to sketch portraits of the shoemaker and his wife in return for two pair of boots. The offer was accepted, and in a short time the portraits were fi nished, and the travelers were furnished with new foot gear. Some time in December, 1820, the naturalist left Natchez for New Orleans in a keel boat with Mr. Berthoud, in tow of a steamer. Here, by an unlucky accident, a portfolio of his precious drawings was left behind, and its loss caused much anxiety, but the prompt dispatch of letters to Natchez resulted in its recovery, and on his arrival at New Orleans he found the portfolio awaiting him there. The voyage down the Mississippi was full of charms for the naturalist, and he writes of it in most enthusiastic terms. Upon reaching New Orleans he at once set out to fi nd work, but at fi rst without success. At length, however, he was fortunate enough to obtain an order for a portrait from a well-known citizen of New Orleans, and this proving a good likeness he received a number of orders, which at once put him in funds, and enabled him to give some time to his favorite pursuits. He obtained a number of new birds here. In March he learned of the conclusion of the treaty between Spain and the United States, by which a considerable portion of the Southwest was ceded to the latter nation, and hearing that an expedition was to leave Natchitoches [Louisiana] next year to survey the boundary line, he determined to try to obtain permission to accompany it as naturalist and draughtsman. He therefore wrote to Mr. [James] Monroe, who was then President, asking for this appointment, but received no reply. Audubon remained in New Orleans until June of 1821, and his life there was one of ups and downs. Sometimes he was penniless, and at others had enough for his wants. He started to return to his family in Kentucky on the 16th of June, but while on his way up the river he accepted the position of instructor in drawing to the daughters of a Mr. [James] Perrie, who owned a plantation at Bayou Sara, in Louisiana. Here his duties were very light, and a considerable portion of his time was occupied in roaming the woods looking out for new birds. The time passed pleasantly. Just about a year after his departure from Cincinnati, he left Bayou Sara for New Orleans.

Merchant-final.indb 82

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 83

Here he rented a house and sent to Kentucky for his family. In an entry in his journal October 25, he gives a statement of what he has accomplished during the year. He says: “Since I left Cincinnati, October 12, 1820, I have fi nished sixty-two drawings of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two snakes, fi ft y portraits of all sorts, and have subsisted by my humble talents, not having a dollar when I started. I sent a draft to my wife, and began life in New Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and much anxiety to pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of America.”10 In December Mrs. Audubon and her children reached New Orleans, and the reunion of the family after fourteen months of separation was a great delight to all of them. But now once more money troubles began to oppress the naturalist, and before long his affairs became so desperate that Mrs. Audubon took pupils to help matters along. In March her husband determined to return to Natchez, where he believed his prospects for obtaining work would be better. He reached this city March 24, 1822, and after some discouragements and delays, obtained an appointment as drawing master in a so called college at Washington, nine miles from Natchez. He sent for his sons and put them to school here. But although he had work, he was dissatisfied, for his employment left him little time to work at his birds. On the whole, his time at Natchez was so far well spent that he was earning some money, and after a while Mrs. Audubon joined him there, and for a short time was governess in a clergyman’s family; but at length Audubon’s desire to proceed with his work could no longer be restrained, and his wife’s faith in him induced her to propose that she should remain in Mississippi as governess in the Percy family at Bayou Sara, while her husband should go to Europe and perfect himself in painting in oil colors. Th is course was fi nally determined on, and in October, 1823, Audubon left New Orleans for Kentucky, taking with him his son Victor, a boy not yet fourteen years old. Th is journey was notable as terminating in a walk of about two hundred and fi ft y miles, made not over roads, but through forests, canebrakes and along stony river beds, and was accomplished in ten days. From the village of Trinity, where, on account of low water, the steamboat was forced to stop, four of the passengers started to walk to Louisville [Kentucky]; but before the journey had been completed Audubon and his young son had left their companions far behind, and were the fi rst to reach Louisville. Here Audubon succeeded in gett ing his son into the counting house of a friend, and then engaged to paint the interior of a steamboat. That autumn and the winter of 1823–4 was spent in Kentucky painting to accu-

Merchant-final.indb 83

4/28/16 8:34 PM

84 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

mulate funds for his travels, and in April, 1824, Audubon found himself in Philadelphia.

•6 Audubon had now fairly started on the journey which was ultimately to lead him to the successful accomplishment of his great work; but the way before him was long and difficult, and his triumph came only after years of delay and disappointment. Nothing but his indomitable energy enabled him to conquer the obstacles and discouragements which at every step stood in his way. He reached Philadelphia April 5, 1824. Here he made the acquaintance of a number of men who were his fast friends ever afterward. Chief among these were [Thomas] Sully, the painter; Prince Charles L[ucien] Bonaparte, the ornithologist; [Charles Alexandre] Le Sueur, the naturalist; Dr. [Richard] Harlan and Mr. Edward Harris. Here, too, he met his old friends [Ferdinand] Rosier and Joseph Mason. He at once began to look for an engraver who should reproduce on metal his drawings of birds, but was quite unsuccessful. In the meantime he supported himself by giving lessons in drawing. The Prince of Canino [Charles Lucien Bonaparte] expressed his doubt about the possibility of properly engraving the plates in this country, and recommended that the work should be done abroad. Unable to accomplish anything in Philadelphia, he went to New York, having with him letters of introduction to persons residing there, but his efforts to fi nd an engraver were quite as unsuccessful as they had been in Philadelphia, and though he received much kindness, and his drawings were everywhere admired, he soon became discouraged and started for Albany to present letters to De Witt C. Clinton and Dr. [Lewis C.] Beck. Both of these gentlemen were absent, and as his funds were gett ing low, he determined to see Niagara [Falls], and then to return South. His comments on the then villages of Rochester and Buffalo [New York]: “Five years ago there were but few buildings here, and the population is now five thousand”; and of Buffalo: “Th is village was utterly destroyed by fi re in the war of 1812, but has now about two hundred houses, a bank, and daily mail.”11 After a few days at Niagara Falls, Audubon sailed from Buffalo for Erie, Penn[sylvania], and proceeded thence on foot to Meadville, Penn[sylvania]. Here his money gave out, and he took steps to replenish his

Merchant-final.indb 84

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 85

purse by portrait painting, and with his usual success. Proceeding southward to Pittsburgh, he spent a month there, collecting birds and making drawings, and toward the end of October started down the Ohio in a skiff. Rainy weather, however, soon put an end to this mode of traveling, and at Wheeling he sold his skiff and took passage in a keel boat for Cincinnati. Here he was obliged to borrow money to get to Louisville, and before long he determined to return to Bayou Sara, open a school, and defer the pursuit of his ornithological project until he had accumulated sufficient money to carry out his plans. It was late in November when he reached Mr. [Charles] Percy’s plantation at Bayou Sara, and once more held in his arms his beloved wife. It was not long before he had established classes in dancing and fencing, which brought him a considerable income, which, with the savings of Mme. Audubon, enabled him to foresee a successful issue to his great ornithological work. In May, 1826, having left his wife and son at Bayou Sara, Audubon sailed for England on the ship Delos. The voyage, though interesting, as shown by the journal, was uneventful, and on the 20th of July Audubon landed in Liverpool [England]. On presenting some of his letters he was received with great cordiality, and was introduced to many eminent people, all of whom admired his work and seemed anxious to aid him. He exhibited his drawings at the Liverpool exhibition, and afterwards at the Royal Institution, and received about £100 as the result. From Liverpool he proceeded to Manchester [England], where his drawings were again placed on exhibition. On October 25 the naturalist left Manchester for Edinburgh [Scotland], where his stay was a succession of brilliant successes and his work met with instant appreciation. Here he almost at once made the acquaintance of literary and scientific men who were in a position to be of the greatest assistance to him. Such were Professor [Robert] Jameson, Dr.  [Robert] Knox, Mr. Francis Jeff rey, Sir William Jardine, Sir Walter Scott, Professor [John] Wilson (Christopher North), Lord Elgin, Mr. [Prideaux John] Selby, the ornithologist, the Earl of Morton, Dr. [David] Brewster and many others. As elsewhere, his drawings att racted great attention in Edinburgh, and a committee from the Royal Institute of Edinburgh offered him the use of their rooms for the exhibition of his drawings. He soon received an offer from Mr. [William] Lizars, an engraver, to publish the fi rst number of his “Birds of America,” with life-size figures, and the work was at once put in hand. In the meantime the exhibition of his drawings was bringing him in some money. His portrait was painted and placed on

Merchant-final.indb 85

4/28/16 8:34 PM

86 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

exhibition, Professor Wilson wrote an article about him and his work for Blackwood’s Magazine, and the whole town was talking of him. The fi rst proofs of the initial number of his work were ready late in November, and in December some of them had been colored and seem to have delighted him. All the while he was painting with energy, and preparing papers on the habits of various birds. Toward the close of his stay in Edinburgh, in March, 1827, Audubon issued his prospectus, and the courage and hopefulness of the man are well shown by the tone of this document. As his wife says: “He was in a strange country, with no friends but those he had made within a few months, and not ready money enough in hand to bring out the fi rst number proposed, and yet he entered confidently on this undertaking, which was to cost over a hundred thousand dollars, and with no pledge of help, but on the other hand, discouragements on all sides, and from his best friends.”12 After leaving Edinburgh, Audubon visited a number of manufacturing towns and secured a few subscribers at £200 each. At length he reached London, and here he was more successful. Here he met Mr. [Robert] Havell, the engraver, who fi nally carried through his great work to its completion. In June, 1828, he received letters from Mr. Lizars, his Edinburgh engraver, intimating that there were difficulties in the way of completing the work then, and an arrangement was made with Mr. Havell for coloring the plates in London. The work was now fairly under way, for subscriptions had been liberally taken in London, the King and the Duchess of Clarence being among the subscribers there.

•7 In September, 1828, the naturalist left London for Paris. One of his fi rst acts on reaching that city was to call, in company with [British ornithologist William] Swainson [1789–1855], on the great [French naturalist Georges] Cuvier [1769–1832], whose advice and recommendation were of the greatest service to him. He also met [French naturalist Etienne] Geoffroy St. Hilaire [1772–1844]. Cuvier’s report on Audubon’s work to the Academy of Sciences was extremely favorable—even laudatory. Coming from the pen of so learned a man, it carried the greatest possible weight. Audubon soon found, however, that the price of the work was so large that there was litt le hope of obtaining many subscribers in France.

Merchant-final.indb 86

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 87

At the end of October, 1828, he returned to London, and sett led down to a winter of hard work, during which he painted among other things the large picture[s] of the eagle and the lamb, and the dog and pheasants.13 Meantime the work on his plates had been going on without interruption. For some time, however, his thoughts had been turned toward America, and in the early spring he decided to revisit this country, and after a long and stormy voyage in the packet ship Columbia he arrived in New York in April. Most of the summer and autumn was occupied in excursions to New Jersey and Pennsylvania for the purpose of studying the birds of the different regions, and then crossing the Alleghenies he went by steamboat to Louisville, where he saw his son Victor, and then to Bayou Sara [Louisiana], where his wife was. Here he remained until January, always busily occupied in studying the habits of birds, looking for new species, and making drawings of those birds and mammals which were needed to complete his series. His earnestness and energy excited the wonder of those to whom the delights of studying nature were unknown. Having made many needed additions to his collections, he began to think of returning to England to look after the progress of his work there. Early in January he started for Louisville, accompanied by Mme. Audubon, and after a short stay there, went to Washington, where he met President Jackson and many other well known men of the time. Stopping on the way at Baltimore and Philadelphia, he went on to New York, where he and his wife embarked for England. In London he found his work progressing to his satisfaction, and learned that his subscription list had fallen away scarcely at all. There, too, he learned that he had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, an honor which he highly appreciated. Now money began to be needed to push on the work of engraving his plates, for some of his subscribers failed to pay their subscriptions promptly. Audubon, therefore, had recourse once more to his facile pencil, and soon obtained the necessary funds. Then, with Mme. Audubon, he started out to fi nd new subscribers, and after visiting several English towns, fi nally arrived at Edinburgh, where they spent the winter. Soon after his arrival in Edinburgh, Audubon began the preparation of his “Ornithological Biography of the Birds of America.”14 In this he was somewhat at a disadvantage, on account of his imperfect knowledge of English. He was fortunate enough to secure for assistance in this work the services of William MacGillivray [1796–1852] of Edinburgh, a naturalist and anatomist fully qualified to correct the somewhat rough manuscript which Audubon turned over to him. The work went on through the win-

Merchant-final.indb 87

4/28/16 8:34 PM

88 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

ter, and by hard and unceasing effort the fi rst volume was completed early in March, 1831, and was enthusiastically received. In September, 1831, Audubon returned once more to America; this time with the object of proceeding to the South and West, where he felt sure there were many varieties of birds wholly unknown to him. The winter he spent in East Florida, and late in the following summer, accompanied by Mme. Audubon and his two sons, he made a journey to Maine, of both of which excursions he has left most interesting accounts which will be referred to later. In the autumn Audubon decided to send his son Victor to England to superintend the engraving of the “Birds,” and to look after his English interests, wishing himself to spend another year in America. That winter and the next summer Audubon spent in Boston working on old drawings, making sketches of new birds, and taking short excursions to the surrounding country, the longest of which was to Labrador, a journey occupying three months. On his return, after resting in New York for three weeks, and sending thirty drawings to England, the indefatigable naturalist started once more for Florida, taking with him Mme. Audubon and his son John. In Philadelphia, instead of gaining subscriptions for his book, he was arrested for an old partnership debt, and had it not been for the kind offices of his friend, William Norris, he would have been imprisoned.15 Th is occurrence inspired him with some rather bitter reflections in regard to his former business transactions. After this unpleasant experience they journeyed slowly southward, stopping in Washington to try to arrange for Government aid in an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, which he even then contemplated. He received but litt le encouragement from General Cass, then Secretary of War. Proceeding southward they reached Charleston, where they were hospitably received by the Rev. John Bachman [1790–1874]. The expedition to Florida was for the time abandoned, and the winter was spent near Charleston. Then, owing to pressing letters from his son Victor, urging his return to England, Audubon journeyed north, and in April, 1834, with his wife and son John, he sailed from New York for Liverpool. There is very litt le of interest to record for some months after Audubon’s arrival in England. His time was spent in looking for subscribers to his book, and in work connected with it until the autumn of 1834, when he removed his family to Edinburgh, where they spent eighteen months, during which time Audubon was principally occupied in writing. After leaving Edinburgh the Audubon family sett led in London, and

Merchant-final.indb 88

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 89

there the naturalist left his wife and eldest son, while he with John returned to America to make his long deferred journey to the South. It was doubtless a great joy to Audubon to be once more in America, and he spent some months in visiting Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, and in renewing his acquaintances with his old friends, but the serious object of his journey was not forgotten and the early autumn of 1836 found him in Charleston. He made short excursions to the neighboring sea islands and to Florida, but owing to the Seminole war, which was then raging, he was unable to penetrate far into the interior of the country. Finally he left Charleston for Texas, with the object of exploring the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. It was during this winter spent in Charleston that his work on the “Quadrupeds of North America” was begun.16 The Texas expedition, which occupied two months, was not particularly satisfactory, and was a great strain upon Audubon’s strength. He was glad to return to Charleston, where he rested for a short time, and then he again visited England. Only allowing himself a short time with his family, Audubon went to Edinburgh, where he once more devoted himself to work upon his “Ornithological Biography.” Having completed this work, which was published in May, 1839, he left Edinburgh for the last time, and with his family returned to New York, where the remainder of his days were spent.

•8 The sun of Audubon’s life was sinking westward and the indomitable spirit and energy were breaking, but still he could not resign himself to idleness. He began preparing his last great work, which was a reduced copy of the English publication. For many years one of Audubon’s greatest desires had been to see the great plains of the West and the Rocky Mountains. It was a hope which was always with him, and now, when the infi rmities of age were beginning to creep upon him, he felt that no time must be lost if he would realize this long cherished wish. So, after sett ling his family in their home at Minnie’s Land, in what is now called Audubon Park, he turned his face toward the West. It was in March, 1843, that he left New York for Philadelphia, where he was joined by his friends, Edward Harris, Isaac Sprague, Lewis Squires, John G. Bell and Jedediah Irish, who were to be his companions on his

Merchant-final.indb 89

4/28/16 8:34 PM

90 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

long journey. The party proceeded to Cincinnati and St. Louis, and ascending the Missouri River reached Fort Leavenworth early in May. The journey up the river was full of interest for Audubon, and the journal of the trip contains a very full account of all that was seen. Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, was reached June 1, and this was the furthest point attained. Th ree months were spent here—months that were full of profit and pleasure to the naturalist. New birds and new mammals were obtained in considerable numbers, hunting expeditions were organized, and the Indians were studied. The region proved so full of interest that Audubon was anxious that some of his younger companions should remain there during the winter. For himself this was impossible, since his strength would not endure the rigors of a Northern winter, and he returned home, reaching New York early in October. Notwithstanding his age and failing strength, Audubon had no sooner returned from the West than, with his usual energy, he began to work again, and in a litt le more than two years the fi rst volume of the “Quadrupeds of North America” made its appearance. Th is was his last work, the remaining volumes of the “Quadrupeds” having been prepared chiefly by his sons, Victor and John Woodhouse. The declining years of Audubon’s life were passed in New York city at his beautiful home on the Hudson River, an estate comprising about twenty-four acres, lying between 155th and 158th streets and Tenth avenue and the river. Here, with his wife, his children, and his children’s children, the naturalist lived simply but very happily, surrounded by those wild creatures among which had been spent so much of the grand life that was now drawing peacefully to its close. The woods were full of birds, and deer and elk rambled over the grass and beneath the ancient trees.17 Here, as he himself wrote in 1846, “Surrounded by all the members of my dear family, enjoying the affection of numerous friends who have never abandoned me, and possessing a sufficient share of all that contributes to make life agreeable, I lift my grateful eyes toward the Supreme Being and feel that I am happy.”18 Toward the close of his life his sight began to fail him, so that he could no longer see to draw, and we may imagine what a deprivation it was to him to be obliged to lay aside his pencil. He bore his affl iction with wonderful patience and sweetness, but it was the beginning of the end. In 1848 his mind, for sixty-eight years so vigorous and active, entirely failed him, and it was not until the day of his death, three years later, that the light of intelligence shone again from those eyes, heretofore so keen and piercing.

Merchant-final.indb 90

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Life of John James Audubon • 91

Cared for and protected by loving hearts and tender hands, he passed down into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and on the morning of January 27, 1851, the long, adventurous, useful life ended. In a sketch of this nature it is not necessary to enlarge upon Audubon’s work, nor to demonstrate its importance to science. The world has already given its verdict as to these points; the name of Audubon has been inscribed high up on the roll of fame. [Alexander] Wilson, [Charles Lucien] Bonaparte, [William] Swainson and [Thomas] Nuttall all did their part toward making known the birds of America, but Audubon differed from all these as the artist differs from the skilled mechanic. In their drawings, however exact, the birds suggest immobility, in Audubon’s, arrested motion. Their figures lack the true artist’s insight, which, penetrating beyond form, size and color, enabled him to depict the birds as instinct with life, character and motion. Besides this, it was Audubon’s happy lot to live near to Nature’s heart, and to have her whisper to him secrets that she withheld from others. William Swainson, in writing of the work in the Natural History Magazine in May, 1828, did but justice to the artistic aspect of Audubon’s work when he said: It will depend upon the powerful and the wealthy, whether Britain shall have the honor of fostering such a magnificent undertaking. It will be a lasting monument not only to the memory of its author, but to those who employ their wealth in patronizing genius, and in supporting the national credit. If any publication deserves such a distinction, it is surely this, inasmuch as it exhibits a perfection in the higher att ributes of zoological painting never before attempted. To represent the passions and the feelings of birds, might, until now, have been well deemed chimerical. Rarely, indeed, do we see their outlined forms represented with anything like nature. In my estimation, not more than three painters ever lived who could draw a bird. Of these the lamented [Jacques] Barraband [1768–1809], of whom France may justly be proud, was the chief. He has long passed away; but his mantle has, at length, been recovered in the forests of America.19

Indomitable energy and perseverance were two most striking att ributes of Audubon’s character, and joined with these was an enthusiasm and freshness that old age could not subdue. His temperament was sanguine, and he was never worn out by delays, never defeated by disappointment. He had an abiding faith in himself, and in the ultimate accomplishment of his work. For years he labored alone, facing with smiling courage

Merchant-final.indb 91

4/28/16 8:34 PM

92 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

obstacles which would have crushed hope out of the heart of a man less vigorous. One person there was who from the beginning shared his hopes and fears, who encouraged him in times of depression and doubt, who labored in order that he might have money with which to carry on his investigations, and who, whether by his side or separated from him by the width of an ocean, was ever his closest friend and his fi rmest supporter. To Lucy Audubon, his beautiful wife, as much as to the naturalist himself, do we owe the great works which have made famous the name of Audubon. Many of those who read these pages will remember her majestic yet benign presence, and can understand the power for aid which so strong a character as hers must have exerted on the lighthearted and enthusiastic husband, whom she survived for twenty years. In beautiful Trinity Cemetery,20 within hearing of the lapping waters of the broad river, on whose banks they had lived together, and hardly a stone’s throw from the house where their declining years were passed, John James Audubon and Lucy, his wife, repose side by side. No towering shaft rises toward heaven to mark their resting place or commemorate their deeds, but on the gray granite of a simple vault is carved the name: AUDUBON

Merchant-final.indb 92

4/28/16 8:34 PM

CHA P T ER FI V E

The Character of John James Audubon By George Bir d Gr in nell From The Audubon Magazine 1, nos. 9–10 (Oct.–Nov. 1887)

•1 In preceding numbers our readers have been made acquainted with the life history and labors of the great naturalist. They have followed him through all his vicissitudes from the cradle to the grave, through twenty years of wanderings in the woods, in which he was sustained only by an enthusiastic love for nature, and a desire to render his life’s work a monument which should command the admiration of his own and succeeding generations. They have seen him again and again crippled for want of means, and becoming in turn portrait-painter, dancing-master, schoolteacher, but only that he might raise the necessary funds for the pursuit of his grand passion. They have seen him regarded by his neighbors as litt le better than a talented, shift less vagabond, but amid all this, toiling steadfastly onward to the goal which he reached to be crowned with honor, to take his place among the great ones of the earth, and to enter on the well won heritage of his labors. But all this is not enough. We have the man’s life history, and the nature and measure of the work he did, but something still is wanting to our estimate of the man—we want to know what manner of man he was, what were the salient traits of his character, the mainsprings of his actions. On this point an eloquent and appreciative writer [Parke Goodwin] says: For sixty years or more he followed, with more than religious devotion, a beautiful and elevated pursuit, enlarging its boundaries by his discover-

Merchant-final.indb 93

• 93

4/28/16 8:34 PM

94 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson ies, and illustrating its objects by his art. In all climates and in all weathers; scorched by burning suns, drenched by piercing rains, frozen by the fiercest colds; now diving fearlessly into the densest forest, now wandering alone over the most savage regions; in perils, in difficulties, and in doubts; with no companion to cheer his way, far from the smiles and applause of society; listening only to the sweet music of birds, or to the sweeter music of his own thoughts, he faithfully kept his path. The records of man’s life contain few nobler examples of strength of purpose and indefatigable energy. Led on solely by his pure, loft y, kindling enthusiasm, no thirst for wealth, no desire of distinction, no restless ambition of eccentric character, could have induced him to undergo as many sacrifices, or sustained him under so many trials. Higher principles and worthier motives alone enabled him to meet such discouragements and accomplish such miracles of achievement.1

Another writer [Robert Buchanan] on the same subject, and in a similar generous strain, says: “Audubon was a man of genius, with the courage of a lion and the simplicity of a child. One scarcely knows which to admire most—the mighty determination which enabled him to carry out his great work in the face of difficulties so huge, or the gentle and guileless sweetness with which he throughout shared his thoughts and aspirations with his wife and children.”2 Of the fi rst of these encomiums it may be said that it was mainly true, but not the whole truth; of the second, that it was true in detail but faulty in perspective. These opinions give us the impression of a strong man entering in youth upon a defi nite pursuit with sett led aims, and striving steadily toward the goal, calm in his self-reliance, sustained by the confidence in his own powers to command success. There are such men, but to class Audubon in this category would be to miss the great lesson of his life. Audubon was endowed with a pure and loft y nature, but his was not a strong character. He displayed baits which command our admiration and love, but his was not a whole, well-rounded nature, embracing even the essential conditions of success. One essential characteristic at least was wanting—the capacity for self-denial; and of Audubon it may be asked as justly as of any man, “To whom was he indebted for his success?” for the great lesson of his life lies in our recognition of the fact that he triumphed in the strength of another, who moulded his character, shaped his aims, gave substance to his dreams, and fi nally, by the exercise of that self-denial which he was incapable of as a long-sustained effort, won for him the public recognition and reward of his splendid talents. Who shall

Merchant-final.indb 94

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Character of John James Audubon • 95

measure Audubon’s indebtedness to the loft y character of his gentle, loving wife? Evidences of the correctness of this estimate are to be found thickly scattered through Audubon’s note book, and we cannot do better than take up the study of the man as he has pictured himself during the few months preceding his introduction to Lucy Bakewell, the gentle, revered “Minnie” of later days.3 “I had no vices,” he writes in his journal, “but was thoughtless, pensive, loving, fond of shooting, fishing and riding, and had a passion for raising all sorts of fowls, which sources of interest and amusement fully occupied all my time. It was one of my fancies to be ridiculously fond of dress, to hunt in black satin breeches, wear pumps when shooting, and dressed in the fi nest ruffled shirts I could obtain from France. . . . All the while I was fair and rosy, strong as any one of my age and sex could be, and as active and agile as a buck.”4 Here we have a picture of a cultivated young man of fi ne physique, good health, good looks, trained in habits of self-indulgence and without other object in life than their gratification; attached to the wild life of the woods, in which he shot and painted and dreamed; an artist, but in no sense of the word a worker, a dreamer in love with nature and with himself; with undeveloped capacities, and conspicuous for nothing so much as for the amiable vanity which found its expression in the display of himself in black satin breeches, imported ruffled shirts and pumps, as a shooting costume. But in accepting this sketch as a true picture of Audubon in his youth, we consciously or unconsciously render homage to the simple truthfulness of the artist who in attempting to present a picture of himself delineated his own character as far as he knew it, with the same rare fidelity to nature that characterized his paintings and descriptions of birds. Here we have something solid to build upon. An unswerving, simple adherence to truth is one of the prime elements of human greatness, a characteristic which cannot co-exist with anything mean or ignoble; and every phase of the man’s after life and work indicates clearly that simple truthfulness was a leading characteristic of his nature. A second characteristic portrayed in the picture is his craving for admiration. Some of Audubon’s critics have charged him with inordinate vanity, while his admirers have indignantly argued that there could be no place in his great nature for such a foible, but the dispute is less about a question of fact than of correctness of defi nition. The display of vanity by

Merchant-final.indb 95

4/28/16 8:34 PM

96 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

a small or mean man is sure to render him ridiculous, if not contemptible; but when the craving for admiration exists in a loft y nature along with talent and high capacities, it becomes the mainspring of action, the spur to grand achievement, the sustaining power in difficulty and temporary defeat. It is rarely a characteristic of men of science, but very generally ascribable to those who win distinction in arms or art or song. Th is desire for appreciation, with its attendant sensitiveness to slights, was certainly a most conspicuous, if not dominant trait in Audubon’s character, a weakness truly in so far as it rendered him unduly sensitive, but none the less the prime source of his strength, the one inborn trait of his character to which more than any other he owed his success. If we now turn again to Audubon’s picture of himself in the light of this analysis of his most salient characteristics, we shall be able to form a better estimate of his native character and capacities. Audubon at this time had placed no higher, no more practical object in life before him than self-indulgence—the gratification of his instinctive cravings; but, on the other hand, his vanity was simply a craving for distinction, and combined with a loft y nature, was just the force necessary to arouse him from his dreamy self-indulgence and spur him on to achieve something which would enable him to command the esteem which he craved. Add to this that his favorite pursuit was a comparatively untrodden field for investigation, that he had successfully cultivated a talent for painting, that he had a grand physique, latent capacities for sustained effort, enthusiasm, and above all, that simple devotion to truth which prevented his accepting any conclusions which were not based on actual observation, and we have all or nearly all the elements necessary to the formation of a great naturalist.

•2 As has been said before, Audubon’s was no well-rounded, complete character; loving he was, but wanting in the capacity for self-sacrifice; generous, but without any controlling sense of duty. Let us deal gently with this last-named shortcoming, for had he been animated by a high sense of duty to his gentle wife he could not have allowed her to eat the bread of dependence and to struggle unaided in the batt le of life for well nigh twenty years of her married life; he would have sacrificed his predilections, bent his neck to the common yoke in some more or less distasteful

Merchant-final.indb 96

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Character of John James Audubon • 97

business pursuit, and both he and she would have missed the crowning triumph of their lives. And indeed Audubon would have been quite incapable of this desertion on his own motion. He needed his wife’s unqualified approval, and her expression of unbounded faith in the value of his labors to justify his desertion to himself, and we must appreciate the measure of self-denial this required of her before we can begin to realize the ideal nobleness of the woman who reverently sacrificed the domestic hearth and devoted her life, her energies, her talents, to affording her husband the opportunity to complete his labors, and to aid him with the material means necessary to secure the world’s recognition of them. Down to the loss of the remnant of his fortune through that “infernal saw mill,” as he styled it, he had been roaming about the woods and observing and painting his loved birds, but not as a means to a practical end for the benefit of his wife and family. As he told Wilson at Louisville and reasserted in his diary, he had at that time no thought of publishing. He was simply indulging tastes for which he had a craving amounting to a passion. He knew, too, that his indulgence in this passion led him to be regarded as a vagabond; and while this estimate stung him to the quick, and although he felt in the secret recesses of his heart that his pursuit was loft y in comparison with the all-absorbing race for wealth, he must nevertheless have suffered keenly from a mistrust of his own judgment. But when Wilson called on him for a subscription to his work, which he was then preparing to publish with material inferior in quantity and quality to that which Audubon had already collected, the latter built on the possibilities of turning his own collections to account, and on a vastly more magnificent scale; but even then he laid out no plan of operation to secure means to the desired end. On the contrary, he just went on dreaming until, his last cent sunk in ill-judged enterprises, he was thrown entirely on his own resources for the support of his wife and family. Th is was the turning point of Audubon’s life. Up to this moment all his labors as a naturalist had been simply the enjoyment of his leisure, and it would naturally have been supposed that in the position in which he was then placed he would have devoted himself entirely to retrieving his position and providing for his family. He made the effort, and being a man of talent and culture, soon secured a position in which he was enabled to maintain his family in comfort, but ere long he drifted away to the woods again, and this time with a defi nite purpose. The pastime of his leisure was to be-

Merchant-final.indb 97

4/28/16 8:34 PM

98 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

come the business of his life. He had now before him the defi nite task of adding to his collections and completing his observation of the birds of America, a congenial task which should bring him name and fame, in addition to the more material reward of labor. But while we do justice to the enthusiasm with which he prosecuted the work, to the dauntless spirit with which he confronted all obstacles, to the sanguine temperament which made him cheerful amid reverses and to the tireless industry with which he diverted his intervals of leisure to procuring means for carrying on his work, we should never lose sight of the fact that it was his wife’s faith in his work and genius which gave substance to his dreams, her prudence which foresaw and prepared for the final difficulties, her self-denial which devoted him to the work, and furnished him with the means of success, won by her own rare energy and talents. That Audubon thoroughly appreciated the devotion of his wife, and felt encouraged by her sympathy with his pursuit and her faith in his ultimate success, goes without saying; but when the day of triumph came at last, it is very doubtful if he realized that his success was in any way due to his wife’s efforts. He had such contempt for money, such a want of appreciation of the self-denial necessary to its accumulation, and such an imperfect realization of its importance, that he could form no just estimate of the value of his wife’s cooperation. His work had been submitted to the best judges of Europe, had been appreciated and won distinction for him. That work was his own; the publication of his book, the recognition and reward of his genius. “His sweet Lucy had believed in him from the fi rst, and now he had justified her faith in him by his success,” and could lay his well-earned triumphs at her feet. But Audubon’s was one of those rare natures which success only tended to expand and elevate. The craving for appreciation, the keen sensitiveness to the opinions of others which characterized the period of his struggles, was succeeded by the calm consciousness that the labors of his life were dignified and worthy, and recognized by all the world as such. The whole character of the man expanded in the sunshine of success, he ceased to be concerned with what others thought of him, and was better prepared to appreciate the character of others. And now gradually there appears to have dawned on him a correct estimate of the character of his devoted wife, and of the important part she had played in the achievement of his success. He had never meanly sought to disparage, he had simply never realized it; he was the more blinded by

Merchant-final.indb 98

4/28/16 8:34 PM

The Character of John James Audubon • 99

the fact that she had been foremost in rendering homage to his genius; but when his eyes were at length directed to the truth, when he realized that he owed his success to the self-denying devotion of the wife whose proffered incense he had been receiving as his due, the self-consciousness of the man vanished, he was lifted out of himself and constrained to bow down and reverence a character whose unselfish greatness dawned on him as a new revelation. Audubon was humbled by the discovery, but elevated also; the emotion of reverence pointed to an ideal standard of excellence outside of himself, and went far to form and strengthen his character. He needed this calm reliance on his wife’s strength, for his own nature was essentially self-indulgent, and all self-indulgent natures are weak. And yet how necessary was such a man as Audubon to the development of his wife’s character. The sunshine of later years lent soft ness to it, but it was in the hard batt ling with the storms of adversity that it gathered strength, in the long years of self-denial for duty’s sake that it expanded to its full proportions. He laid his genius on the altar, she her loft y character and wifely devotion; and as they breasted the fierce storms of adversity together their union became so complete that the individuality of each was merged in the other, forming that ideally perfect union so rarely witnessed. Men went to see Audubon and render homage to his genius, and came away impressed with the gentle and guileless sweetness of his wife and the tender reverence he displayed to her. For the greater number, Audubon fi lled the foreground of the picture so completely, that the devotion to his wife in later years is credited to the noble simplicity of his character, without a suspicion that this reverence was her just due, but here and there some one with keener insight than the others has given vent to the impression “that Audubon owed more to his wife than the world knew, or ever would know.”5

Merchant-final.indb 99

4/28/16 8:34 PM

CHA P T ER SIX

Incidents of Audubon’s Life By George Bir d Gr in nell From The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 11 (Dec. 1887)

• 100

There are very few among us capable of realizing the full sense of what is meant by wandering alone in the primeval forest. It is very pleasant to join a holiday party for a day’s ramble in the woods, or for the ascent of some mountain peak. It is very pleasant to steal away alone along some litt le frequented path into the hidden depths of the forest, or along the river’s bank, tracing it upward to its source in some wild rocky glen; to slake one’s thirst in its cool crystal stream; to recline in the shade of some broad-spreading maple, to listen to the rushing of the brook, the song of the birds, the gentle murmur of the wind through the swaying branches high o’erhead, the hum of insects on the wing, and catching a glimpse of the blue sky through the many-hued foliage, to realize that one is alone with nature. Alone, yes, but not cut off from companionship. It is the sense of being severed from all companionship, of being left to one’s own resources to fi nd the way through pathless wilds to some distant objective point; of having to contend alone with all the difficulties and dangers of the way, that appalls the imagination with a sense of desolation and fi lls the inexperienced woodsman with a nameless terror. To spend years of one’s life in such wanderings, a man wants unbounded self-reliance, well-grounded confidence in his own resources, and a sense of locality which to the ordinary man must appear litt le short of instinctive. For such a life in the Western States some fi ft y years ago a man had to be prepared to confront real dangers at any moment, to engage in encounter with bear or panther or vindictive redskin, or some still more merci-

Merchant-final.indb 100

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Incidents of Audubon’s Life • 101

less white man whom crime had isolated from his fellows and driven to the outskirts of civilization. Audubon grew to be familiar with such dangers. A dreamy, enthusiastic student of nature, he had no less the temper of the bold pioneer whom no difficulty or danger swerved from his object; and as a consequence the life of the artist and man of science teems with incidents of awful peril and wild adventure which in themselves present a graphic picture of the Western border life of fi ft y years ago. It was on his return journey from the upper Mississippi to [Henderson] that Audubon passed through the most thrilling experience of his lifetime. Night had overtaken him on the prairie, but he plodded onward along the Indian trail until he came to some woodland, and caught sight of a fi relight toward which he pressed on in the confidence that it proceeded from the camp of some wandering Indians. As he drew nearer he found that it came from the hearth of a small log cabin, before which a tall figure was passing and repassing as if busily engaged in household arrangements. “I reached the spot,” says Audubon,1 and presenting myself at the door, asked the tall figure, which proved to be that of a woman, if I might take shelter under her roof for the night. Her voice was gruff, and her dress negligently thrown about her. She answered in the affi rmative. I walked in, took a wooden stool, and quietly seated myself by the fi re. The next object that att racted my notice was a fi nely formed young Indian, resting his head between his hands, with his elbows on his knees. A long bow rested against the log wall near him, while a quantity of arrows, and two or three raccoon skins, lay at his feet. He moved not, he apparently breathed not. Accustomed to the habits of the Indians, and knowing that they pay little attention to the approach of civilized strangers, I addressed him in French, a language not unfrequently partially known to the people of that neighborhood. He raised his head, pointed to one of his eyes with his fi nger, and gave me a significant glance with the other; his face was covered with blood. The fact was that an hour before this, as he was in the act of discharging an arrow at a raccoon in the top of a tree, the arrow had split upon the cord, and sprung back with such violence into his right eye as to destroy it for ever. Feeling hungry, I inquired what sort of fare I might expect. Such a thing as a bed was not to be seen, but many large untanned buffalo hides lay piled in a corner. I drew a time-piece from my pocket, and told the woman that it was late, and that I was fatigued. She espied my watch, the richness of which seemed to operate on her feelings with electric quickness. She told me there

Merchant-final.indb 101

4/28/16 8:34 PM

102 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson was plenty of venison and jerked buffalo meat, and that on removing the ashes I should fi nd a cake. But my watch had struck her fancy, and her curiosity had to be gratified by an immediate sight of it. I took off the gold chain which secured it around my neck and presented it to her. She was all ecstacy, spoke of its beauty, asked me its value, and put the chain round her brawny neck, saying how happy the possession of such a watch would make her. Thoughtless, and as I fancied myself in so retired a spot, secure, I paid litt le attention to her talk or her movements. I helped my dog to a good supper of venison, and was not long in satisfying the demands of my own appetite. The Indian rose from his seat as if in extreme suffering. He passed and repassed me several times, and once pinched me in the side so violently, that the pain nearly brought forth an exclamation of anger. I looked at him, his eye met mine, but his look was so forbidding that it struck a chill into the nervous part of my system. He again seated himself, drew his butcher knife from its greasy scabbard, examined its edge as I would that of a razor suspected dull, replaced it, and again taking his tomahawk from his back, fi lled the pipe of it with tobacco, and sent me expressive glances whenever our hostess chanced to have her back toward us. Never until that moment had my senses been awakened to the danger which I now suspected to be about me. I returned glance for glance to my companion, and rested well assured that whatever enemies I might have he was not of their number. I asked the woman for my watch, wound it up, and on the pretense of wishing to see how the weather might probably be on the morrow, took up my gun and walked out of the cabin. I slipped a ball into each barrel, scraped the edges of my fl ints, renewed the primings, and returning to the hut, gave a favorable account of my observations. I took a few bear skins, made a pallet of them, and calling my faithful dog to my side, lay down with my gun close to my body, and in a few moments was to all appearance fast asleep. A short time had elapsed when some voices were heard, and from the corners of my eyes I saw two athletic youths making their entrance, bearing a dead stag upon a pole. They disposed of their burden, and asking for whisky, helped themselves freely to it. Observing me and the wounded Indian, they asked who I was, and why the devil that rascal (meaning the Indian, who they knew understood not a word of English) was in the house? The mother, for so she proved to be, bade them speak less loudly, made mention of my watch, and took them to a corner, where a conversation took place, the purpose of which required litt le shrewdness in me to guess. I tapped my dog gently, he

Merchant-final.indb 102

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Incidents of Audubon’s Life • 103 moved his tail, and with indescribable pleasure I saw his fi ne eyes alternately fi xed on me, and raised to the trio in the corner. I felt that he perceived danger in my situation. The Indian exchanged the last glance with me. The lads had eaten and drunk themselves into such a condition that I already looked upon them as hors de combat, and the frequent visits of the whisky bott le to the ugly mouth of their dam, I hoped would soon reduce her to a like state. Judge of my astonishment when I saw the incarnate fiend take a large carving knife, and go to the grindstone to whet its edge. I saw her pour the water on the turning machine, and watched her working away with the dangerous instrument, until the cold sweat covered every part of my body, in despite of my determination to defend myself to the last. Her task fi nished, she walked to her reeling sons and said, “There, that’ll soon sett le him! Boys, kill yon ———, and then for the watch!” I turned, cocked my gun locks silently, touched my faithful companion, and lay ready to start up and shoot the fi rst who might attempt my life. The moment was fast approaching, and that night might have been my last in this world, had not Providence made provision for my rescue. All was ready. The infernal hag was advancing slowly, probably contemplating the best way of dispatching me, while her sons should be engaged with the Indian. I was several times on the eve of rising and shooting her on the spot, but she was not to be punished thus. The door was suddenly opened, and there entered two stout travelers, each with a long rifle on his shoulder. I bounced up on my feet, and making them most heartily welcome, told them how well it was for me that they should have arrived at that moment. The tale was told in a minute. The drunken sons were secured, and the woman, in spite of her defense and vociferations, shared the same fate. The Indian fairly danced for joy, and gave us to understand that as he could not sleep for pain he would watch over us. You may suppose we slept much less than we talked. The two strangers gave me an account of their once having been themselves in a similar situation. Day came fair and rosy, and with it the punishment of our captives. They were quite sobered. Their feet were unbound but their arms were securely tied. We marched them into the woods off the road, and having used them as Regulators were wont to use such delinquents, we set fi re to the cabin, gave all the skins and implements to the young Indian warrior, and proceeded well pleased toward the sett lements. At the period at which this incident occurred, “Regulator Law” was the high tribunal in the Western States. A savage and outcast population fringed the sett led territories, and among these the most dastardly crimes were cur-

Merchant-final.indb 103

4/28/16 8:34 PM

104 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson rent. “Regulator Law” was administered by a body of American citizens, and was akin to a vigilance committee in its self-assumed functions. The punishment of felons who could defy or were likely to escape the law of the land was the special duty of the Regulators, and the name acquired a terrible significance in the Western wilds.

Merchant-final.indb 104

4/28/16 8:34 PM

CHA P T ER SE V EN

Audubonian Sketches By R[obert] W. Shu feldt From The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 12 (Jan. 1888); and The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1888)

•1 It may be remembered by those who read The Auk for October (1886), that the writer published therein a paper entitled “On an old portrait of Audubon, painted by himself, and a word about some of his early drawings.”1 A frontispiece illustrated that number, being a reduced portrait of Audubon, the original of which he had painted himself, which original came temporarily into my possession at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, where I had had a photograph made of it, and subsequently electrotyped the latter. The article in The Auk fully explains the way by which it came about that such a rare privilege was extended to me, with other matters relating thereto. Now the present circulation of The Auk is not as great as it will surely come to be some day, and as no doubt many widely separated members of the Audubon Society never saw the portrait of our great ornithologist referred to above, the thought struck me, that it would contribute to their pleasure to republish this picture in The Audubon Magazine. Th is, as you see, with the ready assent of Dr. Grinnell, I have done for you. The good people who loaned me this original portrait of Audubon, also presented me with three of his original boy drawings; these are still in my possession, and I have had them one and all photographed for publication in the present connection. In describing this old portrait (fig. 16) and these three drawings in The Auk, I said:2 • 105

Merchant-final.indb 105

4/28/16 8:34 PM

106 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson It will be remembered by those conversant with the life of Audubon, that sometime during his youth he spent a year or more with his parents at Nantes, France. His wife tells us in his biography, that while at Nantes this famous young devotee of nature made a hundred drawings of European birds. These were brought back by him in his portfolio on his return to America, and it proves to be three of these juvenile efforts that I now have in my possession. Rare old treasures they are to be sure, and would that I could commit to paper the quickly-passing thoughts they inspire in my mind, as I hold them up one at a time before me! They cause us to wonder whether Audubon really dreamed, as he worked away over these crude productions, of the man he was to be some day. And we wonder, too, as we examine them, at the rapidity of his artistic development and improvement. They are each and all drawn by a combination of crayon and water-colors upon a thin and not expensive kind of drawing-paper, now britt le and soiled by age. Audubon had evidently numbered these drawings of his, and these numbers are 44, 77 and 96, a European magpie, a coot, and a green woodpecker, respectively (figs. 17–19). As I have said, the earliest of these drawings is the one of the magpie, and let us look at it for a moment. It is life size, as they all three are, and the bird Figure 16. John James Audubon, self-portrait. Reproduced from The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 12 (Jan. 1888): 266.

Merchant-final.indb 106

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Figure 17. The European Magpie. “Original Drawing of Audubon Made When He Was a Boy.” Reproduced from The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 12 (Jan. 1888): 268.

Figure 18. The European Coot. “Another of Audubon’s Boy Sketches.” Reproduced from The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 12 (Jan. 1888): 270.

Merchant-final.indb 107

4/28/16 8:34 PM

108 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Figure 19. A Green Woodpecker. “Another of the Early Drawings of Audubon.” Reproduced from The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1888): 2.

is represented standing on the ground, being drawn lengthwise on the paper. The execution is quite crude, though the naturalist “sticks out” in it, for notwithstanding the somewhat awkward position the bird is in, there is life in it. The ground is simply a wash of pale green and brown, while over on one side of the paper he has “tried his brush,” having made some rough concentric circles with paint dabs about them. Beneath this drawing we fi nd written in lead-pencil in two lines, “La Pie, Buffon,” / “Pye, Piot Magpye, Pianet, english,” and over to the left-hand corner, “No. 44.” The second picture is that of a coot, and is here a marked improvement upon the magpie. Far more pains have been taken with the feet, legs, bill, and eye, though litt le has been gained in the natural att itude of the bird. It is also represented standing upon the dry ground, which is here of a pale, violet wash, unbroken by anything in the shape of stones or vegetation. Except very faintly on the wing, no attempt has been made to individualize the feath-

Merchant-final.indb 108

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Audubonian Sketches • 109 ers, the entire body being of a dead black, worked in either by burnt cork or crayon. Beneath this figure has been written in lead-pencil, but gone over again by the same hand in ink, “La foulque ou La Moselle—Buffon, Riviere Loire Joselle—-” / “English—the Coot.” As is usually the case among juvenile artists, both this bird and the magpie are represented upon direct lateral view, and no evidence has yet appeared to hint to us of the wonderful power Audubon eventually came to possess in figuring his birds in their every att itude. There is a peculiar pleasure that takes possession of us as we turn to the third and last of these figures, the one representing the green woodpecker (Gecinus viridis). It is a wonderful improvement, in every particular, upon both of the others. The details of the plumage and other structures are brought out with great delicacy and refi nement of touch; while the att itude of the bird, an old male, is even better than many of those published in his famous work. The colors are soft and have been so handled as to lend to the plumage a very flossy and natural appearance, while the old trunk upon the side of which the bird is represented, presents several evidences of an increase of the power to paint such objects. We fi nd written in lead-pencil beneath this picture, in two lines, and in rather a Frenchy hand, “Le Pic vert, Buffon,” / “the Green Woodpecker— British Zoology.” When Mrs. E. C. Walker, the lady who presented me with these drawings, forwarded them, I received from her a very valuable letter, and in it she tells me that “there was a portfolio of quite a number and variety of birds left with my father by Mrs. Audubon, but they have been given to different members of our family. He left a half-fi nished portrait of his wife and two sons, a portrait of himself in oil colors, taken by himself with the aid of a mirror, and a life size American eagle; were they now in my possession I would most willingly send them for your inspection.”3 Mrs. Audubon was governess in my father’s family for several years, also in that of a neighbor’s of ours. I presume you are aware she supported herself and sons by teaching during the years of Mr. Audubon’s wanderings through America in pursuit of his collections. I was but a child at the time. He was with us eight months [in Louisiana], but during the greater part of the time was wandering all over the State, walking the almost entire time;—no insect, worm, reptile, bird or animal escaped his notice. He would make a collection, return home and draw his crayon sketches, when

Merchant-final.indb 109

4/28/16 8:34 PM

110 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson his son John would stuff the birds and such animals as he wished to preserve. I regret greatly, Doctor, that I cannot gratify you in giving a more minute account of Mr. Audubon’s life while with us. But I was too young at the time, and as all of the older members of my family have passed away, I cannot collect such items as I might have done some years since. The [three] crayons I beg you will accept.

In describing the portrait of Audubon, I said further in The Auk that “several months after receiving this letter, Mrs. Walker came to Fort Wingate to visit her daughter, and to my great pleasure brought with her the oil painting of Audubon she speaks of in the letter just quoted. I hold this valued litt le art treasure in my left hand as I pen these words. It is a quaint and winning picture, painted on rather thin canvas, and tacked to a rough, wooden frame, some 26 cms. by 31 cms., and evidently homemade, but the hair, the eyes, the mouth, the nose are Audubon’s! Not only that, but given us by Audubon’s hand, and that grand old naturalist’s face grows upon us as we look into it. He wears an old-fashioned dark-green coat, and a still more old-fashioned neck-cloth and collar. The background is fi lled in by rather a rose-tinted sky, shading off into a blue above.”4 So much for this rare old portrait, and so much for these precious and original boy-drawings of Audubon. R. W. Shufeldt

•2 Shortly after my articles appeared in The Auk, I was favored with a very kind letter from Mr. John Henry Gurney, pere, of Northrepps, Norwich, England, who presented me with a fi ne and large photograph of Audubon, taken from the famous oil painting which hangs in the palace at St. Petersburg, Russia. Th is painting was evidently copied from a photograph of Audubon, the original of which latter is now in my possession, it having been presented to me with the utmost generosity by Mr. Henry K. Coale, of Chicago, the President of the Ridgway Ornithological Club of that city. The original photograph is now before me, and I should judge from it that Audubon at the time it was taken must have been considerably over fi ft y years of age, as his hair is nearly white, while his side-whiskers are entirely so. He wears a loose, semi-standing shirt collar to that garment,

Merchant-final.indb 110

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Audubonian Sketches • 111

without any necktie. His black silk vest is unbuttoned half-way down from the top, and his coat is of the old-fashioned black broadcloth style, so commonly worn in his day by gentlemen, and especially by savants, advanced in years. He looks grandly out of the picture here, and the fi ne old face is one we can dwell upon for a long time without tiring, and our interest is sure to come back to us, as fresh as ever, when we regard the features. It is my intention at present to have an enlarged portrait made from this photograph some day. Mr. Coale tells me that this picture was presented to Dr. J. W. Velie by Mrs. Audubon herself, and Dr. Velie gave it to Mr. Coale. I have a copy of the naturalist’s life, written by his widow from his journal, which he kept up with more or less fullness during his rambles and journeys. It seems to me I have read the book through as many as a dozen times, and I am sure I am by no means through with it yet. We all know the litt le work, and revere it. Sometimes, however, we fi nd litt le snatches here and there which Mrs. Audubon did not record, as they are the observations of others. Mr. Coale has collected and given me a few of these relics, mostly from periodicals and newspapers. One is a reprint, made by himself, from “Gleason’s Pictorial” (vol. 3, no. 13, p. 196) and a very quaint old account it is, too, being illustrated by a coarse woodcut of Audubon, when I should say he was about thirty-three or thirty-four years of age. Another account is published in a Chicago newspaper in August, 1876, by a gentleman living in Henderson, K[entuck]y. Th is writer tells us that5 As near as we can learn, Mr. Audubon moved to the Red Banks, or Henderson, about the year 1810 or 1812. He married Miss Louise [Lucy] Bakewell, of Louisville, who bore him two sons. Mrs. Audubon and the two sons accompanied Mr. Audubon to his new home, and they all lived here until about the year 1822 or 1823. He was a Frenchman, and possessed of all the energy, fi re and vim so characteristic of the French people, he soon embarked in business. His fi rst enterprise was to open a grocery and dry-goods store in a little one-story log house which stood upon the corner of Main and First streets. He lived with his family in a litt le one-story brick building just in the rear of where the Odd-Fellows’ Building now stands. Just where the Post Office is now located was a pond, in which he used to catch one or more turtles every day, which he used in making into his favorite dish, turtle soup. Shortly after this he operated a very large corn and flour mill at the foot of Second street. Th is mill was of very large capacity for those days; in fact, it would be regarded as of very respectable size these times. In this mill, upon the smooth

Merchant-final.indb 111

4/28/16 8:34 PM

112 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson surface of timbers, were to be found the most life-like paintings of birds, fowls and animals of every description which inhabited this country at that time. Mr. William T. Barrett has now, it is said, the fi rst painting Audubon ever made of the woodpecker. The bird is represented as sitt ing upon the limb of an old tree, and listening to the familiar call of its partner. So perfect is the picture that persons have frequently mistaken it for a genuine stuffed bird. While Mr. Audubon was engaged in the milling business, it was his custom to bathe in the Ohio. Th is he continued until he became the most noted of all the swimmers who indulged in that delightful pastime. It is said of him that when the fi rst steamboat landed at the town some of her machinery had become disarranged, and the boat had to remain here for several hours making necessary repairs. As might be expected upon so extraordinary an occasion as this, the people turned out en masse to see something new under the sun—the steamboat. A number of country visitors imagined the thing had life in it. Mr. Audubon and other citizens were among the visitors, and during the time they were on board concluded they would indulge in their favorite amusement—swimming. They undressed and began to dive from the side of the vessel. Several members of the swimming party made successful dives from the inside of the vessel next to the bank, coming up on the outside. Th is was regarded as wonderful. Mr. Audubon walked to the bow of the boat, sprang into the river, and, after some time had elapsed, made his appearance below the stern, having gone clean under from one end to the other. Th is feat was regarded by all who witnessed it as a most remarkable and dangerous undertaking, and he was awarded the greatest praise for this unequaled performance. It is said he did this several times during the time the boat lay at the bank. Mrs. Audubon was also a great swimmer. Mr. H. E. Rouse told us that he had frequently seen her go into the river at the foot of First street and swim to the Indiana shore. She dressed in a regular swimming costume, and was regarded by all who knew her as the next best to her husband, if not his equal. During Mr. Audubon’s life in Henderson, he pursued the study of ornithology, frequently going to the woods and remaining there for two or three months at a visit. Upon one occasion he followed a hawk peculiar to this country, and so anxious was he to become the possessor of this bird, he pursued it for two or three days, fi nally succeeding in killing it. He was never known to stop for streams of any kind; he would swim rivers or creeks in pursuit of any game or bird he might be in search of. At one time he watched a fl icker, or what is commonly known as a yellow-hammer, until he saw it go into a hole at the top of an old tree. He immediately climbed the tree and,

Merchant-final.indb 112

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Audubonian Sketches • 113 running his hand into the hole to get the bird, caught hold of a huge black snake. Pulling it out of the hole, and seeing what it was, he immediately let go, and he and the snake both fell to the ground. Mr. Audubon used to tell this story, with a good deal of humor, to the many who often wondered at the great risk he would take in pursuit of this great study.

When I was a child in arms, my father had his home on Washington Heights; and here the Audubons lived in the very house next door to us, where my mother and her sister knew them all intimately. It was thus that I came in possession of a number of very valuable Audubonian relics. These now consist chiefly of a letter of the naturalist, given me by his wife a short time before she died, she having done me the honor of having written my name across the end of it with her own hand. It was the last one she had in her possession, and as it is directed to Dr. Richard Harlan of Philadelphia, it must have reverted in some way back to the family. At all events, it contains in the P.S. the original description of Harlan’s hawk (B. harlani), Audubon having reopened the letter to announce its capture and dedication. As I have elsewhere said, I also have in my possession the courteous litt le note from Mrs. Audubon presenting me with the above letter; it is dated from Scarsdale, Sept. 2, 1869, and in the postscript she begs that the tremulousness so evident in her handwriting may be overlooked, as she declares that she “is very blind I assure you.” Th is was some five years before Mrs. Audubon died, as we learn from a Louisville (K[entuck]y) paper dated June 19, 1874, which makes the statement that “Mrs. Audubon, widow of the celebrated naturalist, John J. Audubon, died in Shelbyville, Kentucky, yesterday, aged 88. She was a lady of unusual attainments, and constant companion of her husband in his labors and travels, visiting the principal courts of Europe in his company. For many years past, since his death, she has lived with her relatives in this city and State.” Space will hardly admit of my giving here in full the contents of the Audubon letter in my possession, as the communication is quite a long one, and, moreover, it has already been published (see Nuttall Ornithological Bulletin, vol. 5, 1880, pp. 202, 203).6 My handful of relics is completed by two other pictures also given to my family by old Mrs. Audubon; one is a picture of herself taken in New

Merchant-final.indb 113

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Figure 20. Lucy Audubon. Reproduced from The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1888): 5. Figure 21. John Woodhouse Audubon. Reproduced from The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1888): 5.

Merchant-final.indb 114

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Audubonian Sketches • 115

York a few years before she died, and the other of her son John Woodhouse Audubon, taken at the same time (figs. 20 and 21). I have copied these by photography and here add them to the group shown in the illustrations. Very often I try and place the living Audubon in our midst to-day and wonder to myself how he would regard matters Ornithological of the present time. We must believe he was too much a lover of the woods and fields to have ever become contented with the closet study of ornithology, least of all with an “official” position under the Government to grind out his magnificent works of art, and his soul-inspiring descriptions of them. No, we could never have caged an Audubon—never in the world. We undoubtedly would have had another great volume of plates with the text giving all the unfigured birds of our domains—west and in Alaska. Then I must think he would naturally have passed to the mammalian fauna, as his tastes were evidently in that direction. We must also believe that he would have looked with favor upon the organization of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and heartily lent his aid to the support of its present movements. Even more than this, I believe he would have hailed with welcome the organization of the Audubon Society, and done all in his power to further its ends. For be it said, notwithstanding the numerous birds Audubon must have taken in his long lifetime, he never took the life of a single one unless he had a very defi nite use for the specimen. Every line in his immortal work goes to prove that fact. R. W. Shufeldt

Merchant-final.indb 115

4/28/16 8:34 PM

CHA P T ER EI G H T

Biography of Alexander Wilson By George Bir d Gr in nell From The Audubon Magazine 2, nos. 5–12 (Jun. 1888–Jan. 1889)

•1

• 116

Alexander Wilson (1766–1813) has sometimes been styled the father of American ornithology (fig. 22), but it was not until the year 1804 that he thought seriously of studying for the task of describing and illustrating the birds of North America.1 Audubon, who was some fourteen years his junior, was then already dreaming of achieving distinction in the same field, and had long been devoting himself to it in amateur fashion. But in the order of publication, Wilson took precedence, bringing out his fi rst volume in 1808, while the fi rst five parts of Audubon’s more elaborate work were not given to the public until nearly twenty years later.2 Wilson was an enthusiast, and perhaps in his way as much of a dreamer as Audubon, but he was not like Audubon contented with dreaming. His was a clear practical nature, that prompted him to set about the immediate realization of his dreams, and the adoption of all necessary means to the desired end. Audubon may be said to have been born to the work, Wilson to have drifted into it, and to have succeeded not so much by any special aptitude, as by virtue of an earnestness of character, and an energy of pursuit, which would equally have enabled him to achieve success in almost any other department. Both Wilson and Audubon were essentially pioneer naturalists, men who went to nature direct, studied the birds in their haunts, drew from the life, and described from personal observation; but while Wilson was

Merchant-final.indb 116

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Figure 22. Alexander Wilson (1766–1813). Painting by Rembrandt Peale. Portrait of Alexander Wilson, 1809–1813, oil on wood, 241/4 × 22 inches. American Philosophical Society. Gift of Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, 1822. Used by permission of the American Philosophical Society.

Merchant-final.indb 117

4/28/16 8:34 PM

118 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

equally with Audubon undeterred by distance, danger, or fear of privation, we think it may be safely said that the woodsman’s life, in and for itself, had no especial charm for him, as it had for Audubon. He pursued it only as a means to an end. The litt le manufacturing town of Paisley, near Glasgow, in Scotland, in which Wilson fi rst saw the light, has claimed him for her own, but America cannot be unmindful of one who devoted the best years of his life to her service, and achieved results in his chosen field, which bear comparison with anything accomplished by the children of the soil; and now that we have completed our sketch of Audubon, our readers will be glad to have his place taken by another great laborer in the same field. Alexander Wilson was born in Paisley, the principal manufacturing town of Scotland, on the 6th of July, 1766. His father was a gauze weaver in Paisley, where he spent the greater part of his life, but subsequently to the birth of Alexander he removed to Auchin Bathie Tower, near the village of Lochwinnoch, thinking by more extended and varied employment to improve the condition of his family. There he rented a piece of ground, which he cultivated himself, ran several looms, and did a trade in distilling and smuggling. He bore the character of a shrewd, upright, and independent man, and was generally respected among his neighbors, who were disposed to look on distilling and smuggling with a very lenient eye.3 A century ago, when Alexander Wilson was in his youth, the Paisley weavers were as intelligent, well informed, and independent a body of men as was to be found in the United Kingdom. Working by piecework at fairly remunerative rates, they were not constrained to work long hours for a living, and, while a certain portion of them spent their leisure at their clubs discussing politics and social questions generally, under the influence of Scotch ale and whisky, there was another section which, temperate both in its habits and discussions, sought to reach intelligent and tenable views on these subjects; and many of its members devoted themselves to the study of mechanics, natural history, botany, etc., for which their well-stocked libraries afforded all necessary facilities.4 These Paisley weavers were a shrewd, well-informed body of men, many of them even well educated, but self-educated. On the part of the Scott ish peasantry there is a very general ambition to prepare one son for the church, and we are informed that the elder Wilson entertained such designs for Alexander, who at ten years of age was placed under the charge of Mr. Burlas, a student of divinity, who later acquired quite a reputation as an instructor of youth in the higher branches

Merchant-final.indb 118

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 119

of learning, especially in the various departments of science. But Alexander’s mother died soon afterward; his father married again; the family kept on increasing, and fi nally it was decided that the expenses incident to bringing one of the sons up to a learned profession were too great a strain upon the family resources, and so, at the age of thirteen, the young Alexander, very much to his disgust, was taken from his studies and bound apprentice to Mr. William Duncan, an operative weaver in Paisley.5 During these three years of his apprenticeship, he appears to have devoted himself honorably to the duties of his position, but his heart was not in it. He lost no opportunity of indulging in reading, and romance weaving, and of cultivating a taste for versification. Among the Paisley weavers of his day, he was thought as much of for his published poems, as for his more solid achievements as a naturalist, but beyond evidencing a ready faculty for narrating in rhyme, his verses have litt le real merit.6 Having completed his apprenticeship, he labored as a journeyman, only to the extent necessary to supply his needs. Much of his time was spent in reading and in attempts to turn his ideas into verse. After a while, he became journeyman to his father and wrought for a time with more steadiness, but the thought that he had been disappointed in his prospects of a higher profession—his utter distaste for the career chosen for him—and the higher feelings awakened by such literary culture as he had imbibed—all conspired to fi ll him with discontent and unrest; and so it happened that he was not infrequently seduced away from the task of bread earning to ramble among the woods of Castle Semple, or along the banks of the romantic and beautiful Calder, where he brooded over what he deemed his ill-fated lot, and planned schemes for future advancement.7 At this period of his life, Wilson appears to have been a very diffident man, and slow to feel or inspire confidence—a self-conscious young man, in fact, extremely sensitive to the opinion of others; and being of a retiring disposition and shrinking from society, he gave himself up to the study of the Classics and English poets, very much to the neglect of his loom, but very much also to the cultivation of his mind. He found himself, in fact, out of his natural element, and wanting only an opportunity to drift away from it, into something more congenial.8 In the course of his rambles by the Calder, his meditations were occasionally interrupted by the timid hare or startled grouse, and in due course a gun became his constant companion. The game laws were then not so strictly enforced as now, and as time wore on, the game afforded practical motive for his numerous wanderings, and Wilson became as

Merchant-final.indb 119

4/28/16 8:34 PM

120 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

much poacher as weaver or dreamer. He was going back to nature and becoming familiar with her.9

•2 It was at this unsett led stage of his career that Wilson, always eager for a change, went to visit his brother-in-law William Duncan at Queensferry, where he remained for a few months assisting his relative in his business and afterward accompanying him on what his biographer [William Jardine] describes as “a mercantile traveling tour” over the eastern districts of Scotland.10 Th is trip took him further afield than he had ever been before: new scenes, new incidents expanded his views, a peddler’s life presented itself as a life of independence; and now that he had at length the opportunity of engaging in so congenial a career, he realized for the fi rst time how utterly distasteful was the sedentary employment for which he had been trained. Full of his new plans, and resolved to attempt “the establishment of his good fortune in the world,” as he tells us, he applied to his friends, who assisted him in providing the requisites for a small pack containing silks, muslins, prints, etc., and thus provided, he entered on his new career with a light heart and sanguine expectations of success.11 The life itself was not without its charms—alive to the beauties of Nature, it was no mean privilege to be afforded daily opportunities of visiting the places rich in historic interest or scenic beauty that lie scattered over all the extent of the land. “His attention,” says his biographer [Jardine], “was att racted by everything of worth, and he would often leave his pack to visit some place of antiquity, or the former residences of his favorite authors and poets.”12 During his wanderings as a peddler he visited every churchyard which lay in his way, transcribing all curious and quaint epitaphs, of which he made a collection of over three hundred, but these with other of his desultory writings were lost in subsequent wanderings without having been given to the world, which is a great pity, for some Scott ish epitaphs are very quaint. While engaged in this occupation Wilson was adding constantly to his collection of poems, in which he described the leading incidents and emotions of his life; and from some of these it is evident that he found the life

Merchant-final.indb 120

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 121

of a peddler one that exposed him to cold, fatigue and hunger as well as to many pett y annoyances that galled him sorely. It was by no means the life his fancy had painted it; the frequent cold repulses to which he was subjected and the meagerness of the profits resulted in his returning to Paisley somewhat disgusted, and in his attempting to secure fame and fortune by the publication of his poems. Encouraged by the favorable opinion of Mr. Crichton of the Town’s Hospital, he published his poems, set forth the merits of the contents of his pack in the following quaint handbill, and once more started to seek a market for the contents of his pack and for his new volume of poems.13 ADVERTISEMENT EXTRAORDINARY. Fair ladies, I pray, for one moment to stay, Until with submission I tell you, What muslins so curious, for uses so various, A poet has here brought to sell you. Here’s handkerchiefs charming; book muslins like ermine, Brocaded, striped, corded, and check’d, Sweet Venus, they say, on Cupid’s birthday, In British-made muslins was decked. If these can’t content ye, here’s muslins in plenty, From one shilling up to a dozen, That Juno might wear, and more beauteous appear, When she meant the old Thunderer to cozen. Here are fi ne jaconets, of numberless sets, With spotted and sprigged festoons; And lovely tambours, with elegant flowers, For bonnets, cloaks, aprons, or gowns. Now ye fair, if ye choose any piece to peruse, With pleasure I’ll instantly show it; If the peddler should fail to be favored with sale, Then I hope you’ll encourage the poet.

Th is second journey brought him nothing but bitter disappointment and wounded pride, thoroughly disgusting him with the pack, and con-

Merchant-final.indb 121

4/28/16 8:34 PM

122 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

vincing him that hawking his poems was no more profitable. Annoyed at the failure of his plans, he returned to his native town nearly penniless, and much depressed in spirits, convinced that a packman is a personage whom none esteem, and almost every one despises. He found the general opinion in which packmen were held was “that they are mean-spirited, loquacious liars, cunning and illiterate, watching every opportunity, and using every mean and low art within their power to cheat.”14 He found, too, that for a packman to pretend to be a poet was only to expose himself to ridicule. The sale of his poems proving insufficient to provide the necessaries of life, Wilson was obliged to resume the labors of the loom, at which he was tolerably expert, but he worked in a desultory, halfhearted way, and was always in want. Th is brought on feelings of despondence which affected his health, and gradually reduced him to a very low state. Rousing himself at length, and aided by the kindly counsel and exertions of friends, he again started with pack and poems, and as an additional resource endeavored to procure some writing for the periodicals of the day. He contributed several pieces in prose and poetry to the Glasgow Magazine, and their acceptance brightened his prospects. At this time Wilson wrote the well-known ballad of “Watt y and Meg,” which was nearly contemporaneous with Burns’s “Tam o’ Shanter,” and was supposed to be the production of that poet, a supposition which raised Wilson’s spirits to a very high pitch; and, shortly afterward, in consequence of the Bee refusing to publish Wilson’s criticism of “Tam o’ Shanter,” Wilson sent the manuscript to Burns direct, and received a friendly reply, which led to a subsequent meeting of the two poets, and a pleasant evening at Burns’s farm.15 Wilson having been introduced by some of his friends to a debating society at the Edinburgh Pantheon, and having on this fi rst occasion been drawn into an unpremeditated speech which elicited considerable applause, he took a regular part in future debates, making all his addresses in poetry.16 In this way he became conscious of the possession of more than average ability, but entirely discouraged by his unsuccessful ventures, with a distaste for the loom, with no career open to him, and without habits of steady application, his life promised to be a failure. He recognized the necessity of training himself for some steady employment, and being recommended to fit himself for the position of mercantile clerk, applied for instruction in the necessary branches of arithmetic, in which he was deficient, and persevered for two days, but on the third day he gave it up.17 Then came the practical result of this roving, unsett led life—he drifted

Merchant-final.indb 122

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 123

into the companionship of agitators who were favoring revolutionary principles, and who persuaded him to write squibs reviling and satirizing the conduct of those who were the most offensive to their views of liberty, or obnoxious as employers.18 Wilson, thoroughly familiar with all the persons and circumstances, and ready to redress imagined wrongs, was easily prevailed on, and wrote a number of poetical squibs, for one of which he was prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment in the Paisley jail, and to burn the manuscript with his own hand.19 Even while the sentence was being carried out, he became conscious of his error, and years later he referred to his conduct in the matter as to “the errors of an undisciplined youth, with more sail than ballast, and often led by imagination.”20 Under bail for his offenses, bitterly disposed to indulge in further satires, discontented with himself and the conditions which he sought in vain to escape, he conceived the idea of emigrating to the United States and beginning life anew. The idea once entertained took fi rm hold of him, and animated by a sufficiently powerful motive, he set to work on his loom with a will, and with the kind assistance of friends was soon in possession of the means to pay his passage to the promised land, for which he set out with his nephew William Duncan, a lad of sixteen, on May 23, 1794, and, after a voyage of twenty-two days, reached the land where he imagined all his wrongs would cease.21

•3 Wilson arrived in Philadelphia in 1794, and his fi rst experiences of America were thoroughly disappointing. No employment could be secured at weaving, and although he took any work he could get, he found it very hard to make a living. In the course of the next four years he tried his hands at many things, became a peddler again, and was fairly successful, and was in turn copperplate engraver, peddler, schoolmaster, wandering a great deal, and in all his wanderings studying the habits of man and beast and bird, as far as he had opportunity, keeping a diary of his observations. As schoolmaster he used all his opportunities for self-instruction, and advanced considerably in mathematics, so that he was enabled to take up surveying, and add to his income by practicing it out of school hours. But he drifted away from Philadelphia through New Jersey, and in 1801

Merchant-final.indb 123

4/28/16 8:34 PM

124 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

we fi nd him keeping school in Bloomfield [New Jersey], which he describes as “a sett lement of canting, preaching and praying, and sniveling ignorant Presbyterians, who pay their minister twelve hundred and fi ft y dollars a year for preaching twice a week, and their teacher forty dollars a quarter for the most spirit-sinking laborious work.”22 His bright dreams had become clouded, and he was meditating the possibility of returning to old Scotia, when he obtained a better appointment as schoolmaster on the Schuylkill, near Gray’s Ferry, about four miles from Philadelphia. In the fi rst letter he wrote to his parents, after landing in America, he made mention of the birds, whose rich coloring had struck him as in strong contrast to the more sober plumage of birds of the old country, and in all his subsequent wandering he had made such notes of those he saw, as would suggest themselves to a novice; but sett led in his appointment on the Schuylkill, he soon made the acquaintance of his near neighbor, the venerable [William] Bartram [1739–1823], a distinguished naturalist, who had a charming place on the western bank of the Schuylkill, known as “Bartram’s botanical garden.”23 In this charming place, with his condition in life improved, and enjoying the daily intimacy of a man of Bartram’s culture, life presented itself from quite a new and more cheerful aspect. He saw the amusement of his leisure subjected to order, and his newly-found friend, a master of the science, which he was both qualified to teach, and ready to impart to one who, like Wilson, felt a greater charm in the contemplation and study of nature than in the pursuits of men.24 Mr. Bartram induced him to take up drawing, but his fi rst attempts at landscape and the human figure discouraged him; however, he was prevailed on to make a second attempt on birds and other objects of natural history, and this time he succeeded altogether beyond his anticipations. But the duties of his profession appear to have occupied the whole day, his drawing was mostly done by candlelight, and that, he complained entailed the sacrifice of the pleasures of social life.25 He consequently did not apply himself to this new study very assiduously; nevertheless he began to acquire proficiency, and, having an ambitious turn of mind, he compared his drawings with those in such works of natural history as he could get hold of, and the idea of illustrating the ornithology of the United States presented itself to him as a task he was capable of achieving.26 Long and earnestly he pondered over the subject before he had suffi-

Merchant-final.indb 124

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 125

cient confidence to make it known to his friend, but at length the venerable Bartram was consulted, and to Wilson’s delight and encouragement he not only entered warmly into the plan as tending to advance the study of natural history, but he freely expressed his confidence in Wilson’s abilities and acquirements.27 The scheme was now unfolded to Alexander Lawson [1773–1846], the engraver, with whom Wilson was on terms of intimacy, and met his approbation, but his calculations were a terrible damper on Wilson’s sanguine anticipations, so much so, that there was a temporary coolness between them, but a litt le later Wilson wrote to him saying that he was bent on making a collection of all the birds in that part of North America, and begging him not to throw cold water on the seemingly Quixotic scheme. “I have,” he wrote, “been so long accustomed to the building of airy castles, and brain windmills, that it has become one of my earthly comforts—a sort of rough bone—that amuses me when sated with the dull drudgery of life.”28 No plans were immediately matured as the result of this correspondence, but Wilson found heart of grace and began making a collection of birds in his neighborhood, and improving his talents as a draughtsman. His own sanguine temperament could not entertain the possibility of failure, but Mr. Lawson forced his attention to the many practical difficulties, and Wilson saw the expediency of going slowly, and making such progress as he could in his leisure, while still holding on to his school appointment as a means of subsistence.29 Th is brings us down to 1804, at which period Wilson was so much immersed in his new pursuits that the schoolboys sought to win their way to his good graces by presents of dead crows, bullfrogs, and other similarly rare creatures. Writing to Mr. Bartram under date of March 31, 1804, he observes:30 I sometimes smile to think that while others are immersed in deep schemes of speculation and aggrandizement, in building towns and purchasing plantations, I am entranced in contemplation over the plumage of a lark, or gazing like a despairing lover on the lineaments of an owl. While others are hoarding up their bags of money without the power of enjoying it, I am collecting, without injuring my conscience or wounding my peace of mind, those beautiful specimens of Nature’s works that are forever pleasing. I have had live crows, hawks and owls; opossums, squirrels, snakes, lizards, etc., so that my room has sometimes reminded me of Noah’s ark; but Noah had a wife in one

Merchant-final.indb 125

4/28/16 8:34 PM

126 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson corner of it, and in this particular our parallel does not altogether tally. I receive every subject of natural history which is brought to me, and although they do not march into my ark from all quarters, as they did into that of our great ancestor, yet I fi nd means by the distribution of a few five-penny bits to make them fi nd the way fast enough. One of my boys caught a mouse in school a few days ago, and directly marched up to me with his prisoner. I set about drawing it that same evening, and all the while the panting of its litt le heart showed it to be in the most extreme agonies of fear. I had intended to kill it in order to fi x it in the claws of a stuffed owl; but happening to spill a few drops of water near where it was tied, it lapped it up with such eagerness, and looked in my eye with such a face of supplicating terror as perfectly overcame me. I immediately untied it, and restored it to life and liberty. The agonies of a prisoner at the stake, while the fi re and instruments of torture are preparing, could not be more severe than the sufferings of that poor mouse, and, insignificant as the object was, I felt at that moment the sweet sensations that mercy leaves when she triumphs over cruelty.

•4 Wilson soon found that he could not indulge in his favorite pursuits consistently with his conscientious discharge of his duty to his pupils. His dream of writing and illustrating a work on ornithology, once it had taken defi nite shape, and presented itself as a task within the compass of his abilities, became the one idea of his life, to which every other consideration must be subordinated, and to give effect to it, it would be necessary to resign his school appointment. He had no hesitation in making the sacrifice, but before cutt ing himself adrift he prudently looked about for some means of providing for his necessary expenses. He applied to Mr. Brown, the conductor of the Literary Magazine who accepted his “Rural Walk” and “Solitary Tutor”—two poetical pieces, the latter being descriptive of his own career, his early preparation for the church, his disappointment at being diverted into another and less congenial channel, his struggle to emancipate himself, his emigration, his school house on the Schuylkill, and his favorite haunts in Bartram’s woods.31 The acceptance of these pieces encouraged him to make a journey on foot to the Falls of Niagara, which he accomplished along with two friends, starting in October, 1804. The lateness of the season exposed them to many hardships on the return journey, a distance of over six hun-

Merchant-final.indb 126

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 127

dred miles, which he describes as in great part “through deep snows and uninhabited forests, over stupendous mountains and down dangerous rivers.”32 Th is journey neither satisfied nor discouraged him, on the contrary, it appears only to have awakened in him a real design of becoming a traveler, and by his acquisitions adding something to the common stock of knowledge, but he realized keenly his deficiency in many acquirements necessary to an explorer, especially in botany, mineralogy and drawing, and meditated a preparatory course of study of these subjects, consulting his friend Mr. Bartram as usual. Th is, his fi rst journey in the pursuit of material for his natural history, is described in the poem of the “Foresters,” afterward published in the “Portfolio,” and furnished the materials for his beautiful description and poem of the bald eagle and fish hawk. Other journeys were undertaken in the following year, the most patent and immediate result of which was the destruction of the success of his school. His own neglect was aggravated by the severe winter of 1805, which pressed hard on the sett lers.33 Writing to Mr. Duncan at its close he says: “Th is winter has been entirely lost to me as well as to yourself. I shall on the 12th of next month be scarcely able to collect a sufficiency to pay my board, having not more than twenty-seven scholars. Five or six families who used to send me their children have been almost in a state of starvation.”34 Wilson still remained at Union School, and “managed to maintain himself honestly,” as his biographer [Jardine] tells us, but could not give up the design of illustrating the birds of the United States, though prudence, represented by Mr. Lawson’s calculations, still forbade the scheme.35 On July of this year he wrote to Mr. Bartram, “I dare say you will smile at my presumption when I tell you that I have seriously begun to make a collection of drawings of the birds to be found in Pennsylvania, or that occasionally pass through it. Twenty-eight as a beginning I send for your opinion. They are, I hope, inferior to what I shall produce, though as close copies of the originals as I could make. One or two of these I cannot fi nd either in your ‘Nomenclature’ or the seven volumes of Edwards. Any hint for promoting my plan or enabling me to execute better I will receive from you with much pleasure. Criticize these, my dear friend, without fear of offending me. Th is will instruct, but not discourage me. To your advice and encouraging encomiums I am indebted for these few specimens, and for all that will follow. They may yet tell posterity that I was honored with your friendship, and that to your inspiration they owe their existence.”36

Merchant-final.indb 127

4/28/16 8:34 PM

128 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Expressions such as that given above in italics indicate that in spite of his enthusiasm and no mean measure of self-reliance, there was in Wilson a tendency to so modest an appreciation of his own abilities, that at this decisive stage of his career he would hardly have ventured on the struggle for the consummation of his dreams unless encouraged by those in whose judgment he had implicit confidence. But now a circumstance arose which prevented him from putt ing his design in immediate execution, and which, perhaps, as suggested by his biographer [Jardine], favored his success indirectly by hindering him from commencing on his own inadequate resources.37 Mr. Jefferson, the then President of the United States, had it in contemplation to dispatch an expedition to explore the country of the Mississippi, and Wilson sought to be appointed as a naturalist to the party. He applied to Mr. Bartram, who cheerfully wrote to the President, recommending his friend, and Wilson forwarded the letter with a communication from himself, in which he set forth that he had been several years engaged in collecting materials and furnishing drawings with the design of publishing a new ornithology of the United States of America, and having collected and drawn a great many birds hitherto undescribed, he was very anxious for such an opportunity as the proposed expedition afforded, of adding to his stock of knowledge, and collecting fresh materials for his contemplated work.38 Wilson had been previously introduced to Jefferson, for whom he felt a species of hero worship, which had been intensified by the receipt of a very cordial and appreciative letter from him in acknowledgment of the drawings of two birds which Wilson had secured on his trip to Niagara, and forwarded to the President after his return. Th is letter would lead it to be inferred that Mr. Jefferson himself was a careful student of ornithology; and Wilson with his sanguine temperament must have built high hopes on the success of his application, but no attention was ever paid to it, and neither Wilson nor Bartram ever obtained a clue to the President’s neglect, which surprised them greatly.39 But he builds foolishly who builds on past courteous communications from kings or presidents. The probabilities are that the courteous and appreciative letter in acknowledgment of Wilson’s drawings was written by a secretary or some one of the staff supposed to know something about natural history, and that Wilson’s application revived no recollection whatever in the President’s mind.40 But an opportunity, perhaps still more favorable to Wilson’s designs,

Merchant-final.indb 128

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 129

was on its way to him. Mr. Samuel F. Bradford, bookseller in Philadelphia, was about to publish an improved edition of Rees’ New Cyclopedia. Wilson was introduced to him as one qualified to superintend the work, and was engaged at a liberal salary as assistant editor.41 The agreement is dated April 20, 1806, and two days later he wrote as follows to Mr. Bartram expressing diffidence in his ability for the superintendence of such varied subjects:42 Th is engagement will, I hope, in more ways than one, enable me to proceed with my intended ornithology, to which all my leisure moments will be devoted. In the meantime, I anticipate with diffidence the laborious and very responsible situation I am soon to be placed in, requiring a much more general fund of scientific knowledge, and stronger powers of mind than I am possessed of but all these objections have been overruled, and I am engaged.

Th is proved the stepping-stone to success in the great object of his life, which he soon unfolded to Mr. Bradford, who thought so favorably of the undertaking, and of Wilson’s abilities, that he agreed to become the publisher, and furnish the requisite funds.

•5 Wilson having found a publisher for his long contemplated work, threw all his energies into the enterprise, devoting to it every moment that he could spare from his duties as editor of the Cyclopedia; and his friend [Alexander] Lawson, who had previously thrown so much cold water on the enterprise, saw the matter in quite a different light now that Mr. Bradford had assumed the risks and employed him as printer. Two thousand five hundred copies were to be thrown off as a fi rst edition, and a prospectus having been composed it was given to the press, and Wilson in his enthusiasm already contemplated the establishment of an agent “in almost every town of the Union.”43 The hard work of preparation, added to his daily routine duties, impaired his health, compelling him to occasional periods of relaxation. These he utilized by excursions to the country, which he enjoyed the more that his professional duties were sedentary and exhausting, “immersed,” as he describes himself “among musty books, and compelled to forego the harmony of the woods.”

Merchant-final.indb 129

4/28/16 8:34 PM

130 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

“At length,” writes Mr. [George] Ord [1781–1866], “in the month of September, 1808, the fi rst volume of the ‘American Ornithology’ made its appearance. From the date of the arrangement with the publisher a prospectus had been issued wherein the nature and intended execution of the work were specified. But yet no one appeared to entertain an adequate idea of the treat which was about to be afforded to the lovers of the fi ne arts and of elegant literature; and when the superb volume was presented to the public their delight was equaled only by their astonishment that America, as yet in its infancy, should produce an original work in science which could vie in its essentials with the proudest productions of a similar nature of the European world.”44 It was a proud moment for Wilson when the fi rst volume issued from the press, and met with a reception which his biographer [Jardine] tells us “was far beyond his hopes.” It was, perhaps, far beyond the hopes which he ventured to express openly, but a man of Wilson’s sanguine temperament could not have failed to have indulged in the most extravagant hopes; at the same time indulgence in hopes does not necessarily involve confidence in their realization and the favor with which the fi rst volume was received created a pleasurable excitement which stimulated him to most exhaustive efforts for the creditable performance of his undertaking. He thought he could increase subscriptions at a distance by his presence and personal exertions, and decided to make a fi rst tour of the New England States in pursuit of subscribers and birds, with which object he set out on the 21st of September, 1808, going by Boston to Maine, and back through the State of Vermont.45 The records of this and of his numerous later journeys are best preserved in his correspondence, in which he embodied the most careful observations of all he saw, interspersed with his reflections, thus affording an insight not only into the progress of the work, but into his own character and moods. We shall draw freely on these letters, as it would be impossible to present him in a more natural light than he presents himself in them, but as they are for the most part spun out to great length we will content ourselves with giving extracts from them. The fi rst letter of the series was dated Boston, October 12, 1808, and addressed to Mr. [Daniel] Miller. It reads as follows:46 Dear Sir: I arrived hear [sic] on Sunday last after various adventures, the particulars of which, and the observations I have had leisure to make upon the passing scenery around me, I shall endeavor as far as possible to compress

Merchant-final.indb 130

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 131 into this letter for your own satisfaction and that of my friends who may be interested for my welfare. At Princeton I bade my fellow travelers goodbye, as I had to wait upon the reverend doctors of the college. I took my book under my arm, put several copies of the prospectus into my pocket, and walked up to this spacious sanctuary of literature. Dr. [Samuel Stanhope] Smith, the President [in office 1795–1812], and Dr. [John] McLean, Professor of Natural History, were the only two I found at home. The latter invited me to tea, and both were much surprised and pleased at the appearance of the work. I expected to receive some valuable information from Mr. McLean on the ornithology of the country, but I soon found to my astonishment that he scarcely knew a sparrow from a woodpecker. I visited several other literary characters, and about half-past eight the Pilot coming up I took my passage in it to New Brunswick, which we reached about midnight. The next morning was spent in visiting the few gentlemen who were likely to patronize my undertaking. I had another task of the same kind at Elizabethtown; and without tiring you with details that would fi ll a volume, I shall only say that I reached Newark that day, having gratified the curiosity and feasted the eyes of a great number of people, who repaid me with the most extravagant compliments, which I would have very willingly exchanged for a few simple subscriptions. I spent nearly the whole of Saturday in Newark, where my book att racted as many starers as a bear or a mammoth would have done, and I arrived in New York the same evening. The next day I wrote a number of letters, inclosing copies of the prospectus to different gentlemen in town, and on the afternoon of Tuesday I took my book, and waited on each of these gentlemen to whom I had written the preceding day. Among these I found some friends, but more admirers. The professors of Columbia College expressed much esteem for my performance. The professor of languages being a Scotchman and also a Wilson, seemed to feel all the pride of national partiality so common to his countrymen, and would have done me every favor in his power. I spent the whole of this week traversing the streets from one particular house to another, till, I believe, I became almost as well known as the public cryer, or the clerk of the market; for I frequently could perceive gentlemen point me out to others as I passed with my book under my arm. On Sunday morning, October 2, I went aboard a packet for New Haven [Connecticut], distant about ninety miles. The wind was favorable. The Sound here between Long Island and the main is narrowed to less than half a mile, and fi lled with small islands and numerous rocks under water, among which the tide roars and boils violently, and has proved fatal to many a seaman. At high water it is nearly as smooth as any other flow, and can then be

Merchant-final.indb 131

4/28/16 8:34 PM

132 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson safely passed. The country on the New York side is ornamented with handsome villas painted white and surrounded by great numbers of Lombardy poplars. The breeze increasing to a gale, in eight hours from the time we set sail the high, red-fronted mountain of New Haven rose to our view. In two hours more we landed, and by the stillness and solemnity of the streets recollected we were in New England, and that it was Sunday, which latter circumstance had been almost forgotten on board the packet boat. . . . The literati of New Haven received me with politeness and respect; and after making my usual rounds which occupied a day and a half, I set off for Middleton, twenty-two miles distant. . . . I waited on Mr. A. of this town, and by him was introduced to several others. He also furnished me with a good deal of information about the birds of New England. He is a great sportsman, a man of fortune and education, and has a considerable number of stuffed birds, some of which he gave me, besides letters to several persons of influence in Boston. . . . On reaching Hartford I waited on Mr. G., a member of Congress, who recommended me to several others, particularly a Mr. W., a gentleman of taste and fortune, who was extremely obliging. The publisher of a newspaper here expressed the highest admiration of the work, and has since paid many handsome compliments to it in his publication, as three other editors did in New York. Th is is a species of currency that will neither purchase plates nor pay the printer, but, nevertheless, it is gratifying to the vanity of an author when nothing better can be got. . . . It was dark when I entered Boston, of which I shall give you some account in my next. I have visited the celebrated Bunker’s Hill, and no devout pilgrim ever approached the sacred tomb of his holy prophet with more awful enthusiasm and profound veneration than I felt in tracing the grass-grown entrenchments of this hallowed spot made immortal by the bravery of those heroes who defended it—whose ashes are now mingled with its soil, and of whom a mean, beggarly pillar of bricks is all the memento.

His next letter to the same gentleman [Daniel Miller] is dated Windsor, Vermont, October 26 [1808]. He remained nearly a week in Boston journeying through the streets with his book, and visiting all the literary characters he could meet with. Thence he traveled on through New Hampshire, stopping at every place where he thought it was likely he would do any business, going as far as Portland, Maine, where he staid three days. Here he directed his course across country “among dreary savage glens, and mountains covered with pines and hemlocks, amid whose black and half burnt trunks the everlasting rocks and stones grinned horribly.” A

Merchant-final.indb 132

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 133

journey of one hundred and fi ft y-seven miles brought him to Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, on the Vermont line, here he paid his addresses to the reverend fathers of literature, and appears to have been very well received. “Dr. [John] Wheelock, the President of the college,” he tells us, “made me eat at his table, and the professors vied with each other to oblige me.”47 “I expect,” he continued, “to be in Albany in five days, and if the Legislature be sitt ing I shall be detained perhaps three days there. In eight days more I hope to be in Philadelphia. I have labored with the zeal of a knight-errant in exhibiting this book of mine, wherever I went, traveling with it, like a beggar with his banding, from town to town, and from one country to another. I have been loaded with praises, with compliments and with kindnesses; shaken almost to pieces in stage coaches; I have wandered among strangers hearing the same oh’s and ah’s, and telling the same story a thousand times over, and for what? Aye, that’s it! You are very anxious to know, and shall know the whole when I reach Philadelphia.”48 In a letter to Mr. Alexander Lawson, written during this visit to Albany, he writes:49 And in the fi rst place I ought to thank you for the thousands of compliments I have received for my birds from persons of all descriptions, which were chiefly due to the tact and skill of the engravers. In short the book in all its parts so far exceeds the ideas and expectations of the fi rst literary characters in the eastern sections of the United States as to command their admiration and respect. The only objection has been the price of one hundred and twenty dollars, which in innumerable instances has risen like an evil genius between me and my hopes. Yet, I doubt not, but when those copies subscribed for are delivered, and the book a litt le better known, the whole number will be disposed of; and perhaps encouragement given to go on with the rest. To effect this, to me, most desirable object, I have encountered the fatigues of a long, circuitous and expensive journey, with a zeal which has increased with increasing difficulties; and sorry I am to say that the whole number of subscribers which I have obtained amounts only to forty-one.

Wilson remained at home only a few days when he again set off on a journey through the South, visiting every town of importance as far as Savannah in the State of Georgia, during which journey he suffered considerably from the inclemency of the weather, and from the fatigue of the journey, but he was gratified by it, having, as we fi nd from a letter to

Merchant-final.indb 133

4/28/16 8:34 PM

134 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

Mr. Bartram, written on the eve of his departure from Savannah, gained his point in procuring two hundred and fi ft y subscribers in all for his Ornithology, and a great mass of information respecting the birds that winter in the Southern States, and some that never visit the Middle States; “information,” he adds, “which I have derived personally, and can, therefore, the more certainly depend upon it.”50

•6 Wilson’s fi rst journey South, having resulted in raising the subscription list to his fi rst volume to two hundred and fi ft y, it was thought expedient to throw off three hundred copies in addition to the fi rst two hundred. The second volume, published in January, 1810, started with an impression of five hundred, and a fair proportion of subscribers, the work gaining fresh applause and support as it advanced. Simultaneously with the publication of his second volume, Wilson set out alone on another of his ornithological pilgrimages, and as very litt le record is left of the man beyond what is to be found in his correspondence, and as this is most complete, chronicling all the daily events of his life, with his unreserved comments and reflections on men and things, we will continue to let him speak for himself.51 The fi rst stage of his journey brought him to Pittsburgh, whence, on the 22nd of February, 1810, he wrote to Mr. Alexander Lawson in the following strain:52 Dear Sir: From this stage of my ornithological pilgrimage I sit down with pleasure to give you some account of my adventures since we parted. On arriving at Lancaster I waited on the Governor, Secretary of State, and such other great folk as were likely to be useful to me. The Governor received me with civility, passed some good-natured compliments on the volumes, and readily added his name to my list. He seems an active man of plain good sense and litt le ceremony. By Mr. L—I was introduced to many members of both houses; but I found them in general such a pitiful, squabbling, political mob—so split up and justling [sic] about the mere formalities of legislation without knowing anything of its realities—that I abandoned them in disgust. I must, however, except from the censure a few intelligent individuals, friends to science, and possessed of taste, who treated me with great kindness. I crossed the Susquehanna on Sunday forenoon, with some difficulty

Merchant-final.indb 134

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 135 having to cut our way through the ice for several hundred yards; and passing on to York paid my respects to all the literati of that place without success. Five miles north of this town lives a very extraordinary character, between eighty and ninety years of age, who has lived by trapping birds and quadrupeds these thirty years. Dr. F—carried me out in a sleigh to see him; he has also promised to transmit to me such a collection of facts relating to this singular original, as will enable me to draw up an interesting narrative of him for the Portfolio. I carried him half a pound of snuff of which he is insatiably fond, taking it by handfuls. I was much diverted with the astonishment he expressed on looking at the plates of my work; he could tell me anecdotes of the greater part of the subjects of the fi rst volume, and some of the second. One of his traps, which he says he invented himself, is remarkable for ingenuity and extremely simple. Having a letter from Dr. Muhlenberg to a clergyman in Hanover, I passed on through a well-cultivated country chiefly inhabited by Germans to that place, where a certain judge took upon himself to say, that such a book as mine ought not to be encouraged, as it was not within the reach of the commonalty, and therefore inconsistent with our republican institutions! By the same mode of reasoning which I did not dispute, I undertook to prove him a greater culprit than myself in erecting a large, elegant, three-story brick house, so much beyond the reach of the commonalty as he called them, and consequently grossly contrary to our republican institutions. I harangued this Solomon of the bench more seriously afterward, pointing out to him the great influence of science on a young rising nation like ours, and particularly the science of natural history, till he began to show such symptoms of intellect, as to seem ashamed of what he had said. From Hanover I passed through a thinly inhabited country, and crossing the North Mountain at a pass called Newman’s Leap, arrived at Chambersburgh [Pennsylvania], whence I next morning returned to Carlisle, to visit the reverend doctors of the college. The towns of Chambersburgh and Shippensburgh [Pennsylvania] produced me nothing. On Sunday the 11th I left the former of these places in a stage coach, and in fi fteen miles began to ascend the alpine regions of the Alleghany mountains, where above, around and below us, nothing appeared but prodigious declivities covered with woods; and the weather being fi ne, such a profound silence prevailed among these aerial solitudes, as impressed the soul with awe and a kind of fearful sublimity. Something of this arose from my being alone, having left the coach several miles below. These high ranges continued for more than one hundred miles to Greensburgh [Penn-

Merchant-final.indb 135

4/28/16 8:34 PM

136 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson sylvania], thirty-two miles from Pitt sburgh. Thence the country is nothing but an assemblage of steep hills and deep valleys, descending rapidly till you reach within seven miles of this place, where I arrived on the 15th inst. [of this month]. We were within two miles of Pitt sburgh when suddenly the road descends a very long and steep hill, where the Alleghany River is seen at hand, on the right, stretching along a rich bottom, and bounded by a high ridge of hills on the west. After following this road parallel with the river, and about a quarter of a mile from it, through a rich low valley, a cloud of black smoke at its extremity announced the town of Pitt sburgh. On arriving at the town which stands on a low flat, and looks like a collection of blacksmiths’ shops, glasshouses, breweries, forgeries, and furnaces, the Monongahela opened to the view, on the left running along the bottom of the range of hills, so high that the sun at this season sets to the town of Pitt sburgh at a litt le past four. Th is range continues along the Ohio as far as the view reaches. The ice had just begun to give way in Monongahela [River] and came down in vast bodies for the three following days. It has now begun in the Alleghany and at the moment I write the river presents a white mass of rushing ice. The country beyond the Ohio to the west appears a monotonous and hilly region. The Monongahela is lined with arks usually called Kentucky boats, waiting for the rising of the river, and the absence of ice to descend. A perspective view of the town of Pitt sburgh at this season with the numerous arks and covered keelboats, preparing to descend the Ohio—its hills, its great rivers, the pillars of smoke rising from its furnaces and glass works— would make a noble picture. I began a very diligent search in this place the day after my arrival for subscribers, and continued it for four days. I succeeded beyond expectation, having got nineteen names of the most wealthy and respectable part of the inhabitants. The industry of Pitt sburgh is remarkable; everybody you see is busy; and as a proof of the prosperity of the place an eminent lawyer told me there has not been one suit instituted against a merchant of the town these three years. Gentlemen here assure me that the road to Chilocothee [sic] [Ohio] is impassable on foot by reason of the freshets. I have therefore resolved to navigate myself in a small skiff, which I have bought and named the “Ornithologist” down to Cincinnati, a distance of five hundred and twenty-eight miles, intending to visit five or six towns that lie in my way. From Cincinnati I will cross over to the opposite shore, and, abandoning my boat, make my way to Lexington, where I expect to be ere your letter can reach that place. Were I to go by Chilocothee [sic], I should miss five towns as large as it. Some say that I ought not to attempt going down by myself—others think

Merchant-final.indb 136

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 137 I may. I am determined to make the experiment, the expense of hiring a rower being considerable. As soon as the ice clears out of the Alleghany, and the weather will permit, I shall shove off, having everything in readiness. I have ransacked the woods and fields here without fi nding a single bird new to me, or indeed anything but a few snowbirds and sparrows. I expect to have something interesting to communicate in my next. February 23. My baggage is on board; I have just to dispatch this and set off. The weather is fi ne, and I have no doubt of piloting my skiff in safety to Cincinnati. Farewell, God bless you.

These solitary wanderings of Wilson as described in his letters are deeply interesting, not alone from their bearing on his own fortunes, but still more for their vivid pictures of the life of the time. His next letter from Lexington, dated April 4th, to the address of Mr. Alexander Lawson, appears to be a compilation from a well-kept diary, and takes up his adventures from the date of his leaving Pittsburgh and records them in one unbroken narrative down to the date of writing, but it is so long, that we can give only a portion of it in this number:53 My Dear Sir: Having now reached the second stage of my bird-catching expedition, I willingly sit down to give you some account of my adventures and remarks since leaving Pitt sburgh; by the aid of a good map and your usual stock of patience you will be able to listen to my story and trace all my wanderings. Though generally dissuaded from venturing by myself on so long a voyage down the Ohio in an open skiff, I considered this mode, with all its inconveniences, as the most favorable to my researches, and the most suitable to my funds; and I determined accordingly. Two days before my departure the Alleghany River was one wide torrent of broken ice, and I calculated on experiencing considerable difficulties on this score. My stock of provisions consisted of some biscuit and cheese, and a bott le of cordial, presented me by a gentleman of Pitt sburgh; my gun, trunk, and great coat occupied one end of the boat; I had a small tin occasionally to bail her and to take my beverage from the Ohio with; and, bidding adieu to the smoky confi nes of Pitt[sburgh], I launched into the stream, and soon winded away among the hills that everywhere enclose this noble river. The weather was warm and serene, and the river like a mirror except when floating masses of ice spotted its surface, and which required some care to steer clear of but these to my surprise in less than a day’s sailing totally disappeared. Far from being concerned at my new situation, I felt my heart expand with joy at the novelties which surrounded

Merchant-final.indb 137

4/28/16 8:34 PM

138 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson me; I listened with pleasure to the whistling of the red birds on the banks as I passed, and contemplated the forest scenery as it receded with increasing delight. The smoke of the numerous sugar camps rising lazily among the mountains, gave great effect to the varying landscape; and the grotesque log cabins that here and there opened from the woods, were diminished into mere doghouses by the sublimity of the impending mountains. If you suppose to yourself two parallel ranges of forest-covered hills, whose irregular summits are seldom more than three or four miles apart, winding through an immense extent of country, and enclosing a river half a mile wide, which alternately washes the steep declivity on one side, and leaves a rich forest-clad bottom on the other, of a mile or so in breadth, and you will have a prett y correct idea of the appearance of the Ohio. The banks of these rich flats are from twenty to sixty and eighty feet high, and even these last were within a few feet of being overflowed in December, 1808.

•7 We left Wilson at the outset of his description of his voyage down the Ohio, and will take up the narrative in his own words, still preserved to us in his letter to Mr. Alexander Lawson:54 I now stripped, he says, with alacrity to my new avocation. The current went about two and a half miles an hour, and I added about three and a half miles more to the boat’s way with my oars. In the course of the day I passed a number of arks, or, as they are usually called, Kentucky boats, loaded with what, it must be acknowledged, are the most valuable commodities of a country, viz., men, women and children, horses and ploughs, flour, millstones, etc. Several of these floating caravans were laden with store goods for the supply of the sett lements through which they passed, having a counter erected, shawls, muslins, etc., displayed, and everything ready for transacting business. On approaching a sett lement they blow a horn or tin trumpet which announces to the inhabitants their arrival. I boarded many of these arks, and felt much interested at the sight of so many human beings migrating like birds of passage to the luxuriant regions of the South and West. The arks are built in the form of a parallelogram, being from twelve to fourteen feet wide, and from forty to seventy feet long, covered above, rowed only occasionally by two oars before, and steered by a long and powerful one fi xed above. . . . I rowed twenty odd miles the fi rst spell, and found I should be able to

Merchant-final.indb 138

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 139 stand it perfectly well. About an hour after night I put up at a miserable cabin, fi ft y-two miles from Pitt sburgh, where I slept on what I supposed to be cornstalks or something worse; so preferring the smooth bosom of the Ohio to this brush heap, I got up long before day, and, being under no apprehension of losing my way, I again pushed out into the stream. The landscape on each side lay in one mass of shade; but the grandeur of the projecting headlands and vanishing points, or lines was charmingly reflected in the smooth glassy surface below. I could only discover when I was passing a clearing by the crowing of cocks, and now and then in more solitary places, the big horned owl made a most hideous hallowing that echoed among the mountains. In this lonesome manner, with full leisure for observation and reflection, exposed to hardships all day and hard berths all night, to storms of rain, hail and snow, for it froze severely almost every night, I persevered from February 24th to Sunday evening March 17th, when I moored my skiff safely in Bear Grass Creek at the rapids of the Ohio after a voyage of seven hundred and twenty miles. My hands suffered the most and it will be some weeks yet before they recover their former feeling and flexibility. It would be the task of a month to detail all the particulars of my numerous excursions in every direction from the river. In Steubenville [Ohio], Charlestown and Wheeling [West Virginia] I found some friends. At Marietta [Ohio] I visited the celebrated remains of Indian fortifications, as they are improperly called, which cover a large space of ground on the banks of the Muskingum [River]. Seventy miles above this at a place called Big Grave Creek I examined some extraordinary remains of the same kind there. The Big Grave is three hundred paces round at the base, seventy feet perpendicular, and the top, which is about fi ft y feet over, has sunk in, forming a regular concavity three or four feet deep. Th is tumulus is in the form of a cone, and the whole as well as its immediate neighborhood is covered with a venerable growth of forest four or five hundred years old, which gives it a most singular appearance. In clambering around its steep sides I found a place where a large white oak had been lately blown down, and had torn up the earth to the depth of five or six feet. In this place I commenced digging, and continued to labor for about an hour examining every handful of earth with great care; but except some shreds of earthenware, made of a coarse kind of clay, and considerable pieces of charcoal I found nothing else; but a person of the neighborhood presented me with some beads fashioned out of a kind of white stone which were found by digging on the opposite side of this gigantic mound, where I found the hole still remaining. The whole of an extensive plain a short distance from this, is marked out with squares, oblongs and circles, one of which comprehends several acres. The embankments

Merchant-final.indb 139

4/28/16 8:34 PM

140 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson by which they are distinguished are still two or three feet above the common level of the field. The Big Grave is the property of a Mr. Tomlinson or Tumblestone who lives near, and who would not expend three cents to see the whole sifted before his face. I endeavored to work on his avarice, by representing the probability that it might contain valuable matters, and suggested to him a mode by which a passage might be cut into it level with the bottom, and by excavation and arching, a most noble cellar might be formed for keeping his turnips and potatoes. “All the turnips and potatoes I should raise this dozen years,” said he, “would not pay the expense!” Th is man is no antiquary or theoretical farmer, nor much of a practical one either I fear; he has about two thousand acres of the best land and just makes out to live. . . . On Monday, March 5th, about ten miles below the mouth of the Great Sciota [Scioto River, Ohio], where I saw the fi rst flock of parroquets [sic], I encountered a violent storm of wind and rain, which changed to hail and snow, blowing down trees and limbs in all directions, so that, for immediate preservation, I was obliged to steer out into the river which rolled and foamed like a sea, and fi lled my boat nearly half full of water, and it was with the greatest difficulty I could make the least headway. It continued to snow violently until dusk, when I at length made good my landing, at a place on the Kentucky shore, where I had perceived a cabin, and here I spent an evening in learning the art and mystery of bear-treeing, wolf-trapping and wildcat-hunting from an old professor. But notwithstanding the skill of this great master, the country here is swarming with wolves, and wildcats, black and brown. According to this hunter’s own confession, he had lost sixty pigs from Christmas last, and all night long the distant howling of the wolves kept the dogs in a perpetual uproar of barking. Th is man was one of those people called squatters, who neither pay rent nor own land, but keep roving on the frontiers, advancing as the tide of civilization approaches. They are the immediate successors of the savages, and far below them in good sense and good manners as well as comfortable accommodations. . . . In the afternoon of the 15th I entered Big Bone Creek, which, passable only about a quarter of [a] mile, I secured my boat, and left my baggage under the care of a decent family near and set out on foot five miles through the woods for the Big Bone Lick, that great antediluvian rendezvous of the American elephants. Th is place, which lies “far in the windings of a sheltered vale,” afforded me a fund of amusement in shooting ducks and parroquets [sic] (of which last I skinned twelve, and brought off two slightly wounded), and in examining the ancient buffalo roads to this great licking place. McColquhoun, the proprietor, was not at home, but his agent and man-

Merchant-final.indb 140

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 141 ager entertained me as well as he was able, and was much amused with my enthusiasm. The place is a low valley everywhere surrounded by high hills; in the center, by the side of the creek, is a quagmire of near an acre, from which, and another small one below, the chief part of these large bones have been taken; at the latter place I found numerous fragments of large bone, lying scattered about. In pursuing a wounded duck across this quagmire, I had nearly deposited my carcass among the grand congregation of mammoths below, having sunk up to the middle, and had hard struggling to get out. . . . A number of turkeys which I observed from time to time on the Indiana shore made me lose half the morning in search of them. On the Kentucky shore I was also decoyed by the same temptations, but never could approach near enough to shoot one of them. These affairs detained me so, that I was dubious whether I should be able to reach Louisville that night. Night came on and I could hear nothing of the falls. About night I heard the fi rst roaring of the rapids, and as it increased I was every moment in hopes of seeing the lights of Louisville; but no lights appeared and the noise seemed now within less than half a mile of me. Seriously alarmed lest I might be drawn into the suction of the falls I cautiously coasted along shore which was full of snags and sawyers, and at length with great satisfaction opened Bear Grass Creek, when I secured my skiff to a Kentucky boat, and loading myself with my baggage, I groped my way through a swamp up to the town. The next day I sold my skiff for exactly half what it cost me; and the man who bought it wondered why I gave it such a droll Indian name (The Ornithologist). “Some old chief or warrior I suppose?” said he.

Wilson examined the falls by daylight and found them by no means so formidable as he had imagined, he saw two arks and a barge shoot them with ease, and felt quite confident of his own ability to negotiate them with his skiff. He describes the country around Louisville as swampy and unhealthy, with every facility for draining the swamps, redeeming their fertile soil, and rendering the location as healthy as any on the river.55 From Louisville [Kentucky], he set out on foot for Lexington, seventytwo miles distant, and saw very litt le to commend. The soil, he says, is of the richest, but the log houses are described as of the meanest, and a general air of slovenliness characterizes the homestead and its surroundings. Want of bridges was in those days a serious inconvenience to the foot traveler, and Wilson tells us that between Shelbyville and Frankfort [Kentucky], having gone out of his way to see a pigeon roost, he waded a deep creek called Benson nine or ten times.56

Merchant-final.indb 141

4/28/16 8:34 PM

142 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson

In a later [April 1810] letter to Mr. Alexander Lawson, written from Nashville [Tennessee], he refers more particularly to one of these pigeon roosts or breeding places which, he says, continued for three miles, and from information exceeded in length more than forty miles. “The timbers,” he says, “were chiefly beech—every tree loaded with nests, and I counted in different places more than ninety nests in a single tree.”57 From Nashville Wilson traveled through the wilderness on horseback to Natchez, Mississippi Territory, safely overcoming every obstacle, but undergoing very severe exposure, and in June he reached New Orleans and sailed thence to New York, and again entered Philadelphia after a long and arduous but fairly successful journey, during which he experienced many difficulties from the season and climate, the wildness of the paths and from a sickness which nearly proved fatal, but which his good constitution, and the simple prescription of an Indian bore him safely through.58 He nevertheless procured much information and new materials for his work, besides keeping up an extensive correspondence with his friends, and regularly entering in a diary the events of each day. From this diary, and the corresponding account of Audubon, we learn that these ornithologists fi rst met at Louisville [March 1810], and have to regret, says his biographer [Jardine], that their intimacy and acquaintance had not a longer existence.59 Before this meeting neither seemed to have had any idea of the other’s existence, though both were eagerly pursuing the same object, but in spite of the kindred nature of their pursuits their natures were too diverse for the existence of any bonds of sympathy. Audubon had already at that time a better collection of birds than Wilson, his drawings were better and yet he was to all appearance a well-to-do storekeeper pursuing ornithology only as an amateur for the diversion of his leisure, admitt ing that he had never thought of publishing the results of his labors. He received Wilson with easy but indifferent courtesy and politeness, and made himself helpful to him in small ways, but he neither felt nor made any display of enthusiasm, and Wilson’s sensitive nature appears to have been wounded to the quick, while on Audubon his visit appears to have made but litt le impression. The following entries in Wilson’s diary of his avocations in Louisville display a measure of reserve, which serves to indicate the feelings they were intended to draw a veil over:60 March 19th. Rambling round the town with my gun. Examined Mr. —’s drawings in crayon—very good. Saw two new birds he had—both Motacillae.

Merchant-final.indb 142

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 143 March 20th. Set out this afternoon with the gun; killed nothing new. People in taverns here devour their meals. Many shopkeepers board in taverns— also boatmen, land speculators, merchants, etc. No naturalist to keep me company.

And apparently gett ing no subscriptions in Louisville he closes with the bitter remark, “Science and literature has not a friend in this place.”

•8 During the next two or three years Wilson resided principally at Philadelphia, writing and superintending the bringing out of his work, varying these sedentary occupations with extensive excursions into the neighboring country. The coloring of the plates gave him a great deal of trouble, this branch of the art being but litt le understood in this country, and, in his desire to make his illustrations as true to nature as possible, he endeavored to master its difficulties, and with fair success, for his biographer [Jardine] tells us that he wrought at this department himself.61 In 1812 Wilson set out on an expedition into the Eastern States, ostensibly for the purpose of visiting his subscribers and sett ling accounts with his agents, but from a short letter written to Mr. George Ord, giving an account of his excursion, it is evident that if he attended to his business as author, he managed to mingle with his business the pleasures of his pursuits as a naturalist. As this letter is the last of the series from which his biography was compiled, and of no great length, we give it in full.62 Boston, October 13, 1812. To Mr. George Ord: Dear Sir: It is not in my power at present to give you anything more than a slight sketch of my ramble since leaving Philadelphia. My route up the Hudson afforded great pleasure mingled with frequent regret that you were not along with me to share the enjoyment. About thirty miles south of Albany we passed within ten miles of the celebrated Catskill Mountains [New York], a gigantic group clothed with forest to the summits. In the river here I found our common reed (Tizania aquatica) growing in great abundance in shoals extending across the middle of the river. I saw flocks of redwings and some black ducks, but no rail or reed birds. From this place my journey led me over a rugged mountainous country to Lake Champlain [New York], along which

Merchant-final.indb 143

4/28/16 8:34 PM

144 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson I coasted as far as Burlington in Vermont. Here I found the litt le coot-footed tringa or phalarope that you sent to Mr. Peale; a new and elegantly marked hawk; and observed some black ducks. The shores are alternate sandy bays and rocky headlands running into the lake. Every tavern was crowded with officers, soldiers and travelers. Eight of us were left without a bed; but having an excellent great coat I laid myself down in a corner with a determination of sleeping in defiance of the uproar of the house and the rage of my companions who would not disgrace themselves by a prostration of this sort. From Lake Champlain I traversed a rude mountainous region to [the] Connecticut River, a hundred miles above Dartmouth College. I spent several days with the gun in Grafton and Ryegate townships, and made some discoveries. From this I coasted along the Connecticut to a place called Haverhill, ten miles from the foot of Moose hillock, one of the highest of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I spent the greater part of a day in ascending to the peak of one of these majestic mountains, whence I had the most sublime and astonishing view that was ever afforded me. The immensity of forest lay below, extending on all sides to the furthest verge of the horizon; while the only prominent objects were the columns of smoke from burning woods that rose from various parts of the earth beneath to the heavens; for the day was beautiful and serene. Hence I traveled to Dartmouth and thence in a direct course to Boston. From Boston I passed through Portsmouth to Portland and got some things new. My return was by a different route. I have procured three new and beautiful hawks; and have gleaned up a stock of materials that will be useful to me hereafter. I hope, my dear sir, that you have been well since I left you. I have myself been several times affl icted with a violent palpitation of the heart, and want to try whether a short voyage by sea will be beneficial or not. In New England the rage of war, the virulence of politics, and the pursuit of commercial speculations engross every faculty. The voice of science and the charms of nature, unless these last present themselves in prize sugars, coffee or rum, are treated with contempt.

There are few additional records of the short remaining term of Wilson’s life. The seventh part of the “Ornithology” was far advanced and soon after its publication Wilson set out accompanied by Mr. Ord on an expedition to Egg Harbor [New Jersey] to procure materials for the eighth volume which would principally have contained the marine waterfowl. Th is was his last expedition and occupied nearly four months. On returning to Philadelphia the anxiety to perfect the forthcoming volume,

Merchant-final.indb 144

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Biography of Alexander Wilson • 145

which he thought would bring his labors nearly to a conclusion, and show him the end of a work to which he looked for the achievement of a lasting reputation, brought on an attack of his old complaints, which had gradually become more frequent when his mind or body was harassed or agitated for the accomplishment of any favorite project. His last illness is said to have been caused by a cold contracted during a long chase after some much desired bird, in the course of which and when much overheated he swam several rivers and small creeks; the immediate cause of his death was dysentery to which he had acquired a chronic tendency by previous exposure, and to this last and fatal attack he succumbed after an illness of ten days at the early age of forty-seven years, leaving the task he had allotted himself in some measure incomplete, but not before he had fairly earned the reputation for which he had so ardently craved.63 As a poet he still enjoys a local reputation in his birthplace, but his claim to our recognition rests on his labors as an ornithologist. He is the pioneer ornithologist of the United States, a man who traveled far, observed carefully, and scrupulously refrained from making any statements which were not of his knowledge, thus establishing a knowledge of the birds of America upon a sound foundation which became the starting point for future observers. Charles Wilkins Webber closes his resume of Wilson’s career with the following critical remarks:64 We will not add to the gloom which followed the illustrious life of poor Wilson to his grave by any officious comments upon the tenor of this short narrative. I will add, though, that it should be remembered, in forming any judgment of that strange moody man, that he had bitter woes enough to contend with, not only in his friendless early days, but in the harsh isolation of his weary wanderings and unappreciated after-life, to have grown a gall beneath an angel’s wing. Withal, the bursts of sunshine and exultation which shone through his eloquent writings often show that his inner self had fed healthfully sometimes upon the pure and peaceful teaching of his gentle pursuits. He was a man whose profound genius, darkened by misfortune, was somberly illuminated by a noble enthusiasm. He, too, may be accepted as a hunter-naturalist, but not as fi rst among them all. To J. J. Audubon, undoubtedly, that high place belongs, though this has been disputed by many, and even Christopher North has been found to assert them as “equals.” When the noble work of Wilson, the unknown Scotchman, began to make its appearance, ornithology among us was in its infancy, and the freshness

Merchant-final.indb 145

4/28/16 8:34 PM

146 • George Bird Grinnell’s Writings on John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson of his hardy original genius was promptly recognized and keenly relished abroad, in contrast with the stale, unprofitable treatment of the predominant schools of the technicalists. It was at once perceived how much the att ractiveness of his object was heightened by the circumstances of his personal intimacy and association with the creatures described in many of the conditions of natural freedom. His fi ne descriptions had the flavor of the wilderness about them. His birds were living things, and led out the heart in yearning through the scenes of a primeval earth to recognize them in their own wild homes, singing to the solitude from some chosen spray, or plying with careless grace, on busy wing, their curious sports and labors. . . . While the biographies of Wilson were full of natural spirit, of grace and power, greatly beyond all his predecessors, yet those of Audubon are far more minute and carefully detailed, introducing us, one after another, to a more intimate fellowship with each individual of the wide family of his love, through every piquant and distinctive trait of gesture, air, and movement, characterizing all the phases of their nature—without the faults of generalization, and too much credence to hearsay, or a gloomy and unphilosophic spirit, since the mild and loving geniality of childhood breathes through every line.

But in instituting a comparison between the result of the labors of Alexander Wilson and those of his great contemporary John James Audubon, it should always be borne in mind that the latter were the fruits of a long life time, while Wilson’s labors were concentrated into the litt le space of seven years. His private life was irreproachable, his character estimable, and many of those with whom his literary labors brought him in contact became warmly attached friends. He was buried in the burial ground of the old Swedes Church at Philadelphia, and the account of a recent visit to his grave by Mrs. Helen V. Austin in this present number will be read with interest.

Merchant-final.indb 146

4/28/16 8:34 PM

CHA P T ER N I N E

Introduction to Grinnell’s Monthly Birds

In addition to his editorials on the lives of John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson, George Bird Grinnell opened each issue of The Audubon Magazine (1887–1889) with an image of a bird drawn by Audubon. “Each monthly number,” stated Grinnell, “has a bird portrait, reproduced from Audubon’s world renowned plates, and the chapters on descriptive and economic ornithology contain an amount of interesting and instructive information about birds and their importance in the economy of nature.”1 Grinnell followed each image with a description of the bird and its habits that he wrote but left unsigned. His goals were to att ract the public to the beauty, behavior, and significance of America’s birds and to create a movement for their preservation. As in the case of his editorials, he did not take credit for his authorship, preferring to let the journal itself stand for their authority and validity. Grinnell’s monthly birds and their descriptions, along with those contributed by Florence Merriam Bailey, were designed to arouse public interest in knowing and preserving birds. Although Audubon’s own Ornithological Biography as well as several works by early ornithologists had already been published, Grinnell wanted to reach out to new supporters who would become fascinated by the birds around them along with those that were extinct or endangered. Grinnell’s reproductions of Audubon’s birds, published each month, together with his own “Descriptive Ornithology” (as indexed in each volume of The Audubon Magazine), constituted an early field guide targeted to the interested public. By the time he began publishing The Audubon Magazine in 1887, Grin-

Merchant-final.indb 149

• 149

4/28/16 8:34 PM

150 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

nell had had a great deal of experience as a hunter and fisher in skinning and preserving specimens and in writing descriptions of wildlife. As a youth growing up in his family’s home on the Audubon estate in New York City, he had been fascinated by Audubon’s specimens and had learned to hunt and stuff birds and animals. These skills were honed as an undergraduate and graduate student at Yale University under the guidance of O. C. (Othniel Charles) Marsh (1831–1899), professor of paleontology, noted for his descriptions of species and his theories on the origins of birds. Grinnell also traveled to the western United States on several expeditions, during which he participated in the work of collecting and describing specimens. Grinnell’s descriptive writing abilities for the general public were advanced during his years as natural history editor of Forest and Stream between 1876 and 1880 and then as editor from 1880 to 1911. John Reiger (personal communication) has pointed out that many of the descriptions Grinnell wrote as natural history editor were published by the magazine’s then-editor Charles Hallock (1834–1917) in his The Sportsman’s Gazetteer, which appeared in several editions between 1877 and 1883. Subtitled “The game animals, birds and fishes of North America; their habits and various methods of capture. Copious instructions in shooting, fishing, taxidermy, woodcraft, etc. Together with a glossary, and a directory to the principal game resorts of the country,” the descriptions constituted a valuable guide for sport hunters. The bird descriptions for The Sportsman’s Gazetteer, however, were all of game birds, whereas the birds Grinnell described for The Audubon Magazine were birds of interest to the general public.2 In addition to drawing on his own knowledge and expertise, the descriptions Grinnell penned for The Audubon Magazine were augmented by details and quotations from several sources. These works included Audubon’s Ornithological Biography (1831–1849), Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology (1808–1814), Thomas Nuttall’s Popular Handbook of the Birds of the United States and Canada (1832, 1834), and Elliott Coues’s Key to North American Birds (1872, 1884). He also added information from naturalists and observers who had written to him at Forest and Stream. His descriptions were lively and entertaining accounts of bird life and behavior but were also full of substantive scientific and historical information. As a whole they reveal Grinnell’s accumulated knowledge and personal observations about avifauna gained over many years from his numerous travels to the west and within the New England states.3 Part III of this book consists of “Grinnell’s Monthly Birds” as they

Merchant-final.indb 150

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Introduction to Grinnell’s Monthly Birds • 151

appeared in The Audubon Magazine between February 1887 and January 1889. Grinnell printed, as a frontispiece for each issue, birds he photographed in black and white from Audubon’s double-elephant Birds of America (see appendix 2). Th is book’s color insert reprints the cover of the fi rst issue of The Audubon Magazine (Plate 1), John Woodhouse Audubon’s portrait of his father, John James Audubon (Plate 2), and color plates of Audubon’s birds chosen by Grinnell for each issue of The Audubon Magazine. The names on the plates, however, are those used by Grinnell in The Audubon Magazine. The “Descriptive Ornithologies” are likewise Grinnell’s own, as printed in the magazine. To allow for comparison with Grinnell’s descriptions, Audubon’s descriptions from his Ornithological Biography are also cited. Differences in bird nomenclature between Audubon, Grinnell, and today are noted in table 2 and at the beginning of Grinnell’s descriptions. Wherever possible I have added notes that reveal the sources used by Grinnell to create his accounts.

Merchant-final.indb 151

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Merchant-final.indb 152

Table 2. George Bird Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine (1887–1889) Aud. Mag. vol. & no. 1.1 (Feb.): 2, 6 1.2 (Mar.): 26, 29 1.3 (Apr.): 50, 53 1.4 (May): 74, 77 1.5 (Jun.): 98, 101 1.6 (Jul.): 122, 125 1.7 (Aug.): 126, 149 1.8 (Sept.): 171, 173 1.9 (Oct.): 195, 197

Grinnell name1 Baltimore Oriole

Havell plate2 12

Audubon bird name

Current name (if different)

Peterson Water Royal plate3 color4 octavo5

Bien6

O. B.7 Vol. 1, pp. 66–71 Vol. 4, pp. 316–317 Vol. 1, pp. 227–231 Vol. 2, pp. 329–335 Vol. 1, pp. 191–195 Vol. 1, pp. 115–120 Vol. 1, pp. 372–376 Vol. 4, pp. 81–87 Vol. 2, pp. 102–107

Baltimore Oriole

387

96

217

217

Great Auk

341

Great Auk

211

169

465

465

Cedar Bird

43

Cedar Bird

325

9

246

246

Chimney Swift

158

American Swift

Chimney Swift

248

387

44

44

Golden-Winged Woodpecker Purple Martin

37

Northern Flicker

254

264

273

273

22

Golden-Winged Woodpecker Purple Martin

279

66

45

45

Wood Th rush

73

Wood Th rush

312

279

144

144

166

547

342

342

309

271

141

141

Spotted Sandpiper

310

Spotted Sandpiper

Brown Th rasher

116

Ferruginous Th rush

Brown Th rasher

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Merchant-final.indb 153

1.10 (Nov.): 219, 221 1.11 (Dec.): 242, 246 1.12 (Jan.): 267–271 2.1 (Feb.): 2–6 2.2 (Mar.): 24, 25 2.3 (Apr.): 46, 47 2.4 (May): 68, 69 2.5 (Jun.): 90, 91 2.6 (Jul.): 112, 113 2.7 (Aug.): 134, 135 2.8 (Sept.): 156, 157

Nighthawk

147

Night Hawk

Cliff Swallow

68

Rusty Grackle

157

Mockingbird

21

Mocking Bird

Night Heron

236

Night Heron

Black and White Warbler The Crow Pileated Woodpecker Towhee Bunting

60 46 111 29

Republican or Cliff Swallow European Magpie, European Coot8 Green Woodpecker9 Rusty Grakle

Black and White Creeper Crow Pileated Woodpecker Towhe Bunting

247

351

43

43

Cliff Swallow

278

155

47

48

Rusty Blackbird Northern Mockingbird Black-Crowned Night Heron Black and White Warbler American Crow

388

177

222

222

307

44

138

138

37

418

363

363

333

57

114

114

287

158

225

225

255

208

257

257

409

20

195

195

Eastern Towhee

Vol. 2, pp. 273–278 Vol. 1, pp. 353–357

Vol. 2, pp. 325–328 Vol. 1, pp. 108–113 Vol. 3, pp. 275–282 Vol. 1, pp. 452–454 Vol. 2, pp. 317–324 Vol. 2, pp. 74–80 Vol. 1, pp. 150–152 (continued)

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Merchant-final.indb 154

Table 2. (continued) Aud. Mag. vol. & no.

Grinnell name1

2.9 (Oct.): 178, 179 2.10 (Nov.): 200, 201 2.11 (Dec.): 222, 223

Fork-tailed Flycatcher Kingbird

2.12 (Jan.): 244, 245

Havell plate2 168

Audubon bird name

79

Fork-tailed Flycatcher Tyrant Fly-catcher

Tufted Titmouse

34

Crested Titmouse

Hermit Th rush

58

Hermit Th rush

Current name (if different)

Eastern Kingbird Tufted Titmouse

Peterson Water Royal plate3 color4 octavo5

Bien6

266

40

52

53

264

100

56

56

292

298

125

125

313

344

146

144

O. B.7 Vol. 2, pp. 387–389 Vol. 1, pp. 4 03–407 Vol. 1, pp. 199–201 Vol. 1, pp. 303–305

4/28/16 8:34 PM

1[George Bird Grinnell], The Audubon Magazine 1–2 (Feb. 1888–Jan. 1889). 2John James Audubon, The Birds of America: From Original Drawings with 435 Plates Showing 1,065 Life-sized Figures, 4 vols. Double-Elephant Folio (London: Robert Havell, 1827–1838). 3Roger Tory Peterson and Virginia Marie Peterson, Audubon’s Birds of America: The National Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio: (New York: Abbeville Press, 1981, 1991). 4John James Audubon, The Original Water-Color Paintings by John James Audubon for “The Birds of America,” Reproduced in Color for the First Time from the Collection at The New-York Historical Society, 2 vols., introduction by Marshall B. Davidson (New York: American Heritage, 1966). 5John James Audubon, Audubon’s Birds of America: Containing All of the Original Plates Reprinted from the First Royal Octavo Edition [1840–1844], with an introduction by Suzanne M. Low (San Diego, CA: Thunder Bay Press, 1994). 6John James Audubon, The Birds of America: The Bien Chromolithographic Edition, text by Joel Oppenheimer, edited by Laura Oppenheimer (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013). 7John James Aububon, Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, 5 vols. (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831–1849 [1839]). 8See chapter 7 of this book. From R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 12 (Jan. 1888): 270. 9See chapter 7 of this book. From R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1889): 2.

CHA P T ER T EN

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I From The Audubon Magazine 1 (Feb. 1887–Jan. 1888)

The Baltimore Oriole Icterus Baltimore, Daudin [Current: Icterus galbula] The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 2, 6–9. Plate 1.1 One of the most beautiful and most useful of our North American birds is the Baltimore Oriole,1 a plate of which forms the frontispiece of this number. Its bright colors, seen flashing amid the tender green of the budding leaves in spring, and its clear, mellow whistle, sounded as it moves along the branches of some tall tree in its search for food, make it a conspicuous and beautiful feature of the loveliest season of the year. Formerly the Oriole was one of the most abundant of our Eastern birds, but its very beauty has led to its destruction. Its brilliant plumage makes it very desirable to the hat bird collector, while its sweet notes catch his ear as its colors do his eye. It is often the case that all the male birds in a district are exterminated within a short time after their arrival from the South.2 In different localities the Oriole is known by different names, such as Fire-bird, Golden Robin, Fire-hang-nest, Hang-nest and Baltimore-bird, or Baltimore Oriole. These names refer either to its gorgeous plumage or else to its habit of building a curious hanging nest, which swings in the air below the twig to which it is attached. Orange and black were the colors of Lord Baltimore, for whom the bird was named by the great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, and this is the name by which it is most widely known. The Baltimore Oriole comes to us from the South in early spring. It passes the winter in Mexico, Central America and Cuba, and enters the

Merchant-final.indb 155

• 155

4/28/16 8:34 PM

156 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

United States in March. Audubon tells us that in Louisiana he has seen the young of the fi rst brood early in May. The journey northward is performed rather slowly, and usually it is the 9th or 10th of May before the Orioles are seen in southern New York and Connecticut. They are extremely regular in the time of their arrival, and year after year appear at any point at about the same date. The male birds are the fi rst to arrive, and the females usually make their appearance a day or two later. The fi rst notice we have of the Baltimore’s presence is his sweet whistle heard in the early morning. If we look for him we shall fi nd him high up among the branches of an oak or elm or sycamore or cherry tree, busily looking for food, and if we take a litt le time to watch him, may see how systematically he goes to work to secure his breakfast. He will very likely alight on some large branch near the trunk of the tree, and thence work outward toward the smaller branches, going carefully over almost every twig, and always flying back to the main branch to begin his examination of a smaller one. He peers into each crevice in the bark; looks under each leaf; and takes out from each blossom the insects which have gathered there to feed on the sweet honey. The litt le bunches of eggs hidden last autumn in the crannies and nooks where the mother beetle or moth thought they would be safe, do not escape his keen sight and his strong, sharppointed bill; the caterpillar, just hatched out and beginning to feed on the tender leaves, is far too slow to get away if the Oriole once espies him; and the insect which is about to lay its eggs in the fruit which is just now forming will have to be very quick and cunning if it is to avoid the sharp eyes of Lord Baltimore. All through the spring and summer this is the Oriole’s work, performed day after day, constantly, carefully, faithfully. No one can know how much good he does by his unceasing warfare against the insects; no one can know how many trees he saves, how many barrels of fruit he gives to the farmer, fruit which but for him would be eaten up by the grubs, or having been stung by insects would drop off from the trees before ripening. But there are some people who believe that the Oriole does a great deal of harm. They say that he eats the peas in spring and destroys grapes in great numbers in the autumn. Perhaps the Baltimore is not altogether perfect. He does visit the pea vines, but it is probably more to get the insects which gather about the sweet white blossoms than to eat the peas. But even if he should take a few of them, what a trifle in money value this loss would be when compared with the great good that he does by destroying the insects; and the same

Merchant-final.indb 156

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 157

thing is true with regard to the few grapes he may eat. Without the Oriole, and other birds who do such work as he, we might not have any vines at all on which to grow grapes. There are many learned people who believe that the terrible disease, due to a small insect, which has destroyed so many of the fi nest vineyards in France, is caused by the wholesale killing of birds which takes place in that country. The Oriole may do some litt le harm in the way indicated, but his services to man are very great and far out-weigh the value of a few small fruits. Soon after the Orioles reach the place which they have chosen for their summer home they select their mates. Sometimes sharp batt les take place between two male birds for the favor of a female, and the rivals chase one another here and there with shrill cries of anger, while the female looks on with interest to see which of her admirers will be the conqueror in the fight. As soon as the birds have paired, each couple begins to look about for a suitable place for the nest. Th is is built usually in an elm or sycamore tree, though sometimes in a cherry or pear, or as in the illustration, in a tulip tree. It is a structure of wonderful skill and ingenuity, a neatly woven purse or pouch-shaped bag of varying depth, constructed of long strings, sometimes of the fiber of the milkweed, or of horse-hair or of the threads of the Spanish moss of the South, the whole forming, as Nuttall remarks, “a sort of coarse cloth.”3 The nest is usually placed at the forking of two twigs, one side of it being attached to either of them, but sometimes it is fastened to one twig by one side only. We have seen one nest, built in a pear tree, which was formed entirely of black and brown horse-hairs without any other material whatever. The birds readily gather up and work into their nests any bits of string or tow which they may fi nd, and we knew of one house where it was the custom for the children in spring, when the Orioles were building, to put out on the lawn bits of blue and red worsted or yarn. These the birds would take and weave into their nests, thus adding a litt le bright color to their sober gray homes. Mr. Nuttall speaks of a case where a female which he was watching carried off to her nest a piece of lampwick ten or twelve feet long. He says further: “Th is long string, and many other shorter ones, were left hanging out for about a week before both the ends were watt led into the sides of the nest. Some other litt le birds, making use of similar materials, at times twitched these flowing ends, and generally brought out the busy Baltimore from her occupation in great anger.”4 In the South the network of the nest is open, and there is litt le or no lining, so that the air may circulate freely through it, but in the Northern

Merchant-final.indb 157

4/28/16 8:34 PM

158 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

States the fabric is more closely woven and hair or down is often used to thicken it and make the nest warm. The work of building the nest is taken part in by both birds. Sometimes the female does almost all the weaving and the male brings the materials to her, and at others the male is the architect. It is a busy time for both of them, and no doubt the days seem all too short for the work that has to be done. When the swinging nest is completed the eggs are laid. They are four or five in number, white marked with dots and curious curving lines and streaks, as if some one had been scratching on them with a pen and very black ink. Now the female begins to sit upon her eggs and the male is kept very busy. He has to bring food to his mate, and also to keep a sharp lookout for any enemies who may be suspected of having designs against his family. The presence of a strange dog or cat in the vicinity of his nest will bring him down to the lower branches of the tree or to the top of a fence post with a sharp rolling cry of anger and warning. The Baltimore Oriole is not afraid of anything that fl ies, and will attack most courageously any bird that may attempt to alight in the tree where his nest is built. We have seen one administer such a severe thrashing to a marauding bluejay who was prowling about his home, that the rascal went off quite crestfallen and hid himself in a cedar tree, where he stayed half an hour before he dared to venture out from its sheltering branches. For two weeks the tender mother sits upon her eggs, rocked by the soft breezes and cheered by the love song of her devoted mate. Then the shells begin to crack, and the blind, naked, helpless young appear. The mother carefully throws out of the nest every particle of eggshell that might scratch their tender bodies, and soon feeds them with the soft insect food that she has prepared for them. From this time on both parents are busily at work providing food for the young, which grow hungrier and hungrier as they increase in size. In the course of a couple of weeks they are prett y well feathered, and now they begin to make excursions to the door of the nest, so that they can peep out into the world about them and see what is going on there. The sides of the nest are straight up and down, and the young birds climb up the walls as a woodpecker climbs up a tree. Soon after they venture on this feat their wings become strong enough to support them, and at length the boldest of them all ventures to tumble off his perch and take a short fl ight; and soon the nest is deserted. Although the Oriole does not possess any very great powers of song, its cheerful whistle is a pleasant sound, and it has, according to Nuttall, considerable powers of mimicry. He speaks of one which imitated the whis-

Merchant-final.indb 158

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 159

tle of the cardinal redbird, the call of the Wilson’s thrush and the song of the robin, and indeed had such a variety of unusual notes as often to deceive the naturalist, who sometimes thought he was hearing the notes of birds new to him.5 The same author, in the course of his very extended and interesting article on the Baltimore Oriole, gives an account of a male which he kept as a pet. He says:6 I have had a male bird in a state of domestication, raised from the nest very readily on fresh minced meat soaked in milk. When established, his principal food was scalded Indian corn meal, on which he fed contentedly, but was also fond of sweet cakes, insects of all descriptions, and nearly every kind of fruit. In short, he ate everything that he would in a state of nature, and did not refuse to taste and eat of everything but the condiments which enter into the multifarious diet of the human species. He was literally omnivorous. No bird could become more tame, allowing himself to be handled with patient indifference, and sometimes with playfulness. The singular mechanical application of his bill was remarkable and explains at once the ingenious art employed by the species in weaving their nest. If the folded hand was presented to our familiar Oriole, he endeavored to open it by inserting his pointed and straight bill between the closed fi ngers, and then by pressing open the bill with great muscular force, in the manner of an opening pair of compasses, he contrived, if the force was not great, to open the hand and examine its contents. If brought to the face he did the same with the mouth, and would try hard to open the closed teeth. In this way, by pressing open any yielding interstice, he could readily insert the threads of his nest, and pass them through an infi nity of openings, so as to form an ingenious network or basis of his suspensory and procreant cradle.

Two Orioles which we once had in confi nement were fed, as very young birds, partly on bread and milk and partly on raw beef fi nely minced. They throve excellently, and as soon as they were able to feed themselves, their bill of fare was enlarged so as to include boiled rice, raisins and dried figs, of both of which fruits they were very fond. They grew to be fi ne, strong, healthy birds, but that same autumn circumstances made it necessary that they should be set free, so that there was no opportunity for making any extended observations on their habits in confi nement. After the brood is reared and the young birds have become strong and well able to look out for themselves, the Orioles begin preparations for

Merchant-final.indb 159

4/28/16 8:34 PM

160 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

their southern migrations. They usually leave New England in September, and go away one by one, or at most only a few together. The males have ceased their cheery whistle, and the birds seem to wish to shun observation, fl itt ing quietly along the hedgerows and through the woods, seldom noticed except by the ornithologist. As has been said, the winter home of the Oriole is beyond our borders. In summer it is found all over the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and north well into the British Provinces. It is a bird of strong local attachments, and may sometimes be found abundant in one district and quite rare or even absent from another neighboring section. The Baltimore Oriole is about seven and a half inches long. In the fullplumaged male the head, neck, throat, back, wings and part of the tail are black. The other parts are orange. The two middle tail feathers are black, and those outside of these are part black toward the body and part orange toward the tips. There are two lines of white on the wings. The bill is bluish-black. The feet and legs are lead color. The female is everywhere paler and duller than the male. Where he is black she is grayish-yellow, except on the wings, which are brownish-black, and where he is orange she is olive-yellow. The males do not attain their full beauty of plumage until the third year.

The Great Auk Plautus impennis, Linn. The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 2 (Mar. 1887): 26, 29–30. Plate 1.2 Our illustration this month has a double interest, because it represents a form of bird life which can now be seen only in pictures. The Great Auk, once so abundant on the northern coast of America, no longer exists. Not very long ago, when your mother’s grandmother was young, and wore a poke-bonnet, it would have been no difficult task to fi nd Auk skins enough to trim all the hats in America, but in our day we can fi nd not a single Auk.7 Naturalists and geologists, who fi nd the fossil bones of animals stored away in the rocks, tell us of many forms of life which have become extinct. Most of them have disappeared because of great earth changes and unfavorable conditions quite beyond the control of man. But the Great Auk, like the Dodo of Mauritius and some other birds, has wholly ceased to exist because exterminated by the cruelty of man. Had its human foes

Merchant-final.indb 160

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 161

been less wanton, the Great Auk might still be numbered among American sea birds. Its melancholy fate is an instance of the destruction which might be wrought upon other species of birds, if the plumage hunters were unchecked. The Great Auk had neither means of defense nor powers of fl ight. Its safety lay in its home, which was on outlying rocky islets and points of land, where there were no large mammals that could injure it. Its powers of swimming and diving gave it safety from the eagles, the only winged creatures which could successfully attack a bird of such great size. As soon as civilized man entered upon the scene, however, the Great Auk’s danger was apparent. The Great Auk—the representative of the penguin in the northern seas—lived up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, without any serious diminution of its ranks. That it was to some extent used as food by various nations is quite certain, for its bones have been found in the shell heaps left by coast dwelling tribes; but this did not affect the supply. Up to a comparatively recent date a general impression prevailed that the Great Auk was a bird of the far north, and was commonly found within the Arctic circle. Th is does not appear to have been the case. It was an inhabitant of the North Atlantic Ocean, being abundant on small islands off the coast of Iceland and Newfoundland, but it is doubtful whether it ever occurred except casually within the Arctic circle. It has been said by [Johannes] Reinhardt [1816–1882] that it was found occasionally on the coast of Greenland, and that one was killed on Disco Island, in Davis’ Strait, but later writers are not disposed to credit these accounts. However, it is clear that it was a bird capable of enduring a great degree of cold, for being practically wingless it was no doubt resident where hatched, or at all events could not wander far from home in search of a warmer climate. The old accounts of these birds—which were known by a variety of names, such as Wobble, Penguin, Moyack and Alke—speak of them as being very abundant, and show very clearly how readily they were destroyed. Thus Captain Richard Whitbourne, of Exmouth, Devonshire, England, in “A Discovrse and Discovery of Nevv-fovnd-land,” printed in 1622, says: “These Penguins are as bigge as Geese, and flye not, for they haue but a litt le short wing; and they multiplie so infi nitely, vpon a certain flat Hand, that men driue them from thence vpon a boord, into their boats by hundreds at a time; as if God had made the innocency of so poore a creature, to become such an admirable instrument for the sustentation of man.”8 A litt le later, in 1672, John Josselyn, Gent., in a work on “New England

Merchant-final.indb 161

4/28/16 8:34 PM

162 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

Rarities,” printed in London, writes: “The Wobble is an ill shaped Fowl, having no long Feathers in their Pinions, which is the reason they cannot fly, not much unlike the Pengwin; they are in the Spring very fat, or rather oyly, but pulled and garbidg’d, and laid to the Fire to roast, they yield not one drop.”9 In a work on Greenland, by Hans Egede [1686–1758] printed at Copenhagen in the year 1718, and translated and published in London in 1818, it is stated that “there is another sea-bird, which the Norway-men call Alkes, which in the winter season contributes much to the maintenance of the Greenlander. Sometimes there are such numbers of them that they drive them in large flocks to the shore, where they catch them in their hands.”10 Coming down to modern times we fi nd that early in the present century the Great Auk was abundant on the islands on the coast of Iceland, but that in 1807 an English privateer visited these islands and killed most of them, and that again in the year 1810, the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands, being threatened with starvation, visited Iceland and made havoc among the Auks. From these inroads the species never recovered, and after this time we hear of them as occurring on the coast of Iceland only in small numbers. The last seen were two killed in 1844. On our own coast this species was once very abundant. We have seen what Captain Whitbourne said of it on the Newfoundland coast, and we know from the occurrence of its Remains, and from the testimony of witnesses, some of whom may be still living, that it used to be plentifully distributed along the coast of Maine and Massachusetts, as far south as Boston Bay. Mr. George A. Boardman learned from a Methodist missionary, who was stationed on the coast of Newfoundland near Funk Island from 1818 to 1823, that during the whole of his residence these birds were present in considerable numbers, and that the inhabitants destroyed many of them for their feathers. Often the boys kept them as pets tied by a string to the leg. Mr. Audubon states that during a voyage to England, perhaps about 1830, Mr. Henry Havell hooked a Great Auk on the Newfoundland Banks and brought it on board. Th is seems to be the latest record that we have of its occurrence on the American coast, though Mr. Ruthven Deane published in the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club an account of a young bird which was picked up dead on the coast of Labrador in 1870. About this occurrence, however, there seems to be some doubt.11 All accounts agree in stating that this bird was very abundant in the seventeenth century, and that it bred on rocky islets off the coast where

Merchant-final.indb 162

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 163

it was free from the attacks of any enemy except man. When on shore the birds sat upright and moved along by short steps about as fast as a man would walk. It is generally agreed that only one egg was laid. Th is was large, pointed and white with brown or chocolate spots. The birds made no defense of their egg but would bite fiercely when caught, infl icting severe wounds with their great strong bills. So far as known seventy-eight skins of the Great Auk exist in various museums, and besides these there are a number of skeletons, parts of skeletons, and mummies taken from shell heaps and old breeding places. The length of the Great Auk was about thirty inches, and the color was as follows: The head, neck and upper parts were black, fading to snuff brown on the throat and sides of head and neck. The lower parts, a large oval spot in front of the eye and the tips of the secondary wing feathers are white. The white of the breast and neck extends upward in a point into the brown of the throat. The bill is black with the grooves between the transverse ridges white. The feet and claws black, eye hazel.

The Cedar Bird Ampelis cedrorum (V.), Gray [Current: Cedar Waxwing] The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 3 (Apr. 1887): 50, 53–54. Plate 1.3 Every country boy knows the Cedar Bird. It is with us almost all the year round, and most of the time in great flocks. And if any one has ever held one in his hand, no doubt he has admired the soft delicate brown silky plumage, the pointed crest, the velvety black about the eye, the yellow band across the end of the tail, and the curious litt le outgrowths, looking like red sealing-wax, which are attached to the ends of some of the wing and tail feathers.12 The Cedar Bird has no song and no gaudy colors, yet he is, from the delicacy and soft ness of his plumage, one of our most beautiful birds. From the fact that these birds are usually found in large flocks, and from their tameness and unsuspicious character, they fall an easy prey to the bird butcher. The discharge of a gun loaded with fi ne shot will often kill a dozen at a time, and during the craze for feather ornamentation which has raged so during the past few years, the Cedar Bird has been among the commonest species seen on women’s hats.

Merchant-final.indb 163

4/28/16 8:34 PM

164 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

Although a few Cedar Birds may be found throughout the winter in New York and southern New England, by far the greater number of these interesting birds retire, on the approach of winter, to the Southern States, some going even as far south as Mexico. In the early spring they journey northward again, and spend the summer in the Northern States and in Canada. Although among the earliest birds to reach their summer home in spring, they are almost the latest to breed, and often it is the last of June before they set about building their simple nests. These are usually flat, and formed of twigs, lined with black, fibrous roots, and are often placed in an apple tree within 12 or 15 feet of the ground, and usually without any attempt at concealment. The four eggs are of a livid white or pale clay color, marked with black spots, which are usually largest and most numerous toward the larger end. The female broods her eggs for fi fteen or sixteen days, at the end of which time the young appear. At fi rst the mother feeds them on smooth cater-pillars, like the canker worm, and on other soft insects, but as they grow older, small fruits and berries form a large portion of their diet. When the nest of the Cedar Bird is approached, the parents make no outcry, nor do they attempt, as do most birds, to defend it or frighten away the intruder. If the female be on the nest, she fl ies away to a litt le distance and remains quiet, patiently awaiting the departure of the disturber of her home. The Cedar Bird is very fond of fruit, and for a considerable portion of the year lives almost exclusively on berries. It feeds on cherries—whence its name Cherry Bird—on the berries of the holly, mountain ash, persimmon, dogwood, bittersweet and cedar, and will often so gorge itself with these as to be almost unable to fly. In captivity this eagerness for food is still manifested, and Audubon instances a case where some of these birds confi ned in a cage fed so voraciously on apples that in a few days they died of suffocation. In spring and summer, before the ripening of the fruits and berries, the Cedar Bird plays a most useful part, devouring insects in great numbers. It is an expert flycatcher, and may often be seen perched upon a dead twig near the top of some tall tree, from which it makes its graceful and successful sallies after the different insects passing near it. It is very fond of the canker worm, which is often such a pest in our orchards and to our elms; and this bird is said by Dr. [Clinton Hart] Merriam to be almost the only one that feeds largely on these creatures. The Cedar Bird is remarkable for its gentleness and trustful innocence.

Merchant-final.indb 164

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 165

We were once fishing in Pennsylvania, and were quietly wading down the alder-fringed Shohola River, holding the light rod before us as the line floated down the current, when suddenly we felt a slight jar on the rod, and were surprised to see a Cedar Bird perched on it within five or six feet of the hand. We made no motion, and the bird sat on its novel perch for some minutes, every now and then taking a short fl ight to capture an insect, and then returning to the rod. The Cedar Birds are noted for their extreme sociability and even fondness for their kind. In this respect they seem to resemble the litt le Australian parroquets [sic] known as “love birds.” When flying they proceed in close flocks, and seem to wish to be as near to one another as possible. The same thing is seen when they are at rest, for then they sit close to one another, side by side on the branches. They are sometimes seen to fondle and caress each other with their bills, and [Thomas] Nuttall relates a case on the authority of a gentleman whose name he gives, where one bird having darted from his perch and caught an insect, returned with it in his bill and presented it to the bird next to him, who passed it to the next one, by whom it was passed to the next, and so it went up and down the line two or three times, before it was devoured.13 Quite opposed to any such seeming generosity as this, is their conduct when feeding on fruit. At such times they appear to be most voracious, and tear at the berries so eagerly, that as many fall to the ground as are eaten by the birds. Often in the autumn a flock of Cedar Birds will sett le down upon a mountain ash tree, bright with its clusters of scarlet berries, and they will not leave it until it is entirely stripped of its fruit. Aside from the services which the Cedar Bird in common with all insect-eating birds renders to the farmer, he also performs very important work as a tree planter. Any one who has followed the tracks of the lumberman over the timber lands of Pennsylvania, will have observed that wherever the timber has been cleared the wild cherry makes its appearance, sometimes growing in compact forests of thousands of acres in extent. These cherry groves are all planted by Cedar Birds and other fruiteating birds, which pass the hard carpels or kernels of the cherry, cedar and mountain ash undigested, scattering them all over the forest floor. A young growth springs up and shades the ground, keeps the soil moist, fostering the growth of maple, pine or any other seed which is carried by the wind or other agency into the thicket, until by and by when the cherry trees begin to die down, there is a forest of young trees to replace them, while but for the labors of the birds in planting it, the muck soil dried in

Merchant-final.indb 165

4/28/16 8:34 PM

166 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

the sun would become as inflammable as tinder, and liable to catch fi re and be entirely consumed, exposing a hopelessly barren surface of sand, gravel or rock. The Cedar Bird is from six to seven inches in length, and the outspread wings measure from eleven to twelve inches. The plumage throughout is peculiarly silky and smooth. The head is ornamented with a conspicuous crest, which can be raised or lowered at pleasure. The body is generally cinnamon color, paling to ashy on the rump and upper tail coverts, becoming darker and richer on the head and fore parts, and running into yellowish on the belly and to white on the under tail coverts. The forehead, a space before the eyes, the chin, and a stripe behind the eye black; a line along the under mandible and lores, and the eyelid white. The wing quills are slate gray, darker at the tips and pale on the inner sides of the feathers. The tail is tipped with a band of yellow. The tips of some of the wing feathers, and some-times of some of the tail feathers, are ornamented with litt le oval flat lamella-like appendages, which resemble red sealing-wax.

The Chimney Swift Chaetura pelagica, Linn. [Audubon: Chimney Swallow or American Swift] The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 4 (May 1887): 74, 77–81. Plate 1.4 Almost everyone who has lived much in the country knows the Chimney “Swallow,” the swift-flying litt le sooty bird that is constantly skimming over the fields, high up in the sky in fair weather, and low down when the atmosphere is damp and a storm is threatening. In May and early June they are often seen chasing one another through the air with low twitterings, and a litt le later in the season, the young can sometimes be heard in the chimneys calling loudly to their parents for food.14 Although the Chimney Swifts are so abundant, and may be seen any day by hundreds, we do not believe that any of our young readers have ever seen one at rest. They are thought never to alight on the branches of trees or on the ground, but spend all their time on the wing, except at night when they retire to their resting places in chimneys or in hollow trees. Th is bird leaves the north early in August for its winter home in Mex-

Merchant-final.indb 166

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 167

ico and Central America, some of them passing even as far as South America. They return late in the spring, reaching the Middle States about May 20th, and Northern Maine and New Brunswick about the last of that month. In early days, the Chimney Swifts built their nests in hollow trees, and no doubt they still make use of such places to a limited extent in thinly sett led districts, but by far the greater number of the birds that are seen in the East and Middle West have taken advantage of chimneys, which are not used in summer, and build and roost in them. From this habit comes the common name Chimney “Swallow.” And yet the ornithologist will tell you that these litt le birds are not swallows at all, although they look so much like them. They are classed by most of these scientific gentlemen as belonging to the order Picarics. Th is group of birds contains a great many different and widely diverse kinds, which are put together in one order more because they are unlike any other birds than because they seem to have relationships with each other. Th is order contains the swifts, the goatsuckers—of which our night hawk and whippoorwill are examples—the humming-birds, the cuckoos and their relatives, and the woodpeckers, so that you can easily see that there are a great many different sorts of birds in it. But whatever the Chimney “Swallows” really are, it is enough for our purpose now that they seem like swallows, and are called so. Soon after they get here in spring they begin to make arrangements for their housekeeping. After they have chosen their mates, the next thing is to select a place for their nests. If they are a pair of old birds, this does not take them long, for they will be likely to return to the chimney which was occupied by one or both of them the year before. The nest is a curious structure and is built in a curious way. It is made of small dry twigs, which are at fi rst glued to the side of the chimney, by means of a gummy saliva, which the birds secrete, and then are crossed on and glued to each other so as to form a platform, which is slightly hollow on top, so that there is no danger of the eggs rolling off from it. These are from four to six in number and are pure white in color. Sometimes, either because the weight of the young birds is too great for it to support, or because the glue which holds the sticks to the side of the chimney has been weakened by rain falling on it, the nest breaks away from its position and drops down to the bottom of the chimney. If this occurs when the nestlings are very young, they must all perish, but

Merchant-final.indb 167

4/28/16 8:34 PM

168 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

if they are partially fledged they stick their sharp litt le claws in the side of the chimney wall, and clamber up again to the top, where they may sometimes be seen taking food from the parent birds. You may wonder where the Chimney Swift s get the litt le sticks with which they build their nests, if they never alight on the ground nor on the trees. Well, they break them off the trees as they are flying by, and perhaps some day this spring, if you watch the Swifts, you may see them do it. They fly by some tree which has tiny dead twigs on it, and as they go past these they reach out their litt le feet, grasp a twig, and by their weight break it away, and carry it off with them. You can see from this what small twigs they must use. They are such litt le birds that they could not break off anything that was very strong. It will have been noticed that the Chimney Swift is in many ways rather a curious bird. It is quite unlike most of our birds in its structure, is peculiar in its nesting habits not only in the way in which it gathers the materials for its dwelling, but also in the means it employs to fasten these materials together and to the surface which supports them. There is perhaps nothing, however, in which this bird is more peculiar than in its roosting habits. The places which it chooses for passing the night are often large enough to afford room for thousands of birds, and are usually either hollow trees or large disused chimneys. During a short period just previous to their migration southward these birds resort to such chosen places in enormous numbers. An admirable description of one of these roosting trees and its inhabitants, which Audubon saw in Kentucky, is given in the second volume of his “Ornithological Biograph[y],” page 331. He says of this tree:15 I found it to be a sycamore, nearly destitute of branches, sixty or seventy feet high, between seven and eight feet in diameter at the base, and about five for the distance of forty feet up, where the stump of a broken hollow branch, about two feet in diameter, made out from the main stem. Th is was the place at which the Swallows entered. On closely examining the tree, I found it hard, but hollow to near the roots. It was now about four o’clock afternoon, in the month of July. Swallows were flying over Jeffersonville, Louisville, and the woods around, but there were none near the tree. I proceeded home, and shortly after returned on foot. The sun was going down behind the Silver Hills; the evening was beautiful, thousands of Swallows were flying closely above me, and three or four at a time were pitching into the hole, like bees hurrying into their hive. I remained, my head leaning on the tree, listening to

Merchant-final.indb 168

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 169 the roaring noise made within by the birds as they sett led and arranged themselves until it was quite dark, when I left the place, although I was convinced that many more had to enter. I did not pretend to count them, for the number was too great, and the birds rushed to the entrance so thick as to baffle the attempt. I had scarcely returned to Louisville when a violent thunderstorm passed over the town, and its appearance made me think that the hurry of the Swallows to enter the tree was caused by their anxiety to avoid it. I thought of the Swallows almost the whole night, so anxious had I become to ascertain their number before the time of their departure should arrive. Next morning I rose early enough to reach the place long before the least appearance of daylight, and placed my head against the tree. All was silent within. I remained in that position probably twenty minutes, when suddenly I thought the great tree was giving way and coming down upon me. Instinctively I sprang from it, but when I looked up to it again, what was my astonishment to see it standing as fi rm as ever. The Swallows were now pouring out in a black continued stream. I ran back to my post, and listened in amazement to the noise within, which I could compare to nothing else than the sound of a large wheel revolving under a powerful stream. It was yet dusky, so that I could hardly see the hour on my watch, but I estimated the time which they took in gett ing out at more than thirty minutes. After their departure no noise was heard within, and they dispersed in every direction with the quickness of thought. I immediately formed the project of examining the interior of the tree, which, as my kind friend Major Croghan had told me, proved the most remarkable I had ever met with. Th is I did in company with a hunting associate. We went provided with a strong line and a rope, the fi rst of which we, after several trials, succeeded in throwing across the broken branch. Fastening the rope to the line we drew it up and pulled it over until it reached the ground again. Provided with the longest cane we could fi nd, I mounted the tree by the rope without accident, and at length seated myself at ease on the broken branch, but my labor was fruitless, for I could see nothing through the hole, and the cane, which was about fi fteen feet long, touched nothing on the sides of the tree within that could give any information. I came down fatigued and disappointed. The next day I hired a man who cut a hole at the base of the tree. The shell was only eight or nine inches thick, and the axe soon brought the inside to view, disclosing a matted mass of exuviae, with rotten feathers reduced to a kind of mould, in which, however, I could perceive fragments of insects and quills. I had a passage cleared, or rather bored through this mass, for nearly

Merchant-final.indb 169

4/28/16 8:34 PM

170 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889 six feet. Th is operation took a good deal of time, and knowing by experience that if the birds should notice the hole below they would abandon the tree, I had it carefully closed. The Swallows came as usual that night, and I did not disturb them for several days. At last, provided with a dark lantern, I went with my companion about nine in the evening, determined to have a full view of the interior of the tree. The hole was opened with caution. I scrambled up the sides of the mass of exuviae, and my companion followed. All was perfectly silent. Slowly and gradually I brought the light of the lantern to bear on the sides of the hole above us, when Ave saw the swallows clinging side by side, covering the whole surface of the excavation. In no instance did I see one above another. Satisfied with the sight I closed the lantern. We then . . . slid down into the open air. . . . Let us now make a rough calculation of the number that clung to the tree. The space beginning at the pile of feathers and moulded exuviae, and ending at the entrance of the hole above, might be fully 25 feet in height, with a breadth of 15 feet, supposing the tree to be 5 feet in diameter at an average. There would thus be 375 feet square of surface. Each square foot, allowing a bird to cover a space of 3 inches by 11/2, which is more than enough, judging from the manner in which they were packed, would contain 32 birds. The number of Swallows, therefore, that roosted in this single tree was 9,000. I watched the motions of the Swallows, and when the young birds that had been raised in the chimneys of Louisville, Jeffersonville, and the houses of the neighborhood, or the trees suited for the purpose, had left their native recesses, I visited the tree on the second day of August. I concluded that the number resorting to it had not increased, but I found many more females and young, than males. . . . Day after day I watched the tree. On the 13th of August, not more than two or three hundred came there to roost. On the 18th of the same month, not one did I see near it, and only a few scattered individuals were passing, as if moving southward. In September, I entered the tree at night, but not a bird was in it. Once more I went to it in February, when the weather was very cold; and perfectly satisfied that all these Swallows had left our country I fi nally closed the entrance and left off visiting.

We were fortunate enough one summer to witness the assemblage and descent into their roosting place of a great throng of Chimney Swifts. The place chosen was a large old-fashioned chimney rising from the middle of a long low house on the main street of a litt le Connecticut village, and the time was the last of June. The Swifts began to gather about the house half

Merchant-final.indb 170

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 171

an hour before sunset, and to swing around it in a large ellipse. As the sun sank lower and lower, the number of birds greatly increased, and the ellipse grew smaller, and gradually changed its form to that of a circle. The sound of wings and the chattering was audible at a distance of a hundred yards. Presently a few birds swung off from the inside of the flying mass and turned, by gradually decreasing circles, toward the chimney, into which they dropped. Others followed, the line becoming constantly thicker, and the outer circle growing constantly smaller. By the time the sun had set, the birds had all gathered about the chimney and the mass looked like a huge whirling funnel, whose lower and smaller end was within the chimney. Th is funnel was perhaps twelve feet in height and twelve feet across at the top, and yet two-thirds of the birds had disappeared within the chimney. It grew smaller quite rapidly, but all had not gone in when it became too dark to distinguish the birds. It seemed that there must have been thousands of them. The Chimney Swift is to some degree nocturnal in its habits, and where they have their nests in chimneys, it is not at all unusual to hear at night the muffled roar of their wings, as the parents descend to their nests, and the answering cries of the eager young who are waiting for food. Another subject in connection with the Chimney Swift is extremely interesting. In times past it was generally believed that the swallows passed the winter months in a state of torpor buried in the mud at the bottom of lakes and slow-flowing streams. Some thought that these birds turned to frogs at the approach of cold weather, and remaining in the streams while they were frozen and the ground covered with snow, came to the surface when the ice had disappeared, again donned their feathers and once more became the winged beauties that we see disporting themselves over our fields and about our homes. Th is was believed of other birds also. Now the Swifts, as has been said, very closely resemble the swallows in many of their external characters, and the belief about the swallows extended to them also. There is a great mass of testimony in support of this belief, most of it ancient, but some quite modern. Thus the Duke of Argyll, in an article printed in Nature in April, 1877, quotes Sir John McNeill, who says: “I have stated and I now repeat that I have seen swallows in large numbers hibernating,” and in Field and Forest in August, 1877, Mr. R. R. McLeod quotes two “reliable” persons who give circumstantial accounts of the fi nding of swallows (or Swifts) buried in the mud.16

Merchant-final.indb 171

4/28/16 8:34 PM

172 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

No less an authority than Dr. [Elliott] Coues seems to have a slight leaning toward this ancient belief, or perhaps it is more just to say that he regards the evidence in support of it as too important to be dismissed with a sneer. He does not at all admit any belief in the hibernation of swallows in the mud or under water, but he does state plainly that he believes that the Chimney Swift hibernates in winter. He says: “I suppose that it hibernates in hollow trees, and could give reasons for the supposition.” It may be said, however, that scientific men in general place not the slightest faith in the legendary belief, and until the testimony on the subject has been accepted by them, we need not trouble ourselves about the matter.17 Few birds are more destructive to insects, than the Chimney Swift . It lives exclusively upon them, and spends its whole life upon the wing in their pursuit. Naturalists have taken specimens whose mouths and throats were crammed so full of mosquitoes, and other noxious insects that these would fall out when the beak was open. The bird does absolutely no harm and should never be killed. Many of our birds, especially those which are climbers, such as woodpeckers and creepers, use the tail as a partial support when scrambling about on vertical surfaces. The Chimney Swift always rests in an upright position, clinging to some perpendicular surface with its feet, and supporting itself by its tail, which is greatly modified to meet the needs of such a habit. The shafts of the tail feathers terminate in sharp, needlelike spines. Since the Chimney Swift is such an interesting bird, and at the same time so abundant with us during the warm weather, it would be worth the while for our young readers to watch it this summer and learn what they can of its habits. The Chimney Swift is about five inches in length, and nearly twelve in extent of wings, the latter being very long indeed, and extending two or more inches beyond the tail. In color it is sooty brown above, often with a greenish gloss; the wings are black. Below it is paler, becoming gray on the throat.

Merchant-final.indb 172

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 173

The Golden-Winged Woodpecker Colaptes auratus, Linn. [Current: Northern Flicker] The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 5 (Jun. 1887): 98, 101–102. Plate 1.5 Th is is a bird which has many titles. Most of our common birds have different English names in different parts of the country, but perhaps none have as great a variety as this species. Here is a list of thirty-six which was recently sent to the Natural History department of the Forest and Stream, by Mr. W. W. Colburn, of Springfield, Massachusetts:  1.  2.  3.  4.  5.  6.  7.  8.  9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Merchant-final.indb 173

Clape. Crescent Bird . . . West. Cave-Due . . . Maine. English Woodpecker . . . Long Island. Fiddler . . . Cape Cod. Flicker . . . In general use. French Woodpecker . . . New Hampshire. Harry Wicket . . . New Hampshire. Hick-Wall . . . Connecticut. High-hold . . . In general use. High-holder . . . In general use. High-hole . . . In general use. Hittock . . . Canada. Gel Specht . . . Pennsylvania. Ome-tuc . . . Maine. Partridge Woodpecker . . . New England. Pigeon Woodpecker . . . New England. Pique-bois-jaune . . . Louisiana. Piute or Peerit . . . New England. Sap-sucker . . . Florida. Shad Spirit . . . New England. Tapping Bird . . . Massachusett s. Wake-up . . . New England. Weather-hen . . . Vermont. Wild-hen . . . Maine. Will-Crisson . . . South. Woodcock (misnomer) . . . New England. Wood-wall . . . New England.

4/28/16 8:34 PM

174 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

Wood-pigeon . . . New England. Woodpecker Lark . . . Georgia. Wood-quoi . . . Connecticut. Yaffle . . . Connecticut. Yarrup . . . Middle States. Yellow Hammer . . . In general use. Yellow Jay . . . New Hampshire. Yucker . . . In general use.

Most of these names are given from the habits of the bird, or from some physical characters, or arise from some popular idea, which is founded on a supposed habit. Thus “high-hole” and “tapping bird” refer to the nesting place of the bird and to its custom of drumming on the limbs of trees; “crescent bird,” “pique-bois-jaune,” “yellow hammer” and “yellow jay” to its plumage, “clape,” “piute,” “yarrup,” “yucker,” and perhaps “fl icker” to its cries. One of our most beautiful and most abundant birds, the “yellowhammer” is found with us of the Middle States almost the whole year round. In Connecticut and southern New York, we have seen it every month in the year, though it is unusual to fi nd it earlier than April or later than November. The courtship of the Golden-Winged Woodpecker is very amusing. The ardent male pursues the female through the forest, and alighting on the branch near her, moves backward and forward before her with most grotesque bowings, uttering all the while his shrill cackling notes which Audubon compares to “a prolonged and jovial laugh, heard at a considerable distance, and which may be fairly represented by the syllables whit’ -too, whit’ -too, whit’ -too rapidly repeated many times.”18 The Golden-Winged Woodpecker builds its nest in a hole, dug usually in a dead tree, sometimes quite high up from the ground, and at others so low down that one can reach it with the hand. On the chips which form the floor of this hole, the eggs are laid. These are about the size of a pigeon’s egg, and are pure white and beautifully smooth and glossy; the shells are so translucent that sometimes, when fresh, the color of the yolk shows through, giving the eggs a beautiful creamy tinge. Just how many eggs the “high-hole” lays is not certain, but we are sure that they are far more numerous than those of most wild birds. The greatest number of which we have ever heard as being taken from any one nest were reported

Merchant-final.indb 174

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 175

by Mrs. Violet S. Williams, of Coralville, Iowa, who says in a note to Forest and Stream: “A collector of this place has thirty-five eggs which he obtained from a single nest of a Golden-Winged Woodpecker, while another collector obtained ten from the same nest, making a total of forty-five eggs from a single bird in one season. I will copy his notes, as it may interest some of your readers: ‘May 13, 1884, found nest and obtained six eggs; to-day, May 17, took 3; May 23, 6; May 28, 1; June 2, 5; June 9, 3; June 13, 4; June 19, 2; June 26, 5.’”19 Scarcely less remarkable is a case reported in the same journal, of the fi nding by Mr. Stewart Ogilby of a nest of this species which contained nineteen young ones, alive and in good condition.20 When the young ones are prett y well grown they often scramble up to the mouth of the hole and even out on the tree and the branches near at hand. From these perches they watch for the approach of their parents as they return with food, saluting them, as they draw near, with shrill cries of welcome and entreaty. The food of the “yellow-hammer” is chiefly insects. They devour great numbers of those species which infest our forest trees, but do not depend wholly on these for food. They spend more time on the ground than do most of our woodpeckers, devouring great numbers of ants, and even digging industriously in the ground for those creatures which live just beneath the surface. Often their bills are incrusted with earth to the nostrils, showing how energetically they have been at work among the grass roots. But although their food is principally insects, they live to some extent on fruit. In the late summer they frequent the choke-cherry trees, and in the autumn, when the dogwood berries are ripe, the trees which bear them are favorite stopping places for the migrating “high-holes,” and on these berries they feed very amiably with the robins, cedar birds and other species that frequent them. They eat the fox grapes too, and the berries of the blue gum and of the cedar. They are credited, also, with sometimes attacking the corn when it is “in the milk,” and tearing open the tops of the husks, but we have never known of their doing this. On the whole they are useful birds, and do litt le or no harm. They should never be destroyed. Its great abundance and its striking colors have made the GoldenWinged Woodpecker a favorite ornament for hats, but it is to be hoped that the depraved taste which sanctioned this barbaric style of ornamentation has become a thing of the past. The Golden-Winged Woodpecker is about twelve inches in length and

Merchant-final.indb 175

4/28/16 8:34 PM

176 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

twenty in spread of wings. The bill is long and slightly arched. The feet are different from those of most birds, having two toes before and two behind. The upper part of the head and neck are light purplish-gray, a transverse band of scarlet passes about the back of the head. The upper parts are greenish-brown barred with black. There is a tuft of white feathers at the root of the tail. The tail coverts are white, spotted with black; quills of the wing and tail black; their shafts orange. Sides of head and neck are cinnamon color, tinged with gray. There is a black streak on either side of the throat, and a crescent of the same color on upper breast. The lower breast and body are yellowish-white, each feather with a circular spot of black. The under sides of the wings and tail are golden yellow. Bill brown above and light blue beneath. The iris brown. The female differs from the male in being slightly smaller and in having the breast crescent smaller and less distinctly marked, and in lacking the black patches on the sides of the throat. The illustration, reproduced from Audubon’s plate, represents a family of Golden-winged Woodpeckers on an old dead tree.

The Purple Martin Progne subis, Linn. The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 6 (Jul. 1887): 122, 125–127. Plate 1.6 The Purple Martin is the largest of the swallow tribe. He is also one of the most useful of this extremely serviceable group of birds. Not only does he destroy vast numbers of hurtful insects, but from his ready adaptability to changed conditions, and his willingness, if encouraged, to make his home on or near man’s dwellings, he becomes the guardian of the poultry yard. No hawk or owl or eagle is daring enough to approach a farmhouse where one or more pairs of this courageous and swift-winged species are rearing their broods. If a bird of prey, ignorant of the presence of these protectors, comes near to see what opportunity there may be to pick up one of the young chickens that are wandering about the door yard, the Martins discover him at once, and sally forth with angry twitterings, to give batt le to the intruder. Their powerful wings bear them swift ly toward their enemy, who, too late, turns to fly. They easily overtake him, and dart down from above, buffeting him savagely. The intruder wastes no time in trying

Merchant-final.indb 176

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 177

to give batt le to his small but dreadful assailants, and with all the speed that he can command, hurries to the nearest shelter. When he reaches the woods or some thicket into which he plunges, the victorious Martins rise high in air, and side by side, calling to each other with notes of triumph and congratulation, wing their way back to the home which they have so boldly defended.21 But the Martin is not a quarrelsome fellow at all. He is just a sturdy, hardworking citizen of the bird world, who is determined to stand up for what he considers his own rights, and who is afraid of nothing that fl ies. Sometimes when he arrives from the south in April, he fi nds that the home in which he reared his brood last summer has been taken possession of by a pair of bluebirds or perhaps by English sparrows. If this is the case, he prepares without loss of time to eject the usurpers, and he usually succeeds in doing this very easily. Then he pulls out and throws to the ground all the material that has been brought into the chamber by the previous occupants, and goes calmly ahead with his own housekeeping arrangements. It is rather an amusing spectacle to see a conquering Martin, perched in the entrance of his home, chattering threateningly at a lot of sparrows, who sit about abusing him with all the strength of their small lungs, but quite powerless to do anything to help themselves. The Purple Martin arrives from his winter home, far to the south of the United States, early in February, and soon spreads over the whole of the country, reaching the falls of the Ohio, according to Audubon, about March 15, and New York about the middle of April. Before the sett lement of this country, the Martins reared their young in holes in the trees, or in rocks, and even now, in wild regions, they make use of the holes excavated in trees by the woodpeckers. Often, however, the farmers, appreciating the services rendered by this useful bird, put up houses for it, and these are occupied by the same colony year after year. The birds dwell together in the utmost harmony, and seem never to quarrel among themselves. Their nests are prepared soon after their arrival and are simple affairs of dried grass, just enough to keep the four or six white eggs from resting on the floor of the house. When the young are hatched the old birds are kept very busy supplying food to the yawning throats that ever cry for more. Some observations made by Mr. O[tto] Widmann, of St. Louis, and published several years ago in the Forest and Stream, give an idea of the unceasing way in which the old birds perform this labor, and of the vast

Merchant-final.indb 177

4/28/16 8:34 PM

178 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

number of insects—many of them hurtful—which are destroyed daily by a pair of these useful birds. Writing from St. Louis under date of July 2, 1884, he says:22 It may be interesting to many of your readers to know more about the family cares of our birds. In order to fi nd out how often young Martins are fed by their parents, and at what times the principal meals are served, I watched my sixteen feeding pairs during an entire day, June 24, from 4 A. M. till 8 P. M., marking every visit of the feeding parents, males and females, separately. The Martins began hunting at 4:15, but no food was brought until 4:30. [Table 3] shows that our young Martins had to put up with a light breakfast, but the visits became more and more frequent as the sun and mercury climbed up, and reached their liveliest time between 9 and 10 A. M., i.e., lunch time. After that a lull was noticeable, broken only by an approaching storm, which brought new life into the feeding business, but for a short time only, and to be reduced to a minimum during the light rain, 1:25 to 2:45. Even after the rain had ceased, litt le feeding was done until the sky [began] to clear up and the sun reappeared. From that moment the number of visits swelled with great rapidity, and kept me hard at work for over an hour. It was the substantial meal of the day, and the young Martins may well call it their dinner. After this the parents took a well-deserved rest, but when the sun neared the horizon they were all off again, preparing for supper, which was not so hearty as one might expect. As a rule, the older the birds in the nest, the oftener they are fed, and from the size of the insect which the parents bring, the age of the young may be judged. The youngest birds are fed at longer intervals with crushed insects, mostly small beetles, from the craw. About a fortnight old, they are fed from the bill with soft insects of the size of large fi les; but insects with stings, such as bees and wasps, are never brought. When four weeks old, large dragonfl ies, grasshoppers and butterfl ies make the principal food. The young Martins do not leave their box until they are six weeks old. The table itself needs no further explanation, except that the occupants of the sixteen boxes were of all ages, from one week old in No. 6 to five weeks old in Nos. 12, 16, 17. The number of hungry mouths has something to do with the frequency of the visits. No. 7, which heads the list, has four young ones (four weeks old), while most of the other boxes have three. No. 16 has only two.

Merchant-final.indb 178

4/28/16 8:34 PM

1. The Audubon Magazine, Issue 1 cover. Published February 1887 by Forest and Stream Publishing Company, New York. George Bird Grinnell, Editor.

Plates 1.1–2.12. The color plates are from John James Audubon’s The Birds of America: From Original Drawings with 435 Plates Showing 1,065 Life-sized Figures, 4 vols., Double-Elephant Folio (London: Robert Havell, 1827–1838), originally printed in black and white by George Bird Grinnell in The Audubon Magazine, February 1887–January 1889. Reproduced from Roger Tory Peterson and Virginia Marie Peterson, Audubon’s Birds of America: The National Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio (New York: Abbeville Press, 1981, 1991). Courtesy of Abbeville Press.

Merchant-GAL.indd a

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2. John James Audubon (1785–1851). Portrait by John Woodhouse Audubon, ca. 1840–1841. Oil on linen, 44¼ × 35 × ¾ in., negative #53169; object #1974.46, New-York Historical Society Collection. Used by permission.

Merchant-GAL.indd b

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.1. THE BALTIMORE ORIOLE Icterus Baltimore, Daudin

Merchant-GAL.indd c

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Merchant-GAL.indd d

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.2. THE GREAT AUK Plautus impennis, Linn.

1.3. THE CEDAR BIRD Ampelis cedrorum (V.), Gray

Merchant-GAL.indd e

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.4. THE CHIMNEY SWIFT Chaetura pelagica, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd f

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.5. THE GOLDEN-WINGED WOODPECKER Colaptes auratus, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd g

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.6. THE PURPLE MARTIN Progne subis, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd h

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.7. THE WOOD THRUSH Turdus mustelina, Gmel.

Merchant-GAL.indd i

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Merchant-GAL.indd j

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.8. THE SPOTT ED SANDPIPER Actitis macularius, Linn.

1.9. THE BROWN THRA SHER Harperhynchus rufus, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd k

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.10. THE NIGHTHAWK Chordeiles virginianus, Gmel.

Merchant-GAL.indd l

4/28/16 8:35 PM

1.11. THE CLIFF SWALLOW Petrochelidon lunifrons, Say

Merchant-GAL.indd m

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.2. THE RUSTY GRACKLE Scolecophagus carolinus, Müll.

Merchant-GAL.indd n

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.3. THE MOCKINGBIRD Mimus polyglottos, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd o

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Merchant-GAL.indd p

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.4. The Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax naevius, Bodd.

2.5. THE BLACK AND WHITE WARBLER Mniotilta varia

Merchant-GAL.indd q

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.6. THE CROW Corvus Americanus, Aud.

Merchant-GAL.indd r

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.7. THE PILEATED WOODPECKER Ceophloeus pileatus, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd s

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.8. THE TOWHEE BUNTING Pipilo erythrophthalmus, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd t

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.9. THE FORK-TAILED FLYCATCHER Milvulus tyrannus, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd u

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.10. THE KINGBIRD Tyrannus tyrannus, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd v

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.11. THE TUFTED TITMOUSE Parus bicolor, Linn.

Merchant-GAL.indd w

4/28/16 8:35 PM

2.12. THE HERMIT THRUSH Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii, Cab.

Merchant-GAL.indd x

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 179

Th is gentleman, who has made a very careful study of this interesting species during the whole of its stay near St. Louis, gives in the same journal a most interesting account of the roosting habits of this bird when on its southward migration. Th is takes place late in the month of August, and for several weeks previous to their departure the Martins in great armies resort to the willows growing on the sandbars on the opposite side of the river to roost. From Mr. Widmann’s description it would seem that the number of birds is quite beyond estimate. Previous to retiring to their sleeping places on the twigs of the willows, they sit upon the sandbars until it is almost dark, and then in a body take fl ight and disappear among the shrubs. The voice of the Martin is not unmusical. He has a cheerful twitter at all times, and his note at the breeding season really deserves to be called a love song, it is so sweet and pleasing. Its fl ight is easy, light and graceful, differing in this respect from that of the chimney swift, recently described in this magazine, which seems to be somewhat labored, though in reality it is not so. The Purple Martin is from 71/2 to 8 in. in length and measures 16 in. across its extended wings. The color of the male is deep bluish-black with purplish reflections. The female is paler throughout, and lacks the iridescence of the male, its throat and breast are dark gray and the other under parts lighter gray. The young are gray streaked with darker.

Merchant-final.indb 179

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Merchant-final.indb 180

Table 3. Purple Martin Feeding Visits, June 24, 1884, 4 A.M.–8 P.M.

Weather conditions

75˚, calm, clear 74˚ 77˚ to 84˚, wind light, S 84˚ to 85˚ 85˚ to 86˚ 86˚ to 87˚ 87˚ to 89˚, wind increasing, S 89˚ 92˚, storm approaching, wind shift ing to W

Time

No. 7

No. 12

No. 17

No. 5

No. 11

No. 10

No. 24

No. 25

No. 22

No. 16

No. 36

No. 1

No. 14

No. 26

No. 19

No. 6

Total visits

A.M. 4 to 5 5 to 6 6 to 7

11 12 19

1 5 4

9 9 16

4 9 15

4 12 9

10 12 22

7 8 12

5 7 10

6 4 7

2 5 7

6 8 8

6 6 9

6 6 12

4 6 11

3 4 6

1 5 4

85 118 171

7 to 8 8 to 9 9 to 10 10 to 11

22 26 28 27

17 18 25 32

22 16 22 20

18 19 27 20

14 18 25 27

17 21 17 20

9 9 15 12

11 14 15 9

7 13 20 13

14 13 22 17

14 19 12 17

8 9 14 13

8 7 11 6

10 10 7 10

6 11 6 5

5 9 10 7

202 232 276 255

11 to 12 P.M. 12 to 1

17

18

23

14

24

10

16

14

18

13

12

10

8

4

6

5

217

28

27

22

22

17

23

15

13

20

14

13

10

11

4

6

5

250

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Merchant-final.indb 181

83˚, rain commencing at 1:25 78˚, rain ceases at 2:45 80˚, clearing, calm 79˚ 79˚ to 82˚, wind S, W. 82˚ to 81˚, calm, clear 81˚ to 80˚, calm, clear Total visits Number of visits by male Number of visits by female

1 to 2

16

17

13

12

9

7

5

7

7

8

8

6

7

3

5

2

132

2 to 3

7

5

8

7

9

4

12

10

11

7

7

2

9

12

3

6

119

3 to 4 4 to 5 5 to 6

41 25 7

38 32 20

35 20 11

45 22 15

31 14 12

38 17 12

35 14 9

40 13 14

32 13 12

24 6 11

22 11 7

23 5 10

18 8 10

15 11 3

14 8 7

8 5 6

459 224 166

6 to 7

11

14

23

15

12

15

24

11

10

14

12

8

4

9

7

5

194

7 to 8

15

11

11

11

17

4

15

10

10

10

9

10

16

15

6

7

177

312 119

284 164

280 140

275 128

254 127

249 92

217 83

203 119

203 98

192 61

185 73

149 39

147 63

134 58

103 57

90 33

3277 1454

193

120

140

147

127

157

134

84

105

131

112

110

84

76

46

57

1823

Source: The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 6 (Jul. 1887): 126.

4/28/16 8:34 PM

182 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

The Wood Thrush Turdus mustelina, Gmel. [J. F. Gmelin] [Current: Hylocichla mustelina] The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 7 (Aug. 1887): 146, 149–151. Plate 1.7 By far the sweetest songster among the more familiar birds of our Northern forests is the Wood Th rush. His notes are few in number, but their wild, sweet melody is incomparably superior to that of our best known songsters. The metallic ratt le of the bobolink is rich and pleasing, the sad quavering whistle of the meadowlark is very sweet, the pipe of the song sparrow and the twitter of the bluebird, fi rst songs of spring, have a charm that is all their own, but none of these sounds, delightful though they be, can match the tones of the Wood Th rush, as with drooping wings, perched on one of the loft iest branches of some great tree, he salutes the rising or the sett ing sun.23 The Wood Th rush is usually regarded as a solitary bird, an inhabitant of the deep forests, where he dwells by himself. Th is idea, while it fits well enough with his surroundings in some cases, is not always true. The Th rush does prefer large forest trees, but is quite as much at home in open meadowy lands, where the trees stand far apart and there are wide stretches of lawn varied with clumps of undergrowth. In such localities the birds may often be found in abundance, and be seen and heard to great advantage. Although its summer range extends north to New England and to Canada West, the Wood Th rush is rather a southern species, scarcely reaching the State of Maine. It is found as far west as Dakota and in eastern Kansas, and winters on the Gulf Coast and in Central America. It usually reaches the Middle States early in the month of May, making its appearance at about the same time as the catbird and the Baltimore oriole. At fi rst it is a litt le shy about showing itself, and the observer is often fi rst notified of its arrival by hearing its sweet notes in the early morning. Not long after its coming the mating takes place, and preparations for nest building are begun. The chosen situation varies greatly. Sometimes the nest is placed high up on the stout limb of a towering forest tree, or again on one of the lower limbs of a young hemlock, or sometimes even on a slender sapling and not more than three or four feet from the ground, but whatever its position, it is always securely saddled either on a crotch or a large limb, so that its position is very fi rm, and there is but litt le danger of its being dislodged by the storms of summer. It is formed without of

Merchant-final.indb 182

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 183

dried leaves, with small twigs and the stems of weeds. Upon this foundation is placed a mat of dried grass, and then a coating of mud, which, as in the case of the robin, is shaped by the bird’s breast into a deep cup. The lining consists of fi ne black fibrous roots, which form a fi ne background to set off the four or five beautiful light blue eggs. When the nest is approached the parents manifest great distress, flying rapidly from branch to branch, and uttering a somewhat low gutt ural cluck or quank. If the nest is visited frequently, however, they seem to become accustomed to the stranger, and at length receive his visits with equanimity. The Wood Th rush seems to have a great fancy for using in the construction of its nest bits of newspaper and white rags. These are worked into the foundation, and often the ends of the strips of cloth may hang down a foot or eighteen inches below the nest, and thus frequently lead to its discovery. A somewhat amusing instance of its fondness for building material of this description came under our notice some years ago. An old Irish serving woman had removed the lace border from her best cap, and after washing it, had spread it on the grass near the house to dry and bleach in the sun. A few hours later, when she went to get it, it was nowhere to be found, which seemed very mysterious, as none of the other clothes had been disturbed. The owner of the cap border concluded that it had been stolen, and was loud in her denunciations of the thieves who would take the property of a poor lone woman. These thieves were detected a few weeks later in a pair of Wood Th rushes, whose nest was found about sixty yards from the spot from which the article had been taken. Hanging from the foundation of the nest was the stolen cap border, which, after the young had left the nest, was restored to its owner, not at all the worse for its use as building material. The young of the Wood Th rush are fed almost wholly on insects, of which these birds must destroy a great many. The earth worm forms a considerable portion of their food, and the birds may frequently be seen hunting for these in the grass, precisely after the manner of the robin. Just as he does, the Wood Th rush hops a few steps, then pauses and stands for an instant, with his head cocked on one side, as if listening; then he gives a few vigorous digs at the ground with his sharp bill, and presently drags to the light a long worm, which he bears off in triumph to his hungry family. The young Wood Th rush is easily reared in confi nement. He thrives on crumbs of bread or crackers soaked in milk, and on fi nely minced raw beef. Berries are acceptable to him, and he likes an occasional raisin. A pair that we once had in an aviary were the tamest of the thirty or forty

Merchant-final.indb 183

4/28/16 8:34 PM

184 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

birds in the large cage, and would often alight on head, arm or hand, as we were preparing the food or putt ing things in order. They were always on the watch for one operation, that of fi lling the water dishes. It often happened that while this was being done a litt le water would be spilled, and as it soaked into the sand on the floor and disappeared, the birds would fly down and peck at it very energetically, evidently thinking that because it moved it must be something alive. It was interesting to watch the progress made in music by one of these youngsters during his fi rst winter. He began to sing during the late autumn, and at fi rst his notes were a mere murmur, scarcely audible at a distance of a few feet. Gradually they became louder and more defi nite, though as yet not partaking at all of the character of the Wood Th rush’s song, but toward spring his improvement became much more rapid, and by the time the wild thrushes had returned he was really a very fair singer. All who have written about the Wood Th rush have been enthusiastic in praise of its song. Th is is heard chiefly in the early morning, up to 10 o’clock, and at evening just before sunset. It is not unusual, however, to hear the songsters at any hour of the day in cloudy, damp weather; and during a rain storm, just before it clears off, the woods are likely to be vocal with their sweet notes. The song continues from the time of their arrival in spring until the late summer, which is perhaps only another way of saying that it lasts through the breeding season. At the approach of autumn the families break up, and from this time on the birds are seen only singly. Now their diet undergoes a change, and they feed more on berries, those of the dogwood, the choke cherry and the juniper being favorites with them. When migrating, the Wood Th rush never moves in flocks. Each bird pursues its journey by itself, and all move deliberately southward, seeming to prefer to travel by short stages along hedgerows and through the woods rather than to take—at least during the hours of daylight—more extended fl ights. The investigations of Professor S[tephan] A[lfred] Forbes [1844–1930] have shown that the Wood Th rush destroys some useful insects, those which prey upon noxious species, but on the whole it is probable that the balance is in favor of this beautiful songster. Certainly, even if this were doubtful, his sweet voice should turn the scale in his favor, and he should be sedulously protected.24 The Wood Th rush is about 8 in. in length, and measures 13 across its extended wings. The tail is short and is composed of twelve feathers. The

Merchant-final.indb 184

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 185

feathers of the head can be erected into a slight crest. The color above is a bright reddish brown, the tail and wings a litt le darker, and the rump inclining to olive. The eyes are surrounded by a whitish ring. The lower parts are white, thickly spotted, except on the throat, middle of the breast, belly and under tail coverts, with blackish brown. The bill is brown above and flesh color below, and the feet and legs flesh colored. The iris is dark brown. Our illustration is after Audubon’s plate.

The Spotted Sandpiper Actitis macularius, Linn. The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 8 (Sept. 1887): 171, 173–175. Plate 1.8 Running swift ly along the sandy beach of the seashore, or probing the mud on the margin of some quiet pool, or balancing himself on a rock that rises above the surface of a brawling stream, you may fi nd the Spotted Sandpiper any day from the early spring to the late summer. One of our commonest birds throughout the whole country, he is equally abundant along the surf-beaten sands of Long Island, the sluggish sloughs of Illinois, the mud-laden, hurrying waters of the great Missouri River and the streams of California, and wherever found he is the same familiar trustful litt le fellow, always busy about his own affairs, and having no time at all to attend to those of other people. There is one exception to this rule, and if his nest is approached, or he imagines that you are about to harm his downy young that on unsteady legs are following him and his wife about, learning how to make their living, then indeed the Spotted Sandpiper makes a dismal outcry, and both parents fly about you with piercing shrieks which tell plainly enough the story of their distress and the affection which they feel for their brood.25 At such times the mother resorts to every artifice to lead the enemy away from her young. She flutters on the ground almost at your feet, as if she were badly hurt and quite unable to fly, but if you attempt to catch her she manages by a few desperate wing beats to elude your grasp, and again struggles just before you, trembling and panting and with feebly beating wings, as if the effort she had just made had really been the last of which she was capable, and now you had only to step forward and take her in your hand. If you attempt it, you will fi nd that she can still struggle onward, and so, step by step, she will lead you from her children, who, at

Merchant-final.indb 185

4/28/16 8:34 PM

186 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

the fi rst sharp note which warned them of danger, squatted on the ground and remain perfectly motionless. As they are slate gray in color it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the stones among which they lie concealed. After the dangerous intruder has been drawn far enough from the spot where the young are hidden, all the mother’s vigor returns to her, and she fl ies away in triumph to return in a litt le while, and call the young out of their hiding places. It is a prett y sight to see the reunion of the litt le family and to observe the air of proud satisfaction with which the mother leads them away. Besides being one of our most common birds, the Spotted Sandpiper is a species of wide distribution, being found from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, and equally abundant in Alaska and Florida. The bird is also found in the West India Islands and in Mexico, and Central and South America. Its range may therefore be said to be America at large. The Spotted Sandpiper is known by a variety of names. Of these “Peetweet” manifestly refers to its shrill double-noted cry; “Tip-up” and “Teeter” to its curious bobbing or balancing motion, raising and lowering its tail as it stands; while “Potato Snipe,” by which name it is known in certain parts of Long Island, is given from its habit of feeding in the potato fields, where it destroys great numbers of insects. Th is species breeds almost everywhere in temperate North America, and its nest may be found high up on the Rocky Mountains, as well as near the streams on the plains below, and on the coast. Although breeding both in Labrador and Alaska, it was not found by Dr. [John] Richardson [1787–1865] in the fur country, but it has been taken on the Mackenzie River. Th is species reaches the Middle States from the South early in April in small flocks, which soon separate into pairs. Nesting is begun in May, and the site chosen varies much with the surroundings. Sometimes the nest is close to the bank of some litt le brook or still pool, and at others it may be at quite a distance from the water in a pasture, under a hedgerow, or among the weeds on the edge of a potato field. [Thomas] Nuttall saw one in a strawberry bed. In such locations a litt le hollow is scraped in the ground, and on a rough lining of a few blades of dried grass the eggs are deposited. Sometimes the nest is more elaborate and better fi nished, for Audubon describes those found by him on an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as being quite large and well lined. Others, still found on the coast of Labrador, were even more worthy the name of nests, being made of dry moss and carefully lined with duck’s feathers and dried grass.

Merchant-final.indb 186

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 187

These nests were concealed under ledges of rock, and were so well hidden that they probably would not have been discovered, had it not been that the birds flew out as the naturalist was passing by.26 The eggs of the Spotted Sandpiper are always four in number. They are much pointed at the small end, and when lying in the nest the small ends are all together in the middle and the large ends toward the outside. The eggs are a dull cream color or grayish-yellow, and are thickly spotted with blotches of dark brown and black, which are much more numerous about the larger end. Like those of many snipe-like species, the eggs are very large in proportion to the size of the bird, being an inch and a quarter in length, and very wide at the larger end. The young leave the nest as soon as they are hatched and follow the mother as her chickens do a hen. Their food is at fi rst fl ies and small insects, and as they grow older, water insects, snails and small shells. After the young have become able to fly the family still remain together, and being joined by other individuals, they keep in flocks, often of a dozen individuals, until the approach of cold weather, in October or early November, when they begin their journey southward. The fl ight of the Spotted Sandpiper is rapid and sustained, and when a flock is flying by, they swing from side to side, showing now their dark backs and again the white of their under parts. Sometimes they huddle closely together and again spread out. They circle and turn with surprising quickness. As soon as a flock alights the birds scatter out, running along the shore or upon floating drift stuff, hunting for food, and often wading out in the water until it is too deep for them to touch the bottom, when they swim easily and quite rapidly. When shot over the water, and only wounded they often attempt to escape by diving, using their wings for progression under water. They sometimes alight on the branches of trees, where they walk lightly and easily, and we have frequently seen them perch upon the slender pliant willow twigs projecting from newly repaired “beaver houses” in the Missouri River and other Western streams. Audubon says that he has seen them on haystacks, where they seemed to be catching insects. The Spotted Sandpiper is a gentle and unsuspicious litt le bird, and readily answers and moves toward an imitation of its call note. In this way these birds are often lured within shooting distance of boys with guns, who thus kill many of them, but they are too small to be coveted by the grown up gunner, who disdains to shoot at such tiny birds. Within a few years past, however, many Spotted Sandpipers have been

Merchant-final.indb 187

4/28/16 8:34 PM

188 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

killed for hat decoration, and their distorted skins have adorned the headgear of many good but thoughtless women. The Spotted Sandpiper is about seven inches in length, and of this the bill occupies one inch. In color this bird is glossy olive brown above, sometimes with greenish reflections. The feathers of the top of head and neck are marked with dark spots along the shafts of the feathers. Those of the back are faintly barred with wavy black. The quills of the wings are dusky brown, all except the two outer ones being marked with a large oval spot of white on the inner web. Tail feathers like the back, but tipped with white and with a subterminal black bar. A line over the eye and the entire under parts white, thickly dotted with sharp circular black spots on the breast, reminding one of the spots on the breast of a thrush. Bill pale yellow, tipped with black. Feet, flesh color. The young of the year lack the spots below and are generally duller and grayer than the adults.

The Brown Thrasher Harperhynchus rufus, Linn. [Audubon: Ferruginous Th rush] [Current: Toxostoma rufum] [Turdus Rufus Linn.] The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 9 (Oct. 1887): 195, 197–200. Plate 1.9 The scene represented in the plate which forms the frontispiece of this month’s Audubon is one of the most powerful of the naturalist’s plates, and it has added interest because it portrays an actual incident which came under the naturalist’s observation. A black snake has climbed into the bush in which a pair of Brown Th rashers have built their nest, and is about to devour their eggs. With heroic courage the parent birds rush to the defense of their treasures, and with loud cries summon to their assistance others of their kind. The robber is fiercely attacked, but in the struggle one of the parents is caught and crushed in the cruel coils. Undeterred by this, the others keep up the attack, and in the end, the naturalist tells us, though their nest was overturned and the eggs lost, the snake was defeated and killed, and the crushed bird, though sorely hurt, recovered and was restored to her mate. In a case like this our sympathies are all with the birds, yet who can doubt that the snake has his place in the economy of Nature?

Merchant-final.indb 188

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 189

The Brown Th rush, or as it is more often called, the Brown Th rasher, is an abundant bird throughout the eastern United States, its range westward being apparently limited by the Rocky Mountains, among which it was found in Colorado by Mr. [Joel Asaph] Allen [1838–1921] up to a height of 7,500 feet. It winters in the Southern States in great numbers, and is there called French Mockingbird or Sandy Mockingbird, to distinguish it from the true mockingbird. In summer it proceeds as far north as Canada, Audubon having seen it in Nova Scotia, while it has been reported as occurring at Lake Winnipeg and along the Saskatchewan River.27 Th is sweet songster breeds throughout its whole range. In Louisiana, according to Audubon, its nest is built in March, while in New York and Connecticut, where it arrives from the South about the last of April, it does not accomplish its house building much before the middle of May, and further to the North it is still later. The courtship of the female by the male is accompanied by curious and interesting actions. The eager suitor for favor struts about the female with his tail dragging on the ground and bows before her in his efforts to win her favor. If she is kind to him, his whole form quivers with delight and he gives vent to his happiness in bursts of song which are only excelled in beauty and variety by the notes of the famed mockingbird. Audubon tells us that in the Southern States “the nest is found close to the house of the planter, along with that of the mockingbird,” but in our Northern and Eastern States this is, we think, never the case. Here the Brown Th rasher is quite a shy bird and much prefers to build its nest far from the home of man, choosing hedgerows along fields or low bramble bushes at the edges of thickets. The nest is usually placed on, or close to, the ground, and is composed without of coarse twigs, sticks and weed stalks, mingled with dried leaves, strips of bark, and sometimes grass, and is almost always lined with fibrous roots, and occasionally with horse hair. Usually it is a coarse, bulky structure with no pretensions whatever to beauty or elegance. Although the nest is commonly placed on the ground or within a few inches of it, it is sometimes built in a bush, and Mr. Allen has given us an interesting note of a case where the birds in selfdefense were obliged to quite depart from their usual custom in locating their nests. Speaking of this species in Kansas he says:28 We found its nests, containing full sets of eggs, at Leavenworth during the fi rst week of May. Here the nests were built in low bushes, the soil being clayey and damp; but at Topeka, toward the end of May, we found nests on

Merchant-final.indb 189

4/28/16 8:34 PM

190 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889 the ground, the soil being dry and sandy. At Ft. Hayes its nests were usually placed in trees, sixteen to twenty feet from the ground, to avoid the contingency of floods. The trees here grow principally along the bed of Big Creek; and the stream being subject in summer to sudden freshets, the scattered undergrowth, as well as the low branches of the trees, are thus often submerged, so that any nests built on or near the ground would be liable to be destroyed by the rise of the stream. The driftal debris adhering to the trees serves to mark the “high water” line, and we rarely found a bird’s nest below this limit. These birds, that usually breed near the ground, in bushes or on the low branches of trees, thus modified their habits to suit the exigencies of the locality.

The eggs of this species are from four to six in number, and are yellowish or greenish in color, thickly sprinkled with fi ne dots of brown. The young are readily reared by hand, and do well in captivity, and being such sweet songsters they are a favorite cage bird. They begin to sing in the autumn and by the following spring have attained their full powers. Their habits in captivity are quite interesting, and we may quote quite fully on this point from Audubon and [Thomas] Nuttall. The former says:29 My friend [John] Bachman, who has raised many of these birds, has favored me with the following particulars respecting them: “Though good-humored toward the person who feeds them, they are always savage toward all other kinds of birds. I placed three sparrows in the cage of a Th rush one evening and found them killed, as well as nearly stripped of their feathers, the next morning. So perfectly gentle did this bird become that when I opened its cage it would follow me about the yard and garden. The instant it saw me take a spade or hoe, it would follow at my heels, and as I turned up the earth, would pick up every insect or worm thus exposed to its view. I kept it for three years, and its affection for me at last cost it its life. It usually slept on the back of my chair in my study, and one night the door being accidentally left open, it was killed by a cat.”

Nuttall having spoken of the affection and the jealousy manifested by one of these birds which he had reared and kept uncaged for some time, says:30 I may also add, that besides a playful turn for mischief and interruption in which he would sometimes snatch off the paper on which I was writing,

Merchant-final.indb 190

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 191 he had a good deal of curiosity, and was much surprised one day by a large springing beetle or Elater (E. occellatus), which I had caught and placed in a tumbler. On all such occasions his looks of capricious surprise were very amusing; he cautiously approached the glass with fanning and closing wings, and in an undertone confessed his surprise at the address and jumping motion of the huge insect. At length he became bolder, and perceiving it had a relation to his ordinary prey of beetles, he, with some hesitation, ventured to snatch at the prisoner between temerity and playfulness. But when really alarmed or offended, he instantly flew to his perch, forbid all friendly approaches, and for some time kept up his low angry tsherr. My late friend, the venerable William Bartram, was also much amused by the intelligence displayed by this bird, and relates that one which he kept, being fond of hard bread crumbs, found, when they grated his throat, a very rational remedy in softening them by soaking in his vessel of water; he likewise by experience discovered that the painful prick of the wasps, on which he fed, could be obviated by extracting their stings.

One of these birds which we had in captivity greatly enjoyed being taken out of his cage at night and carried about the room perched on the forefi nger to capture the fl ies at rest on the kitchen walls. The Brown Th rasher, as has been intimated, is a courageous bird, devotedly attached to its mate and young and ready under all circumstances to do batt le in their defense. All four-footed enemies who approach the nest are fiercely attacked, and even its human persecutors might be appalled by the fury of the parents’ onslaught. The males are somewhat given to fighting among themselves, and during the mating season severe batt les often take place for the favor of some coveted female. The food of this species consists chiefly of insects, worms and beetles being favorite articles of diet with it, but it also eats the berries of the sumach as well as those of the dogwood, the choke cherry and the wild grape. The Brown Th rasher usually rears two broods of young, and soon after those of the second hatching are able to take care of themselves, the families separate. The migration southward begins about the fi rst of October, and the birds journey singly, making short low fl ights along the hedges or through the woods. These birds are very fond of dusting themselves in sand or dust after the manner of the common fowl, and may often be surprised at this in country roads. In such cases they do not usually fly away, but run with surprising quickness into the nearest thicket, where they remain con-

Merchant-final.indb 191

4/28/16 8:34 PM

192 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

cealed until the danger is past. They are also very fond of bathing in water, and after doing this ascend by hopping from branch to branch to the topmost spray of some neighboring tree, where with all their feathers spread out to the sun and the breeze, they make the air vocal with their harmonious strains. The Brown Th rasher is 111/2 inches in length and 13 in extent of wings. Its bill is black, the base of the lower mandible being dark blue. The eye is yellow. The feet are brown. The general color of the upper parts is bright reddish brown. The wings are crossed with two white bars margined in front with black. The lower parts are yellowish white spotted on the breast and sides with triangular dark brown spots. The under tail coverts are pale brownish red. The tail is very long.

The Nighthawk Chordeiles virginianus, Gmel. [Current: Common Nighthawk] [Current: Chordeiles minor] The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 10 (Nov. 1887): 219, 221–223. Plate 1.10 Th is bird seems to be singularly unfortunate in its common names, one of them being an absurd survival of ancient superstition, and others att ributing to it characteristics which it does not possess. No doubt it was called Goatsucker by the early sett lers of America because of its resemblance to the European nightjar, which from time immemorial has been supposed by the ignorant and vulgar to rob the goats of their milk at night. Its name of Bullbat alludes to the groaning sound which it makes at certain seasons of the year, and which bears some resemblance to the low bellow of a bull, and to its common habit of flying in the dusk of the evening. Crapaud volant or Flying Toad, which Audubon gives as its name among the Louisiana Creoles, perhaps refers to the same sound, which is not unlike the low-pitched tones of a toad or frog. Nighthawk, although perhaps less objectionable than any of the titles given to the bird, is still a misnomer, for it is not a hawk, nor is it exclusively a night bird.31 Conspicuous enough toward evening, and sometimes during the whole day, especially when the weather is gloomy and the sky is overcast, the Nighthawk is yet a bird about which most people know very litt le. Except during the migration in autumn, when in favorable weather it may of-

Merchant-final.indb 192

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 193

ten be seen on the wing at all hours of the day, it is most active during the twilight hours. It darts about through the upper air with a fi rm, light, yet sustained fl ight, often uttering its shrill-squeak, and sometimes descending like a falling bolt from a great height toward the earth, and then turning suddenly upward, produces the loud booming sound already alluded to, which, if heard near at hand, is very startling. Th is sound is regarded as characteristic of the mating season, yet we have heard it as late as the fi rst days of August. There is a difference of opinion among ornithologists as to the way in which this sound is produced, some believing it to be vocal and others considering that it is caused by the wings when the bird suddenly checks itself in its downward fl ight. The Goatsucker of Europe is said to make a somewhat similar noise when perched, which would seem to confi rm the belief that the sound is made by the voice. The Nighthawk is a bird of wide range, being found in summer as far north as the shores of Hudson’s Bay, and in winter extending its migrations south to Brazil. The typical form, or a closely allied variety, is found from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. Th is bird does not pass the winter in the United States, but coming from the south enters Louisiana about the fi rst of April. A month later it has reached the Middle States, but according to Audubon is not seen in Maine before June. As soon as they arrive, they make their presence known by their vociferous cries and by their active and beautiful fl ight through the air. Audubon’s description of its motions at this season is so graphic as to be well worth quoting. He says:32 The motions of its wings, which are peculiarly graceful, and the playfulness which it evinces renders its fl ight quite interesting. The bird appears to glide through the air with all imaginable ease, assisting its ascent, or supporting itself on high, by irregular hurried flappings performed at intervals, as if it had unexpectedly fallen in with its prey, pursued, and seized it. Its onward motion is then continued. It moves in this manner, either upward in circles, emitt ing a loud, sharp squeak at the beginning of each sudden start it takes, or straight downward, then to the right or left, whether high or low, as it presses onward, now skimming closely over the rivers, lakes or shores of the Atlantic, and again wending its way over the forests or mountain tops. During the love season its mode of fl ight is particularly interesting; the male may be said to court his mate entirely on the wing, strutt ing as it were through the air, and performing a variety of evolutions with the greatest ease and elegance, insomuch that no bird with which I am acquainted can rival it in this respect.

Merchant-final.indb 193

4/28/16 8:34 PM

194 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889 It frequently raises itself a hundred yards, sometimes much more, and apparently in the same careless manner already mentioned, its squeaking notes becoming louder and more frequent the higher it ascends; when, checking its course, it at once glides obliquely downward with wings and tail half closed, and with such rapidity that a person might easily conceive it to be about to dash itself against the ground. But when close to the earth, often at no greater distance than a few feet, it instantaneously stretches out its wings, so as to be nearly directed downward at right angles with the body, expands its tail, and thus suddenly checks its downward career. It then brushes as it were, through the air, with inconceivable force, in a semicircular line of a few yards in extent. Th is is the moment when the singular noise produced by this bird is heard, for the next instant it rises in an almost perpendicular course, and soon begins anew this curious mode of courtship.

It is often the case that birds whose powers of fl ight are very highly developed are scarcely able to walk at all, and conversely, some birds which are swift runners or expert swimmers are almost without the power of fl ight. The Nighthawk belongs in the fi rst of these categories. Its feet are ridiculously small and weak for the size of the bird, and are besides placed very far back, so that it can scarcely walk at all. When at rest, it seems to rest on its breast, and does not stand on its feet. It is often seen perched on the limb of a tree or on a fence rail, not across the support, as is the case with most birds, but lengthwise of it. The Nighthawk builds no nest, but deposits its two oval gray-freckled eggs on the bare ground. It seems careless in its choice of a position, and we have found them on a naked rock, on the grass in a pasture land, on a dry sandbar in a river, and on a high rocky table land among the sage brush. Not infrequently they deposit their eggs on the flat roofs of city houses. The eggs are so nearly the color of the ground on which they rest that they are not likely to be discovered except by accident or by the actions of the parent bird as you pass near her. When the nest is discovered, the mother tries to lure you away from it by feigning to be wounded, and flutters and tumbles about on the ground at your feet, trembling and panting, with open mouth, keeping just out of reach, until she has led you some litt le distance from her eggs or young. Then her fl ights become a little longer, and at length she soars away to be seen no more until you have left the neighborhood. The young of the Nighthawk, like the eggs, harmonize so well in color with the ground, that it is not easy to discover them,

Merchant-final.indb 194

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 195

even though your eyes may have rested almost on the exact spot from which the mother rose. The food of this species consists wholly of insects. They devour great numbers of beetles, moths, grasshoppers, crickets and mosquitoes, and are thus extremely useful birds. Notwithstanding this well-known fact, great numbers of them are shot during the autumn when they are migrating, principally in mere wantonness, their swift fl ight making them an attractive target for the gunner. It is a very common, though erroneous, belief that the Nighthawk and the whippoorwill are the same bird. They belong to the same family and are near relatives, but are quite distinct. The Nighthawk is 91/2 inches in length and 231/2 inches across its outspread wings. The bill is very short and feeble, measuring only 1/4 inch along its ridge, but its mouth is enormous, opening to behind the eyes. As might be expected in a bird which is to a certain extent nocturnal in its habits, its eyes are very large. The wings are long, extending when closed beyond the forked tail. The claw of the middle toe is notched, or comblike. The ground color of the plumage is brownish black, barred and sprinkled with white and cream color. A conspicuous white bar extends across the five outer primary quills. The tail feathers are barred with brownish gray, and the four outer ones on each side are marked with a white spot toward the tip. A broad triangular white band marks the throat and sides of head. The lower tail coverts are white, sparsely barred with black. The female is somewhat smaller than the male, has the wing spot smaller, the white throat band much obscured by brownish and blackish markings, and lacks the white spots on the tail feathers.

The Cliff Swallow Petrochelidon lunifrons, Say [Thomas Say] [Petrochelidon pyrrhonota] The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 11 (Dec. 1887): 242, 246–248. Plate 1.11 The Republican or Cliff Swallow is one of several species of North American birds, whose habits have been essentially modified by the sett lement of this country by the white man.33 Before his advent in America, this species built its mud nests only on the perpendicular faces of cliffs and prec-

Merchant-final.indb 195

4/28/16 8:34 PM

196 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

ipices, as it still does in many of the wilder sections of our country; but, as houses and outbuildings became numerous, it was quick to see the opportunities offered by such edifices for its nests, and, perhaps also recognizing in man a protector, it came at length to build its nest and rear its young under his roof. Th is done, and the habit of making use of houses for his purpose having been established, it soon followed that the range of the Cliff Swallow became much extended. Formerly there were wide stretches of country where there were no natural building places for these birds—and so where they never nested and were seen only during the migration—but as soon as they had learned to take advantage of the new building places constantly being erected for them, they constructed their nests in such regions and became summer residents where heretofore they had been only birds of passage. It has been affi rmed that the Cliff Swallow is not indigenous in the East, but is an immigrant from the West, where indeed it is most abundant, its bott le-shaped nests being seen in great numbers on the cliffs which overhang many Western rivers. Professor [Addison Emery] Verrill [1839–1926], however, has shown that this species was found in New England as long ago as the year 1800,34 and Dr.  [El liott] Coues writing on the same subject says:35 “That the sett lement of the country has conduced to the general dispersion of the birds during the breeding season in places that knew them not before is undoubted; but that any general eastward migration ever occurred, or that there has been in recent times a progressive spread of the birds across successive meridians, is less than doubtful—is almost disproven. Birds that can fly like the swallows, and go from South America to the Arctic Ocean, are not likely to cut round via the Mississippi, houses or no houses.” He then goes on to say that the apparent absence of these birds in the Southern States is due only to the fact that the country is not adapted to them, and expresses the belief that the birds in their migration pass over this region, although they do not stop to breed. Although the Cliff Swallows, like the purple martin and the chimney swifts, have come to avail themselves of constructions erected by man for their building places, it must not be supposed that even in the more thickly sett led portions of the country they abandoned their former habits, for Professor Verrill in 1861 found a large colony of these birds building on the limestone cliffs of Anticosti, and the same thing may be seen to-day in the West, where houses are abundant.36 These birds have simply adapted themselves to a new set of conditions. They have discovered that civilization offers them a new place for building where they are

Merchant-final.indb 196

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 197

safe from many of the dangers to which in their natural breeding places they are exposed, that when they nest on barns and houses, violent rain storms do not soften the walls of their dwellings so that they fall by their own weight, nor are their enemies, winged and four-footed, as likely to attack them and being wise litt le creatures, they make the most of their opportunities. The Cliff Swallow is a bird of wide range. It may pass its summers on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and its winters on the hot plains of Old Mexico. It is found everywhere from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Space seems nothing to it. It is here to-day, and to-morrow may have utterly disappeared, not to return for seven or eight months. An admirable discussion of this and other subjects connected with these birds maybe found in Dr. Coues’s “Birds of the Colorado Valley,” to which the reader is referred.37 Soon after its arrival in spring, which is usually in the latter part of April, the colony of Cliff Swallows break ground for their houses. Th is is no figure of speech, for the birds do literally dig up earth and construct their nests of it, just as in a city a builder makes his house of brick. The lining, which consists of a litt le dried grass and feathers, we may consider as the furniture of the house, perhaps the carpets, blankets and sheets. It is curious and interesting to watch the Swallows after they have settled their matrimonial affairs and are ready to begin the construction of their dwellings. By this time they have selected the site for the colony’s home, which may be the rough overhanging face of a beetling cliff, or just beneath the eaves of a farmer’s barn, or under the overhanging roof of his house. There is a great deal of discussion over the matter, you may be sure, and before it is decided, the spot chosen is carefully examined by the birds, who twitter and call each other, and cling with fluttering wings and outspread tail to the surface against which the nests are to be fastened, while others sweep by in swift fl ight, examining with keen eyes every inch of the space to see if it will answer their purpose. When the selection is finally made, all the Swallows rise in the air, and with a great twittering, as if congratulating each other that they have accomplished so much, they fly away to prepare for the work which is to follow. They have already selected the spot whence to obtain their building materials, and soon you may see them in large numbers standing about some muddy, half-dried puddle, which has remained in the road since the last rain, or by a pool on a sandbar in the river, or on the muddy edge of some quiet bay, where there is no current and a mixture of mud and sand

Merchant-final.indb 197

4/28/16 8:34 PM

198 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

is being left here by the receding waters. If you are lucky enough to be about at just the right time, and can approach close enough to bring the tiny workers within easy range of your opera glass, you can see for yourself what Dr. Elliott Coues so happily describes in the following paragraph:38 Watching closely these curious sons and daughters of Israel at their ingenious trade of making bricks, we may chance to see a circle of them gathered around the margin of a pool, insecurely balanced on their tiny feet, tilting their tails and ducking their heads to pick up litt le “gobs” of mud. These are rolled round in their mouths till tempered and made like a quid in globular form, with a curious working of their jaws; then off go the birds and stick the pellet against the wall. . . . The birds work indefatigably; they are busy as bees, and a steady stream flows back and forth for several hours a day, with intervals for rest and refreshments, when the Swallows swarm about promiscuously a-flycatching. In an incredibly short time the basement of the nest is laid, and the whole form becomes clearly outlined; the mud dries quickly, and there is a standing place. Th is is soon occupied by one of the pair, who now stays at home to welcome her mate with redoubled cries of joy and ecstatic quivering of the wings as he brings fresh pellets, which the pair in closest consultation dispose to their entire satisfaction. In three or four days, perhaps, the deed is done; the house is built.

Its form varies greatly, but the most perfect nest is considered the bottle-shaped, which is more nearly oval, one end of the egg being glued to the wall for support, and the other being prolonged into the generally downward directed neck. Nowadays, however, and especially under the eaves of dwellings, we are more likely to fi nd nests without any roofs at all, mere cup-shaped structures, fastened by one side to the wall, since the projection beneath which they are built affords shelter from the elements. Indeed, whether the support of the nest be natural or artificial, an effort seems usually made to so locate the structure that it shall be in a measure protected from the rain. As already hinted, the sun-dried mud when wet is not the most secure material for a house, and it is not unusual after a violent storm to fi nd at the foot of some cliff the wreck of many once happy Swallow homes, where fragments of nests, broken eggs, and dead featherless nestlings show what destruction has overtaken one of these aerial towns. The four eggs, white, spotted with dark brown, are equally the pride and delight of both parents, and while the mother bird lovingly broods them in her warm, dry home, the father is abroad, swinging constantly

Merchant-final.indb 198

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I • 199

through the air, catching insects which he brings home to feed his mate. She welcomes him with cries of joy, and perhaps for a litt le while he sits on the doorstep of the house and tells her what he has seen during his last excursion, and then after a litt le rest, hurries off again on another hunting expedition. When the young are hatched both parents are kept busy in providing them with food, and ere long one or more of the litt le ones may be seen at the mouth of the nest awaiting the parents’ return. The young are ready to fly usually about the last of July, and as soon as they have had sufficient practice to make it safe for them to undertake the long journey southward, usually in New York and Connecticut about the last of August or fi rst of September, the Swallows, after great preparations and many long practice fl ights, take their course to warmer climes. The young Swallows are easily affected by cold, and we have seen, during a northeast storm in August, a whole row of them sitt ing on a window sill on the leeward side of a house, looking as bedraggled and uncomfortable as possible. They evidently did not know man as an enemy, and looked up with the most perfect confidence into the face of an observer who came to the window. The food of the Cliff Swallow, like that of most species of this group, consists wholly of insects, which it generally pursues and seizes on the wing, though in the high mountains of the West we have seen it in the early morning feeding on the ground upon insects which had been chilled by the frost of the preceding night. Dr. Coues, in the work already cited, calls attention to the vastness of the number of annoying or injurious insects which these birds destroy and preaches a sermon on the folly and wickedness of destroying them, which might be read with profit by the thoughtless. He concludes with these forcible words: “Th ings both useful and beautiful are not so common that we can afford to sacrifice them in vain. The rowdy boys and all the crew of tramps and potters of the gun who shoot Swallows for sport may be seriously admonished that these birds are worth more to society than their idle vicious selves.”39 The Cliff Swallow is 51/2 inches in length and about 12 in extent of wings. The top of the head, a spot on the throat and the back, are lustrous steel blue. A collar, grayish brown, separates the blue-black of the head and back. Forehead marked with a semilunar band of white or brownish red. Chin, throat and sides of head brownish red. Other under parts rusty gray, fading to white on the belly. Wings and tail brownish black. Bill black, feet brown. The male and female are alike. The young are paler throughout, and lack the black spot on the throat.

Merchant-final.indb 199

4/28/16 8:34 PM

CHA P T ER EL E V EN

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II From The Audubon Magazine 2 (Feb. 1888–Jan. 1889)

The Rusty Grackle Scolecophagus carolinus, Müll. [von Müller, J. M.] [Audubon: Rusty Grakle] [Current: Rusty Blackbird] [Euphagus carolinus] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 2 (Mar. 1888): 24, 25–26. Plate 2.2

• 200

The birds with which we are most familiar are those which come to us in spring and spend the summer with us, mating, building their nests and rearing their broods under our very eyes. They are our old acquaintances, and we come to look upon them as friends, whose return we may expect at a certain time each spring, and if their arrival is for any cause delayed, we experience a feeling of real disappointment. The familiar robin, the sweetvoiced bluebird, the active, energetic and scolding wren and the gorgeously habited oriole, belong to this class, and the dweller in the country, if he does not know each one of these and hail his arrival in spring with feelings of delight, must indeed be very heedless. When they have come, their every movement is watched, and the children are all anxious to know when and where the birds are going to build their nests. If a site is chosen near the house what delight is expressed, and how eagerly each operation is watched! What exclamations over the fi rst egg that makes its appearance in the neat structure, and what agonies of anxiety lest some accident should destroy it. Yes, the birds are certainly the children’s friends, and the litt le ones could not have better ones, for association with them cannot fail to teach important lessons.

Merchant-final.indb 200

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 201

Of those birds which come to us in autumn and spend the winter here, most of us know but litt le. Many of them do not reach their winter haunts until the weather has become so inclement that few people care to venture into such places as the winter birds choose for their homes. And yet, even at the bitterest season of the year, the woods and thickets are populous with a life that is all their own, and a multitude of busy, blithe, cheery, winged creatures are hard at work earning an honest living, and seeming to take great pleasure in their ceaseless work. Besides these two great classes, the summer and the winter residents, there is another large class of birds which are with us for a short time only during spring and fall. To this class belongs the Rusty Grackle.1 Although abundant birds at certain seasons of the year, they are never residents with us of the Middle States. The Rusty Grackle comes to us from the north in the early autumn and remains until winter sets in, when the greater number of his kind take their departure for more genial climes. Sometimes a few, perhaps more hardy than their fellows, or, it may be, induced to loiter by some unusually favorable feeding ground, remain with us all the winter, one observer having recorded the capture of several individuals of this species in Connecticut during the months of January and February, but generally the Rustics have all gone by the end of November. While they are with us in the autumn, they are often seen about the barnyard, standing on the fence, or even walking sedately about among the catt le, looking for insects or picking in the straw in search of scattered grain. Sometimes they may be seen walking over the plowed fields in search of insects in the upturned earth. They are fond of berries, too, and look along the borders of pools and brooks for the water insects and crustaceans, which constitute a considerable portion of their food. The Rusty Grackles spend the winter in the Southern States, and by the time the winter is half over begin their slow journey northward. We have seen them in New York and Connecticut from the middle of February until well into April, when they disappear and do not return again until September. During their stay with us in spring, the males have assumed their handsome breeding plumage of rich glossy black, and are thus much more beautiful than when in their rusty autumnal dress. At this season, they are much more noisy than in autumn, and often give voice to a simple but pleasant song. Now, too, they seem to prefer swamps and wet places generally, and are sometimes found associated with the red-winged blackbird. After it leaves us, the Rusty Grackle continues its journey northward, reaching northern Maine about the middle of May. Here some of them

Merchant-final.indb 201

4/28/16 8:34 PM

202 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

remain to breed, while others pass northward to Labrador and to the fur countries, extending their migrations as far north as timber grows. [John] Richardson [1787–1865] gives its summer range as extending as far north as the 68th parallel of latitude, and no doubt it breeds almost everywhere throughout the Dominion of Canada east of the Great Plains, where its place is taken by a nearly allied species, the blue-headed Grackle.2 Audubon tells us that this bird begins to lay about the fi rst of June in Maine and fully a fortnight later in Labrador. The nest is a rough affair on the outside, formed of small weed stems and coarse grasses, but is neatly lined with fi ner grass, or, in Labrador, with moss. It is usually placed in a low bush or sometimes on the lower branch of a tree, and contains four or five eggs, greenish in color, mott led and clouded with brownish markings.3 The Rusty Grackle does not hop when on the ground like the robin and its near allies, the fi nches, but walks after the manner of most of our blackbirds and the crows and ravens. Audubon gives us an interesting account of one of these birds in captivity. He says,4 An acquaintance of mine, residing in New Orleans, found one of these birds, a beautiful male in full plumage, not far from that city, while on one of his accustomed walks. It had been shot, but was only slightly injured on one of its wings, and as it was full of vivacity and had a clear brilliant eye, indicating that its health had not suffered, he took it home and put it in a cage with several painted buntings. They soon became accustomed to each other, the Grackle evincing no desire to molest its smaller companions. I saw it when it had already been caged upward of four months, and had the satisfaction to hear it sing repeatedly. It frequently uttered its traveling chuck-note. It was fed entirely on rice. Th is was the only specimen I ever saw in captivity, and it proved a very amiable companion.

Wilson also speaks of these birds in captivity, and says that they are readily tamed. The plate of the Rusty Grackle, which accompanies this account of the bird, is a reproduction of Audubon’s illustration of the species. The Rusty Grackle is 91/2 inches in length and is 14 inches in alar extent. The full plumaged male is everywhere deep glossy black, with some greenish and bluish reflections. The female is brownish black; the sides of the head above and below the eyes are light yellowish brown, and all the feathers are edged with brownish. The eye is pale yellow, bill and feet black.

Merchant-final.indb 202

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 203

The Mockingbird Mimus polyglottos, Linn. The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 3 (Apr. 1888): 46, 47–48. Plate 2.3 Sweetest of all the song birds of America, the Mockingbird stands without a rival, perhaps in the world. All who are familiar with its melody and have had an opportunity to compare its powers with those of Old World songsters, agree that it surpasses even the famous nightingale in the richness and beauty of its strains. [Thomas] Nuttall says:5 With the dawn of morning, while yet the sun lingers below the blushing horizon, our sublime songster, in his native wilds, mounted on the topmost branch of a tall bush or tree in the forest, pours out his admirable song, which amidst the multitude of notes from all the warbling host, still rises preeminent, so that his solo is heard alone, and all the rest of the musical choir appear employed in mere accompaniments to this grand actor in the sublime opera of nature. Nor is his talent confi ned to imitation; his native notes are also bold, full, and perpetually varied, consisting of short expressions of a few variable syllables, interspersed with imitations, and uttered with great emphasis and volubility, and sometimes for half an hour at a time, with undiminished ardor. These native strains bear a considerable resemblance to those of the brown thrush, to whom he is so nearly related in form, habits and manners; but, like rude from cultivated genius, his notes are distinguished by the rapidity of their delivery, their variety, sweetness and energy. As if conscious of his unrivaled powers of song, and animated by the harmony of his own voice, his music is, as it were, accompanied by chromatic dancing and expressive gestures; he spreads and closes his light fanning wings, expands his silvered tail, and with buoyant gayety and enthusiastic ecstasy he sweeps around, and mounts and descends into the air from his loft y perch, as his song swells to loudness, or dies away in sinking whispers. While thus engaged, so various is his talent, that it might be supposed a trial of skill from all the assembled birds of the country; and so perfect are his imitations that even the sportsman is at times deceived, and sent in quest of birds that have no existence around him.

The song of the Mockingbird is not limited to the hours of daylight. He sings by night as well, and as sweetly as in the full glare of the sun, his clear full notes being most often heard after the rising of the moon. Indeed, according to Wilson, the hunters in the Southern States, when setting out on an excursion by night, know as soon as they hear the Mockingbird begin to sing, that the moon is rising.6

Merchant-final.indb 203

4/28/16 8:34 PM

204 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

His wonderful powers of mimicry are so well known that it is unnecessary to refer to them at length, but we may quote a fragment of [Alexander] Wilson’s graphic description. He says:7 In his domesticated state, when he commences his career of song, it is impossible to stand by uninterested. He whistles for the dog; Caesar starts up, wags his tail, and runs to meet his master. He squeaks out like a hurt chicken, and the hen hurries about with hanging wings and bristled feathers, clucking to protect its injured brood. The barking of the dog, the mewing of the cat, the creaking of a passing wheelbarrow, follow with great truth and rapidity. He repeats the tune taught him by his master, tho’ of considerable length, fully and faithfully. He runs over the quiverings of the canary, and the clear whistlings of the Virginia nightingale, or redbird, with such superior execution and effect, that the mortified songsters feel their own inferiority, and become altogether silent; while he seems to triumph in their defeat by redoubling his exertions.

The Mockingbird is essentially a creature of the South, and his center of abundance is in the Southern States. It is there, as Audubon so delightfully remarks, that the Mockingbird must be seen to fi nd him at his best. Still, he sometimes journeys during the summer months as far north as Massachusetts, and has been found breeding in the Connecticut Valley near Springfield. In the Southern States the Mockingbird is a resident, and may be found at all seasons of the year. Those which visit the North stay with us only long enough to rear their brood, and then hastily retreat to warmer climes.8 In its Southern home this species is tame and familiar, seeming to regard man as a friend and protector rather than an enemy. It sometimes builds its nest near the house, and, Audubon tells us, lives during the winter about the gardens and outhouses, where it may be often seen perched on the roofs and on the chimney tops.9 The mating season in Louisiana is March or early April, and the nests are begun immediately after, so that the young are frequently ready to fly by the last of April. Further north they are somewhat later in making their appearance. The nest is built not far above the ground, sometimes upon it, and is carelessly constructed with but slight attempt at concealment. In some respects it resembles that of the catbird, being composed externally of coarse twigs and weed stems, and lined with fibrous roots. The eggs are from four to six in number, and are light green in color,

Merchant-final.indb 204

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 205

dotted and blotched with brownish black. Two and sometimes three broods are raised in a season. If the female leaves her nest for any purpose, and fi nds on her return that the eggs have been handled, she summons her mate by a mournful note and exhibits much distress, but so far from deserting it, as some people suppose, she sits with redoubled assiduity. Except during the winter the food of the Mockingbird consists almost entirely of insects, but when cold weather has deprived them of this food they turn their attention to the berries, feeding on those of the cedar, the Virginia creeper, the holly, smilax, sour gum and others. The Mockingbird is easily reared if taken from the nest quite young, and becomes not only a sweet and constant songster, but an affectionate pet as well. Instances are known where they have lived about the house without being confi ned, flying away from time to time to feed and associate with their kind, but returning toward night to their home, where they saluted their owner with every demonstration of delight and affection. The Mockingbird is from nine to ten inches in length, and the spread of its wings measures thirteen inches. The upper parts of the body are dark gray, tinged here and there with brown. A spot of white exists on the primaries, making a large patch on the closed wing. The wing coverts are tipped with white; the three outer tail feathers are mostly white. The under parts are brownish white, palest on chin and belly. Bill, legs and feet are black. Iris yellow. The female differs from the male only in having the colors a litt le duller, and the white patch on the wing smaller.

The Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax naevius, Bodd. [Boddaert, P.] [Nycticorax nycticorax] [Current: Black-Crowned Night Heron] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 4 (May 1888): 68, 69–71. Plate 2.4 The herons are a group of birds well represented in America. They are peculiar and but litt le known to the casual observer, so that before turning our attention to the subject of this sketch a few words may be said about the family as a whole.10 The herons, as is well known, are characterized by long legs, necks and bills, are water-loving birds, living about streams and lakes, from which they draw their subsistence. They are birds of rather sluggish habit, slow-

Merchant-final.indb 205

4/28/16 8:34 PM

206 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

moving and with a slow but powerful fl ight. On account of their quiet ways, and the fact that their life is spent in out-of-the-way places, they are seldom seen except by ornithologists and gunners. Most of the time they spend standing motionless by a stream on the watch for fish, frogs or lizards, and when anything living ventures within their reach it is almost sure to be transfi xed by the sharp bill which the ready bird darts out like lightning to seize its prey. An interesting account of the habits of some of our South American species of herons is given by Mr. W[illiam] H[enry] Hudson [1841–1922], and as the herons quite closely resemble one another in their mode of life, what he says about them will apply very well to those which we know. He says:11 The heron has but one att itude—motionless watchfulness; so that, when not actually on the wing, or taking the few desultory steps it occasionally ventures on, and in whatever situation it may be placed, the level ground, the summit of a tree, or in confi nement, it is seen drawn up, motionless, and apparently apathetic. But when we remember that this is the bird’s att itude during many hours of the night and day, when it stands still as a reed in the water; that in such a posture it sees every shy, swift creature that glances by it, and darts its weapon with unerring aim and lightning rapidity, and with such force that I have seen one drive its beak quite through the body of a fish very much too large for the bird to swallow, and cased in bony armor, it is impossible not to think that it is observant and keenly sensible of everything going on around it.

The bitterns and more sluggish of the herons, when driven from their haunts, fly only short distances of eighty or a hundred yards, and again alight among the rushes, “whence” Mr. Hudson, describing further the habits of one South American species, says “it is almost impossible to drive or discover them”; and this he found after careful investigation is due to the fact that the bird, grasping a reed by its feet and pressing against it with its tail, lays its breast bone, neck and beak along it in one straight line, which it maintains so motionless that one may pass and repass it within a few inches without recognizing it; the most remarkable part of the performance being that the bird, although the hunter may go round it and would readily detect it by the variegated feathers of the back, always keeps the sharp edge of its rush-like breast toward him.12 The herons are especially characterized by their tireless watchful-

Merchant-final.indb 206

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 207

ness for their prey and for their insatiable voracity. “In other birds,” says Mr.  W.  H. Hudson above quoted, “repletion is invariably followed by a period of listless inactivity, but the heron digests his food so rapidly that however much he devours he is always ready to gorge again,” but however abundant may be his food supply, the heron makes no fat, and very litt le flesh, so that when on the wing he has no superabundant weight to carry.13 Another very remarkable characteristic of the herons is the presence of what are called “powder down tracts,” patches of dense clammy, yellowish down on their breasts. Of these the true herons have three, and some naturalists have att ributed to them the freedom of these birds from lice and vermin, but it is an old popular belief that these patches glow with phosphorescent brilliance in the dark, furnishing the heron with a convenient lantern for his nocturnal fishing excursions.14 The Night Heron is widely distributed through the United States, but seems to be more abundant near the seacoast than on inland streams. In the Southern States it may be seen at all seasons of the year, but in New England it is known only as a summer resident. We have found it common in California, both in winter and summer, but it is rarely seen in the interior, though Dr. [Elliott] Coues has reported it from the Red River of the North in Dakota. Its northward migrations carry it a litt le beyond the United States. Although usually moving south at the approach of cold weather, it seems probable that some individuals pass the winter at least as far north as New York City, for we know of two having been killed in that neighborhood in the month of January. The late Dr. Brown succeeded in keeping one in Boston until the middle of December.15 The Night Heron is to a great extent nocturnal in its habits, and besides this it is rather a shy and wary bird. It is therefore not often seen, except by those who visit its roosting or breeding grounds. These are usually in swampy or near large bodies of water, and many nests are usually found together, these birds breeding in colonies which often number several hundred individuals. The nests are sometimes placed high upon tall trees, are rough flat platforms of twigs and are almost altogether without lining. Each nest usually contains four pale green eggs, which measure about two inches in length by one and a half in breadth. The young leave the nest in a couple of weeks after they are hatched and scramble about the branches, to which they cling fi rmly. The voice of the Night Heron is rough and hoarse, and from this it has received in many parts of the country the local name Quawk. Often at

Merchant-final.indb 207

4/28/16 8:34 PM

208 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

night this call may be heard falling from the air above, and the chirping, barking sound tells that a Night Heron is flying over. The food of this bird consists of fishes, frogs, tadpoles, newts and various insects, and no doubt it eats mice and snakes, if the opportunity occurs. Like all the herons, this species is ready to fight if forced to do so, and can infl ict severe wounds with beak and claws if incautiously seized. The Night Herons have favorite roosting places to which they repair when they have satisfied their appetite, to rest until the calls of hunger urge them again to start out on their hunting expeditions along the marshes where they feed. One such place we remember in New England, a rocky island rising above the salt marsh which surrounds it and covered with a growth of tall trees. If you walk by this on a summer day you will startle hundreds of quawks from their perches on the trees, and with hoarse calls of alarm they will wing their way out over the marshy flats of the broad river which lies on one side of their roost. Here among the reeds and tall grass they fi nd the food which best suits them. If you conceal yourself in the underbrush just before the tide becomes high, you will see the birds one by one leave the marsh and come back to the trees, there to sit dreaming until they get hungry again, and the water has fallen low enough for them to feed. The Night Heron is about two feet in length, measured from the tip of his bill to the end of his tail, and the spread of his wings is more than three and a half feet. The old birds have the bill black, and the eyelids and naked skin in front of the eyes yellow. The iris is red, the feet yellow. The feathers on top of the head, the fore part of the back and the long feathers of the shoulders are greenish black. The forehead, front of neck, breast and belly are white or cream color. The sides of the neck are pale lilac, and the wings, lower part of the back and tail, pale grayish blue. From the back of the head several long slender white feathers grow backward, as seen in the plate, but these are lost after the breeding season, and do not grow again until the latter part of the next winter. The young birds are quite different in appearance from the old ones. They are plain brownish birds, the edges of each feather being paler than the center. The feathers of the back and wings have each a long spot of brownish white at the end.

Merchant-final.indb 208

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 209

The Black and White Warbler Mniotilta varia [Audubon: Black and White Creeper] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 5 (Jun. 1888): 90, 91–92. Plate 2.5 The subject of our illustration this month belongs to the important group known to naturalists as Wood Warblers, Sylvicolidae. Th is is with one exception the largest family of North American birds, only the fi nch family, Fringillidae, exceeding it in the number of its species. The Wood Warblers are all small birds, very few of them being over five inches in length, and many of them much less. Most of them are bright and beautiful in color, blue and yellow, orange and black, and white and chestnut, being oddly mingled in their plumage. The sexes are usually unlike, the females being much plainer colored than their mates. Besides this, there are changes of color at different seasons of the year, which may make the bird of the autumn appear entirely different from the same one in spring. Although called Warblers, this is an entire misnomer for most of the species, whose powers of song are limited to rather feeble trillings, which scarcely deserve to be called songs. There are, however, notable exceptions to this rule, such [as] the noisy yellow-breasted chat, and some of the so-called water thrushes or wagtail warblers, whose vocal powers are of a very high order.16 It is unnecessary here to give the characters which mark this family. Their small size and their active habits of fluttering about among the branches of trees make them conspicuous objects, especially during the spring migrations, when they are to be seen everywhere, and form one of the most att ractive features of our loveliest season. To give some idea of the habits and life characteristics of this group of birds we quote from Dr. [Elliott] Coues, who has happily written of them. He says:17 The Warblers have we always with us, all in their own good time; they come out of the South, pass on, return, and are away again, their appearance and withdrawal scarcely less than a mystery; many stay with us all summer long, and some brave the winter in our midst. Some of these slight creatures, guided by unerring instinct, travel true to the meridian in the hours of darkness, slipping past “like a thief in the night,” stooping at daybreak from their loft y fl ight to rest and recruit for the next stage of the journey. Others pass more leisurely from tree to tree, in a ceaseless tide of migration, gleaning

Merchant-final.indb 209

4/28/16 8:34 PM

210 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889 as they go; the hardier males, in full song and plumage, lead the way for the weaker females and the yearlings. With tireless industry do the Warblers befriend the human race; their unconscious zeal plays due part in the nice adjustment of Nature’s forces, helping to bring about that balance of vegetable and insect life without which agriculture would be in vain. They visit the orchard when the apple and pear, the peach, plum, and cherry are in bloom, seeming to revel carelessly amid the sweet-scented and delicate-tinted blossoms, but never faltering in their good work. They peer into the crevices of the bark, scrutinize each leaf, and explore the very heart of the buds to detect, drag forth, and destroy those tiny creatures, singly insignificant, collectively a scourge, which prey upon the hopes of the fruit grower, and which, if undisturbed, would bring his care to naught. Some Warblers fl it incessantly in the terminal foliage of the tallest trees; others hug close to the scored trunks and gnarled boughs of the forest kings; some peep from the thicket, the coppice, the impenetrable mantle of shrubbery that decks tiny watercourses, playing at hide and seek with all comers; others more humble still descend to the ground, where they glide with prett y mincing steps and affected turnings of the head this way and that, their delicate flesh-tinted feet just stirring the layer of withered leaves with which a past season carpeted the ground. We may seek Warblers everywhere in their season; we shall fi nd them a continual surprise—all mood and circumstance is theirs.

The Black and White Warbler is in many ways an interesting bird. His relationship to the ordinary brown creeper, so common in our forests in winter, is not distant, and he seems also to connect the Coerebidae or honey creepers, tiny tropical birds of brilliant plumage, with the true warblers. In many of its habits it closely resembles the brown creeper, and like it gleans its living chiefly from the trunks of trees, which it ascends by short hops, supporting itself as it goes up, by pressing its tail against the bark, somewhat as the woodpeckers do. It is an active, vivacious bird, almost constantly at work, now clambering about the moss-covered tree trunk in a most businesslike way, and again making short dashes into the air to capture some passing insect which its quick eye has noted. Th is bird is one of the earliest of its tribe to reach the Northern States, and often makes its appearance in New York and southern New England about the middle of April, and so before the trees show signs of bursting into leaf, and while the whole landscape is brown and bare. It is then an att ractive feature of the woods and fields, and its active movements, and even its thin, nasal song help to brighten up the dreary season of waiting.

Merchant-final.indb 210

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 211

Later, when his more richly clad companions fi ll the woodlands and the shrubbery, we should not miss the Black and White Creeper if he were to be taken away, but when he fi rst comes he is very welcome. Th is bird breeds with us, though perhaps not in great numbers. He is a ground nester by preference, though sometimes he builds a few feet higher. Audubon tells us of nests in a hole in a tree. Mr. H[enry] D[avis] Minot [1859–1890] found one “in the cavity of a tree rent by lightning and about five feet from the ground,” as well as one “on the top of a low birch stump.”18 Wherever placed, the nest is a strong, substantial structure, built of dry leaves and strips of bark which are so similar in character to its surroundings as to admirably conceal it, and make it very difficult to detect. Four eggs are usually laid, about .7 x .5 inches in length. They are creamy white, and are fi nely dotted with brown and lilac, the spots being most numerous about the larger end. The Black and White Warbler is about five inches long, and its outspread wings measure seven and one-half inches across. As implied in the name the bird’s color is black and white, the white seeming to be the ground color and the black being laid on in streaks. The top of the head is white bounded by a line of black on either side, and this by a line of white passing over the eye. The chin, throat and wings are black, the latter crossed by two white bars. The belly is white. All other parts are streaked with black and white. The bill is black and the feet and legs brown. The females and young of the year lack the black throat, which in them is white.

The Crow Corvus Americanus, Aud. [Audubon: American Crow] [Current: American Crow] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 6 (Jul. 1888): 112, 113–115. Plate 2.6 The Crow was long considered a bird of ill omen, and its reputation to-day suffers from this ancient superstition. Among the thoughtless and ignorant this bird has few friends, but its enemies are many. The farmer hates it because he supposes that it does great damage to his crops in springtime, plucking up the young grain in the fields to devour the sprouting seed; later in the season he accuses it of destroying the eggs of the hens and turkeys which have “stolen” their nests and are sitt ing in the brush heaps and

Merchant-final.indb 211

4/28/16 8:34 PM

212 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

fence corners and on the edges of the wood at a distance from the house; and after the poultry have hatched out their young the Crow is credited with appropriating to his own use a part of the young chickens and ducks which so mysteriously disappear from the farm. No doubt in all these accusations there is some measure of justice; unquestionably the Crow does considerable damage to the farmer. But there is another side to all this. If the Crow does harm he also does good. Who [is] so useful as the Crow in fi nding out and devouring the cutworm which destroys the tender corn when it is a few inches high, eating through the succulent stalks, and carrying destruction wherever it goes? Who so keen and methodical as the Crow in his search for grubs in early spring over the sear, brown fields which the grass has not yet begun to brighten? The farmer may not know that snugly buried among the grass roots are the pupae of many noxious insects, which if permitted to come to maturity would destroy the roots of the grass and other plants, doing incalculable damage; but the Crow knows that these creatures are there, and he knows, too, that they make very good eating, and so with half a dozen of his glossy-coated companions he stalks solemnly about the field, looking into all the places where it seems as if insects might be found, and sometimes with his stout bill sinking a prospect hole in the ground in an especially likely looking spot. Th is system of forage the Crow keeps up for a good part of the year. Woe to the field mice if he fi nds their nest snugly concealed at the root of some old stump, under dense tussock, or among the sprouts of a bramble bush where last year’s leaves lie thick upon the ground. A stroke or two of his strong beak kills the parent mice, the nest is torn to pieces, and the young and old are carried off to feed his ravenous brood.19 The crimes of the Crow consist in his injury to very young crops, and his destruction of eggs and young of poultry and of insect-eating birds. These last are especially exposed to his attacks, and in a season the number destroyed by a single Crow must be very considerable. On the other hand, this bird devours vast numbers of worms, caterpillars, beetles, mice, shrews and moles, which but for his efficient and never ceasing pursuit would live and reproduce their kind to the enormous injury of the agriculturist. It would be hard to say whether the Crow does most harm or good. The question has been many times ably debated by those in favor of and those opposed to the bird, but it has never been decided, and perhaps never will be. We strongly incline to the belief that he is a benefit rather than an injury to the farmer, but this view is quite opposed to the general opinion held of him.

Merchant-final.indb 212

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 213

The Crow has a wide range, inhabiting almost the entire continent of North America, except the Arctic regions. The Crows of Florida and California are slightly different from those of Eastern North America, but these differences are too slight to be noticed except by the practiced ornithologist. In the Eastern States the Crow is with us all the year round, though probably the birds which we see in winter are not the same ones that live here in summer. At whatever season of the year we fi nd them they are the same wary, careful, and yet sedate and dignified birds. If they have the least suspicion that harm to them is intended, they will not permit a near approach, while on the other hand if they feel confident that a person has no means of injuring them, they will sit on a tree and allow him to come very near. In winter when the ground is frozen and covered with snow the Crows are sometimes hard pushed to make a living. At such times they often congregate in great numbers on the seashore, and feed on the clams, mussels and other shellfi sh left bare by the retreating tide. Here they mingle with the snowy plumaged gulls, and the flocks of black and white birds spend their time together until forced ashore by the rising waters. About the fi rst of April the Crows begin to build their nests, but long before that—sometimes as early as the fi rst warm days of February— great flocks of them gather in the tall trees of some wood and hold a convention, which seems to be, in part at least, devoted to the choosing of mates for the ensuing season. The males talk a great deal, and may be seen sailing here and there far up in the sky, and we presume that the females sit about in the treetops and watch the evolutions of their sable suitors. When all preliminaries are arranged and the time for building has come, both male and female begin to gather materials for the nest. Th is is composed in the main of stout twigs, which are sometimes torn from the living branches, and is lined with mud and moss, over which is placed cedar bark in fi ne strips, or sometimes hair and wool. The nest is usually placed in a rather tall forest tree, but sometimes a cedar of moderate size is chosen. It is a large and roomy structure, as indeed it must be to contain the four or five nearly full grown young which are ultimately to inhabit it. During the time when the mother is sitt ing on the pale-green, browndotted eggs, her mate carries food to her, and sometimes takes her place on the nest for a time while she fl ies off to get a litt le exercise and rest. When the young are hatched, both father and mother have to work hard to satisfy the cravings of their voracious brood. In going to and from the nest the old birds are careful to avoid att racting attention, but its location

Merchant-final.indb 213

4/28/16 8:34 PM

214 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

is often revealed by the cries of the young, which, when they are hungry, keep up a persistent croaking, which is readily recognized by any one who has ever heard it. The young Crows when fi rst hatched are tiny, naked creatures, remarkable for nothing except their enormous appetites. They grow rapidly, and before long are nearly as large as their parents. When taken from the nest young they make most interesting and amusing pets, being extremely intelligent and becoming perfectly tame so as not to require confi nement. They are, however, rather mischievous, and much given to stealing anything that is bright and glistening. A pair of young Crows that came under our observation were perfectly tame, and as soon as they were able to fly were given full liberty. They associated on equal terms with the children, and took part in their games, seeming readily to comprehend their part. At night they roosted in the trees, and in the early morning were to be seen walking about the lawn. They always presented themselves at the kitchen door at the usual time for feeding, which was just after breakfast, and if the servant who had the matter in charge delayed giving them their meal beyond the accustomed time, they called vociferously and soon brought her out. During the time the children were absent at school and there was no one for them to play with, they associated with the men who were at work about the place, riding on their carts and wheelbarrows, gathering food from the freshly turned up earth in the garden, and seeming more at home than any domestic animals on the place except the dogs. They sometimes made themselves a nuisance to the men, especially when the latter were doing anything that required much stooping. The Crows would alight on their backs and try to detach from their trousers the metal buttons, brightened by much wear. At these they would peck and pound with their sharp, strong beaks until the victim would entirely lose patience and strike viciously at them, when they would cleverly dodge the blow and fly off with a caw of derision. These two Crows remained about until winter set in, when they joined a flock of their migrating brothers and disappeared. It is said that some Crows have been taught to pronounce various words. The Crow is well known for his courage against feathered foes, and he boldly attacks and drives away from the vicinity of his nest any hawk, owl, or even eagle, which may venture near it. Against the owl the Crow seems to have an especial grudge, and if one of these birds is discovered by one of a flock of Crows, they all turn upon and attack him, beating and buffeting him until he succeeds in gaining some tree with thick foliage, where

Merchant-final.indb 214

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 215

he is safe from further molestation. Sometimes the great horned owl takes a savage revenge on the Crows by killing and devouring one of their number. We have seen a marsh hawk in winter attempt to catch a Crow, hovering over and trying to seize one of three that sat on the topmost rail of a fence. The Crows seemed not at all alarmed by his demonstrations, and when he clumsily stretched out his claws to grasp one of them, the threatened bird only shifted his position by hopping a foot or two to one side. The hawk soon became discouraged, and flew away after other and more easily captured game. Years ago when Crows were much more numerous along the North Atlantic coast than they are at present, these birds used to congregate in great flocks in the autumn, and their roosting grounds were well known. These were often in dense cedar swamps, and to and from them at evening and morning enormous numbers of Crows would journey, scattering out during the day to feed over a wide extent of country, again collecting at the roost at night. Once in a long time a Crow is seen that is almost pure white, but such albinos are very unusual. The American Crow is eighteen inches long, and its outstretched wings measure over three feet. Its nostrils, which are at the base of the bill, are hidden under stiff, bristly, or hair-like feathers, which are directed forward, or toward the point of the bill. All the feathers are black, being glossy and shiny in the male and somewhat duller in the female. The bill and feet are black.

The Pileated Woodpecker Ceophloeus pileatus, Linn. [Dryocopus pileatus] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 7 (Aug. 1888): 134, 135–136. Plate 2.7 Most of our readers are familiar with the smaller woodpeckers, so common in our forests and orchards, but perhaps few of them have ever seen the great bird which we figure this month. The Pileated Woodpecker, or, as it is sometimes called by the farmer, the Woodcock or Logcock, is as large as a pigeon. It is found in more or less abundance over the whole of North America, wherever heavy timber grows, and yet it is nowhere abundant. One bird, or perhaps one family of birds, occupies a large terri-

Merchant-final.indb 215

4/28/16 8:34 PM

216 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

tory, and even though one may be traveling all day through the forest, he will not be likely to see more than one or two Pileated Woodpeckers. As the woods are cleared away before the advance of civilization, these birds withdraw also, for they are shy and solitary in habit, and are not contented save in the deepest recesses of the loneliest forest aisles. We have found this species more abundant in Washington Territory than we remember to have seen it elsewhere. Not only is this species fond of the deep forests, but he is a very shy bird as well. He doesn’t like to have any one get too near him, and watches with his keen eye the movements of any strange object. We have more often obtained a close view of this bird by his flying to and alighting near us when we were sitt ing still and entirely ignorant that he was in the neighborhood, than by endeavoring to approach him. His eyes and ears are both quick, and are constantly on the alert, and usually, no matter how carefully the approach may be made, it will be found that the bird is fully aware of what is taking place, and as soon as he has satisfied himself that he is the object of these stealthy movements, he is off with a loud cackling cry, and has soon put half a mile of distance between the suspected person and himself.20 In those localities which suit his tastes, the Pileated Woodpecker is resident the year round. Cold weather has no terrors for him, and he seeks his living just as unconcernedly amid whirling snows and in biting frosts, as during the gentle rains of April or under the torrid sun of August. In the early spring, these Woodpeckers mate, and begin to prepare a nesting place. They choose some great tree deep in the forest, and attack it with their stout sharp bills, boring in it a hole from two and one half to three inches in diameter at the mouth and sometimes eighteen inches deep. At the bottom the cavity is somewhat larger than at the entrance, being five or six inches in diameter. Here, on a bed of chips left for a lining to the nest, five or six eggs are deposited, pure white, shining and glossy like porcelain. These eggs are about as large as those of a common pigeon. Both male and female take part in the labor of hatching, and each brings food at frequent intervals to its mate on the nest. After the young have attained a part of their growth, they often clamber to the mouth of the hole and may be seen looking out. Even before they have left the nest the young seem to share the wildness of their parents. Mr. [John] Bachman, writing of some that he took from a nest when very young and tried to rear in confi nement, says:21 They were sullen and cross, nay, three died in a few days, but the others having been fed on grasshoppers forcibly introduced into their mouths, were

Merchant-final.indb 216

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 217 raised. In a short time they began picking up the grasshoppers thrown into their cage, and were fully fed with corn meal, which they preferred eating dry. Their whole employment consisted in attempting to escape from their prison, regularly demolishing one every two days, although made of pine boards of tolerable thickness. I at last had one constructed with oak boards at the back and sides, and rails of the same in front. Th is was too much for them, and their only comfort was in passing and holding their bills through the hard bars. In the morning after receiving water, which they drank freely, they invariably upset the cup or saucer, and although this was large and flatfi sh, they regularly turned it quite over. After this they attacked the trough which contained their food and soon broke it to pieces, and when perchance I happened to approach them with my hand, they made passes at it with their powerful bills with great force. I kept them in this manner until winter. They were at all times uncleanly and unsociable birds. On opening the door of my study one morning one of them dashed off by me, alighted on an apple tree near the house, climbed some distance, and kept watching me from one side and then the other, as if to ask what my intentions were. I walked into my study; the other was hammering at my books. They had broken one of the bars of the cage and must have been at liberty for some hours judging by the mischief they had done. Fatigued of my pets I opened the door, and this last one hearing the voice of his brother, flew toward him and alighted on the same tree. They remained about half an hour, as if consulting each other, after which, taking to their wings together, they flew off in a southern direction, and with much more ease than could have been expected from birds so long kept in captivity.

The food of this species consists very largely of insects of various kinds, which it digs out with its powerful bill from their lurking places in the dead wood or beneath the bark of trees. It also eats fruit of all kinds, chestnuts, acorns and Indian corn. It is charged that it also destroys the ears of corn while yet in the milk, but there can be no doubt that its services to man in the destruction of noxious insects far outweigh any slight depredations which it may make on the crops. It is valueless for food, and is never killed except in pure wantonness, or by ornithologists. The Pileated Woodpecker is eighteen inches in length, and measures twenty-eight across its extended wings. Its general color is deep glossy black in the male, but dull and smoky in the female and young. The whole upper part of the head is a bright carmine red. A broad band of black runs through the eye, becoming narrow on the forehead. There is a narrow line of white between this band of black and the red of the upper head. Th roat

Merchant-final.indb 217

4/28/16 8:34 PM

218 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

white. Another band, yellowish at the base of the bill, and then changing to white, runs down through the cheek meeting the white of throat, and continues alongside of neck to the sides under the wing. Another broad band of red runs back from base of lower mandible. Under side of wing more or less white. The legs and feet are blue. Iris yellow. The female differs but litt le from the male, but has the band running back from the lower mandible, which is red in the male, grayish brown in color.

The Towhee Bunting Pipilo erythrophthalmus, Linn. [Audubon: Towhe Bunting] [Fringilla erythrophthalma, Linn.] [Current: Eastern Towhee] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 8 (Sept. 1888): 156, 157–158. Plate 2.8 One of the most abundant summer birds of middle North America is the Ground Robin, Chewink or Towhee Bunting.22 Although so numerous in our forests and along the hedgerows, it is yet a bird known to few persons except those who make a study of our feathered visitants. It comes quietly in the spring, and, seldom appearing in the fields or about the houses, at once betakes itself to its chosen haunts along the edges of the woods. A favorite resort for these birds is one of the rambling, grass-grown woodroads or cart paths which so often traverse our New England woods. The narrow track is verdant with fresh grass, and on either side near the tumble down stone walls or rail fences, which bound the road, the ground is overgrown with cedars and sumachs, and these are matted together with thorny catbriers. It is under and among these tangled growths that the Towhee Bunting delights to dwell, and if you go along carefully and quietly any bright summer morning or evening you may hear him busily at work on the ground, scratching among the dry leaves in search of food, or if it is the mating season you will come upon him seated on the lowest branch of some overhanging chestnut, and trilling the simple lay which cheers his mate while she broods her eggs not far away.23 The Towhee Bunting makes its appearance with us in the latter part of April, having passed the winter in the Southern States, where it is found everywhere at that season of the year. Its migrations are performed slowly by short fl ights, and its wing beats are so rapid that sometimes they may be

Merchant-final.indb 218

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 219

heard at quite a litt le distance. At this time it is a busy, restless bird, seeming unwilling to remain quiet for any length of time, and appearing to be impressed with the notion that it must hurry on to its journey’s end. And yet for all its apparent haste it seems to loiter. When the Towhees reach their breeding places they arrive singly, never moving in flocks, the males coming fi rst and dispersing themselves over the country, to be followed a litt le later by their more plainly clad mates. Soon after the arrival of these latter the birds choose their mates. A site for a nest is selected, usually at the foot of some bush or very young tree, sometimes close to a tuft of high grass; and now both the mates take part in the labor of making the nest. Th is is begun by scratching out a hollow in the ground as large as a good sized tea cup. Th is hollow is then lined with dried grasses, and slender weed stalks, sometimes with dried leaves, and over this, to form the real lining of the nest on which the delicate eggs are to rest, are fi ner grasses, fibrous roots, and sometimes horse or cow hair. The whole is a most compact and comfortable structure, and it is generally well protected from danger of discovery by the grass and growing leaves and twigs which surround it. In this nest the female lays from four to six closely speckled or mott led eggs. If disturbed during incubation she usually manages to slip off her nest unobserved, and to run some litt le distance through the grass before taking fl ight, and is thus sometimes able to throw the observer off the track as to the true location of her nest. Usually, however, this is readily discovered, owing to the habit of choosing a location for it close to some rather prominent object. The nest of this species is exposed to more dangers than those of tree inhabiting species. Snakes discover and devour both eggs and young, and sometimes the old bird as well, and skunks and foxes also prey upon them, while crows and jays are unremitt ing enemies. The cow bunting often chooses the nest of the Towhee as a cradle for its egg, and we have found a nest which contained three of the latter, and four which belonged to the owner of the structure. Although the Towhee during the breeding season at the north has only natural enemies to fear, yet when forced south by the approach of winter, this bird is eagerly sought for as an article of food. In Louisiana, where they are very abundant during the fall and winter, they become extremely fat and are shot and sent to market in great numbers. Here they are known as Grassets, and are greatly esteemed for the table, being regarded by epicures much as is the ricebird or bobolink in other localities. Still, notwithstanding all the enemies against which they have to

Merchant-final.indb 219

4/28/16 8:34 PM

220 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

contend, the Towhees seem to hold their own prett y well, and are very abundant. The Towhee Bunting is at all times an active, graceful bird, and its long tail bordered with white is conspicuously fl irted about as it hops or runs along the ground, or passes by short fl ights from bush to bush. In the Northern States the eye of this bird, when it is adult is usually of a bright red color, that of the young bird being brown. Sometimes, however, the two eyes are of different colors, one being red and the other brown. [Alexander] Wilson speaks of an individual which had one eye red and the other white, and Mr. [J. A.] Allen has described a variety from Florida which has both eyes white. The names Chewink and Towhee are given this bird from a fancied resemblance of its cry to these syllables. In the West its common cry of anxiety or alarm is not unlike the common note of the catbird, and resembles the mewing of a kitten. The Towhee Bunting belongs to the genus Pipilo, of which there are in North America fi fteen or eighteen species and varieties scattered all over the breadth of the continent. They are birds of rather southerly distribution, and only two or three species pass over the border line of the United States into Canada. Most of those found east of the Main Divide of the Rocky Mountains bear a general resemblance to our eastern bird. The Towhee Bunting is eight and one-half inches long, and measures twelve inches in extent of wing. Its bill is conical and very robust, the wings short and rounded, and the tail long, expanded toward its end and then abruptly rounded. The bill is black, and the eyes bright red. The legs and claws are pale flesh color. The head, neck and upper parts in the male are black. There is a narrow white band across the wing, the outer edge of the fi rst quill of which is white. The margins of some of the secondary feathers are white. The outer tail feathers are mostly white, and are conspicuous when the bird is in fl ight; the next two have also some white on them near their extremities. The breast is white, the sides rich brownish red, and the belly pale red. The female differs from the male chiefly in having the black of the latter replaced by brown.

Merchant-final.indb 220

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 221

The Fork-tailed Flycatcher Milvulus tyrannus, Linn. The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 9 (Oct. 1888): 178, 179–180. Plate 2.9 You will readily see if you glance at the plate on the opposite page whence this bird derives its name. It is by no means a familiar bird, and probably few of our readers, except those who live in the extreme Southwest, have ever seen one. There, however, they are abundant enough, and have much the same habits as our well-known kingbird. It is really a bird of the tropics, and is found in Mexico, but only accidentally north of that Republic, although Audubon reports having observed it in Louisiana and Kentucky, and both he and [Charles Lucien] Bonaparte speak of specimens taken in New Jersey.24 The Fork-tailed Flycatcher belongs to the family Tyrannidae, a large group of birds found only in America, and most abundant near the equator. The name is taken from the Greek word τυ′ραvvoς [tyrnavos], which means a ruler or sovereign. It is the same word that gives us our English word tyrant, but the original has no bad sense, while tyrant, as we use it, always conveys the idea of oppression. If we remember the habits of our own litt le kingbird, which is also one of the Tyrannidae, we can see how applicable the family name is to some members of this group. There are over four hundred current species, of which, probably, two-thirds are valid, the others being either slight varieties or else mere synonyms. The Tyrant Flycatchers of the United States have ten primaries or quill feathers on the outer joint of the wing. The tail consists of twelve feathers usually nearly even, but sometimes, as in the case in the present species, deeply forked. The feet are small and weak, only fitted for perching. The bill is broad, much flattened at the base and turned down at its tip, and there is usually a notch just behind this hook. The nostrils are small, circular in shape and placed at the base of the bill, and are overhung by bristles. The mouth is large, opening back nearly or quite to the eyes, and bordered by long hairs or bristles. The bill is extensively hollow, and very light and resonant, and when snapped makes quite a loud, clicking noise. As has been often remarked, this large, light bill and capacious mouth bordered by bristles is admirably adapted for the capture of flying insects. Besides the Tyrant Flycatchers are swift of wing, and active enough in pursuit to follow each twist and turn of the insects that are seeking to escape them. They may be readily recognized by their fl ight, and above all by their habit of perching to await the approach of their prey, and then darting out, seiz-

Merchant-final.indb 221

4/28/16 8:34 PM

222 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

ing it and returning to the same perch again. The snapping of the bill can often be heard while they are doing this. As the Flycatchers are dependent altogether upon insect food they are in these latitudes always migratory, disappearing early in the autumn and returning with the fi rst warm weather of spring. The Pewee, so common about every farmhouse, is the fi rst of the Flycatchers to make its appearance, often reaching Connecticut by the middle of March, when the snow is on the ground. They have no powers of song, their calls being for the most part limited to a harsh scream or twitter, yet one species has a very soft and plaintive note. The sexes are usually alike in color, though in one species found along our southwestern border, the male is brilliantly colored while the female is quite dull. Although the Tyrant Flycatchers are as a rule plain and sober in the colors of their plumage, there are some exceptions to this rule, among which may be noted the so-called “bird of paradise” of Texas [Scissor-tailed Flycatcher], a bird which in shape and size resembles the Fork-tailed Flycatcher, but which is much more beautiful in color. It has the same long, forked tail, which is sometimes ten inches long, and is hoary gray above and pure white beneath, while the flanks are washed with delicate salmon pink, which extends to the lower tail coverts and the tail feathers themselves. The crown patch and the feathers at the insertion of the wings are bright scarlet. Th is brilliant bird is common in Texas and to the southward in Mexico and in Central America. So much may be said by way of introduction to a very interesting group of birds of which some examples must be familiar to every one of us, for to it belongs the kingbird, famed for his courage, the phoebe, builder of mud nests in caves, under rock ledge and in barns, and the smaller Flycatchers, who dwell more in the woods, and so are less well known to those who do not make a study of our birds. Miss Florence A. Merriam, in her series of charming sketches, entitled “Fift y Common Birds and How to Know Them,” published in earlier numbers of this magazine, has brought out many of the characteristic habits of the Tyrannidae.25 The Fork-tailed Flycatcher reminds us in many of its habits of our own well-known kingbird. Like it, and, indeed, like all members of this group, it is very courageous, and does not hesitate to attack birds of prey which may venture to approach its nest. In its fl ight when in pursuit of insects it uses its long tail as a rudder to aid it in making quick turns, and like other Flycatchers it frequently vibrates the tail when it alights.

Merchant-final.indb 222

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 223

Although its food consists chiefly of insects, it does not altogether disdain fruits and berries, but like the kingbird seems to enjoy a varied fare. The stomach of the specimen secured by [Charles Lucien] Bonaparte in New Jersey was found to be full of pone berries. The actual bulk of the Fork-tailed Flycatcher is only about that of the kingbird, but the great length of its tail feathers make its measurements very different. It is fourteen and a quarter inches long, and has a spread of wings of fourteen inches. The outer tail feathers are sometimes ten inches long, while the middle ones measure but two and a half. The head and cheeks are black, the feathers of the crown being yellow at the base, but this patch is concealed, except when the crest is erected. The back is ashy gray, becoming darker toward the rump. The wings are blackish brown, the feathers being margined with gray, and the tail is of the same color, except the outer web of the long feather on each side, which for half its length from the body is white. The under parts are white, the bill and feet black, and the eye brown. The male and female are alike in plumage.

The Kingbird Tyrannus tyrannus, Linn. [Audubon: Tyrant Fly-Catcher] [Muscicapa tyrannus, Briss. (Mathurin Jacques Brisson)] [Current: Eastern Kingbird] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 10 (Nov. 1888): 200, 201–204. Plate 2.10 Few birds are better known to the children than the Kingbird. The eagle is commonly spoken of as the king of birds, but how empty is such a title when this litt le flycatcher appears upon the scene. For all his great size, for all his marvelous powers of fl ight, for all his keen curved beak and his great sharp crooked talons, the litt le Kingbird, which is scarcely larger than the eagle’s bill, drives the great bird before him and makes him put forth all his speed to escape the constant attacks of his pett y pursuer. There are many small birds which are possessed of sufficient courage to attack hawks, crows and other birds of prey, in the breeding season, when the latter approach their nests or threaten danger to their new fledged young, but the Kingbird never needs an excuse of this kind. As soon as a rapacious bird comes anywhere near him, he sallies forth to the batt le, which indeed is always a very one-sided one, and from which the tiny as-

Merchant-final.indb 223

4/28/16 8:34 PM

224 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

sailant always comes forth the conqueror. It is commonly supposed that this characteristic of the Kingbird is wholly a noble one, and deserving of nothing but praise, but we are not altogether sure that this is the case. It has occurred to us that perhaps the Kingbird is a captious petulant fellow, quarrelsome by nature and always on the lookout for somebody that he can bully and hector. The smaller birds, ready at any moment, if attacked, to take refuge in a clump of bushes or among the thick branches of a tree, would not give him what he looks for—a fight, but the slow-winged hawks and crows offer him exactly the opportunity that he is in search of, and he can pester them to his heart’s content. Their clumsy efforts to seize him, or to avoid his attacks, are all in vain. He easily evades the fi rst and laughs at the last, and darting down on his victim from above he pecks and buffets him until weary of the sport. Perhaps this view of the Kingbird’s character does him injustice. Certainly it is wholly opposed to the general idea which makes of this gray-coated litt le warrior a hero, a knight errant, sans peur, who is always fighting batt les for others. We can hardly hope to learn what the truth is.26 The Kingbird passes the winter in the South and on his return journey toward his breeding grounds reaches Louisiana, according to Audubon, by the middle of March, and the New England States about the fi rst of May. During the summer they are scattered over almost the whole continent from the Gulf of Mexico to the 57th parallel of north latitude, where it was observed by Sir John Richardson. Common along the Atlantic seaboard, it is also abundant on the great plains and in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and passing west of these, occurs in some numbers in Idaho, Oregon and Washington Territory and sparingly in California. When the Kingbird reaches the Northern States, it seems for a while rather subdued, as if fatigued by its long journey, but it soon recovers its spirits and becomes the sprightly vivacious bird we know so well. The birds now choose their mates and soon the pleasing toil of nest-building begins. The site chosen varies indefi nitely. Often it is in an apple tree in the orchard, or in a pear tree in the garden close to the house, but in our experience a favorite tree is the so-called buttonball, or sycamore, tree (Platanus occidentalis). The nest is usually so placed as to be supported at the bottom by the branch on which it rests and at the sides by one or more twigs rising from that branch so that it is doubly secure against accident from storms. The outside of the nest is composed of small twigs and weed stalks, roughly woven together; upon this are placed locks of wool, tufts of cotton or cow hair, and the whole is neatly lined with fi ne roots, grasses

Merchant-final.indb 224

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 225

and horse hair. In this warm nest are deposited the eggs, which are usually four in number, but sometimes six. They are large for the size of the bird, and when fresh are of delicate creamy hue, thickly spotted with large dots of bright brown. The creamy tint of the fresh egg is due to the yellow yolk which shows through the shell, for when the contents are removed, the color of the egg is a dead white. Two broods are often hatched and reared in a season. The nest of the Kingbird is often built in the garden or in some tree quite close to the house, and the birds render an important service to man by driving away the predatory species which, but for them, might destroy the farmers’ poultry. Moreover, their food, during the greater part of their sojourn with us, consists wholly of insects, of which they destroy vast numbers. In some parts of the country there is a prejudice against them from the fact that they feed to some extent on honey bees, and this habit has given them the name of Bee Martin, and sometimes leads to their being killed, but as a rule every one has the friendliest feeling for the Kingbird, and desires his protection. Toward autumn when the birds are making their preparations for their fl ight southward, the Kingbird eats various wild fruits, such as blackberries, pokeberries, and those of the dogwood, sassafras, red cedar, elder and Virginia creeper. [Thomas] Nuttall, who had an opportunity of observing one of these birds in confi nement, made some observations on it which are sufficiently interesting to be quoted at length. He says:27 Raisins, foreign currants, grapes, cherries, peaches, pears, and apples were never even tasted, when offered to a bird of this kind, which I had many months as my pensioner; of the last, when roasted, sometimes however a few mouthfuls were relished in the absence of other more agreeable diet. Berries he always swallowed whole, grasshoppers, if too large, were pounded and broken on the floor, as he held them in his bill. To manage the larger beetles was not so easy; these he struck repeatedly against the ground, and then turned them from side to side by throwing them dexterously into the air, after the manner of the toucan, and the insect was uniformly caught reversed as it descended, with the agility of a practiced cup-and-ball-player. At length the pieces of the beetle were swallowed, and he remained still to digest his morsel, tasting it distinctly, soon after it entered the stomach, as became obvious by the ruminating motion of his mandibles. When the soluble portion was taken up, large pellets of the indigestible wings, legs, and shells, as likewise the skins and seeds of berries, were, in half an hour or less, brought

Merchant-final.indb 225

4/28/16 8:34 PM

226 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889 up and ejected from the mouth in the manner of the hawks and owls. When other food failed, he appeared very well satisfied with fresh minced meat, and drank water frequently, even during the severe frosts of January, which he endured without much difficulty; basking, like Diogenes, in the feeble beams of the sun, which he followed round the room of his confi nement, well satisfied when no intruder or companion threw him into the shade! Some very cold evenings he had the sagacity to retire under the shelter of a defending bed quilt; was very much pleased with the warmth and brilliancy of lamplight, and would eat freely at any hour of the night. Unacquainted with the deceptive nature of shadows, he sometimes snatched at them for the substances they resembled. Unlike the Vireos he retired to rest without hiding his head in the wing, and was extremely watchful though not abroad till after sunrise. His taciturnity and disinclination to friendship and familiarity in confi nement, were striking traits. His restless, quick, and side-glancing eye enabled him to follow the motions of his flying prey, and to ascertain precisely the infallible instant of attack. He readily caught morsels of food in his bill before they reached the ground, when thrown across the room; and, on these occasions, seemed pleased with making the necessary exertion. He had also a practice of cautiously stretching out his neck, like a snake, and peeping about, either to obtain sight of his food, to watch any approach of danger, or to examine anything that appeared strange. At length we became so well acquainted, that when very hungry, he would express his gratitude on being fed, by a shrill twitter, and a lively look, which was the more remarkable as at nearly all other times he was entirely silent.

The Kingbird is swift of wing and very expert in the capture of winged insects, which he espies from his perch on a leafless branch, or the top of a tall mullein stalk, or a fence post, and pursues with almost unvarying success. He is rather a noisy bird and rarely leaves or returns to his perch without uttering the shrill twittering cry so characteristic of this bird. The southward migration of this species takes place much earlier than in most birds and generally all the Kingbirds have disappeared from New England by the early part of September. When migrating in August the fl ight of this species is quite different from the ordinary rapid fluttering so noticeable during the summer. It is now long and swinging, and not unlike that of a swallow, very easy and very rapid. The birds at this time travel in loose flocks of twenty-five or thirty, and are for the most part silent. The Kingbird passes the winter in the tropics. It has been suggested that the bright orange patch on the Kingbird’s

Merchant-final.indb 226

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 227

crown is useful to the bird by att racting insects toward it. Thus [Jacob Post] Giraud [Jr., 1811–1870], speaking of its habit of standing motionless on its perch for minutes at a time, says:28 “Many suppose it adopts this quiet att itude for the purpose of att racting passing insects, they mistaking the bright vermilion patch on its crown for a blossom, and in their eagerness to partake of the supposed nectar, the fatal error is not discovered until within reach of the beguiler’s grasp.” In a note on the same point, Mr. [Charles] W. [Beckham, 1856–1888] says:29 “Several years ago, in May, I saw one of these birds occupying an exposed perch on a pear tree in bloom, about which many bees were darting. Several times I observed that the bird caught the insects without leaving his perch by quickly turning his head and ‘grabbing them.’ My attention being thoroughly aroused, I noticed that many seemed to fly directly toward him; the majority appearing to ‘shy off ’ a short distance and change their course, but very few that came within reach escaped him. The question naturally suggesting itself: Did the thrift y Hymenoptera [bees] mistake the fully displayed orange red crown (I could see that the crest was erected) for a flower? Once since I have observed the same phenomenon, but not as well as upon this occasion.” Mr. C. C. Nutt y, who has spent considerable time in studying the birds of Costa Rica and Nicaragua in their native haunts, states that he has seen “Muscivon mexicana perched upon a twig, and waving its curious and fan-shaped crest after the manner of a flower swayed by a gentle breeze, and thus att racting insects within reach.” The Kingbird is a litt le over 8 inches long and measures more than 14 inches across the extended wings. The general color of the upper part is damask or slate color, the head darker, being often nearly black. A small patch on the crown, concealed when the crest is not erected, is bright orange, bordered with yellow. The wings and tail are brownish black, the latter broadly tipped with white. There is a line of white across the wing. The lower parts are white, the feathers on the breast being tinged with ash color. The eye is brown and the bill and feet black.

Merchant-final.indb 227

4/28/16 8:34 PM

228 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

The Tufted Titmouse Parus bicolor, Linn. [Audubon: Crested Titmouse] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 11 (Dec. 1888): 222, 223–225. Plate 2.11 The Titmice, to which family this species belongs, are all small birds, bearing a curious resemblance in all external points of structure to the jay. Like them they have a short, strong, straight, conical bill, rounded nostrils at its base, covered by tuft s of thick, forward directed bristly feathers. As in the jays, the wings have ten feathers on the fi rst joint and are shorter than the tail. Their feet, too, are much like those of the jays, and, so far as their looks go, there is litt le to distinguish them from the group, except their size.30 All our Titmice are under seven inches long, while all our jays are much larger than this. The Titmice are distributed over the whole of North America; those found in the East and North are without crests and for the most part have the top of the head black or sooty brown. The Tufted Titmice are rather Southern birds and all but the subject of the present sketch are found in the Southwest. Mr. [George Burrett] Sennett [1840–1900] has recently described some new species from Texas.31 Many of our Titmice are hardy birds, remaining with us through the winter, and seeming to endure without trouble the coldest weather of Canada and New England. They are all active, sprightly birds, plain in color, but with pleasing vivacious ways, and a neat, trim appearance. [Thomas] Nuttall sums up their characters in the following language. He says:32 These are familiar, active, restless birds of a peevish and courageous disposition, and great enemies to insects. They move by short, sudden leaps and fl ights from branch to branch, suspending themselves readily in all att itudes. They live in families, in woods or marshes, and approach gardens and orchards in autumn and winter. They are strictly omnivorous, feeding on grain, fruits, insects and larvae, which they dislodge from every retreat, and in this pursuit sometimes injure in some degree the buds of trees. They perforate seed vessels, hard seeds, and even nuts and almonds, to obtain their contents; they likewise feed on flesh, and are fond of fat. Sometimes they carry their depredations so far as to pursue and attack sickly birds, even of their own species, commencing like jays by piercing the skull and devouring the brain. They are of a quarrelsome disposition, and often attack larger birds, killing the weaker, and are very resolute in defense of their young. Th ey

Merchant-final.indb 228

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 229 breed once a year, lay many eggs, in some species 18 or 20. Their voice is commonly unpleasant, and their chatter monotonous. Their flesh is scarcely better than that of the rook and crow. They are readily tamed, and may be fed with cheese, nuts, and oily seeds.

To our mind this account of the Tits is hardly fair to them. They are, we think, very att ractive litt le birds, and, being seen at a time when bird life is scarce in our orchards and forests, form a delightful feature of the bleak winter landscape. We have never observed in them any of the traits of ferocity noted by Nuttall, and it is certain that they associate in perfect amity with other birds of similar habits, such as the nuthatches and kinglets. We regard their voices as cheerful and merry if not always musical. Moreover, they seem to have litt le fear of man, and if not companionable are at least familiar litt le birds. The Tufted Titmouse is a bird of rather Southern distribution, and on the Atlantic coast is not commonly found much north of New Jersey. The earlier writers reported this bird as having a much more northern distribution, and even as being found in Greenland, but this is now known to be erroneous. Specimens have been taken in New York and Connecticut, but they are quite unusual here and can only be regarded as accidental. Th is Titmouse breeds in the Southern States and as far north as New Jersey, and it is quite possible that we may sometimes learn of its nesting in New England. It digs a hole in the tree much after the manner of the woodpeckers, but instead of being content to deposit its eggs on the fi ne chips at the bottom, it makes a warm nest by fi lling the hole with various soft materials on which the eggs are deposited. These are from six to eight in number, pure white except for a circle of brown dots about the larger end. In New Jersey the eggs are laid toward the end of May, but further south the nesting time is somewhat earlier. As soon as the young are able to leave the nest they follow the parents, and, Audubon says, continue with them until the following spring. The food of the Tufted Titmouse consists chiefly of insects and their eggs and larvae. In spring and summer he chases flying insects and captures them very adroitly, but during the greater part of the year his time is spent going over the trunks and branches of trees, peering into each crack and cranny of the bark, in search of the hidden stores of insect food which are to be found in such situations. In the autumn this bird also feeds upon the seeds of weeds and on soft nuts. Like the jays the Titmice are accus-

Merchant-final.indb 229

4/28/16 8:34 PM

230 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889

tomed, when they secure any bit of food that is too large to be readily swallowed, to hold it under the foot, and hammer at it with the bill until it is broken into pieces small enough to be devoured. In this way it breaks up the larger hard seeds, acorns and other nuts. One which Wilson had in confi nement was fed on hemp seed, cherry stones, apple seeds and hickory nuts, which were broken up and placed in its cage. Th is bird, though at fi rst restless and making its way out of its wicker cage by repeated blows of its strong bill against the wood, soon became familiar in confi nement. The Tufted Titmouse is more musical than most of its kind. Nuttall compares its more common call or whistle to the clear ringing notes of the Baltimore oriole, and devotes a good deal of space to attempts to convey an idea of its various notes by syllables, but, as might be imagined, these efforts at reproduction are not very successful. Any attempt to reproduce musical sounds by other sounds which have in them no music at all must necessarily fail. The most that can be done by this method is to convey an impression of the relative times which the different notes bear to one another. Some different system of notation must be devised before our birds’ songs can be reproduced so as to give any just notion of them to one who is unfamiliar with them. No one understood this better than Nuttall.33 The fl ight of the Tufted Titmouse is short and hurried, and its rounded concave wings make a perceptible noise as it passes one. It is much more at home in the branches of a tree, where like all the other Titmice it assumes all imaginable att itudes. Some one has spoken of the nuthatches as the harlequins among birds, and the figure is a happy one, but we are inclined to think it almost as applicable to the Titmice. They are much given to swinging head downward on a limb, and will twist themselves around a twig, as readily as an expert gymnast over a horizontal bar. In winter these birds roost in old woodpecker holes or in crevices in the trees, which afford them some protection from the weather. The Tufted Titmouse is about 61/2 inches long and measures 9 inches across the extended wings. The general color of the upper parts is dark bluish-ash. The forehead is black, sometimes tinged with reddish. The under parts are grayish-white and the sides pale reddish-brown, the iris is brown, the bill black, and the feet lead color.

Merchant-final.indb 230

4/28/16 8:34 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 231

The Hermit Thrush Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii, Cab. [Cabanti, J. L.] [Catharus guttatus] The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 12 (Jan. 1889): 244, 245–246. Plate 2.12 One of our most abundant birds during the seasons of migration, and only at those times, is the Hermit Th rush. It comes to us in New York and New England every spring during the month of April, lingers for perhaps a month, and in May takes its fl ight for its summer home, leaving us as unobtrusively as it came. But when the harvest has been gathered and the barns are full, when the ripened leaves are turning golden and red and brown, and the shorn stubble lies yellow in the slanting sunshine, when the nights have become cool and sometimes in the early morning the grass of the meadows sparkles with white hoar frost, then the Hermit Th rush is seen again hopping silently about at the edge of the wood or taking short fl ights from bush to bush along the hedgerows. In the autumn this bird stays with us longer than in spring, and sometimes lingers into December, but it is in October that they are most abundant in our woods. The southern migration is performed slowly in loitering fashion, the birds seeming to move singly and never gathering in flocks.34 The Hermit Th rush is a shy, solitary bird, fond of the deep woods and usually shunning the fields and open spots. Curiously enough, both Wilson and Audubon considered this species as almost voiceless. Wilson supposed it mute, and Audubon speaks only of its single plaintive note, while as a matter of fact it is one of our sweetest songsters.35 Nuttall, however, alludes to it as scarcely inferior to the nightingale in its powers of song, and says that it “greatly exceeds the wood thrush in the melody and sweetness of its lays.”36 Its song has indeed been commented on by all later writers. As remarked by Dr. [Elliott] Coues, however,37 It may be questioned whether a comparison unfavorable to the Wood Th rush is a perfectly just discrimination. The weird associations of the spot where the Hermit triumphs, the mystery inseparable from the voice of an unseen musician, conspire to heighten the effect of the sweet, silvery, bell-like notes, which beginning soft, low, and tinkling, rise higher and higher, to end abruptly with a clear, ringing intonation. It is the reverse of the lay of the Wood Th rush, which swells at once into powerful and sustained effort, then gradually dies away, as though the bird were receding from us; for the song of the Hermit fi rst steals upon us from afar, then seems to draw nearer, as if the

Merchant-final.indb 231

4/28/16 8:35 PM

232 • Grinnell’s Monthly Birds in The Audubon Magazine, 1887–1889 timid recluse were weary of solitude, and craved recognition of its conscious power to please. Yet it is but a momentary indecision; true to a vow of seclusion the anchorite is gone again to its inviolate grotto in the fastnesses of the swamp, where a world of melody is wasted in its pathetic song of life.

Most of the Hermit Th rushes pass the winter in the Southern States, and indeed it is not certain that this bird goes south of the United States during its winter migration. At all events we know that great numbers of them spend the cold months in the swamps of Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Its summer home is to the northward. A few, perhaps, rear their young in northern Massachusetts, but most of them proceed still further north, and fi nd a congenial resting place in the dark and lonely forests which clothe the almost uninhabited region between the River St. Lawrence and Hudson’s Bay. The nest of the Hermit Th rush is built on or near the ground, and all the earlier descriptions of it are at fault. Wilson, Audubon and Nuttall all speak of it as being placed in the branches of a tree at some distance from the ground, and in a latitude far south of where it is now known to breed. There can be litt le doubt that they mistook the nests of a closely allied species, the olive-backed thrush, for those of the Hermit Th rush. Dr. Coues’s description of the nest is as follows:38 The manner in which the nest of the Hermit Th rush is built, its situation, and the eggs, are all so similar to the Veery’s [or Wilson’s Th rush] that one must detect the shy parents themselves before being sure which has been found. The nest is built on the ground or near it, generally in some low secluded spot; no mud is used in its composition, the whole fabric being a rather rude and inartistic matt ing of withered leaves, weed stalks, bark strips, and grasses, the coarser and stiffer substances outside, the fi ner fibres within. The cup is small in comparison with the whole size, owing to the thickness of the walls and of the base. The eggs are like those of the Robin or Wood Th rush, in their uniform greenish blue color, but smaller, measuring about nine-tenths of an inch in length by five-eighths in breadth; being thus not distinguishable from those of the Veery.

The food of the Hermit Th rush consists for the most part of insects, though in the autumn they feed to some extent on berries as do most of the thrushes. A good portion of its time is spent on the ground, where it hops about in search of its food among the dead leaves and twigs, flying

Merchant-final.indb 232

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II • 233

when disturbed into the low branches of the trees or bushes, uttering a plaintive note of alarm. The true Hermit Th rush is confi ned to Eastern North America, but two near relatives of this species are found on the West. One of these, the Dwarf Hermit Th rush, occurs chiefly along the Pacific Coast, from Alaska to Lower California; the other, Audubon’s Hermit Th rush, inhabits the Rocky Mountain Region. Both of these races resemble closely the Hermit Th rush and can only be distinguished from it by an ornithologist, but besides some trifl ing differences in color the Dwarf is slightly smaller and Audubon’s a litt le larger than the Eastern bird. The habits of all of these birds are essentially the same and one account will do for all of them. The illustration is reproduced from Audubon’s plate of this species and represents two of these birds on the branches of a bush called “robin wood,” on the berries of which these birds and many others feed in autumn. The Hermit Th rush in general appearance is closely like the familiar wood thrush, but is much smaller, and the color of the upper parts is a dull olive brown very different from the bright rufus tint of the feathers of that bird. Its length is seven inches, and across its extended wings it measures ten and one-half. Above it is deep olive brown in color, below dull white, the neck and breast spotted with dark brown. The secondary wing coverts are marked with concealed spots of yellow. The bill is blackish brown above and yellowish below. The iris is dark brown and the feet and legs white. The female is a litt le larger and a litt le darker than the male.

Merchant-final.indb 233

4/28/16 8:35 PM

CHA P T ER T W ELV E

Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements

• 234

George Bird Grinnell was a formative influence in the history of the conservation of avifauna. Because of his efforts to reverse the decline of plume birds and songbirds through the establishment of the fi rst Audubon Society and the fi rst Audubon magazine, a major advance was made in public recognition of the problem of preserving American birds. Grinnell not only conceptualized, framed, and edited the content of the magazine during its two-year existence (1887–1889), but also wrote many articles for it, including his serialized biographies of John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson and his monthly descriptions of noteworthy birds painted by Audubon. And even though Grinnell himself was unable to continue with the workload of editing both Forest and Stream and The Audubon Magazine, his efforts bore fruit. When, in the mid-1890s, women and men revived the bird conservation movement in the form of state and local Audubon clubs and founded the new journal Bird-Lore, Grinnell’s vision took off. Grinnell likewise helped to bridge the gender divide over the conservation of the natural world. He sought the support of both women and men while hiding neither his love of nature nor his love of the hunt. At the same time that he came to acknowledge the necessary role of women in protecting avifauna, he also promoted the need for men to take on the preservation of big game. In 1887, the year after he founded the Audubon Society, he cofounded the Boone and Crockett Club, an exclusive organization that admitted only men who had killed large-game animals. Like the Audubon Society, which focused on wider issues affecting the place

Merchant-final.indb 234

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements • 235

of avifauna in the natural world, the Boone and Crockett Club took on issues that affected the preservation of megafauna as part of the larger environment. In 1894, under Grinnell’s influence and because of his editorials in Forest and Stream, the “Act to Protect the Birds and Animals in Yellowstone National Park” was passed that preserved the American bison in Yellowstone.1 Th rough Grinnell’s editing of both Forest and Stream and The Audubon Magazine, conservation issues impacted the consciousness and conscience of women and men alike. Th rough his serialized biographies of John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson and his editorials and articles on the importance of birds to conservation, he brought the plight of birds and game to public awareness, sett ing the stage for success in the early twentieth century.2 Although Grinnell played a less active role in the movements to save birds and bison after the 1890s, he printed several articles and letters in Forest and Stream during the 1890s and early 1900s about the accomplishments of the American Ornithologists’ Union, the Audubon society and its work, and the Audubon bird law.3 In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid bird enthusiast since boyhood, issued an executive order declaring Pelican Island, off the east coast of Florida and home to the threatened brown pelican and other plume birds, a federal bird reservation. Between March 14, 1903, when Roosevelt signed the fi rst executive order, and March 4, 1909, he used that power to establish fi ft y-one national bird reservations in seventeen states and territories of the United States. In the words of historian Douglas Brinkley, “Pelican Island wasn’t a passing whim of a president showing off to ornithologist colleagues. It was the opening salvo on behalf of the natural environment. No longer would slackness prevail with regard to conservationism, for Roosevelt—the wilderness warrior—would coordinate the disparate elements in the U.S. government around a common ‘great wildlife crusade.’” He would go on to set aside some 234 million acres in national forests, national parks, national monuments, national game preserves, and federal bird refuges.4 In 1905, the same year that the National Association of Audubon Societies was formed, the American Bison Society was founded, with zoologist William Hornaday (1854–1937) as its president, President Roosevelt as its honorary president, and Grinnell as a member. Under Roosevelt’s influence, Congress established a number of preserves that were stocked by private bison owners, eventually building up the number of wild bison to over three thousand by 1929.5

Merchant-final.indb 235

4/28/16 8:35 PM

236 • Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements

Figure 23. George Bird Grinnell and his wife, Elizabeth C. Williams Grinnell, on Grinnell Glacier, Glacier National Park, Montana. Photograph courtesy of Glacier National Park.

During the 1900s, Grinnell began devoting a major part of his attention to the preservation of Glacier National Park (fig. 23). In 1910, President William Howard Taft signed the bill crafted by Grinnell and approved by Congress, establishing the new national park as the “crown of the continent.” A year later Grinnell stepped down as editor of Forest and Stream.6 George Bird Grinnell was a major influence in the history of conservation from the 1870s through the 1910s. His own personal growth in appre-

Merchant-final.indb 236

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements • 237

ciating hunting with a camera rather than just with a gun, and his role in bridging the gender divide in conservation can be illustrated by two editorials he wrote in Forest and Stream. The fi rst, written in 1888, was about hunting with the gun, and the second, written in 1892, was about hunting with the camera. The fi rst editorial might have appealed to women hunters who read and contributed to the journal as well as to the men of the Boone and Crockett Club, although its emphasis on “blood” sports might be objectionable to some current environmentalists. The second would have appealed to both male and female bird lovers of yesterday and today. In the fi rst of these editorials, titled “Autumn Anticipations,” Grinnell used flowery language to eulogize the hunt for buffalo, mountain sheep, blue-winged teal, snipe, canvasbacks, redheads, quail, ruffed grouse, and woodcock: Glorious autumn is at hand. Already we have had days whose crisp air had in it all the tingle of October, . . . days which bring out all a man’s vigor, and call up memories of a hundred autumn outings past. . . . The autumn shooting! To each man who uses a shotgun there is magic in these words. . . . The pleasures of his outing are hardly less to the man who has but barely stained his hands with blood than to him who has bathed in it. It is not what we kill, but how we kill it, that makes life in the open air a delight, and its memories a lasting blessing to the true sportsman.  .  .  . Whether he return with a full bag or with a load that is but light, he is a better man, more fitted to do good to those about him than he was when he started from his home. He has read from Nature’s book another great lesson.7

But in the second editorial, titled “Shooting Without a Gun,” Grinnell promoted the hunt with a camera as a conservation tool. Here he eulogized the value of life and the beauties of wildlife and wild nature: All the skill of woodcraft that goes to the making of the successful hunter with the gun, must be possessed by him who hunts his game with the camera. . . . When . . . he has drawn within a closer range of his timid game than his brother of the gun need att ain, he pulls [the] trigger of a weapon that destroys not, but preserves its unharmed quarry in the very counterfeit of life and motion. The wild world is not made the poorer by one life for his shot, nor nature’s peace disturbed, nor her nicely adjusted balance jarred. . . . The eagle on his craggy perch, the high-hole on his hollow tree are as legit-

Merchant-final.indb 237

4/28/16 8:35 PM

238 • Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements imate game for him as the deer and grouse. All things beautiful and wild and picturesque are his, yet he kills them not, but makes them a living and enduring joy, to himself and all who behold them.8

In 1915, in a poem in the journal Bird-Lore, T. Gilbert Pearson (1873– 1924), a founder and later president of the National Association of Audubon Societies, depicted two women hunting birds, one with a camera and one with a rifle, asking “Which would you choose?” The demeanor of each woman leaves litt le doubt that the reader was meant to choose the “camera girl” (fig. 24). Pearson’s poem—set in cartoon form by Walter M. Dunk (b. 1855), painter, illustrator, and commercial artist of New York and Philadelphia—shows that some big-game and wild-bird hunters were women. It contrasts two women hunting. One is dressed in mannish garb, holding a rifle in one hand and a captured bobwhite in the other while her hunting dogs follow in the fields behind and another bobwhite flees into the grasses below. The other woman is dressed in soft ly flowing feminine garb, contemplating freely flying birds above and capturing nature’s beauties with a camera. The poem asks, “Which would you choose for life’s short whirl— The maid with the gun or the camera girl?”

It is a thinly veiled appeal to men to choose the female nature lover over the nature destroyer. Although Grinnell, like many early conservationists, never gave up his enjoyment of hunting game animals and game birds under strict rules and seasonal restrictions, he advocated the use of the camera as a conservation measure to help protect nongame birds from the devastations of the feather trade and as a means of appreciating the beauties of nature.9 The dramatic ups and downs that played out in the gender-based sagas of the Audubon Society and the Boone and Crockett Club were a microcosm of the larger conservation movement in which Grinnell played a foundational role. Within the framework that Grinnell helped to create, he worked to bridge the gender gap in the 1880s and to support the movement in the 1900s. His achievements were indeed substantial and long lasting. Today’s National Audubon Society and its Audubon magazine take their inspiration from the original Audubon Society founded by George

Merchant-final.indb 238

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements • 239

Figure 24. Women hunting birds with camera and rifle. Reproduced from Bird-Lore 17, no. 3 (May–Jun. 1915): 250. Courtesy National Audubon Society.

Bird Grinnell in 1886. Dissolved in 1889, it was revived in 1905 as the National Association of Audubon Societies, with William Dutcher as its fi rst president, and purchased Bird-Lore from Frank Chapman in 1935. In 1940, the National Audubon Society was founded, and a year later Bird-Lore became Audubon Magazine. In 1966, the magazine’s name was changed to simply Audubon. Today there remain many local Audubon clubs and bird clubs, as well as state Audubon societies (such as those of Connect-

Merchant-final.indb 239

4/28/16 8:35 PM

240 • Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements

icut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Illinois) that are not associated with the National Audubon Society and chapters of the National Audubon Society that are not associated with state Audubon societies. Audubon International is likewise an independent Audubon society that works to implement sustainable resource management nationally and internationally.10 All of these societies and the work they do today to preserve birds and their habitats owe their inspiration to George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society of 1886–1889 and his years spent on John James and Lucy Audubon’s estate on the Hudson River in Upper Manhatt an, New York.

Merchant-final.indb 240

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Appendixes

Merchant-final.indb 241

4/28/16 8:35 PM

This page intentionally left blank

A PPEN D IX 1

Other Early and Recent Biographies of Audubon

Following Grinnell’s serialized life, as published in The Audubon Magazine, of John James Audubon and perhaps encouraged by it, several other biographies appeared that began to shed more light on the details of Audubon’s life. Minister Bradford Kinney Peirce’s (1819–1889) Audubon’s Adventure; or, Life in the Woods was republished in 1889, the year of Peirce’s death. Written for young people, it had originally appeared in 1863 (after Mrs. Horace St. John’s 1856 biography but before her retitled 1869 version, Boy’s Life of Audubon, and before Lucy Audubon’s 1869 biography).1 Peirce’s biography, which was written independently of earlier accounts, drew from Audubon’s Ornithological Biography and paraphrased and quoted from Audubon himself. As a minister, Peirce had published a book, The Acts of the Apostles (1854), written for Sunday school and Bible classes and would later write a book on juvenile delinquents (1869). His goal in writing a biography of Audubon was to inspire young readers to take up natural history, especially the observation of birds, in the outdoors in appreciation of the providence of the Creator.2 He wrote that “perhaps there is no study that will afford more pleasure, nor one that can be so readily and successfully undertaken as that of the habits of the thousand different varieties of birds that make our groves beautiful with their elegant plumage, and melodious with their charming songs. The study has been made very easy and delightful for us by the long, unwearied, but pleasant labors of such men as John James Audubon.”3 In 1893, “Audubon’s Story of His Youth” was published in Scribner’s Magazine by his granddaughter Maria R. Audubon (daughter of John

Merchant-final.indb 243

• 243

4/28/16 8:35 PM

244 • Appendix 1

Woodhouse Audubon) from a manuscript Audubon had prepared about his early life for the benefit of his children. The manuscript, she states, “was found in an old book which had been in a barn on Staten Island for years.” She included that manuscript in Audubon and His Journals, published in 1897, which she edited along with Elliott Coues, who contributed zoological and other notes. The chapters of this two-volume work included Audubon’s essay, “Myself,” his European journals from 1826– 1829, his Labrador journal of 1833, and his Missouri River journal of 1843. Among those whom Maria R. Audubon acknowledged as having provided assistance was George Bird Grinnell.4 In her preface Maria R. Audubon stated that her sisters, Harriet, Florence, and Eliza, lent her “letters, journals, and other manuscripts” and that her mother provided “many memories.” Concerning the source of the materials, she wrote, “There came into my hands about twelve years ago some of these journals,—those of the Missouri and Labrador journeys; and since then others have been added, all of which had been virtually lost for years. . . . ‘The Life of Audubon the Naturalist,’ edited by Mr. Robert Buchanan from material supplied by his widow, covers, or is supposed to cover, the same ground I have gone over. That the same journals were used is obvious; and besides these, others, destroyed by fi re in Shelbyville, KY., were at my grandmother’s command, and more than all, her own recollections and voluminous diaries.” She also noted that “Mr. George Ord and Mr. Charles Waterton were both my grandfather’s bitter enemies, yet one he rarely mentions, and of the latter, when he says, ‘I had a scrubby letter from Waterton,’ he has said his worst.”5 Another version of Audubon’s life can be found in a booklet by Mary Fluker Bradford. Titled Audubon, it was published in New Orleans by L.  Graham and Son in 1897. Bradford stated, “The following Biographical Sketch of Audubon was originally read before the Quarante Club, a leading literary society of New Orleans.” Its purpose was to seek public recognition for the work that Audubon did while living in New Orleans and to raise funds for a monument to be constructed in Audubon Park in New Orleans. Bradford had a personal interest in the project. She wrote, “To me, especially, is there a charm in the very name of Audubon, interwoven as it is with the earliest and dearest recollections of my childhood and of my old home in the Felicianas, where, I love to reflect, he was in the olden time a frequent and ever welcome guest. As a child I listened eagerly when any of the incidents connected with these visits were recalled, and I early developed for the great naturalist a most devoted hero-

Merchant-final.indb 244

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Other Early and Recent Biographies of Audubon • 245

worship.” Bradford’s mother had been one of Lucy Audubon’s students when she was a governess at Bayou Sara, Louisiana, and, like others who had written about Audubon, experienced his presence on a daily basis. Bradford’s mother commented, “I took immense pride in the thought that the familiar portraits which looked down upon me from the walls were painted by his hand; and I gloried in the knowledge from the lips of my own dear mother, that ‘once upon a time’ she had been a pupil of his lovely and gifted wife.”6 Like others before her, Bradford drew on Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, quoting phrases from his “Introductory Address” in volume  1, but she also drew on Lucy Audubon’s biography and Maria R. Audubon’s reprint of “Audubon’s Story of his Youth,” from Scribner’s Magazine (1893). She concluded her biography with the acknowledgment that “the life of Audubon is best known through the touching and admirable memoir written by his widow. With a truthful and sympathetic pen she well interprets the personal and artistic nature of the man.”7 Mary Bradford’s fundraising efforts to erect a statue to Audubon came to fruition in 1910 when a sculpture by Edward Valentine of the naturalist was unveiled in Audubon Park, New Orleans. Unlike portraits of Audubon in the woods with his gun, dog, and horse, this statue showed him with one foot on a rock, holding a notebook in one hand and a poised pencil in the other. It was set in a circular flower bed surrounded by cedar and oak trees.8 In 1902, the naturalist John Burroughs also wrote a biography of Audubon, titled simply John James Audubon. In his preface Burroughs stated that although the pioneer in American ornithology was Alexander Wilson, the chief among American ornithologists was John James Audubon. As Burroughs put it, “He was also a pioneer, beginning his studies and drawings of the birds probably as early as Wilson did his, but he planned larger and lived longer . . . and was of a more versatile, flexible, and artistic nature than was Wilson.” He thanked Maria R. Audubon for permission to draw on her edited book, Audubon and His Journals, and he also utilized Mrs. Horace St. John’s Audubon the Naturalist and Lucy Audubon’s The Life of John James Audubon. He argued that Audubon’s life could be divided into three periods: his youth up until the time of his marriage to Lucy Bakewell in 1808; his business ventures in the ensuing ten years, ending in 1819; and his subsequent career as an ornithologist. Burroughs also supplied a chronology to assist in understanding the details of Audubon’s life.9

Merchant-final.indb 245

4/28/16 8:35 PM

246 • Appendix 1

In summing up his assessment of Audubon’s contributions, Burroughs wrote, “The drawings of the birds are very spirited and life like, and their biographies copious, picturesque, and accurate, and taken with his many journals, they afford glimpses of the life of the country during the early part of the century, that are of very great interest and value. . . . His bird pictures reflect his own temperament, not to say his nationality; the birds are very demonstrative, even theatrical and melodramatic at times.” In comparing Audubon with Wilson, Burroughs noted that “Wilson errs, if at all, in the other direction. His birds, on the other hand, reflect his cautious, undemonstrative Scotch nature. Few of them are shown in violent action. . . . His drawings do not show the mastery of the subject and the versatility that Audubon’s do;—they have not the artistic excellence, but they less frequently do violence to the bird’s character by exaggerated activity.”10 In 1917 biologist Francis Hobart Herrick wrote a major two-volume biography, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, that corrected many earlier misconceptions about Audubon’s life. A major contribution made by Herrick was to revise earlier accounts by determining Audubon’s birthplace, birth date, and racial heritage, using documents of Audubon’s father, Jean Audubon. Jean Audubon, a ship’s captain with business interests in several New World locations, had married a wealthy widow, Anne Moynet, in Nantes, France, on August 24, 1772. In Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Jean Audubon met a Creole woman, Jeanne Rabin, who bore him a child, Jean Rabin Fougère, on April 26, 1785. The child was later known by his American name, John James Audubon. Jeanne Rabin died when her son was less than a year old. A daughter, Rose, by another woman, Catharine Bouffard, was born on April 29, 1787. Jean Audubon subsequently took the two children to New Orleans, Louisiana, and then to Nantes, France, where they were adopted by his wife, Anne Moynet on March 7, 1793. Both Jean Audubon and his wife treated the children with great kindness and invested in their education and future employment. Herrick’s book, which reproduced the new historical documents along with many other sources and illustrations, was a massive and thorough undertaking.11

• Recent Biographies During recent years, new biographies have appeared that attempt to reach a general audience and make Audubon’s life and adventures compelling

Merchant-final.indb 246

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Other Early and Recent Biographies of Audubon • 247

to current readers. A biography by Alice Ford, titled John James Audubon, was published in 1964. Ford’s account pushed the story of Audubon’s birth and background to new narrative levels. She elaborated on Jean Audubon’s life as a sea captain, his business ventures, his marriage to Anne Moynet in Nantes, France, his holdings in Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and the birth of John James. She also assembled a story of Audubon’s life, called Audubon By Himself, from a variety of Audubon’s own writings, journals, and letters, in which she corrected the details of his birth (as if Audubon himself were telling them).12 Carolyn DeLatte followed in 1982 with Lucy Audubon: A Biography, which looked at the sources from the perspective of Lucy and her own life and emotions. Using letters from Lucy and her family as well as documents from the places in which Lucy lived, DeLatte created a vivid, engaging portrait of Lucy as a human being beset with troubles and rewarded by triumphs. In particular, she described the three very difficult years between 1826 and 1829, when Audubon was in England and Scotland seeking subscriptions for The Birds of America and the strength of their marriage was severely challenged.13 A lengthy, engaging narrative for the general public, John James Audubon: The Making of an American, was written by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Rhodes in 2004. In the same year, William Souder wrote the equally compelling Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of “The Birds of America,” which discussed the lives of Wilson and Audubon and described the entire process that went into publishing the double-elephant and octavo editions of Audubon’s masterpiece. And recently a DVD of Audubon’s life, “John James Audubon: Drawn from Nature,” was produced by Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey (Florentine Films, 2006). Finally, in 2013 a new comprehensive biography, Alexander Wilson, the Scot Who Founded American Ornithology, written by Edward H. Burtt and William E. Davis Jr., joined the two historical threads of early American ornithology.14

Merchant-final.indb 247

4/28/16 8:35 PM

A PPEN D IX 2

Producing Audubon’s Birds of America and Grinnell’s Monthly Birds

George Bird Grinnell’s ability to print one of Audubon’s Birds of America as the frontispiece for each issue of The Audubon Magazine (1887– 1889) depended on advances in printing and publishing that developed over most of the nineteenth century. These technologies included copperplate etching, lithography, chromolithography, photography, and printing. Preceding Grinnell’s Audubon Magazine, however, were John James Audubon’s own techniques for producing the original, life-size watercolor paintings of American birds that would be printed in double-elephant folio—391/2 × 291/2 inch sheets—consisting of 435 plates in 44 parts between the years 1827 and 1838. Audubon began drawing birds as a youth growing up in Nantes, France, in the 1790s in the home of his father and adoptive mother, Anne Moynet. John James and his father explored the land around their estate, where the elder Audubon mesmerized his son with talk of the habits, movements, and plumages of the local birds, inspiring in him a love of nature and “the feathered tribes” that would become his lifelong passion. The youth drew birds from the books his father gave him, birds in their habitats, and birds procured by gunshot. After failing in his studies at a naval academy, he returned home with a goal of drawing the birds of France. But it wasn’t until after his move to Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, in 1803 to oversee his father’s American plantation that he developed the technique that would enable him to portray birds in dynamic att itudes engaged in active feeding and nesting.1 • 248

Merchant-final.indb 248

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Producing Audubon’s Birds of America and Grinnell’s Monthly Birds • 249

• Audubon’s Portable Art Studio Audubon’s unique method for producing the watercolors for The Birds of America was fi rst to hunt and shoot the birds he wished to paint and then to place them in lifelike postures on a stand by means of wires, skewers, and pins. He placed a grid behind the stand and another on his paper to ensure that the proportions were accurately rendered. Working quickly with chalk pastels and wash, he could capture the “bill, nostrils, eyes, legs, and claws, as well as the structure of the wings and tail [and] the very tongue.” These watercolors constituted the basis for the engravings that became The Birds of America.2 As Audubon traveled about the country with the goal of painting all the species he could fi nd, he carried with him a portable art studio consisting of a “gun and tackle, watercolors, brushes, pencils, chalks, his large and small portfolios, sheets of [double-elephant] art paper rolled in a tubular tin case, wire to rig his bird-mounting system on any convenient board, paper for letter writing, and a new ledger for journal keeping.” He also brought along a portable, mahogany writing desk with a drawer, ink, and quill pens.3 Although Audubon painted his birds on branches, in marshes, or in fields, sometimes with nests, prey, or even snakes, he had assistants who helped paint the plants and backgrounds. One of the most notable was his thirteen-year-old pupil, Joseph Mason (1808–1842), who possessed a remarkable knowledge of botany and talent for painting flowers.4 Once Audubon had accumulated a sizable portfolio of watercolors, the next step was to publish the results. Unable to enlist subscribers to pay for printing the book in the United States, he sailed for Liverpool, England, in 1826 and then on to Edinburgh, where the publicity and subscriptions he received from exhibits of his bird paintings landed him an agreement with William Home Lizars (1788–1859) to publish The Birds of America.5

• Engraving The Birds of America To print The Birds of America a new technology was required, that of engraving and aquatint. Using tracing paper, the watercolor outlines of each painting were copied in mirror images onto copper plates that were fi rst covered with a thin layer of varnish, chalk, or wax. Then, using gravers

Merchant-final.indb 249

4/28/16 8:35 PM

250 • Appendix 2

of different shapes and sizes, the lines were incised into the surface of the copper and the ridges on the edges of the lines removed. The plate was then heated and covered with ink that seeped into the depressions. Next, the rest of the plate was cleaned off. Using a printing press, the image on the copper plate was pressed onto moistened paper, transferring the ink from the depressions onto the paper. The paper used was the largest size available, the double-elephant folio that measured 391/2 by 291/2 inches. The print was then allowed to dry, after which colorists fi lled in the lines with tints to duplicate the original painting. The process of engraving and aquatint was done by highly skilled engravers and colorists and closely supervised by Audubon.6 In the summer of 1827, however, after the fi rst set of five prints had been completed (with five more prints underway), William Lizars was forced to withdraw from the project because of a strike by his colorists. Audubon then engaged Robert Havell Jr. (1793–1878) of London, who was able to improve the quality of the tints, washes, and shades all at a lower cost.7 Additionally, Havell, who was not only an engraver but an artist, added backgrounds and in some cases rearranged birds to improve the layout. Audubon wrote that The Birds of America “is to come out in numbers of 5 prints the size of Life and all in the same size paper of my Largest Drawings called Double Elephant paper. . . . The price of each number is Two Guineas [about ten dollars]—and all Individuals have the privileges to subscribe to all or any portion of it.”8 Subscribers received and paid for their prints in installments that were delivered in tubular tin containers. The completed fi rst edition consisted of 87 fascicles containing 435 hand-colored engravings of 489 species. Many paintings contained several birds, usually of the same species in various poses on the same page. All the prints were in double-elephant folio with each bird life-sized. Large birds fi lled the sheet, whereas medium and small birds were centered on the page, leaving wide margins. Each fascicle of five prints usually contained one large bird, one mediumsized bird, and three small birds. The full series was published between 1827 and 1838. In 1832, Audubon’s son Victor, then twenty-three, went to London to supervise the production, while Audubon, working with his wife Lucy and with William MacGillivray (1796–1852) in Edinburgh, produced the five-volume Ornithological Biography (1831–1839), which contained Audubon’s bird descriptions and accounts of his adventures on the frontiers of the America.9

Merchant-final.indb 250

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Producing Audubon’s Birds of America and Grinnell’s Monthly Birds • 251

• Lithography and Chromolithography Between 1840 and 1844, yet another technology, that of lithography, was used to produce the octavo (one-eighth) edition of The Birds of America on 101/2- × 61/2-inch plates. The new edition had five hundred plates, was one-eighth the size of the double-elephant folio, and was produced in the United States. It was printed in one hundred parts of five prints, each of which cost $1.00. Audubon’s sons, Victor Gifford and John Woodhouse, oversaw the production, and John T. Bowen of Philadelphia published the book. Th is new edition was affordable to many people eager to own a copy of the now-famous work. To print the octavo edition, the double-elephant folio sheets had to be reduced to one-eighth their original size. Th is was done with a camera lucida, an optical projection device that allowed the image to be reduced in size and traced on a clean sheet of paper. The camera lucida was patented by William Hyde Wollaston in 1807 and came into use in the 1830s as a drawing aid. The artist could see both the print on the wall and the paper on the table, making it possible to trace an outline of the picture’s details onto the paper. The device that the Audubons used was probably the one designed by Wollaston that used a prism with four faces so that the light was reflected internally against the surfaces and projected on the paper below, producing an image that was neither reversed nor inverted. Presumably the Audubons used an unbound copy of The Birds of America, several of which were brought by Havell to America in 1839, so that the plates could be freely fastened to the wall. Once copied, the image could be printed by lithography.10 Lithography, meaning “writing (graphein) on stone (lithos),” was a new printing technology invented in 1796 and widely used after 1852, replacing the earlier method of copper engraving. The image was drawn on or transferred to limestone using oil, fat, wax crayon, or oil-based colored inks. Because the stone was water retaining, or hydrophilic, and the image was water repelling, or hydrophobic, etching the image became possible. A mixture of weak nitric acid and gum arabic, which stuck only to the non-oiled surfaces, etched away those portions of the stone not protected by the oiled inks. The etched-out areas of the limestone retained water and repelled oil, while the raised image retained the inks. The inked stone or plate was then pressed onto paper to print the image, allowing for longer print runs.11

Merchant-final.indb 251

4/28/16 8:35 PM

252 • Appendix 2

In Audubon’s case, John Bowen or one of his assistants would trace the camera lucida reduction with a soft brown or red pencil and then place it face down on the stone. By rubbing the back of the paper, it was transferred as a mirror image onto the limestone. Greasy ink would be used to complete the image. Clean paper would be pressed on the stone to print the image, which re-reversed it to its correct view. Colorists would then complete the work. Bowen used the unbound bird prints or, in some cases, Audubon’s original watercolors as a guide and pattern. To print the fi rst royal octavo edition of 1,500 copies of 500 plates each, a total of 750,000 plates were lithographed and hand colored. Artisans added their initials to the plates on which they worked.12 Between 1858 and 1860, Julius Bien (1826–1909) of New York, working with John Woodhouse Audubon, used chromolithography, in which a separate stone was used for each color, to publish a new double-elephant folio of The Birds of America. Because of the advent of the Civil War, however, this edition was halted after only 150 plates had been printed.13 In 1863, Lucy Audubon sold the original watercolors for The Birds of America to the New-York Historical Society.14

• Photography When, in 1887, George Bird Grinnell chose one of Audubon’s birds as the frontispiece for each issue of The Audubon Magazine, he had to print the image of the bird, not in color but in black and white, using the printing technologies of the mid-1880s. First, however, he had to photograph the plate and size it for the journal. Which edition of The Birds of America did Grinnell use and how did he make the photographs for printing? It seems clear that Grinnell used an unbound edition of the doubleelephant folio from which to photograph and then print his monthly birds. Th is can be discerned from the fact that in creating the octavo and chromolithograph plates, branches, twigs, leaves, cones, needles, and even birds were removed from the double-elephant images while the octavo plates were being copied, using the camera lucida, in order to achieve greater print clarity. Grinnell’s images all have the more complete backgrounds. Some of the octavo plates also contained the initials of the artisan who colored them, but Grinnell’s versions lack these initials. Additionally, the octavo and the Bien chromolithograph editions have captions in script below the image that contain the names of the birds and

Merchant-final.indb 252

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Producing Audubon’s Birds of America and Grinnell’s Monthly Birds • 253

plants and identifications of numbers (such as 1, 2, and 3, indicating, for example, male, adult male, young male, female, adult female, and young) on the prints. Grinnell’s monthly birds instead have the mid-1880s names of the birds, some of which differ from Audubon’s, inserted below the photographs. The unbound double-elephant folio that Grinnell seems to have used to photograph his monthly birds was probably located in New York City. Suzanne Low notes that, in 1839, when Robert Havell Jr. relocated to New York City, he brought with him several bound and unbound copies of the double-elephant folio. Bill Steiner states that there were “fi fteen extra sets that Audubon brought to America for speculative sale in late 1839, plus two personal sets kept by Audubon and Havell, plus another set that Audubon gave to Lucy’s sister [Eliza Bakewell] and her husband Nicholas Berthoud, plus two that were probably assembled later in America from loose prints.” Waldemar H. Fries, in The Double Elephant Folio: The Story of Audubon’s “Birds of America,” writes that in 1883 the New York Society Library (founded in 1754 and located at 53 East 79th St.) acquired a double-elephant folio “through the gift of Charles H. Contoit. . . . It appears to have been assembled from loose prints which had been brought over from England by Havell after completion of the engraving.” These may have been the prints that Grinnell used for photographs for The Audubon Magazine, or he himself probably owned a set of loose prints (see discussion later in this appendix).15 Separate from these double-elephant folios were Audubon’s original watercolors that Lucy Audubon sold to the New-York Historical Society in 1863, of which the society still has possession. Several of these watercolors, however, that were among the prints used by Grinnell for his monthly birds had elements such as flowers, twigs, and handwritten notations on the watercolor print itself that do not appear on the images printed by Grinnell. These elements and notations constitute differences between the original watercolors and the plates produced by Havell for the double-elephant folio. Such differences indicate that Grinnell presumably used Havell’s double-elephant folio prints rather than the original watercolors for the pictures he published in The Audubon Magazine.16 Before Grinnell could publish his monthly birds, however, he had to take black-and-white photographs from Audubon’s double-elephant folios. Bellowed cameras of the 1880s could be set on stands or tripods and the picture of the bird mounted on a wall or stand at a distance that allowed the bird to fi ll the image on the camera. By the 1880s cameras em-

Merchant-final.indb 253

4/28/16 8:35 PM

254 • Appendix 2

ployed dry-plate negatives that used gelatin to bind light-sensitive chemicals to glass plates, permitt ing the image to be captured on the plate. Presumably Grinnell, who, with the help of his assistants, was simultaneously publishing the weekly magazine Forest and Stream and the monthly The Audubon Magazine from his office at 40 Park Row in New York City, had access to the most recent photographic and publishing technology.17 With the photograph in hand, what then was the technology that Grinnell used to print his images of Audubon’s birds in The Audubon Magazine? At the time of the Civil War, photographs needed to be engraved before they could be published. In the 1870s, the heavily illustrated Daily Graphic of New York City made its reputation by publishing multiple engravings of cartoons, illustrations, and reproductions of paintings in each issue. In 1873, it published a photograph of Steinway Hall, identifying it as the “fi rst picture ever printed in a newspaper directly from a photograph. There has been no intervention of artist or engraver but the picture is transferred directly from a negative by means of our own patented process of ‘granulated photography.’” In 1880, the newspaper printed the fi rst halftone photograph. These developments set up the possibility that, by 1887, when Grinnell began publishing his monthly birds in The Audubon Magazine, they could have been printed directly from photographs.18 Evidence that Grinnell had access to, or more likely owned, copies of the double-elephant prints from which he made the photographs for The Audubon Magazine comes from an article he published in 1896, while still editor of Forest and Stream. In the lead article of the September 5, 1896, issue of that magazine, Grinnell stated: The most famous bird pictures in the world are those by America’s great artistornithologist John James Audubon. . . . The great work in which the plates are contained is now so extremely rare that, although we have all heard much of these Audubon pictures, few of us have had the privilege of seeing them. It is with decided satisfaction then that the Forest and Stream announces that a series of half-tone reproductions of selected Audubon bird plates will be given in forthcoming issues. The plates have been photographed especially for this purpose from a copy of the original double-elephant folio edition of this work, 1827–1835[8], in possession of a member of the Forest and Stream Publishing Company, and the results will be seen during the next few months by our readers.19

Between September 26, 1896, and June 25, 1898, using the latest photographic techniques, Forest and Stream printed nine of Audubons’s birds.

Merchant-final.indb 254

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Producing Audubon’s Birds of America and Grinnell’s Monthly Birds • 255

Unlike the birds printed a decade earlier in The Audubon Magazine, however, the birds chosen for this special treatment were all gamebirds. As Grinnell tells us, there were “several species of ducks—including the beautiful plate of the canvassback—two species of grouse and several of the waders.”20 The September 26, 1896, issue of Forest and Stream, under the section “Natural History,” stated: “Audubon Bird Plates. A series of reproductions of Audubon plates of game birds, from the original [that is, Double Elephant] edition, 1827–35]. Half-tone engravings from photographs made especially for Forest and Stream. The description of the Black Duck or Dusky Duck, which follows is from Audubon’s Ornithological Biography.”21 In the October 17, 1896, issue of Forest and Stream, Audubon’s granddaughter Maria R. Audubon, perhaps referring to the improved quality of the photographs over those printed in The Audubon Magazine, wrote, “Editor, Forest and Stream: In your issue of September 26, I notice your beautiful picture of the Black Duck and the announcement you make that it is one of a series to be published. . . . The reproductions to me are most satisfactory; they lack color, of course, but in every other respect are the best we have ever seen, and I think I may say that those of the Audubon family still remaining are much gratified with the fi rst of the series. M. R. Audubon.”22 Grinnell’s publication of the birds he selected from The Birds of America as the frontispiece for each issue of The Audubon Magazine thus depended on a chain of nineteenth-century technologies that began with Audubon’s portable art studio and his apparatus for wiring and posing birds for painting in watercolors and moved on to etching, engraving, and aquatint; to lithography and chromolithography; and fi nally to photography and mass printing.

Merchant-final.indb 255

4/28/16 8:35 PM

A PPEN D IX 3

Timeline: Alexander Wilson July 6, 1766–August 23, 1813

1766. Alexander Wilson born July 6, 1766, in Paisley, Scotland. Father is a weaver. 1776. At ten years of age is instructed by Mr. Burlas in letters and science. 1779. Apprenticed to Mr. William Duncan, in Paisley, as a weaver. 1789. First volume of poetry published by John Neilson. 1791. Ballad of “Watt y and Meg” published anonymously. Inspired by Scott ish poet Robert Burns. 1794. Leaves Scotland on May 23 for America with his nephew, William Duncan, aged sixteen. Arrives in United States on July 14. 1801. Works as schoolteacher in Schuykill, Pennsylvania, near Gray’s Ferry, about four miles from Philadelphia. Meets naturalist William Bartram (1739–1823), next-door neighbor, who encourages him to illustrate American birds. 1804. Begins traveling and serious study and illustrations of American birds. Reaches Niagara Falls, New York, in October. Returns to Philadelphia in December. 1805. Sends twenty-eight drawings to Bartram. Asks for advice. 1806. Hired by Samuel F. Bradford of Philadelphia, editor of Rees’ New Cyclopedia, as an assistant editor to superintend the encyclopedia. Bradford agrees to publish Wilson’s American Ornithology. Alexander Lawson agrees to engrave the illustrations. 1808. Enlists two hundred fi ft y subscribers for volume 1 of American Ornithology. Volume 1 is published. Travels in Northeast promoting his book—Philadelphia to Princeton, New Jersey; New York; New Haven, Connecticut; Hartford, Connecticut; Boston; Portland, Maine; Hanover, New Hampshire (Dartmouth College); Albany, New York; New York City; and back to Philadelphia.

• 256

1808–1809. Journeys through southern states—Philadelphia to Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington (meets Thomas Jefferson), Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, with return boat to New York, then to Philadelphia.

Merchant-final.indb 256

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Timeline: Alexander Wilson • 257 1810. Leaves Philadelphia in January and travels to Lancaster, arriving in Pitt sburgh in February. Buys boat on February 24, sails down Ohio River, reaches Louisville, Kentucky, on March 17. 1810. March. Meets John James Audubon in Audubon’s “counting room” in Louisville, Kentucky. Examines Audubon’s drawings on March 19 and goes shooting with him on March 21. 1810. March–August. Continues journey from Louisville to Lexington, Nashville, Natchez, and down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Returns via boat to New York, then to Philadelphia. 1810. Volume 2 of American Ornithology is published. 1811. Meets George Ord (1871–1866), who subsequently supports Wilson’s work and opposes Audubon. 1811. Volumes 3 and 4 of American Ornithology are published. 1812. Volumes 5 and 6 of American Ornithology are published. 1812. May. Trip to Cape May, New Jersey. 1812. August–September. Trip to New England. 1813. Volume 7 of American Ornithology is published in late April or early May. 1813. Trip to Egg Harbor, New Jersey, for four weeks, with George Ord. Catches a cold after swimming in cold water chasing after a bird. 1813. Volume 8 of American Ornithology goes to press in July. 1813. Wilson succumbs to dysentery and dies at age forty-seven on August 23. Buried in Gloria Dei Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. George Ord (1771–1866) is buried in adjacent plot. 1808–1814. The complete American Ornithology (9 vols.) is published over a six-year period. Volume 9 is completed and published in 1814 by George Ord with a preface on Alexander Wilson’s life. Illustrations of 268 species, including 28 new species. 1826. George Ord publishes Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson: Author of American Ornithology (Philadelphia: Harrison Hall). Calls Wilson “the Father of American Ornithology.” 1828–1829. Second edition of American Ornithology, prepared by George Ord and rearranged in systematic order by species, is published in four volumes in New York and Philadelphia. Volume 1 contains Ord’s Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson.

Merchant-final.indb 257

4/28/16 8:35 PM

A PPEN D IX 4

Timeline: John James Audubon April 26, 1785–January 27, 1851

Lucy Bakewell Audubon January 18, 1787–June 18, 1874

1785. John James Audubon born April 26 in Les Cayes, Saint-Dominigue (now Haiti). Illegitimate son of French lieutenant Jean Audubon and chambermaid Jeanne Rabine (d. 1785), both from Britt any, France. Named Jean Rabin. Was sent to New Orleans, then Nantes, France, where he was raised, along with his half-sister, Rose, by Jean Audubon’s wife, Anne Moynet Audubon. 1787. Lucy Green Bakewell, Audubon’s future wife, born January 18 in Burton-on-Trent, England, to William Bakewell and Lucy Green, m. February 1786. 1789. Audubon’s father, Jean Audubon, purchases a 284-acre farm in Mill Grove outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1791. The young Jean Rabin is sent to Nantes, France, to live with his father’s family. 1794. Audubon formally adopted by Jean Audubon and wife of many years, Anne Moynet Audubon, and renamed Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon. 1801. William Bakewell family moves to United States. 1803. Audubon moves back to the United States to the family home at Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, at age eighteen and anglicizes his name to John James Audubon. Begins studying and painting American birds. 1804. Bakewells move to Flatland Ford, Pennsylvania, near Mill Grove. Audubon meets Lucy Bakewell. 1805. Audubon returns to France to seek father’s permission to marry Lucy Bakewell and to sell a portion of Mill Grove farm. 1808. Marriage of John James Audubon and Lucy Bakewell on April 5. The couple moves to Louisville, Kentucky. 1809. Victor Gifford Audubon born on June 12.

• 258

1810. Visited in Louisville, Kentucky, by Alexander Wilson, ornithologist. Audubon declines to subscribe to Wilson’s American Ornithology.

Merchant-final.indb 258

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Timeline: John James Audubon and Lucy Bakewell Audubon • 259 1810. Audubon sets up a business in Henderson, Kentucky. 1812. Becomes a U.S. citizen. John Woodhouse Audubon born on November 30. 1816. Invests in steam-powered grist mill in Henderson. 1819. Business fails in Henderson. Goes bankrupt. 1820. Travels in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida to fi nd and paint birds. 1821. Arrives in New Orleans in January. Lucy joins him in December. 1822. Lucy Audubon employed as tutor for Anne Brand, wife of William Brand, in New Orleans. John James travels to Natchez, Mississippi, to seek portrait work. 1823. Lucy Audubon accepts teaching position at Percy Plantation in Beech Woods, West Feliciana, Louisiana. Earnings assist Audubon’s efforts to publish The Birds of America. 1824. Audubon travels to Philadelphia and New York to seek publisher for The Birds of America. Unsuccessful. Opposed by George Ord, editor of Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology. 1826. Audubon travels to England and Edinburgh to seek advanced subscriptions for and begin publication of The Birds of America. Arrives by boat in Liverpool. 1827. Lucy Audubon accepts teaching position at William Garrett Johnson Plantation in Beech Grove, West Feliciana, Louisiana. 1827–1838. Audubon publishes double-elephant folio (391/2- × 291/2-inch sheets) edition of The Birds of America, featuring hand-colored etchings with engraving and aquatint, in 44 parts, 435 plates, 1,065 life-sized images. Printed in London by Robert Havell. 1829. Returns to United States to paint additional birds. Convinces Lucy to join him in England. 1830. Returns to London with Lucy. Begins work on Ornithological Biography in Edinburgh, assisted by Lucy and by William MacGillivray. 1831. Publishes Ornithological Biography, volume 1, in Edinburgh. Returns to New York. 1831–1839. Publishes the five-volume Ornithological Biography in Edinburgh and Philadelphia. 1831–1832. Paints birds in Florida. Meets John Bachman in South Carolina. 1832–1833. Labrador cruise. 1834. Returns to England. Works on Ornithological Biography with Lucy and with William MacGillivray. 1837. John Woodhouse Audubon marries Maria Rebecca Bachman in June. They produce two children, Lucy and Harriet. 1839. Returns with Lucy to United States for last time and sett les in New York. 1839. Victor Gifford Audubon marries Mary Eliza Bachman in December. No children. 1840–1844. Octavo edition (61/2- × 101/2-inch plates) of The Birds of America published by James T. Bowen in Philadelphia, bound in seven-volume sets. Organized by species with text included and issued in one hundred sets of five each.

Merchant-final.indb 259

4/28/16 8:35 PM

260 • Appendix 4 1840. Maria Audubon, wife of John Woodhouse Audubon, dies of tuberculosis on September 15 at age twenty-three. 1841. John Woodhouse Audubon marries second wife, Caroline Hall. They produce seven children. Mary Eliza Bachman, wife of Victor Gifford Audubon, dies on May 25 at age twenty-two. Victor Gifford and second wife, Georgiana Richards Mallory, produce six children. 1841. Audubon purchases Audubon Park, a thirty-acre estate bordered by the Hudson River on the west, today’s Amsterdam Avenue on the east, and today’s 155th and 158th Streets on the north and south. Called “Minnie’s Land” (Scott ish term for mother) after Audubon’s name for Lucy. 1842. Audubons move into newly constructed home on banks of Hudson in April. 1845–1854. Publishes The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America with John Bachman, assisted by Victor Gifford Audubon in three imperial folios without text in London. 1848. Audubon’s health begins to fail. 1851. Audubon dies at family home in Audubon Park on January 27 at age sixty-six. 1852–1853. Victor Gifford Audubon and John Woodhouse Audubon build homes in Audubon Park. 1856. Victor Gifford Audubon publishes second octavo edition of The Birds of America. 1856–1871. Additional octavo editions of The Birds of America published (2nd in 1856, 3rd in 1859, 5th in 1861, 7th in 1870). 1857. Lucy Audubon at age seventy begins teaching school in Victor Gifford Audubon’s house in Audubon Park and continues teaching until age seventy-five. 1858–1860. John Woodhouse Audubon publishes chromolithographs of The Birds of America by New York printer Julius Bien. Production is halted by the advent of the Civil War, with only one hundred fi ft y plates completed. 1860. Victor Gifford Audubon dies on August 17 at age fi ft y-one. 1862. John Woodhouse Audubon dies on February 18 at age forty-nine. Lucy Audubon ends her teaching career at age seventy-five. 1863. Lucy Audubon sells Audubon Park (Minnie’s Land) and original watercolors for The Birds of America to meet debts. Moves to boardinghouse in Washington Heights, Upper Manhatt an, to live with a granddaughter. 1863–1867. Lucy Audubon assembles biography of John James Audubon with assistance of a friend, Reverend Charles Coffi n Adams, minister of St. Mary’s Church. Sends manuscript to London publisher, S. Low, Son and Marston, who engages Robert Buchanan to edit the manuscript. 1868. The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist is published in London by S. Low, Son and Marston, as edited by Robert Buchanan. Approximately onefi ft h of the manuscript is published. The remainder is either lost or destroyed. 1869. Lucy Audubon, in her own name, publishes the second edition of The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson in New York (G. Putnam and Son).

Merchant-final.indb 260

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Timeline: John James Audubon and Lucy Bakewell Audubon • 261 1873. Lucy leaves Washington Heights for Louisville, Kentucky, to live with a grandchild. Before leaving, bequeaths Audubon’s painting of “The Eagle and the Lamb” to George Bird Grinnell. 1874. Lucy Bakewell Audubon dies on June 18 at age eighty-seven in Shelbyville, Kentucky, in the home of her youngest brother, William Gifford Bakewell. Her ashes are later interred at John James Audubon’s monument in Audubon Park in New York City.

Merchant-final.indb 261

4/28/16 8:35 PM

A PPEN D IX 5

Timeline: George Bird Grinnell September 20, 1849–April 11, 1938

1849. Born September 20, 1849, in Brooklyn, New York, to George Blake Grinnell (1823– 1892) and Helen Lansing Grinnell (1827–1904). 1857. Moves to Audubon Park on the Hudson River in Upper Manhatt an. Attends school taught by Lucy Audubon until Lucy ends her teaching in 1862. 1863. Attends Churchill Military School in Ossining, New York. 1866. Enters Yale University in the fall. 1870. Earns BA from Yale. Works with Yale paleontologist O. C. Marsh; accompanies Marsh’s expedition to the West. 1872. Participates in last great hunt of the Pawnee. 1873. Forest and Stream, weekly magazine, founded in August by Charles Hallock. 1874. Grinnell accompanies George Armstrong Custer’s Black Hills expedition. 1875. Serves as naturalist and mineralogist with Colonel William Ludlow during trip to Yellowstone Park. 1876. Becomes natural history editor of Forest and Stream. Grinnell and his father begin purchasing stock in the company, gaining a controlling interest. 1877. Forest and Stream establishes a ladies’ department. 1880. Earns PhD in paleontology from Yale University. Takes control of Forest and Stream Publishing Company, becoming president of the company and editor of Forest and Stream. 1884. Becomes a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union’s (AOU) six-person Committee on the Protection of North American Birds (expanded to ten persons in 1885). 1885. Trip to St. Mary Lake, St. Mary, Montana (outside future Glacier National Park).

• 262

Merchant-final.indb 262

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Timeline : George Bird Grinnell • 263 1886. Founds the Audubon Society, named after John James Audubon. Announced in Feb. 11, 1886, issue of Forest and Stream. Calls for branch societies around the country. Incorporated in New York, August 1886. His occupation: Journalist, 40 Park Row, New York City, NY. 1886. “Model Law” for protection of birds published as supplement to Science by AOU. 1887. Trip to St. Mary Lake, St. Mary, Montana. 1887. Founds The Audubon Magazine. First issue released in February; begins editorials on life of John James Audubon. 1887. Founds the Boone and Crockett Club with Theodore Roosevelt. 1888. Membership of Audubon Society reaches 48,862 (just short of goal of 50,000). 1889. Cessation of Audubon Society and The Audubon Magazine. Announced in January issue. 1889. Writes Pawnee Hero Stories. 1891. Trip to St. Mary Lake, St. Mary, Montana. 1892. Writes Blackfoot Lodge Tales. 1894. Influential in passage of the “Act to Protect the Birds and Animals of Yellowstone National Park” that preserved the American bison. 1895. Writes The Story of the Indian. 1896. Massachusett s Audubon Society founded by Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and Minna B. Hall. 1897. Audubon Society of the District of Columbia cofounded by Florence Merriam Bailey. 1898. Connecticut Audubon Society founded by “a score of ladies.” Mabel Osgood Wright elected president. 1899. Bird-Lore, founded in February by Frank Chapman, editor, with title page: “Official Organ of the Audubon Societies” and “Audubon Department Edited by Mabel Osgood Wright.” 1899. Grinnell becomes member of the Harriman expedition to Alaska. 1902. Marries Elizabeth Curtis Williams on August 21. 1905. National Association of Audubon Societies founded. Grinnell on board of directors. 1905. American Bison Society founded, with William Hornaday as president, President Roosevelt as honorary president, Grinnell as member. 1910. Influential in establishing Glacier National Park; Grinnell craft s bill signed by President William Howard Taft . 1911. Grinnell steps down as editor of Forest and Stream. 1915. Publishes The Fighting Cheyenne. Forest and Stream under new leadership deteriorates from a weekly to a monthly publication. 1920. Publishes When Buffalo Ran.

Merchant-final.indb 263

4/28/16 8:35 PM

264 • Appendix 5 1923. Publishes The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Lifeways (2 vols.). 1925. President of the National Parks Association. Receives Theodore Roosevelt Gold Medal of Honor for distinguished service in promotion of conservation. 1928. Writes Two Great Scouts and Their Pawnee Battalion. 1930. Forest and Stream ceases publication. Absorbed by Field and Stream in June. 1938. George Bird Grinnell dies April 11.

Merchant-final.indb 264

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes

Chapter 1. Lucy and John James Audubon’s Influence on Grinnell 1. John Reiger, ed., The Passing of the Great West: Selected Papers of George Bird Grinnell (New York: Winchester Press, 1972), pp. 9–10. On the fact that the Grinnells were a respected, upper-class family, Reiger writes that the Grinnells were “an old and wealthy Eastern family.” See John Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation, 3rd ed. (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001), p. 51. Mark Barrow calls Grinnell a “patrician,” stating that “the fi rst Audubon Society was the brainchild of George Bird Grinnell, scientist, sportsman, patrician, and long time publisher of Forest and Stream.” See Mark V. Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology After Audubon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 117. Mathew Spady writes that the family had “impeccable New England pedigrees.” See Matt hew Spady, “Audubon Park Historic District,” htt p://www.audubonparkny.com/audubonparkbriefh istory.html: “In late 1856, George Blake Grinnell had leased Wellington Clapp’s house for three years and arrived in Audubon Park with his family New Year’s Day 1857. Blake Grinnell and his wife Helen had impeccable New England pedigrees stretching back to the Mayflower as well as social and political connections. Blake’s father had been a US Congressman for a decade, serving with Henry Clay, and Helen’s was a noted theologian, so they easily satisfied Lucy Audubon’s exacting standards for who would—and would not—be her neighbors.” For more on the history of Audubon Park, the Audubon Park Historic District, and the Grinnell and Audubon family trees, see Matt hew Spady, “Audubon Park Historic District,” htt p://www.audubonparkny.com/audubonparkintroduction-1001.html, htt p:// www.audubonparkny.com/index.html, htt p://www.audubonparkny.com/Grinnellfam ily.html, and htt p://www.audubonparkny.com/audubonfamily.html. 2. Carolyn E. Delatte, Lucy Audubon: A Biography, updated edition with a foreword by Christoph Irmscher (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), pp. 222– 223, 226.

Merchant-final.indb 265

• 265

4/28/16 8:35 PM

266 • Notes to Pages 4–16 3. Delatte, Lucy Audubon, p. 227. 4. George Bird Grinnell, “Some Audubon Letters,” The Auk 33, no. 2 (Apr. 1916): 119– 120. On his description of the ground dove, Grinnell cites the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club 3, no. 3 (1878): 147. 5. Reiger, Passing of the Great West, p. 11; see also p. 156n5. 6. Ibid, p. 23. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid, p. 22. 9. Ibid, pp. 17, 18, 19–20. 10. Reiger, American Sportsmen, pp. 48–49 and chap. 6. On the objectives of the Boone and Crockett Club, see [George Bird Grinnell], “The Boone and Crockett Club,” Forest and Stream 30, no. 7 (Mar. 8, 1888): 124. See also John Reiger, “Pathbreaking Conservationist: George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938),” Forest History Today (Spring/Fall 2005): 16–19; John Reiger, “An Inspiration to Us All: The Boone and Crockett Club’s Place in the History of American Conservation,” Fair Chase 19 (Fall 2004): 50–57. See chaps. 3 and 9 of this book. 11. John Reiger, personal communication, September 2014.

Chapter 2. Grinnell’s Audubon Society 1. On the history of efforts to preserve avifauna, see T. Gilbert Pearson, Fift y Years of Bird Protection in the United States (New York: National Association of Audubon Societies, 1933); Robert Welker, Birds and Men (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955); Robin W. Doughty, Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation: A Study in Nature Protection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); Frank Graham Jr., The Audubon Ark: A History of the National Audubon Society (New York: Knopf, 1990); Mark V. Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology After Audubon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), chap. 5, pp. 102–126; Jennifer Price, “When Women Were Women, Men Were Men, and Birds Were Hats,” in Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America (New York: Basic Books, 1999), chap. 2, pp. 57–109; Deborah Strom, ed., Bird Watching with American Women (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986); Jennifer Price, “Hats Off to Audubon,” Audubon 106, no. 5 (Nov.–Dec. 2004): 44–50; Scott Weidensaul, Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding (New York: Harcourt, 2007), chap. 5, pp. 145–186. 2. E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1993); Judy Arlene Hilkey, Character Is Capital: Success Manuals and Manhood in Gilded Age America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). On women’s roles in the nineteenth century, the cult of true womanhood, and the cult of domesticity, see Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820–1860,” American Quarterly 18 (Summer 1966): 151–174; Mary P. Ryan, “American Society and the Cult of Domesticity, 1830–1860” (PhD diss., University

Merchant-final.indb 266

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 16–18 • 267 of California, Santa Barbara, 1971); Mary P. Ryan, Womanhood in America: From Colonial Times to the Present (New York, F. Watt s, 1983); Nancy Cott , The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977); Glenda Riley, Women and Nature: Saving the Wild West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). 3. Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” in Report of the American Historical Association for 1893, pp. 199–227; Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 3rd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982), chap. 9. 4. Carolyn Merchant, “Women of the Progressive Conservation Movement, 1900– 1916,” Environmental Review 8 (Spring 1984): 57–85; Price, Flight Maps; Riley, Women and Nature; Suellen Hoy, Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Virginia J. Scharff, ed., Seeing Nature Through Gender: Development of Western Resources (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003); Susan R. Schrepfer, Nature’s Altars: Mountains, Gender, and American Environmentalism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005). 5. Andrea L. Smalley, “‘Our Lady Sportsmen’: Gender, Class, and Conservation in Sport Hunting Magazines, 1873–1920,” Journal of Gilded Age and Progressive Era 4, no. 4 (Oct. 2005): 355–380, quotation on p. 377; for example, see “To the Ladies,” Forest and Stream 1, no. 1 (Aug. 14, 1873): 10; “Our Lady Sportsmen,” Forest and Stream 1, no. 23 (Jan. 15, 1874): 361; “Our Ladies’ Department,” Forest and Stream 7, no. 23 (Jan. 11, 1877): 360; “Women’s Column,” Forest and Stream 13, no. 15 (Nov. 13, 1879): 809; “Woman Out of Doors,” Forest and Stream 43, no. 15 (Oct. 13, 1894): 309; “Women and Field Sports,” Forest and Stream 52, no. 21 (May 27, 1899): 404; “Woman in the Field,” Forest and Stream 72, no. 12 (Mar. 20, 1909): 427; “The Modern Sportswoman,” Forest and Stream 76, no. 16 (Apr. 22, 1911): 605. On the sportsman’s code of conduct, see John Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation, 3rd. ed. (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001), chap. 6. On conservation efforts, see James N. Levitt , “Conservation Innovation in America: Past, Present, and Future” (occasional papers, Institute for Government Innovation, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2003). 6. A gendered hierarchy existed between the sport hunting of large-game animals, market hunting, small-game and bird hunting, angling, and plant collecting. Reiger points out that “fi shing and hunting, particularly the latter, tended to be a male bastion,” but that “while the ‘gentle art’ of angling could be considered in some circumstances a legitimate pursuit for Victorian ladies, hunting was another matter.” See Reiger, American Sportsmen, pp. 65–66, quotations on pp. 65, 66. One of the objectives of the Boone and Crockett Club (founded by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell in 1887), an organization that admitted only men who had killed large-game animals, was “to promote the manly sport with the rifle.” (Forest and Stream 30, no. 7 [Mar. 8, 1888]: 124). On the association of big-game hunting with masculinity, see Callum Mckenzie, “The British Big-Game Hunting Tradition, Masculinity and Fraternalism with Particular Reference to the ‘The Shikar Club,’” The Sports Historian 20, no. 1 (2000): 70–96. On the techniques and methods of market hunting as opposed to sport hunting see htt p:// www.museum.state.il.us/RiverWeb/harvesting/harvest/waterfowl/tools_techniques

Merchant-final.indb 267

4/28/16 8:35 PM

268 • Notes to Pages 21–24 /market_hunting.html. For examples of the gendered association of women with the study of plants and men with animals, see Emily Hunter, “Women and Botany:” “Botanical field work was . . . more open to women because, unlike in zoology, it could be conducted without handling weapons or killing animals (seen as a male domain)” htt p:// nmnh.typepad.com/fieldbooks/2012/03/women-botany.html. 7. Adam Rome, “‘Political Hermaphrodites’: Gender and Environmental Reform in Progressive America,” Environmental History 11 (Jul. 2006): 440–463, esp. pp. 440–441, 447, 453, 449, 454, 455. 8. John Reiger, ed., The Passing of the Great West: Selected Papers of George Bird Grinnell (New York: Winchester Press, 1972), chap. 1, esp. pp. 21–25, on the formative role of Lucy Audubon on Grinnell’s consciousness; Michael Punke, Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2007), pp. 18–23, 27; Carolyn E. Delatte, Lucy Audubon: A Biography, updated edition with a foreword by Christoph Irmscher (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008). 9. Reiger, ed., Passing of the Great West, chap. 1, esp. pp. 17–21, 29–30, chaps. 2–4; Reiger, American Sportsmen, esp. chap. 6 on the Boone and Crockett Club; Punke, Last Stand, pp. 74–91; John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, 5 vols. (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831–1849 [1839]). 10. “The Slaughter of the Innocents,” Forest and Stream 20, no. 20 (Jun. 14, 1883): 387. 11. Welker, Birds and Men, pp. 196–199; Godey’s Ladies Book (Philadelphia: L. A. Godey, 1883); Doughty, Feather Fashions, pp. 14–31; Merchant, “Women of the Progressive Conservation Movement”; Price, Flight Maps, chap. 2, pp. 57–62. 12. Robert Welker writes, “Millinery hunters killed not only egrets, herons, gulls, and terns, but also cormorant, pelicans, frigate birds, ibises, and spoonbills. . . . A great variety of songbirds contributed to hat decoration, resulting in alarming decreases in many states.” Birds and Men, p. 198; see also Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, pp. 117–120; and Thomas R. Dunlap, who writes about how birds were divided roughly into three categories: game birds (such as ducks, geese, rails, and pheasants), harmful birds (such as crows, hawks, and birds of prey), and song and insectivorous birds (most other birds). Saving America’s Wildlife (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 12. See also George Bird Grinnell, “The Audubon Bird Law,” Forest and Stream 65, no. 8 (Jul. 15, 1905): 41. 13. Merchant, “Women of the Progressive Conservation Movement”; Price, Flight Maps, chap. 2, pp. 57–109. 14. Reiger, American Sportsmen, pp. 48–49. 15. Punke, Last Stand, pp. 109–110; Doughty, Feather Fashions, pp. 103–104; Charles Hallock, “Spare the Birds,” Forest and Stream 4, no. 7 (Mar. 25, 1875): 104; Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, p. 117. 16. [George Bird Grinnell], “Spare the Swallows,” Forest and Stream 21, no. 7 (Sept. 13, 1883): 121. Grinnell made it his practice not to sign his editorials. See also articles on “Ruffed Grouse,” Forest and Stream 21, no. 7 (Sept. 13, 1883): 121; “Shore Bird Shooting,” Forest and Stream 21, no. 7 (Sept. 13, 1883): 121; and “The Egret,” Forest and Stream 22, no. 3 (Feb. 14, 1884): 44.

Merchant-final.indb 268

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 24–27 • 269 17. Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 106; James Whorton, Before “Silent Spring”: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974). 18. The article “Preservation of Song Birds” says, “Let anyone walking our streets notice the ladies’ hats and he will have strong reason for doubting the sincerity of the fair sex.” Forest and Stream 22, no. 10 (Apr. 3, 1884): 183. See also “Protecting Song Birds,” Forest and Stream 22, no. 11 (Apr. 10, 1884): 203. 19. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Sacrifice of Song Birds,” Forest and Stream 23, no. 2 (Aug. 7, 1884): 21. 20. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Destruction of Small Birds,” Forest and Stream 23, no. 2 (Aug. 7, 1884): 24; [George Bird Grinnell], “Small Bird Destruction,” Forest and Stream 23, no. 7 (Sept. 11, 1884): 123. 21. “Allen’s Specialties,” advertisement, Forest and Stream 23, no. 18 (Nov. 27, 1884): 360. 22. Homo [C. S. Westcott], “Bay Bird Movements,—Philadelphia, Aug. 2,” Forest and Stream 25, no. 2 (Aug. 6, 1885): 27. 23. J. A. Allen, “The Present Wholesale Destruction of Bird-Life in the United States,” Science 7 (1886): 191–193; Doughty, Feather Fashions, pp. 54, 59, 103–104; Reiger, American Sportsmen, pp. 98–104; Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, pp. 117–120. 24. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 3 (Feb. 11, 1886): 41. 25. Ibid. For Grinnell’s report of statistics, see his editorial, “The Sacrifice of Song Birds,” Forest and Stream 23, no. 2 (Aug. 7, 1884): 21. 26. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 3 (Feb. 11, 1886): 41. 27. Ibid. On the history of the protection of game birds and the sportsman code of hunting, see Reiger, American Sportsmen, esp. chaps. 1 and 2. See also this statement in The Audubon Magazine: “The Audubon Society aims especially to preserve those birds which are now practically without protection. Our game birds are already protected by law, and in large measure by public sentiment, and their care may be left to the sportsman. The great aim of the Society is the protection of American non-game birds. The English sparrow is not included in our lists.” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1886): 20. The terms of membership were as follows: “The signing of any of the pledges will qualify one for membership in the Society. It is earnestly desired that each member may sign all three of the pledges. Beyond the promise contained in the pledge no obligation nor responsibility is incurred. There are no fees, nor dues, nor any expenses of any kind. There are no conditions as to age. The boys and girls are invited to take part in the work, for they can often do more than others to practically protect the nesting birds. All who are interested in the subject are invited to become members, and to urge their friends to join the Society. If each man, woman or child who reads this circular will exert his or her influence, it will not take long to enlist in the good work a great number of people actively concerned in the protection of our birds. It is desired that members may be enrolled in every town and village throughout the land, so that by the moral weight of its influence this Society may check the slaughter of our beautiful songsters. The beneficent influence of the Audubon Society should be exerted in every remotest by-way where the songs of birds fi ll the air, and in every crowded city where the plumes of slain songsters are worn

Merchant-final.indb 269

4/28/16 8:35 PM

270 • Notes to Pages 27–31 as an article of dress.” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1886): 20. Each person who signed a pledge would receive a certificate of membership bearing the portrait of John James Audubon. 28. George Bird Grinnell wrote, “Men and boys scour a district during spring, summer and autumn, killing off all the permanent residents and a large proportion of the migrants. . . . For many years the slaughter of the buffalo went on unchecked, and to the demand for protection .  .  . came the reply that there were millions of them, that they blackened the plains, and could never be killed off . A few years went by, and one day the dwellers in the buffalo range awoke to fi nd that there were no more buffalo. A year or two later the information spread through the country at large. As with the buffalo, so with the elk and the antelope and other large game.” “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 4 (Feb. 18, 1886): 61. 29. Grinnell commented that “the encouraging letters which we receive in regard to the establishment of the Audubon Society are most gratifying. . . . To enlist the aid of every individual who has a love of nature and admires the beautiful birds, is now our object. . . . No expense whatever will att ach to membership in the Audubon Society.” “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 5 (Feb. 25, 1886): 83. 30. Henry Ward Beecher, Letter 3, Forest and Stream 26, no. 5 (Feb. 25, 1886): 83. 31. John Greenleaf Whitt ier, Letter 1, Forest and Stream 26, no. 5 (Feb. 25, 1886): 83. 32. G. E. Gordon, Letter 6, Forest and Stream 26, no. 6 (Mar. 4, 1886): 104. 33. Frank M. Chapman, “Birds and Bonnets,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 5 (Feb. 25, 1886): 84; Price, Flight Maps, chap. 2, pp. 57–61. 34. Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, pp. 37, 102–106, 132. 35. As J. A. Allen said, “Let us say that these 10,000,000 bird wearers have but a single bird each, that those birds made over so as to do service for more than a single season, and still what an annual sacrifice of bird life is entailed! Can it be placed at less than 5,000,000—ten times more than the number of specimens extant in all our scientific collections, private and public together, and probably a thousand times greater than the annual destruction of birds (including also eggs) for scientific purposes? . . . The ornithologist recognizes in the heterogeneous groups of birds on women’s hats, met with on every hand, a great preponderance of North American species; but with them are many of the common birds of Europe and a far greater variety from South America, and many from Africa, Australia, New Guinea, and India.” “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 7 (Mar. 11, 1886): 124. See also Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, pp. 108–115. 36. Midy Morgan, letter to the editor, Forest and Stream 26, no. 6 (Mar. 4, 1886): 104. 37. [George Bird Grinnell], Forest and Stream 26, no. 8 (Mar. 18, 1886): 144. 38. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Progress of the Work,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 9 (Mar. 25, 1886): 161. 39. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 11 (Apr. 8, 1886): 203. 40. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 18 (Apr. 22, 1886): 243. 41. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 15 (May 6, 1886): 283. 42. [George Bird Grinnell], “Song Birds and Statistics,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 22 (Jun. 24, 1886): 425.

Merchant-final.indb 270

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 31–33 • 271 43. [George Bird Grinnell], “The First Ten Thousand Roll of Audubon Society Members,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 22 (Jun. 24, 1886): 425; [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 17 (May 20, 1886): 327. 44. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 18 (May 27, 1886): 347; F. A. M. [Florence A. Merriam (Bailey)], Letter (Jun. 19, 1886, Smith College, Northampton, MA), Forest and Stream 26, no. 23 (Jul. 1, 1886): 446; Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, pp. 118–119. On Florence Merriam Bailey, see note 57 of this chapter. On Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, see htt p://www.une.edu/mwwc/research/eckstormf.asp . Eckstorm published two books on birds in 1901 and several books on Maine folklore and Native American ways of life. 45. [George Bird Grinnell], “Concerning Consistency,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 24 (Jul. 8, 1886): 465. See also Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, p. 120. 46. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 27, no. 4 (Aug. 19, 1886): 64. The text reads: “The Audubon Society. Within the fi rst six months of its existence the Audubon Society has att ained a membership of more than eleven thousand. . . . It is the purpose of Forest and Stream that the Audubon Society shall be permanently established. . . . As one step in this direction the Society has been incorporated, the certificate being as follows. Certificate of Incorporation of the Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds.” 47. [George Bird Grinnell], “American Ornithologists’ Union,” Forest and Stream 27, no. 17, (Nov. 18, 1886): 322. 48. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” quotation from “Harper’s Weekly,” Forest and Stream 27, no. 10 (Sept. 30, 1886): 185. 49. [George Bird Grinnell], “Snipe Decoration,” Forest and Stream 27, no. 15 (Nov. 4, 1886): 281. 50. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Magazine,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887), quotation on p. 5. See also [George Bird Grinnell], “A Review,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 15; and [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 20–21. For the quotation regarding the terms of membership in the Society and its lack of dues, see [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): “The signing of any of the pledges will qualify one for membership in the Society. . . . Beyond the promise contained in the pledge no obligation nor responsibility is incurred. There are no fees, no dues, nor any expenses of any kind. There are no conditions as to age” (p. 21). For the magazine subscription rate, however, of fi ft y cents per year and six cents per issue, see the cover of each issue. Grinnell commented on the subscription rate as follows: “To spread the Audubon movement as widely as possible, and in every way to foster its growth, is the purpose of the Magazine. Th is can best be done by giving it the wisest possible currency, and it is hoped that each one who is interested in the Society’s work will not only send in a subscription, but will induce others to do the same. The price being merely nominal can at best only cover the cost of production, while a large subscription will do much to instruct young and old in the important part played by our birds in the economy of Nature.” [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Magazine,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 5. 51. [George Bird Grinnell], “A Review,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 15–16, quotation on p. 15. A formal notice titled “The Audubon Society for the Protection

Merchant-final.indb 271

4/28/16 8:35 PM

272 • Notes to Pages 33–35 of Birds,” listing George Bird Grinnell as president pro tem and others as honorary vice presidents and a secretary, appeared on pages 20–21. For the Grinnell family tree, see htt p://gw.geneanet.org/tdowling?lang=en&p=george+bird&n=grinnell&oc=0. For the Audubon family tree, see htt p://www.audubonparkny.com/audubonfamily.html. 52. [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 3–5, portrait on p. 2. For subsequent installments, see vol. 1, pp. 27, 51, 75, 99, 147, 171, 212. See also “The Character of John James Audubon,” vol. 1, pp. 197, 219; “Incidents of Audubon’s Life,” vol. 1, p. 243; “Portrait of Audubon,” vol. 1, p. 266; and R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubon Sketches,” The Auk 1 (Oct. 1886): 265, and vol. 2, p. 3. The biography of John James Audubon that was serialized in the fi rst eight issues of The Audubon Magazine was Grinnell’s own, as it was his custom to leave his own materials and editorials unsigned. He drew on Audubon’s own account of his life and travels in Audubon’s five-volume Ornithological Biography, published between 1831 and 1839, and on Lucy Audubon’s account of her husband’s life based on his diaries (see chapter 2 of this book). See also notes to ch. 4 of this book. 53. Celia Th axter, “Woman’s Heartlessness,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 13–14, quotation on p. 13. Sharon L. Dean wrote, “Th axter’s love for birds led her to become an active member of the Audubon Society and to write for the 1887 Audubon Magazine an article titled ‘Woman’s Heartlessness’ that opposed the use of bird feathers for hat decorations.” Isles of Shoals Study Guide, www.nhpr.org/fi les/IslesOf ShoalsStudyGuide.pdf, Department of English and Communications, Rivier College, Nashua, NH, p. 5. On Thaxter’s publications, see Dean, “Isles of Shoals Study Guide”; Celia Th axter, Among the Isles of Shoals (Boston: JR Osgood, 1873; Rpt. Hanover: Univ. Press of New England, 2003; 1894); Celia Th axter, An Island Garden (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1988); Rosamond Th axter, Sandpiper: The Life and Letters of Celia Thaxter (Francestown, NH: Marshall Jones, 1963); Celia Th axter, Selected Writings and Anthology, ed. Julia Older (Hancock, NH: Appledore Books, 1998); Jane E. Vallier, Poet on Demand: The Life, Letters and Works of Celia Thaxter (Camden, ME: Down East Books/Peter Randall, 1982). 54. As Celia Th axter commented, “I would the birds could all emigrate to some friendlier planet, peopled by a nobler race than ours, where they might live their sweet lives unmolested, and be treated with the respect, the consideration and the grateful love when are their due. . . . We venture to hope for a better future. . . when women . . . will look upon the wearing of birds in its proper lights, namely as a sign of heartlessness and a mark of ignominy and reproach.” Th axter, “Woman’s Heartlessness,” quotation on p. 14. 55. [George Bird Grinnell], “A Review,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 16. 56. “The A.O.U. Bird Protective Committee,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 3 (Apr. 1887): 55–56. 57. Florence Merriam [Bailey], “Hints to Audubon Workers: Fift y Common Birds and How to Know Them,” serialized in The Audubon Magazine 1, nos. 5–12 (Jun. 1887– Dec. 1888), and The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1888); Florence Merriam [Bailey], Birds Through an Opera Glass (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1891 [New York: Chautauqua, 1889]). A preface and note to Merriam [Bailey’s] Birds Through an Opera Glass states that “many of the articles herein contained were published in the Audubon magazine in 1886. These have been revised and largely rewritten” (p. vii). An 1899 reprint of Merriam [Bai-

Merchant-final.indb 272

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 35–37 • 273 ley’s] Birds Through an Opera Glass (with the title page as “New York: The Chautauqua Press”), from the Riverside Press, Cambridge, MA, printed by H. O. Houghton, contains a new introduction by Florence Merriam [Bailey], dated Washington, DC, May 11, 1899, acknowledging the “State Audubon Societies and their official organ, ‘Bird-Lore,’” in which the above preface and note do not appear. See also Carolyn Merchant, American Environmental History: An Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), pp. 216–217; Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, pp. 130–131, 156–157. 58. For examples, see The Audubon Magazine 1, nos. 3–8 (May–Oct. 1887). 59. “Wholesale Destruction of Birds in Florida,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 8 (Oct. 1887): 178–180, quotation on p. 180. 60. W. M. Chauvenet, “How I Learned to Love and Not to Kill,” The Audubon Magazine 2 no. 4 (May 1888): 79–81, quotations on p. 80. 61. “Reintroduction of Feather Millinery,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 10 (Nov. 1888): 207–208, quotations on p. 208. 62. [George Bird Grinnell], “Discontinuance of the ‘Audubon Magazine,’” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 12 (Jan. 1889): 262. 63. Membership in the Audubon Society from the outset had been free of charge. As Grinnell stated, “The signing of any of the pledges will qualify one for membership in the Society. It is earnestly desired that each member may sign all three of the pledges. Beyond the promise contained in the pledge no obligation nor responsibility is incurred. There are no fees, nor dues, nor any expenses of any kind. There are no conditions as to age.” [George Bird Grinnell], “Discontinuance of the ‘Audubon Magazine,’” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 12 (Jan. 1889): 262. See also [George Bird Grinnell], “The Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 20. On membership roles over the two years of the magazine’s existence, see Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 102. Doughty notes that although membership in the society was free, initially a charge was proposed for the magazine. He wrote that “a year after Grinnell had founded the Audubon movement, open free of charge to anyone willing ‘to cooperate in any degree for bird protection,’ the Forest and Stream Publishing Company (of which Grinnell was president) began to publish The Audubon Magazine. Each copy cost six cents and members were asked to contribute fi ft y cents a year to help off set printing costs.” (Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 100). But although the fi rst issue of The Audubon Magazine had indeed contained the following notice concerning the cost of the magazine (as opposed to the cost of joining the Society), that notice did not reappear in subsequent issues: “It is hoped that all friends of the Audubon movement will do what lies in their power to increase the circulation of the Audubon Magazine. . . . The price, fi ft y cents a year, brings it within the reach of all, and no doubt the many who are interested in the Audubon movement and feel willing to contribute to the good end which the Society has in view, will feel inclined to spread its influence by subscribing to several copies of the Magazine for the benefit of friends whose interest they may desire to awaken. Specimen copies will be sent to any address on receipt of 6 cents.” See [George Bird Grinnell], The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 22. 64. Reiger, American Sportsmen, p. 101; see also T. Gilbert Pearson, who wrote, “Th rough the columns of his magazine, ‘Forest and Stream,’ [Grinnell] began to enroll members who would sign a pledge, either not to kill birds or not to wear their feathers.

Merchant-final.indb 273

4/28/16 8:35 PM

274 • Notes to Pages 37–40 The signers were mostly school children. By November 30, 1888, the membership numbered 48,518. No fees were asked. The correspondence became burdensome, and in January 1889, ‘Forest and Stream’ dropped the Audubon Society and did not again mention it for seven years.” Fift y Years of Bird Protection, p. 201. 65. [George Bird Grinnell], “Discontinuance of the ‘Audubon Magazine,’” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 12 (Jan. 1889): 262. 66. Minna B. Hall, “A New Audubon Society,” letter to the editor, Forest and Stream 46, no. 16 (Apr. 18, 1896): 314; Welker, Birds and Men, pp. 189, 207; Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, chap. 6, pp. 127–153; Price, Flight Maps, chap. 2, pp. 62–91. 67. Harriet D. C. Glover, “The Audubon Societies: Reports of the Societies—The Connecticut Society,” Bird-Lore 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1899): 30–31; Mabel Osgood Wright, The Friendship of Nature: A New England Chronicle of Birds and Flowers (New York: Macmillan, 1894); Mabel Osgood Wright, Birdcraft: A Field Book of Two Hundred Song, Game, and Water Birds (New York, Macmillan, 1895); Mabel Osgood Wright, Citizen Bird: Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for Beginners (New York: Macmillan, 1897); Mabel Osgood Wright, Birds of Village and Field: A Bird Book for Beginners (New York: Houghton Miffl in, 1898). On Mabel Osgood Wright, see Thomas R. Dunlap, In the Field, Among the Feathered: A History of Birders and Their Guides (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 32–33. 68. M. O. W. [Mabel Osgood Wright], “The Audubon Societies: Directory of State Audubon Societies,” Bird-Lore 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1899): 28–29; Welker, Birds and Men, 187–192; Paul Brooks, “Birds and Women,” Audubon 82, no. 5 (Sept. 1980): 88–97. 69. Olive Thorne Miller, Bird Ways (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1885); Olive Thorne Miller, In Nesting Time (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1888); Olive Thorne Miller, Little Brothers in the Air (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1892); Olive Thorne Miller, A Bird Lover in the West (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1894); Merriam [Bailey], Birds Through an Opera Glass; Florence Merriam [Bailey], A-Birding on a Bronco (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1896); Neltje Blanchan, Bird Neighbors (New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1897); Neltje Blanchan, Birds That Hunt and Are Hunted: Life Histories of One Hundred and Seventy Birds of Prey, Game Birds and Water-Fowls (New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1898). 70. M. O. W. [Mabel Osgood Wright], “The Audubon Societies: Directory of State Audubon Societies,” Bird-Lore 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1899): 28–29; Dunlap, In the Field, pp. 22–24; Welker, Birds and Men, pp. 187–192; Brooks, “Birds and Women,” pp. 88–97. In 1931 BirdLore became Audubon Magazine and in 1966 simply Audubon. The National Audubon Society, formed in 1940, remained independent of some of the state societies; see Reiger, American Sportsmen, pp. 101–104. On the National Audubon Society, see also Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, pp. 127–128, 132–133; Price, Flight Maps, pp. 62–63; Graham, Audubon Ark, chap. 2; Merchant, American Environmental History, p. 264. On the roles of women as secretaries and vice presidents, see Merchant, “Women of the Progressive Conservation Movement,” pp. 69–73, esp. p. 70. 71. “New York Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 52, no. 18 (Apr. 1, 1899): 243. 72. Ibid. For a discussion of Roosevelt and this passage, see Rome, “Political Hermaphrodites,” pp. 440–463, esp. p. 449. For a vivid portrayal of Roosevelt and his passion for birds, see Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), prologue, pp. 1–21.

Merchant-final.indb 274

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 40–46 • 275 73. “New York Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 52, no. 18 (Apr. 1, 1899): 243. 74. William Dutcher, “The New Feather Law,” Bird-Lore 15, no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1913): 399–400; see p. 400 for a discussion and photograph of “the Audubon Hat.” Dutcher writes, “The hat is surely becoming in every way. On the inside it bears the label, ‘Audubon Hat: Save the Birds’” (p. 400). Carolyn Merchant, “Women of the Progressive Conservation Crusade,” in Kendall Bailes, ed., Environmental History: Critical Issues in Comparative Perspective (New York: University Press of America, 1985), pp. 153–75, esp. pp. 159–161. 75. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, htt ps://www.fws.gov/laws/lawsdigest /migtrea.html; Barrow Jr., A Passion for Birds, p. 133; Kurkpatrick Dorsey, “The Migratory Bird Treaty,” Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy, U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era, foreword by William Cronon (Seatt le: University of Washington Press, 1998), part 3, pp. 165–237. See also Price, Flight Maps, pp. 65–73.

Chapter 3. Introduction to Grinnell’s Writings 1. [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 3–5, portrait on p. 2. For subsequent installments, see vol. 1, pp. 27–28, 51– 52, 75–77, 99–100, 123–124, 147–149, 171–173. See also “The Character of John James Audubon,” vol. 1, pp. 195–197, 219–221; “Incidents of Audubon’s Life,” vol. 1, p. 243–245; R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches,” vol. 1, pp. 265–271, including a “Portrait of Audubon by Himself,” p. 266 (reproduced from Robert W. Shufeldt, “On an Old Portrait of Audubon Painted by Himself and a Word about Some of His Early Drawings,” The Auk 3, no. 4 [Oct. 1886]: 417–420); and R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches,” vol. 2, pp. 2–6 (reproduced from Shufeldt, “On an Old Portrait of Audubon”). The biography of John James Audubon that was serialized in the fi rst eight issues of The Audubon Magazine was Grinnell’s own, as it was his custom to leave his own materials and editorials unsigned. 2. Lucy Audubon, The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson (New York: G. Putnam and Son, 1869; copyrighted 1868 by Mrs. J. Audubon). 3. John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, 5 vols. (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831–1849 [1839]; Philadelphia: E. I. Carey and A. Hart, 1832–1839, vol. 1, 1832). Audubon writes in the introduction to volume 1 of the Ornithological Biography that his fellow ornithologist and friend William MacGillivray of Edinburgh assisted with some of the scientific details of the bird descriptions and with smoothing out his English in his accounts of his adventures: “Mr. William MacGillivray . . . has aided me, not in drawing the figures of my Illustrations, not in writing the book now in your hand, although fully competent for both tasks, but in completing the scientific details, and smoothing down the asperities of my Ornithological Biograph[y]” (see p. xix). 4. Mrs. Horace St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World. His Adventures and Discoveries (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1856). Th ree years

Merchant-final.indb 275

4/28/16 8:35 PM

276 • Notes to Pages 46–47 earlier, in 1853, the same publisher had brought out the book of her future husband, Horace St. John (1832–1888), whom she would marry in 1855. See Horace St. John, The Indian Archipelago: Its History and Present State (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1853). The author dedicated this book to Thomas Roscoe, his wife’s father. Citations to Mrs. Horace St. John often give her birth and death dates as those of her husband, that is, 1832–1888 (sometimes 1830–1888), but her actual dates are not listed. Regarding her other publications, the title page of Mrs. Horace St. John, Masaniello of Naples: The Record of a Nine Days Revolution (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1865), states that she is the “author of ‘Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World,’ ‘Englishwomen and the Age, etc.’” Her biography is mentioned briefly by Francis Hobart Herrick in the introduction to his book, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1938; originally published 1917), p. 17. He describes it rather disparagingly as a “slender volume” that had to be corrected by the American publishers, and states that the most interesting thing about it is the woodcut of Audubon’s home on the flyleaf. He also appropriated a truncated form of her title for his own. 5. On “W. Roscoe, Esq. Toxteth Park, near Liverpool,” as a subscriber, see Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, end matter, “Names of Subscribers,” p. 15, line 5 (HathiTrust, digital edition, p. 556). On Mrs. Horace St. John, see htt p://www.geni.com /people/Jane-St-John/6000000013572863324: “Jane Elizabeth St John (Roscoe). Birthdate, circa 1830; Died March 11, 1906 in Penge Croydon, England. Daughter of Thomas Roscoe and Elizabeth Roscoe. Wife of Horace Stebbing Roscoe St. John.” See also htt ps:// en.wikisource.org/wiki/St._ John,_Horace_Stebbing_Roscoe_%28DNB00%29 (quoting from George Clement Boase, “St. John, Horace Stebbing Roscoe,” in Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, vol. 50 [London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1885–1901]): “His wife, a daughter of Thomas Roscoe [q.v.], was author of: 1. ‘Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World: his Adventures and Discoveries,’ 1856; new edit., revised, Boston, 1856. 2. ‘Englishwomen and the Age,’ 1860. 3. ‘Masaniello of Naples: The Record of a Nine Days Revolution,’ 1865. 4. ‘The Court of Anna Carafa: an historical narrative,’ 1872.” 6. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, p. xiv. See also Alice Ford, The 1826 Journal of John James Audubon, transcribed with an introduction and notes from the original in the collection of Henry Bradley Martin (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), pp. 45–129, 172–189; Alice Ford, John James Audubon (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), chap. 17, pp. 167–178; Richard Rhodes, John James Audubon: The Making of an American (New York: Vintage, 2006), chap. 17, pp. 249–263. 7. Roger Tory Peterson and Virginia Marie Peterson, Audubon’s Birds of America: The National Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio (New York: Abbeville Press, 1981, 1991), plate 370, common yellowthroat (Roscoe’s yellowthroat), and plate 344, yellow warbler (Rathbone warbler). 8. On William Roscoe’s life, see htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Roscoe. 9. William Roscoe, Monandrian Plants of the Order Scitamineae, Chiefly Drawn from Living Specimens in the Botanic Gardens at Liverpool, Arranged According to the System of Linnaeus with Descriptions and Observations (Liverpool: George Smith, 1828), folio with 112 hand-colored lithographed plates; htt p://www.antiquariaatjunk.com/item .php?item=7927, and htt p://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/43734#/summary. See also Thomas Allport, James Dixon, and Emily Fletcher, Monandrian Plants of

Merchant-final.indb 276

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Page 48 • 277 the Order Scitamineae Chiefly Drawn from Living Specimens in the Botanic Garden at Liverpool, Arranged According to the System of Linnaeus with Descriptions and Observations by William Roscoe, reprint (Charleston, SC: Bibliolife/Nabu Press, 2011). On the process of preparing Audubon’s double-elephant plates, colored plates, and the subsequent process of lithography, see Thomas R. Dunlap, who described it this way, “An artist traced the lines of Audubon’s original painting onto a sheet of paper; then a printer transferred them to a copper plate. Engravers cut the lines into the metal or etched them with acid, adding shading by another process involving heating powered rosin on the plate and treating it again with acid. The printer inked the fi nished plate and ran it through the press to produce a black line print that watercolorists—Audubon’s printer had fi ft y in his shop—fi lled in according to a master drawing. The result was exquisite art at exquisite prices. Audubon estimated it cost $155,640, in modern terms more than $2 million, to make 170 to 200 complete sets. The smaller and less expensive octavo editions for the mass market used a new process, lithography: the lines of the painting were traced with crayon on a specially prepared stone, which was then treated with ink; the stone absorbed the ink only on the crayon marks, and a paper was pressed on the stone to make the image. Lithography did away with the difficult skilled labor of cutt ing lines into metal and allowed quick repairs, but each color still required its own stone and careful alignment of the paper. The process remained, at least for good-quality reproductions, too expensive for general use.” In the Field, Among the Feathered: A History of Birders and Their Guides (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 30–31. On Audubon’s drawing techniques and lithography as a production process, see also William Souder, Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of the Birds of America (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2004), pp. 71–72, 99–102, 134, 208–209, 233–234. For more details, see appendix 2 of this book. 10. On Thomas Roscoe, see htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Roscoe. A note states that “Roscoe married, or cohabited with, Elizabeth Edwards, and had seven children, including Jane Elizabeth St. John, writer and wife of Horace Stebbing Roscoe St. John.” 11. An obituary notice from 1888, “Mr. Horace Stebbing Roscoe St. John,” states that he was born on July 6, 1830, at Cormeille, near Caen, Normandy, France, and died February 29, 1888, at 18 Thornsett Road, Anerley Surrey, England. But the accompanying news article states that he was born in 1832: “Mr. Horace Stebbing Roscoe St. John who died on the 29th ult. at his residence at Anerley, Surrey, was one of several brothers all of whom have distinguished themselves in literature. . . . St. John was born in Normandy, in 1832. Educated chiefly by his father, who was an oriental scholar, deceased, followed in his steps and wrote a ‘History of British Conquests in India,’ which was published in 1852 in two volumes. He also wrote a ‘Life of Christopher Columbus,’ and in 1853 issued ‘The Indian Archipelago; its History and Present State.’ Mr. St. John subsequently became connected with the London Daily Press. He married the daughter of Mr. Thomas Roscoe, and granddaughter of William Roscoe, of Liverpool, the well-known historian. Mr[s]. St. John was the author of a ‘Life of Audubon,’ a ‘Life of Masaniello,’ and other works.” htt p://middleton-stjohns.com/wiki/Horace_Roscoe_St.John. Note that the “Mr.” in this last sentence is evidently a typo and should read “Mrs.,” as a related notice states: “Jane Elizabeth Rosco [sic], known as Mrs. Horace Roscoe St. John was born

Merchant-final.indb 277

4/28/16 8:35 PM

278 • Notes to Pages 49–52 in London, daughter of Thomas Roscoe (1791–1871), author, and Elizabeth Edwards. No Children.” 12. St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist, p. 157; Mrs. Horace St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World: His Adventures and Discoveries (New York: C. S. Francis and Co., 1856), p. 187. 13. Ibid., p. 7. 14. Ibid., pp. v–vi. Charles Waterton (1782–1865) was an English naturalist and explorer who met Audubon once in Philadelphia and entered into a disagreement over the details of Audubon’s descriptions of birds. Audubon did not participate in the argument but instead left his defense to his friends. On Charles Waterton, see htt p:// overtown.org.uk/cw/Charles_Waterton/audubon.html, and htt p://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Charles_Waterton. 15. A Wikipedia article explains that “St. John’s Wood was part of the Great Forest of Middlesex in the medieval period. From 1323 the land was owned by the Knights of the Order of St. John, after whom the area is named, but at the Dissolution of the Monasteries it passed to the Crown. In 1732 the site was sold to Henry Samuel Eyre, and in the 18th  century it was agricultural land on two fields called Great Garden Field and Willow Tree Field. The area began to be developed in the 19th century, and St John’s Wood Church and burial ground were consecrated in 1814. The burial ground was closed in 1855, and converted to a public garden in 1886. There are thought to be around 50,000 graves, including those of the artist John Sell Cotman and the prophetess Joanna Southcott .” htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._ John%27s_Wood_Church_Grounds. 16. St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist. 17. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, p. 29. In 1926, Francis Hobart Herrick extracted the accounts of Audubon’s adventures and published them under Audubon’s name. John James Audubon, Delineations of American Scenery and Character, introduction by Francis Hobart Herrick (New York: G. Baker, 1926). 18. St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist, quotation on pp. 4–5. 19. St. John, Audubon, The Naturalist, chap. 1, pp. 5–8. On his Pennsylvania “plantation” and marriage, see chap. 2, pp. 9, 11–12. Compare Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. vii–viii; on his Pennsylvania “plantation” and marriage, see p. ix. 20. St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist, quotation on p. 172. 21. St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist, quotation on p. 205. On the additions, see pp.  205–311. John James Audubon and Rev. John Bachman, assisted by Victor Gifford Audubon, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (London: Wiley and Putnam, 1845–1848). 22. Mrs. Horace St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World: His Adventures and Discoveries (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee and Company, 1861, 1864; New York: A. L. Burt, 1894). 23. Mrs. Horace Stebbing Roscoe St. John and John William Orr, Boys Life of Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World, His Adventures and Discoveries, revised and corrected with additions and illustrated with engravings (New York: Allen Bros., 1869; Leavitt and Allen Bros., 1870, 1871). 24. On Lucy’s later years, see Carolyn E. Delatte, Lucy Audubon: A Biography, updated edition with a foreword by Christoph Irmscher (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State

Merchant-final.indb 278

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 53–56 • 279 University Press, 2008; originally published, 1982), pp. xvi, 227–229. On the identity of Lucy’s friend, see Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, vol. 1, p. 18. On Lucy Audubon, see also Matt hew Spady, Audubon Park Perspectives, March 8, 2013, htt p://www.audubonparkperspectives.com/2013/03/reflections-on-lucy-audubon -while.html. 25. Robert Buchanan, The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, edited from materials supplied by his widow, by Robert Buchanan (London: S. Low, Son and Marston, 1868). Reprinted posthumously as Robert Buchanan, The Life and Adventures of Audubon the Naturalist, with an Introduction by John Burroughs (London: J. M. Dent and Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1913). On Robert Buchanan and his writings, see “Bibliography of Robert Buchanan,” p. xiii. For John Burroughs’s introduction, see pp. vii–xii; reprinted from The Nation 9, no. 209 (July 1, 1869): 13–14. Burroughs’s article in The Nation was actually a review of Lucy Audubon’s Life of John James Audubon. The introduction to Buchanan’s 1913 edition eliminated the fi rst two paragraphs of Burroughs’s review, which said that the book was edited by Audubon’s widow, that it was only one-fi ft h of the original material sent to the publisher, and that “we are further told that should Mrs. Audubon recover her MSS. from the London house, between whom and herself some unfortunate misunderstanding seems to have arisen, other volumes similar to the present one may be looked for” (p. 13). 26. Buchanan, Life and Adventures of Audubon, preface, p. 1. 27. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon. 28. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, introduction, quotation on p. iii. On the identity of Lucy’s friend, see Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, vol. 1, p. 18. 29. Buchanan, Life and Adventures of Audubon, “The Life and Labors of Audubon,” chap. 1, “Introduction, The Audubon Genealogy,” p. 5n. A memoir titled “Myself ” that John James Audubon wrote for his sons was later discovered and published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1893 by Audubon’s granddaughter Maria R. Audubon. See Maria R. Audubon, “Audubon’s Story of His Youth,” Scribner’s Magazine 12, no. 3 (Mar. 1893): 267– 289; the memoir was “copied verbatim from the original journal in John J. Audubon’s handwriting, 1892” (p. 289). In the introduction, Maria R. Audubon writes, “The following pages of autobiography of my grandfather, John James Audubon, the naturalist, were found accidentally in an old calfskin-bound volume where for many years they had been hidden. . . . Th at a transcript from these pages was part of the material placed by my grandmother, Mrs. Audubon, in the hands of the editor of her Memoir of her husband, is probable from the appearance there of several brief extracts from it, and of a summary of the events here described; but the narrative had never been even privately printed” (p. 267). Quotations from the memoir (pp. 278–279) appear in chapters 1–2 of Lucy Audubon’s biography, Life of John James Audubon, on pp. 18–19 (chaps. 1–6 of Buchanan’s edition). “Myself ” was reprinted in Maria R. Audubon and Elliott Coues, Audubon and His Journals, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897). Quotations from Audubon’s journal (no longer extant) appear on pp. 20–21 of Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon. 30. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, “Introductory Address,” p. viii. For example, early on in his fi rst issue, Grinnell quotes a well-known paragraph from Au-

Merchant-final.indb 279

4/28/16 8:35 PM

280 • Notes to Pages 56–60 dubon’s “Introductory Address” in his Ornithological Biography: “My pencil gave birth to a family of cripples. So maimed were most of them that they resembled the mangled corpses on a field of batt le, compared with the integrity of living men. . . . I produced hundreds of these rude sketches annually; and for a long time, at my request, they made bonfi res on the anniversaries of my birthday.” See [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 2–5. 31. [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887): 2–5, quotation on p. 2. On Audubon’s birth, see Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, vol. 1, p. 56. 32. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, quotation by Grinnell from p. 11; in The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (Feb. 1887), quotation on p. 2. 33. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, pp. 15–18. 34. [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 2 (Mar. 1887): 27–28; Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 438–440. 35. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, p. 43; [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 3 (Apr. 1887): 51–52, quotation on p. 51. 36. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, “The Regulators, pp. 105–107, and “The Earthquake, pp. 239–241; [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 3 (Apr. 1887): 51–52. 37. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, “Kentucky Sports,” pp. 290–295; [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 4 (May 1887): 75–77. 38. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, p. 82; [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 5 (Jun. 1887): 99–100, quotation on p. 100. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, chaps. VI and VII. 39. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, p. 147; [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 6 (Jul. 1887): 123–124, quotation on p. 124. 40. [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 7 (Aug. 1887): 147–149, quotation on p. 149; see also Audubon and Bachman, Viviparous Quadrupeds. For Audubon’s bird plates, see Peterson and Peterson, Audubon’s Birds of America, plates 380 and 415 (MacGillivray), and 145, 338, and 417 (Bachman). Audubon did not name a bird after his wife, but on the watercolor painting of the swamp sparrow, he wrote, “Drawn from nature by Lucy Audubon. Mr. Havell will please have Lucy Audubon[‘s] name on this plate instead of mine.” See Peterson and Peterson, Audubon’s Birds of America, notes to plate 426; and John James Audubon, The Original Water-Color Paintings by John James Audubon for “The Birds of America,” Reproduced in Color for the First Time from the Collection at The New-York Historical Society, introduction by Marshall B. Davidson, 2 vols. (New York: American Heritage, 1966), vol. 2, plate 331. (Lucy’s warbler is not named after Lucy Audubon, but after the daughter of Spencer Fullerton Baird. See htt p://www.bioweb.uncc.edu/bierregaard/audubon.htm.) 41. [George Bird Grinnell], “John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 8 (Sept. 1887): 171–173, quotations on pp. 171, 173. 42. Ibid., quotation on p. 172. 43. Ibid., quotation on pp. 172–173.

Merchant-final.indb 280

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 61–65 • 281 44. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Character of John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 9 (Oct. 1887): 195–197, quotation on p. 195; Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, p. v. The author of the “eloquent” statement is not revealed in any of the sources in which it is quoted. See, for example, John James Audubon, The Birds of America from Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories, with a Preface by George R. Lockwood (New York: Geo. R. Lockwood and Son, 1870), vol. 1, p. xiv–xv. 45. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Character of John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 9 (Oct. 1887): 195–197, quotation on pp. 195–196; Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, p. v, quoted from Buchanan, Life and Adventures of Audubon, p. 2. 46. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Character of John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 9 (Oct. 1887): 195–197, quotations on pp. 196, 197. 47. [George Bird Grinnell], “The Character of John James Audubon,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 10 (Nov. 1887): 219–221, quotations on pp. 220, 221. 48. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, “The Prairie,” pp. 81–84; [George Bird Grinnell], “Incidents of Audubon’s Life,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 11 (Dec. 1887): 243–245. 49. R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 12 (Jan. 1888): 267–271. See Shufeldt, “On an Old Portrait of Audubon.” On Shufeldt’s statement that he grew up next door to the Audubons, see R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1888): 2–6, esp. p. 5. Shufeldt comments, “When I was a child in arms, my father had his home on Washington Heights; and here the Audubons lived in the very house next door to us, where my mother and her sister knew them all intimately” (p. 5). 50. R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 12 (Jan. 1888): 267–271, quotation on p. 269. 51. R[obert] W. Shufeldt, “Audubonian Sketches,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1888): 2–6, quotations on p. 4. 52. On Robert W. Shufeldt, see htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wilson _Shufeldt. See also Robert W. Shufeldt, Studies of the Human Form for Artists, Sculptors, and Scientists (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1908); Robert W. Shufeldt, The Negro: A Menace to American Civilization (Boston: Gorman Press, 1907); and Robert W. Shufeldt, America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro (Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1915). 53. Alexander Wilson, American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, 9 vols. (Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1808–1814). 54. William Jardine, “The Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” in Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte, American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: Constable and Co., 1831), vol. 1, pp. ix–cvii, esp. p. xiv. See also William Jardine, “Memoir of Alexander Wilson,” in Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, Parts 1–4 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1860), pp. 17–50; and William Jardine, “Memoir of Alexander Wilson,” in The Naturalist’s Library, vol. 40 (1843). For a biography of Jardine, see Elizabeth Christine Jackson and Peter Davis, Sir William Jardine: A Life in Natural History (Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 2001); and htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_ Jardine,_7th_Baronet. 55. George Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, Author of the “American Ornithology” (Philadelphia: Harrison Hall, 1828); see also htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

Merchant-final.indb 281

4/28/16 8:35 PM

282 • Notes to Pages 65–67 /George_Ord. Other biographies of Alexander Wilson, in addition to those by George Ord and William Jardine (see note 54), include Thomas Crichton, Biographical Sketch of the Late Alexander Wilson to a Young Friend (Paisley, UK: J. Neilson, 1819); Alan Park Paton, Wilson the Ornithologist: A New Chapter in His Life (New York: Longmans, Green, 1863); Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson, 2  vols. (Paisley: Alexander Gardner, 1876); James Southall Wilson, Alexander Wilson, Poet-Naturalist: A Study of His Life with Selected Poems (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1906); Robert Cantwell, Alexander Wilson: Naturalist and Pioneer, a Biography. Philadelphia: Lippincott , 1961; Robert Plate, Alexander Wilson: Wanderer in the Wilderness (New York: David McKay, 1966); Clark Hunter, ed., The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1983); Laura Rigal, “Empire of Birds: Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology,” Huntington Library Quarterly 59, no. 2/3 (1996): 232–268; Edward H. Burtt and William E. Davis Jr., Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). 56. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 5 (Jun. 1888): 92–94, quotation on p. 92; Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, p. x. 57. Ibid., quotation on p. 94; [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 6 (Jul. 1888): 116–118; Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” quotation on p. xvi; see also Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, pp. xvi, xviii, xix. 58. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 7 (Aug. 1888): 137–138; Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, p. xix, xx. 59. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 8 (Sept. 1888): 159–161, quotations on p. 160. Quotations from Wilson’s letter of July 2, 1805, to Bartram in Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. xlv. 60. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 8 (Sept. 1888): 159–161; Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. l; Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, p. xlviii. 61. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 9 (Oct. 1888): 181–184, quotation on p. 181. Quotation on the fi rst volume of American Ornithology is from Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. l, and is taken from Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, p. lxxi–lxxxii. 62. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 10 (Nov. 1888): 204–207, quotations on pp. 206, 207. For the extracts from Wilson’s letters, see “Biographical Sketches of the Late Alexander Wilson in a Series of Letters,” in Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” esp. “Letter to Miller, Boston, MA: October 12, 1808,” pp. li–lvi; and Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, pp. lxxiii–lxxix. See also Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” “Letter to Alexander Lawson from Pitt sburgh, Feb. 22nd, 1810,” pp. lxvi–lxix, quotation about road to Chillicothe on p. lxix; and Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, pp. cii–cvi, quotation about Chillicothe on p. cv. See also Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” “Letter to Alexander Lawson from Lexington, KY, April 4, 1810,” pp. lxx–lxix; and Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, p. cvi–cxix. 63. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 11 (Dec. 1888): 225–228; Grinnell’s long quotations in section 7 of his life of Wilson are from Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” “Letter to Alexander Lawson from Lex-

Merchant-final.indb 282

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 67–75 • 283 ington, KY, April 4, 1810,” pp. lxxi–lxiii, lxiv–lxxv, lxxvii–lxxviii, and lxxix–lxxx; and Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, letter quoted by Grinnell to Alexander Lawson from Lexington, April 4, 1810, begins on p. cvi. 64. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 12 (Jan. 1889): 247–249, quotation from Grinnell on p. 248. See also Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. cv; and Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, pp. clxi– clxii. For Grinnell’s quotation from Charles Wilkins Webber (1819–1856), see Charles Wilkins Webber, The Hunter-Naturalist: Romance of Sporting; or, Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters (Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, 1851), chap. 5, pp. 87–111, 112–122; Grinnell’s quotations are on pp. 112–113, 114–115. Here Webber compares the two ornithologists and quotes extensively from Audubon’s “Introductory Address” in his Ornithological Biography (1831), vol. 1; from Audubon’s description of his encounter with Wilson; and from Wilson’s own assessment of his visit with Audubon. Wilson also describes his encounter with Audubon while waiting for a canal boat: “I heard above the buzz around me the name of Audubon spoken. My attention was instantly att racted by that magical sound. I listened in breathless eagerness. I heard a gentleman near me say—‘Mr. Audubon is last on the list; I fear he will not get a bed, we are so crowded!’ I felt my heart leap. ‘What,’ said I, leaning forward quickly, ‘is it possible Mr. Audubon can be aboard? I thought he was still on his Rocky Mountain tour!’ ‘We are just returning, sir,’ said the gentleman courteously, half smiling, as he observed the excited expression of my face. ‘But, you are joking, are you not?’ said I, hardly able to realize so much happiness. He cannot really be in the boat. Where? Which is he? . . . Thus it was I came fi rst to meet him, laurelled and gray, my highest ideal of the Hunter-Naturalist,—the old Audubon!” (pp. 92–97). Th is same story is repeated (in a shorter version) by Mrs. Horace St. John in Audubon, the Naturalist (1856; 1864 edition), pp. 180–182, but as a story told by “the travellers,” with a footnote, p. 180, that states, “Talk about birds and Audubon.—North American Review.” 65. [George Bird Grinnell], “Alexander Wilson,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 12 (Jan. 1889): 247–249, quotation on p. 249.

Chapter 4. The Life of John James Audubon 1. Audubon himself made this claim. See Lucy Audubon, The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson (New York: G. Putnam and Son, 1869; copyrighted 1868 by Mrs. J. Audubon), p. 14. Later documents revealed that Audubon was born on April 26, 1785, in Les Cayes, SaintDomingue (now Haiti). See Francis Hobart Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1917; 2nd ed., 1938), pp. 52–53. 2. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, p. 11. 3. John James Audubon, “Introductory Address,” in Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831), p. viii. 4. The encounter with Alexander Wilson is described in a quotation from Lucy Au-

Merchant-final.indb 283

4/28/16 8:35 PM

284 • Notes to Pages 75–87 dubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, pp. 30–33. See also John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 438–440. 5. Editor’s note: In part III of this book, “Hendersonville” (so named in both Lucy Audubon’s and Grinnell’s biographies) has been changed to its actual name, “Henderson” [Kentucky], where Audubon lived in the 1810s and owned a store and mill with Ferdinand Rozier. See htt p://www.cityofhendersonky.org/index.aspx?NID=141: “Henderson’s wooded hills and lush vegetation att racted the naturalist, John James Audubon, who once operated a mill on the riverfront, one block from the center of the present business district where Main and Second Streets cross. Thousands of people annually visit Audubon State Park and Museum located at the northern limits of the city.” 6. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, p. 43. 7. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, p. 61. See also John James Audubon, “Kentucky Sports,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 290–295, quotation on pp. 292–293. 8. See Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, pp. 62–63, and John James Audubon, “Kentucky Sports,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 290–295, quotation on pp. 293–294. 9. The quotation is from Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, p. 63, and John James Audubon, “Kentucky Sports,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, quotation on pp. 294–295. 10. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, p. 82. 11. Ibid, pp. 107, 109. 12. Ibid, p. 147. 13. See Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, p. 181: “I have fi nished my two large pictures of the Eagle and the Lamb, and the Dog and the Pheasants and now as usual can scarce bear to look at them.” The painting English Pheasants Surprised by a Spanish Dog (6 x 9 feet) was done in 1827 and is now in the American Museum of Natural History. The painting The Eagle and the Lamb was completed in England in 1828 and brought back to the United States with Audubon. It was given to George Bird Grinnell by Lucy Audubon. It is now at Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, which was Audubon’s home in 1803. See Frank Graham, “Audubon’s Legacy: Where It All Began,” Audubon 106, no. 5 (November–December 2004): 62–69, see p. 68. See also Scott Weidensaul, Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding (New York: Harcourt, 2007), pp. 104, 106. Weidensaul comments, “In 1873, shortly before leaving for Louisville on what would be her last journey, Grandma Audubon sent George a single-page note. Addressed ‘Dear young friend’ (even though George was by now in his mid-twenties) . . . in [the note] she makes a gift of the painting, ‘with all the care and esteem for yourself & your parents’” (p. 104). He also noted, “Although Lucy Audubon was as good as her word, it took some years before The Eagle and the Lamb passed to Grinnell as she intended; after her death the enormous painting remained in the family, and it wasn’t until 1893 that her granddaughter, Harriet Bachman Audubon, found she had no room for the great canvas and at last gave it to Grinnell. It became, understandably, one of his most prized possessions, and on his death, in turn, Grinnell’s widow [Elizabeth C. Williams Grinnell] presented it to the National Audubon Society. Today the painting hangs at the Audubon center at Mill Grove, a visible symbol of the links between birding’s roots and its future—and still

Merchant-final.indb 284

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 87–94 • 285 theatrical enough to snatch the eye of passing children and, perhaps, to open for them the splendor and drama of birds” (p. 106). 14. The published book is John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography. 15. See Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, p. 375: “At Philadelphia I [John James Audubon] of course received no subscriptions; nay, I was arrested there for debt, and was on the point of being taken to prison, had I not met with William Norris, Esq, who kindly offered to be my bail.” 16. John James Audubon and Rev. John Bachman, assisted by Victor Gifford Audubon, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (London: Wiley and Putnam, 1845–1848). 17. The elk were probably tame or originally captive animals. By the 1850s eastern elk populations had declined due to overhunting and loss of woodland habitat. According to a Wikipedia article, “Naturalist John James Audubon reportedly mentioned that . . . a few elk could still be found in the Allegheny Mountains but that they were virtually gone from the remainder of their range.” Wikipedia, s.v. “eastern elk,” htt p://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Eastern_elk. I thank John Reiger for this point. 18. Quotation in Lucy Audubon, John James Audubon, the Naturalist: “‘Surrounded,’ wrote Audubon in 1846, ‘by all the members of my dear family, enjoying the affection of numerous friends, who have never abandoned me, and possessing a sufficient share of all that contributes to make life agreeable, I lift up my grateful eyes towards the Supreme Being and feel that I am happy’” (pp. 241–242). 19. Grinnell took the quotation from William Swainson, “Some Account of the Work Now Publishing by M[onsieur] Audubon, Entitled The Birds of America,” in Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, and Meteorology 1 (May 1828), Part II, Reviews: 43–52, quotation on p. 51. See htt p://archive.org /stream/magazineofnatura01loud/magazineofnatura01loud_djvu.txt, p. 51. 20. See Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, pp. 442–443: “Four days later the friends and neighbors, together with numerous men of letters and savants from New York, who were not deterred by the stormy day from attending Audubon’s unostentatious funeral, accompanied by the family from the residence to the resting place he had chosen for himself in Trinity Church cemetery, adjoining his own estate, and saw his remains laid tenderly away by those who loved him best, in the family vault, where his sons have since been placed by his side.” On Trinity Cemetery in Audubon Park, Manhatt an, see Matt hew Spady, “Audubon Park Historic District,” htt p:// www.audubonparkny.com/AudubonParkTrinityCemetery-1004.html.

Chapter 5. The Character of John James Audubon 1. Th is quotation from 1851, the year of Audubon’s death, is taken from Parke Goodwin, Esq., “John James Audubon,” in Wellman’s Literary Miscellany [Monthly Literary Miscellany], ed. Daniel F. Quinby (Detroit: Beecher and Quinby, 1851), vols. 4 and 5, pp. 157– 163, esp. p. 162. See also Lucy Audubon, The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson (New York: G. P. Putnam and Son, 1869), copyrighted 1868 by Mrs. J. Audubon, p. iv. See also John James Au-

Merchant-final.indb 285

4/28/16 8:35 PM

286 • Notes to Pages 94–109 dubon, The Birds of America from Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories, with a Preface by George R. Lockwood (New York: Geo. Lockwood and Son, 1870), pp. xiv–xv. 2. The quotation is from Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, “Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson,” p. v. In his introduction, Wilson quotes from “the preface to the London edition of this work” (p. v) by Robert Buchanan (The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, edited by Robert Buchanan from materials supplied by his widow [London: S. Low, Son and Marston, 1868], p. 2). 3. “Minnie,” the Scott ish name for mother, was Audubon’s affectionate name for Lucy. His estate on the Hudson River in Upper Manhatt an, New York City, was called “Minnie’s Land.” 4. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon, pp. 20–21. 5. Lucy Audubon, Life of John James Audubon. The full quotation is as follows: “Another visitor to the naturalist’s happy home has left the following admirable description of the sunset of Audubon’s life: ‘In my interview with the naturalist, there were several things that stamped themselves indelibly upon my mind. The wonderful simplicity of the man was perhaps the most remarkable. His enthusiasm for facts made him unconscious of himself. . . . The unconsciousness of the man seemed only equaled by his child-like tenderness. The sweet unity between his wife and himself, as they turned over the original drawings of his birds, and recalled the circumstances of the drawings, some of which had been made when she was with him; her quickness of perception, and their mutual enthusiasm regarding these works of his heart and hand, and the tenderness with which they unconsciously treated each other, all was impressed upon my memory. Ever since, I have been convinced that Audubon owed more to his wife than the world knew or ever would know’” (p. 439). Buchanan (p. 328) gives the source as the New York Leader.

Chapter 6. Incidents of Audubon’s Life 1. The following incident is taken from chapter 4 of Lucy Audubon, The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson (New York: G. Putnam and Son, 1869; copyrighted 1868 by Mrs. J. Audubon), pp. 47–51. See also John James Audubon, “The Prairie,” in Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831), pp. 81–84.

Chapter 7. Audubonian Sketches 1. Robert W. Shufeldt, “On an Old Portrait of Audubon Painted by Himself and a Word about Some of His Early Drawings,” The Auk 3, no. 4 (Oct. 1886): 417–420. 2. The following quotations are from Shufeldt, “On an Old Portrait of Audubon.” 3. In his article in The Auk, Shufeldt identified the lady as Mrs. E. C. Walker of Woodstock, Louisiana. See Shufeldt, “On an Old Portrait of Audubon,” p. 417.

Merchant-final.indb 286

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 110–123 • 287 4. Ibid., p. 420. 5. Th is article appeared under the title “’John J. Audubon: Interesting Reminiscences of the Great Ornithologist’s Early Life in Henderson, KY,’ from the Henderson (KY) Reporter,” in the New York Times, August 4, 1878. 6. John James Audubon, “Letter from John J. Audubon, superscribed to ‘Rich r Harlan Esqr M.D. &c &c &c Philadelphia Pensa’; now in the possession of R. W. Shufeldt, M.D. and heretofore unpublished,” Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club 5 (1880): 202–203.

Chapter 8. Biography of Alexander Wilson 1. See George Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, Author of the “American Ornithology” (Philadelphia: Harrison Hall, 1828), p. x: “The poor despised weaver of Paisley takes his rank among the writers of our country; and after ages shall look up to the Father of American Ornithology.” 2. Alexander Wilson, American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, 9 vols. (Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1808–1814). 3. George Bird Grinnell’s account of the life of Alexander Wilson is based primarily on William Jardine, “The Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” in Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte, American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, 3 vols. (London: Whitt aker, Treacher, and Arnot; Edinburgh: Stirling and Kenney, 1832), vol. 1, pp. ix–cvii, esp. p. xiv. See also William Jardine, “Memoir of Alexander Wilson,” in Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, parts 1–4 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1860), pp. 17–50; and William Jardine, “Memoir of Alexander Wilson,” in The Naturalist’s Library, vol. 40 (1843). 4. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. xii. 5. Ibid., p. xv. 6. Ibid., p. xvi. 7. Ibid., see p. xvi. 8. Ibid., p. xvii. 9. Ibid., p. xviii. 10. Ibid., quotation (“a mercantile traveling excursion”) on p. xviii. 11. Ibid., quotation on p. xviii. 12. Ibid., quotation on p. xix. 13. Ibid. See “Advertisement,” p. xx. See also William Jardine, “Memoir of Alexander Wilson,” in Birds of England and Ireland, parts 1–4 (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1860), p. 25. Wilson’s fi rst volume of poems was published in 1789 by John Neilson. 14. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” quotation on p. xxi. 15. Ibid., p. xxvi–xxvii. Wilson’s ballad “Watt y and Meg” was published anonymously in 1791. 16. Ibid., p. xxix. 17. Ibid., pp. xxix–xxx. 18. Ibid., p. xxx–xxxi. 19. Ibid., p. xxxi. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., p. xxxii.

Merchant-final.indb 287

4/28/16 8:35 PM

288 • Notes to Pages 124–133 22. Ibid., quotation on p. xxxviii. 23. Ibid., pp. xxxviii–xxxix, quotation on p. xxxix. 24. Ibid., p. xxxix. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid., p. xl. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., quotation on p. xl. 29. Ibid., p. xl. 30. The following extract is from Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” pp. xli–xlii. 31. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. xliii. On Wilson’s poetry, see Frank Burns, “Alexander Wilson VIII: His Early Life and Writings,” The Wilson Bulletin 22, no. 2 (Jun. 1910): 79–96; on “Rural Walk” and “Solitary Tutor” as containing “a great deal of nature,” see p. 91. 32. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” quotation from p. xliii. 33. Ibid., p. xliv. On the “Foresters,” see Burns, “Alexander Wilson VIII,” pp. 85–86: “Nowhere in history has Wilson employed his descriptive powers to greater advantage than in ‘The Foresters.’” 34. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” quotation on p. xliv. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., quotation on pp. xliv, xlv. 37. Ibid., p. xlvi. 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid., p. xlix. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid.; Abraham Rees (1743–1825), New Cyclopedia (Philadelphia, 1806–1820). 42. The following extract is from Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” quotation on p. l. 43. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” quotation on p. l. 44. Ibid. See also Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, quotation on p. li. 45. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. li, quotation on p. li. 46. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson.” Extracts from Wilson’s letter to [Daniel] Miller from Boston, MA, October 12, 1808 are on pp. li–lvi. See also Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, “Letter to [Daniel] Miller from Boston, MA, October 12, 1808,” pp. lxxiii–lxxix. On Wilson’s friend, Daniel Miller, to whom he wrote letters on his travels, see Clark Hunter, ed., The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1983), pp. 82–83. For Wilson’s October 12, 1808, letter to Daniel Miller, see pp. 276–284. Other letters from Wilson cited in this chapter can also be found in Hunter, Life and Letters of Wilson. For a map and list of Wilson’s travels, see pp. 212–213. 47. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson”: “His next letter to the same gentleman [Daniel Miller] is dated Windsor, Vermo[n]t, October 26 [1808],” pp. lvi–lvii, quotations on p. lvi. See also Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, quotations on p. lxxx; and Hunter, Life and Letters of Wilson, pp. 284–286. John Wheelock was the second president of Dartmouth College, having succeeded his father, Eleazar Wheelock, who was the founder and fi rst president.

Merchant-final.indb 288

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 133–150 • 289 48. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson.” The quoted letter to Daniel Miller from Windsor, VT, October 26, 1808, continues on p. lvii. See also Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, “Letter to Miller from Windsor, VT, October 26, 1808,” quotation on p. lxxx. 49. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” letter “To Mr. Alexander Lawson, Albany [NY], November 3, 1808,” quotation on p. lvii. See also Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, “Letter to Alexander Lawson, Albany, NY, November 3, 1808,” quotation on p. lxxxi. 50. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” letter to William Bartram, Savannah, March 5, 1809, pp. lx–lxi. See also Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, “Letter to William Bartram, Savannah, March 5, 1809,” p. xcv. 51. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. lxv. 52. The following letter is from Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” letter “To Mr. Alexander Lawson, Pitt sburgh [PA], February 22, 1810,” pp. lxvi–lxix. See also Ord, Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, “Letter to Alexander Lawson, Pitt sburgh, PA, February 22, 1810,” pp. cii–cvi. 53. The following quotation from Wilson’s letter “To Mr. Alexander Lawson, April 4, 1810” is from Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” pp. lxx–lxxi. 54. The quoted extracts from Wilson’s letter “To Mr. Alexander Lawson, April 4, 1810” continue in Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” pp. lxxi–lxxiii, lxxiv– lxxv, lxxvii–lxxviii, lxxix–lxxx. 55. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. lxxx. 56. Ibid., p. lxxx–lxxxi. 57. Ibid., letter “To Mr. Alexander Lawson, Nashville, Tennessee, April 28, 1810,” pp. lxxxi–xcii, quotation on p. lxxxvii. 58. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. cii. 59. On the meeting between Wilson and Audubon, see Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” pp. cii–ciii; and Hunter, Life and Letters of Wilson, pp. 94–95. On the relationship between Wilson and Audubon, see Frank Burns, “Alexander Wilson I: The Audubon Controversy,” The Wilson Bulletin 20, no. 1 (Mar. 1908): 2–18. 60. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson.” The following excerpts from Wilson’s diary are on p. ciii. For Audubon’s account, see this book, pp. 67, 73–75. 61. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. ciii. 62. Ibid., letter “To Mr. George Ord, Boston, October 18, 1812,” pp. ciii–cv. 63. Jardine, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” p. cv. 64. Charles Wilkins Webber, The Hunter-Naturalist: Romance of Sporting; or, Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters (Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, 1851), chap. 5, quotation on pp. 112– 113, 114.

Chapter 9. Introduction to Grinnell’s Monthly Birds 1. [George Bird Grinnell], The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 12 (Jan. 1889): 262. 2. Charles Hallock, The Sportsman’s Gazetteer and General Guide: The Game Animals, Birds, and Fishes of North America (New York: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 1877,

Merchant-final.indb 289

4/28/16 8:35 PM

290 • Notes to Pages 150–161 1878, 1880; New York: Orange Judd, 1883; reprint, Biodiversity Heritage Library, htt p:// www.biodiversitylibrary.org). 3. John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, 5 vols (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831–1849 [1939]); Alexander Wilson, American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: Constable and Co., 1831); Thomas Nutt all, A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada, The Water Birds (Boston: Hillyard Gray and Co., 1834); Elliott Coues, Key to North American Birds (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1872, 1884, 1901).

Chapter 10. Grinnell’s Monthly Birds I 1. The Baltimore Oriole was called the Northern Oriole for a period of time beginning in the late 1960s, but now has been reclassified as the Baltimore Oriole. See “From Northern Oriole to Baltimore and Bullock’s: A Split Decision,” htt p://www.learner.org /jnorth/tm/oriole/Baltimore-BullocksSplit_Rising.html: “Audubon’s Oriole Paintings: When John James Audubon painted these birds in 1836 and 1825, he considered them to be two different species. For about three decades starting in the late 1960s, many ornithologists thought they were the same species and ‘lumped them’ into the Northern Oriole. Now they’ve ‘split’ them back the way Audubon thought they were all along.” 2. For Audubon’s description, see “The Baltimore Oriole,” in Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831), p. 66–71. Audubon’s Birds of America plates and corresponding descriptions from his Ornithological Biography at the University of Pitt sburgh can be viewed online at htt p://digital.library.pitt .edu/a/audubon/plates.html. 3. For Grinnell’s quotation, see Thomas Nutt all, A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada, The Land Birds (Boston: Hillyard Gray and Co., 1832), pp. 162– 174, quotation on p. 167. 4. Ibid., quotation on p. 166. 5. Ibid., see p. 165. 6. Thomas Nutt all, A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada, The Water Birds (Boston: Hillyard Gray and Co., 1834), appendix, pp. 595–597, quotation on pp. 595–596. 7. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Great Auk,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 4, pp. 316–317. 8. For Grinnell’s quotation see S[pencer] F[ullerton] Baird, T. M. Brewer, and R.  Ridgway, The Water Birds of North America (Boston: Litt le Brown and Co., 1884), vol. 2, pp. 461–534, quotation on p. 472. For original, see Richard Whitbourne, A Discovrse and Discovery of Nevv-fovnd-land, with Many Reasons to Prooue how Worthy and Beneficiall a Plantation May There Be Made . . . , ed. and illus. T Whitburn (London: S. Low Son and Marston, 1870), quotation on p. 9.

Merchant-final.indb 290

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 162–175 • 291 9. John Josselyn, New Englands Rarities Discovered (London: G. Widdowes, 1672 [1663]), quoted in Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Water Birds of North America, vol. 2, pp. 471–472. 10. Hans Egede, A Description of Greenland (London: C. Wood, 1818 [1745]), quoted in Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Water Birds of North America, vol. 2, p. 472. 11. For Grinnell’s references to George Boardman, Audubon, and Henry Havell, see Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, Water Birds of North America, vol. 2, p. 470. 12. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Cedar Bird,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 227–231. 13. For the incident described by Grinnell, see Nutt all, Manual of Ornithology: The Land Birds, p. 276; for Nutt all’s description of the “Cedar Bird or Cherry Bird,” see pp. 274–281. 14. For Audubon’s description, see John James Audubon, “The Chimney Swallow or American Swift ,” in Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1834), pp. 329–335. 15. The following paragraphs quoted by Grinnell are from Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, pp. 331–334. 16. Both quotations by Grinnell are from Elliott Coues, Birds of the Colorado Valley: A Repository of Scientific and Popular Information Concerning North American Ornithology (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1878), p. 389; see Sir John McNeill and R. R. McLeod, “Correspondence,” Field and Forest 3, no. 2 (Aug. 1877): 35–36, quoted in Duke of Argyll, “Hibernation of Birds,” Nature 15, no. 390 (Apr. 19, 1877): 527–528. On Elliott Coues, see J. A. Allen, “Biographical Memoir of Elliott Coues, 1842–1899,” National Academy Biographical Memoirs (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1909), vol. 4, pp. 395–446. 17. For Grinnell’s quotation, see Coues, Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 377: “Our ordinary Chimney Swift (Choetura pelagica), unless I am greatly mistaken, is not recorded as occurring anywhere beyond the United States in winter. Nor is it a recognized inhabitant of any portion of the United States in winter, except possibly along our extreme southern border. Where does this bird go and stay in winter? Some say that it hibernates in hollow trees, and could give reasons for the supposition.” 18. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Golden-Winged Woodpecker,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 191–195, quotation on p. 191. 19. I have not found the note referenced by Grinnell in Forest and Stream, but Violet S. Williams (b. 1857) of Coralville, Iowa was a contributor to The Audubon Magazine. See Violet S. Williams, “A Family on My Hands,” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (Feb. 1888): 18–19. She is listed in Samuel E. Cassino, Naturalists’ Directory (Boston: S. E. Cassino Publishers, 1896), p. 217, no. 5541, as a zoologist, botanist, ornithologist, and taxonomist. She exhibited a case of mounted birds and mounted animals at the World’s Columbian Exposition, May 1–October 30, 1893, in the woman’s building, science room 2, groups 35 and 37 (Mrs. Bertha Palmer, president, Board of Lady Managers). See Moses P. Handy, ed., World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893, Official Catalogue, part I. Agriculture Building and Dairy Building (Chicago: W. B. Conkey Co. 1893), p. 22; and Moses P. Handy, ed., Official Directory of the World’s Columbian Exposition, May 1–Oct 30, 1893, A Reference

Merchant-final.indb 291

4/28/16 8:35 PM

292 • Notes to Pages 175–192 Book (Chicago: W. B. Conkey Co. 1893), p. 1051. She also advertised her services: “Send $1 (and 20 cts. Silver) and receive postpaid a Blue Jay, Bronzed Grackle or any common bird, same size mounted (on perch) by Violet S. Williams, who sent the only collection of mounted specimens admitted to the Woman’s Building at the Columbian Exposition. Fresh specimens sent two or three weeks after receiving order. Address. Mrs. Violet S. Williams. Coralville, Johnson Co. Ia.” ”Note,” The Oologist: For the Student of Birds, Their Nests and Eggs 11, no. 4 (Apr. 1894): 129. 20. Stuart Ogilby, Forest and Stream 24, no. 12 (Jun. 25, 1885): 427. 21. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Purple Martin,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 115–120. 22. Grinnell is referring to the following letter addressed to “Editor Forest and Stream,” from O[tto] Widmann, St. Louis, MO, “How Young Birds Are Fed,” Forest and Stream 22, no. 25 (Jul. 17, 1884): 484. Reprinted as Otto Widmann, “Extracts from the Diary of Otto Widmann, ‘How Young Birds Are Fed,’” in Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis (Jul. 17, 1884), pp. 186–188, quotation on p. 186, table on p. 187. Widmann’s article in Forest and Stream is also cited under “Recent Literature,” no. 914, The Auk 2 (Jul. 17, 1885): 299. 23. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Wood Th rush,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 372–376. 24. Stephen Alfred Forbes, “Turdus mustelinus, Gm. Wood Th rush,” in List of Illinois Crustacea with Descriptions of New Species, Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History (Bloomington, IL: Pantagraphic Printing, 1884), vol. 1 (1876–1883), pp. 128– 129. Forbes notes, “Th is species seems to do more good and less harm than the preceding thrushes, having the lowest fruit ratio and eating the highest number of insects, with only the average of predaceous species. Its advances, therefore, are to be cordially encouraged by the gardener and farmer—a fact which must be especially agreeable to every lover of bird music, who has learned to recognize the full, clear, rich and exquisite strains of the songster” (p. 129). 25. For Audubon’s description, see John James Audubon, “The Spotted Sandpiper,” in Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, vol. 4 (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1838), pp. 81–87. 26. See Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 4, pp. 81–87. Nuttall’s description of nests is on p. 82; Audubon’s description of nests is on p. 81. 27. Audubon, “The Ferruginous Th rush” [Brown Th rasher], in Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, pp. 102–107. 28. J. A. Allen, quoted in Elliott Coues, Birds of the Northwest: A Handbook of the Ornithology of the Region Drained by the Missouri River and Its Tributaries (Washington, DC Government Printing Office, 1874), pp. 9–10. 29. Bachman quoted in Audubon, “The Ferruginous Th rush,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, p. 104. 30. Quotation from Nutt all, The Land Birds, pp. 18–19. 31. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Nighthawk,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, pp. 273–278.

Merchant-final.indb 292

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 193–202 • 293 32. Ibid., quotation on pp. 274–275. 33. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Republican or Cliff Swallow,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 353–357. 34. Addison Emery Verrill, “Notes .  .  . on the Supposed Eastern Migration of the Cliff Swallow,” Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History 9 (Jul. 1, 1863): 276– 278: “Mr. A. E. Verrill made the following observations on the supposed eastward migration of the Cliff Swallow (Hirundo lunifrons Say). The interesting history of this swallow, and the peculiar circumstances connected with its fi rst discovery in the west and subsequent appearance in the Atlantic States are so well known that it is perhaps unnecessary to present at this time more than a brief summary of the recorded observations of its earliest appearance on the eastern side of the continent. In 1815 they were observed at Henderson, K[entuck]y, on the Ohio River by Mr. Audubon. . . . In pursuing this investigation, I have been surprised by the amount of evidence that has constantly accumulated to prove that this swallow was well known in the interior and northern parts of Maine, as early as or earlier than its first discovery anywhere in the west. A very large proportion of the aged farmers when questioned concerning this species . . . mention its singular habits as one of the early recollections of their boyhood. Many of them, though not able to fi x on any precise date when they fi rst saw it, feel certain that it was not later than 1812 or 1815, and some have given much earlier dates.” 35. Quotation from Coues, Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 430. 36. See Addison Emery Verrill, “Catalogue of the Birds Observed at Anticosti and Vicinity,” Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History 9 (Jun. 18, 1862): 137–143. Verrill wrote, “Hirundo lunifrons, Say. Cliff Swallow. These birds were found breeding in large numbers at Cape Eagle, at the entrance of Ellis Bay, July 15. The nests, of which there were several hundred, were built under the high, overhanging limestone cliff s which form the outer side of the cape” (p. 137). 37. See Coues, Birds of the Colorado Valley, pp. 428–435. 38. Ibid., quotation on p. 433. 39. Ibid., quotation on p. 403.

Chapter 11. Grinnell’s Monthly Birds II 1. For Audubon’s description, see John James Audubon, “The Rusty Grakle,” in Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1834), pp. 325–328. For an expanded text, see John James Audubon, “The Rusty Blackbird, or Rusty Crow Blackbird,” in The Birds of America: From Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories, vol. 4 (New York: Roe Lockwood and Son, 1861), pp. 65–68. Audubon’s Birds of America plates and corresponding descriptions from the Ornithological Biography at the University of Pitt sburgh can be viewed online at: htt p://digital.library.pitt .edu/a/audubon/plates.html. 2. On John Richardson, British naturalist (1787–1865), see Audubon, Birds of America, vol. 4, p. 66; and htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Richardson_%28naturalist%29.

Merchant-final.indb 293

4/28/16 8:35 PM

294 • Notes to Pages 202–216 3. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, p. 326; See also expanded description in Audubon, Birds of America, vol. 4, pp. 65–68. See the online version at htt p:// auduboneditions.com/index.php?go=.images.image&image_id=289&showOrnitholog icalDetils=1. 4. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, p. 326; see also Audubon, Birds of America, vol. 4, p. 66. 5. For Grinnell’s quotation, see Thomas Nutt all, A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada, The Land Birds (Boston: Hillyard Gray and Co., 1834), pp. 363– 371, quotation on p. 367. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 108–113. 6. Alexander Wilson, American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1808–1814), pp. 88–99; for Grinnell’s reference, see p. 94, footnote. 7. Wilson, American Ornithology, vol. 2, Grinnell’s quotation on p. 93. 8. See John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831), pp. 108, 110. 9. Ibid., p. 111. 10. For Audubon’s description, see John James Audubon, “The Night Heron,” in Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners, vol. 3 (Edinburgh: A. Black, 1835), pp. 275–282. 11. William Henry Hudson, “On the Herons of the Argentine Republic” [On the Habits of Herons],” Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 43, no. 1 (Nov. 16, 1875): 623–631, quotation on p. 628. 12. Ibid., p. 630. 13. Ibid., quotation on p. 627. 14. Ibid., p. 624. 15. Elliott Coues, Birds of the Northwest: A Handbook of the Ornithology of the Region Drained by the Missouri River and its Tributaries (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1874), p. 523. 16. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Black and White Creeper,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 452–454. 17. For Grinnell’s quotation, see Elliott Coues, Key to North American Birds (Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1872, 1884, 1901), p. 288. 18. For Grinnell’s quotation, see Henry D. Minot, The Land Birds and Game Birds of New England, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1903; originally published 1877): “I have found two of their nests near Boston thus situated. The fi rst was in a pine grove, in the cavity of a tree rent by lightning, and about five feet from the ground, and the other on the top of a low birch stump, which stood in a grove of white oaks” (p. 99). 19. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The American Crow,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, pp. 317–324. 20. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Pileated Woodpecker,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, pp. 74–80.

Merchant-final.indb 294

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 216–227 • 295 21. Quotation from Audubon, Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, pp. 75–76. 22. The Eastern Towhee and the Spotted Towhee of western North America used to be considered the same species (that is, the Rufous-sided Towhee). The two forms still occur together in the Great Plains, where they sometimes interbreed. 23. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Towhe Bunting,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 150–152. 24. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Fork-Tailed Flycatcher,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 2, pp. 387–389. Audubon writes, “In the end of June 1832, I observed one of these birds a few miles below the city of Camden [New Jersey]. . . . The bird fell to the ground wounded. . . . It lived only a few minutes, and from it the drawing transferred to the plate was made. . . . Many years ago, while residing at Henderson in Kentucky, I had one of these birds brought to me which had been caught by the hand. . . . While near the city of Natchez, in the State of Mississippi, in August 1822, I saw two others high in the air . . . but they disappeared to the westward . . . and I was unable to see them again. These four specimens were the only ones I have seen in the United States, where individuals appear only at long intervals, and in far distant districts, as if they had lost themselves” (p. 387). 25. Florence A. Merriam [Bailey], “Hints to Audubon Workers: Fift y Common Birds and How to Know Them,” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 9 (Apr. 1888): 201–203. She expanded on her discussion of flycatchers in Florence Merriam Bailey, Handbook of Birds of the Western United States, Including the Great Basin, Pacific Slope, and Lower Rio Grande Valley, 2nd ed. (New York: Houghton Miffl in, 1904), pp. 245–264; on the Fork-tailed Flycatcher, see p. 246: “Distribution—From southern Mexico south through Central America; accidental in the United States (Mississippi, Kentucky, New Jersey, and southern California”; on the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, see p. 246. 26. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Tyrant Flycatcher,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 403–407. 27. See Nutt all, The Land Birds, pp. 292–298, quotation on pp. 294–295. 28. Jacob Post Giraud Jr., The Birds of Long Island (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1844), pp. 39–40, quotation on p. 40. Giraud was a naturalist and ornithologist who published A Description of Sixteen New Species of North American Birds Described in the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History . . . Collected in Texas, 1838 (New York: George F. Nesbitt , 1841). In 1867, he presented his collection of North American birds to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie. See Jacob Post Giraud Jr., “A Letter of J. P. Giraud, Jr.,” reproduced in The Auk 38, no. 2 (Apr. 1921): 314–315. See also Stan DeOrsey and Barbara A. Butler, Birds of Duchess County, New York: Today and Yesterday: A Survey of Current Status with Historical Changes Since 1870 (Poughkeepsie, NY: The Ralph T. Waterman Bird Club, 2014): “Vassar College received three noted bird skin collections from this period [1870– 1900]. In 1867 Jacob Post Giraud, Jr. (1811–1870) donated about 700 North American bird skins, including 13 which had belonged to Audubon” (p. 17). See also Witmer Stone, “Jacob Post Giraud, Jr., and His Works,” The Auk 36, no. 4 (1919): 464–472, esp. p. 464: “The writer is under great obligations to Dr. George Bird Grinnell and Dr. T. S. Palmer. Indeed, he feels that his part in the preparation of the sketch has been simply that of arranging and editing the materials that these gentlemen and Mr. Dutcher have brought together.” Photograph of Jacob Post Giraud Jr. following p. 464. 29. Charles W. Beckham, “A List of the Birds of Bardstown Kentucky,” in Journal of

Merchant-final.indb 295

4/28/16 8:35 PM

296 • Notes to Pages 228–235 the Cincinnati Society of Natural History 6, no. 2 (Jul. 1883): 136–147, quotation on p. 143; see “107. ‘Tyrannaus Carolinenensis’ (L.). Temm. Kingbird.” 30. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Crested Titmouse,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 199–201. 31. On George Sennett and his papers on Texas birds, see J. A. Allen, “In Memoriam: George Burritt Sennett ,” The Auk 18 (Jan. 1901): 11–23. 32. Nutt all, The Land Birds, quotation on pp 253–254; see also pp. 256–259. 33. Ibid., pp. 256–257. 34. For Audubon’s description, see Audubon, “The Hermit Th rush,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1, pp. 303–305. 35. Wilson, American Ornithology, vol. 2, pp. 120–122, esp. pp. 121–122: “A superficial observer would instantly pronounce this to be only a variety of the Wood Th rush; but, taking into consideration its difference of size, color, manners, want of song, secluded habits, differently-formed nest, and spotted eggs, all unlike those of the former, with which it never associates, it is impossible not to conclude it to be a distinct and separate species, however near it may approach to that of the former.” See also Audubon, “The Hermit Th rush,” in Ornithological Biography, vol. 1: “The Hermit Th rush has no song and only utters a soft plaintive note, seldom heard at a greater distance of twenty-five or thirty yards” (p. 303). 36. Nutt all, The Land Birds, pp. 393–396, quotation on p. 394. 37. Elliott Coues, Birds of the Colorado Valley: A Repository of Scientific and Popular Information Concerning North American Ornithology (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1878), quotation on p. 34. 38. Ibid., quotation on p. 33.

Chapter 12. Epilogue: Grinnell’s Achievements 1. John Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation, 3rd ed. (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001), chap. 6. Grinnell was the fourth president of the Boone and Crockett Club, serving from 1918–1927. The objectives of the club were as follows: “(1) To promote the manly sport with the rifle. (2) To promote travel and exploration in the wild and unknown or but partially known portions of the country. (3) To work for the preservation of the large game of this country, and so far as possible, to further legislation for that purpose, and to assist in enforcing the existing laws. (4) To promote inquiry into, and to record observations on the habits and natural history of the various wild animals. (5) To bring about among the members the interchange of opinions and ideas on hunting, travel and exploration on the various kinds of hunting rifles, on the haunts of game animals, etc.” The constitution declared that “no one shall be eligible for membership who shall not have killed with the rifle in fair chase, by still-hunting or otherwise, at least one individual of one of the various kinds of American large game,” i.e. bear, buffalo, mountain sheep, caribou, cougar, musk ox, white goat, elk, wolf, pronghorn antelope, moose, and deer. Members had to adhere to the code of “fair chase,” defi ned as not “killing bear, wolf or cougar in traps, nor ‘fi re-hunting,’ nor ‘crusting’ moose, elk or deer in deep snow, nor killing game from a boat while it is swimming in the water.”

Merchant-final.indb 296

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 235–240 • 297 (Forest and Stream 30, no. 7 (Mar. 8, 1888): 124). Today women can be professional members, associate members, and fellows; are editors of the club’s publication, Fair Chase; and are pictured with their big game trophies. See Fair Chase: The Official Publication of the Boone and Crockett Club 23, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 17, 24, 28, 68; and Fair Chase 23, no. 3 (Fall 2008): 10, 20, 28, 74, 77. On the role of women in hunting and sport hunting, see Reiger, American Sportsmen, p. 66; Mary Zeiss Stange, Woman the Hunter (Boston: Beacon, 1997), pp. 1–11, 84–102, 169–189; Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol Oyster, Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America (New York: New York University Press, 2000). On Grinnell, bison preservation, and the Yellowstone Park Protection Act of 1894, see Reiger, American Sportsmen, pp. 130–145, 163–165; John Reiger, Escaping into Nature: The Making of a Sportsman-Conservationist and Environmental Historian (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2013), pp. 197–198; Michael Punke, Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2007); and htt p://yellowstone.net/history/laceys-legacy. 2. On the failure of the Audubon Society to “attempt any political action,” see Kurkpatrick Dorsey, The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era (Seatt le: University of Washington Press, 1998), quotation on p. 175. 3. [George Bird Grinnell], “What the A.O.U. has Done,” Forest and Stream 36, no. 2 (Jan. 19, 1891): 24; [Grinnell], “The Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 46, no.  18 (May  2, 1896): 349; [Grinnell], “A National Audubon Society,” Forest and Stream 63, no. 27 (Dec. 31, 1904): 545; [Grinnell], “The Audubon Work,” Forest and Stream 64, no. 11 (Mar. 18, 1905): 209; [Grinnell], “The Audubon Bird Law,” Forest and Stream 65, no. 3 (Jul. 15, 1905): 41. 4. Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), pp. 6–7, 14, 17. 5. “Buffalo–Bison,” htt p://www.americanwest.com/critters/buffi ndx.htm. 6. Andrew Graybill, “George Bird Grinnell and the Crown of the Continent,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Tallahassee, FL, February 28, 2009; Graybill presents a more positive account of Grinnell’s interactions with the Blackfeet than does Mark Spence in Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks (New York: Oxford, 1999). 7. [George Bird Grinnell], “Autumn Anticipations,” editorial, Forest and Stream 31, no. 6 (Aug. 30, 1888): 101. 8. [George Bird Grinnell], “Shooting Without a Gun,” editorial, Forest and Stream 39, no. 14 (Oct. 6, 1892): 287. 9. John Reiger, personal communication, citing Grinnell’s “letter books,” held at Yale University. Reiger notes that many early wildlife conservationists loved birds but continued to hunt game birds in season, separating them into categories of game and nongame (that is, those that can be hunted under certain rules and those that should never be taken except for scientific purposes). See also Reiger, Escaping into Nature, chap. 5, esp. pp. 128–130. 10. Reiger, personal communication, points out that there exist wholly independent state Audubon societies (such as in Connecticut and New Jersey) not affi liated with the national organization; chapters of the National Audubon Society not affi liated with the

Merchant-final.indb 297

4/28/16 8:35 PM

298 • Note to Page 243 state organizations; and independent Audubon clubs. Also, the National Audubon Society that was formed in 1940 is not the same organization as the loose confederation of independent societies created in 1905. On the history and relationship among these Audubon societies and groups, see the following references. For an Audubon timeline, see htt p://www.audubon.org/timeline-accomplishments. On the National Audubon Society, see htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Audubon_Society, which states, “The National Audubon Society (Audubon) . . . is named in honor of John James Audubon, a Franco-American ornithologist and naturalist who painted, cataloged, and described the birds of North America in his famous book Birds of America published in sections between 1827 and 1838. The society has nearly 500 local chapters, each of which is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization voluntarily affi liated with the National Audubon Society, which often organize birdwatching field trips and conservation-related activities.” On the independence of several of the state Audubon societies, such as those in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, see the following sources. On the Connecticut Audubon Society (founded 1898), see htt p://www.ctaudubon.org/our-mission/#sthash .n6RCzbj7.dpbs, which says, “Working exclusively in the state of Connecticut for over 100 years, CAS is an independent organization, not affi liated with any national or governmental group.” On New Jersey Audubon (founded 1897), see htt p://www.njaudubon .org/sectionaboutnjas/aboutus.aspx: “Founded in 1897, and one of the oldest independent Audubon societies,  New Jersey Audubon  has no connection with the National Audubon Society.” On the Audubon Society of Rhode Island (founded 1897), see htt p://www.asri.org/general-news/about-the-audubon-society-of-rhode-island.html, which states, “The Audubon Society of Rhode Island, independent and unaffi liated with the National Audubon Society, was founded in 1897.” For an example of an independent local Audubon organization that is a chapter of National Audubon, see Golden Gate Audubon Society at htt p://goldengateaudubon .org/about-us/. Their site states that “Golden Gate Audubon is an independent, nonprofit organization with its own membership, budget, and programs. Although we are a chapter of National Audubon, becoming a Supporting Member of Golden Gate Audubon is separate and distinct from membership in the National Audubon Society. . . . Since 1917, Golden Gate Audubon has been a leader in Bay Area conservation efforts. In 2007 we celebrated our 90th anniversary of environmental activism and education in the central Bay Area.” On Audubon International, see htt p://www.auduboninternational.org/who -we-are: “Audubon International is still incorporated as the Audubon Society of New York State. Although we have no formal affi liation with the National Audubon Society or the other 500-plus Audubon organizations worldwide, we work with and partner with many of these groups to promote common goals.”

Appendix 1. Other Early and Recent Biographies of Audubon 1. Bradford Kinney Peirce, Audubon’s Adventure; or, Life in the Woods (New York: Hunt & Eaton; Cincinnati, Cranston and Stowe, 1889; originally published as Life in the Wood; or, The Adventures of Audubon [New York: Carleton and Porter, 1863]), 252 pp. The

Merchant-final.indb 298

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 243–245 • 299 1889 edition was the same as the 1863 edition, but included an “Introduction” by R. R. D. (identity unknown), dated August 1, 1889. Early articles on Audubon include the following: Anonymous, “Apropos of Audubon,” The Monthly Chronicle 6 (Jul. –Dec., 1840): 279–282; and Rufus Wilmot Griswold, “John James Audubon,” in The Prose Writers of America: With a Survey of the Intellectual History, Condition, and Prospects of the Country (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1847), pp. 187–190. Articles written in the year of Audubon’s death, 1851, include Rufus Wilmot Griswold, “John James Audubon,” The International Monthly Magazine of Literature, Science, and Art 2 (Dec. –Mar., 1850–1851): 469– 474; Parke Goodwin, Esq., “John James Audubon,” in Wellman’s Literary Miscellany, ed. Daniel F. Quinby, vols. 4 and 5 (Detroit: Beecher and Quinby, 1851), pp. 157–163; and Anonymous, “John James Audubon,” in The Student, A Family Miscellany and Monthly School Reader, ed. N. A. Calkins, vols. 3–4, 3–6 (New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1851). 2. Bradford Kinney Peirce, Notes on the Acts of the Apostles: Designed for Sunday Schools, Bible Classes, and Private Reading (New York: Carlton and Phillips, 1854); Bradford Kinney Peirce, The Word of God Opened, Its Inspiration, Canon, and Interpretation Considered and Illustrated (New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1868); Bradford Kinney Peirce, A Half-Century with Juvenile Delinquents; or, The New York House of Refuge and Its Times (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1869). Peirce repeats a story told by other biographers about “some travelers upon a canal route in Pennsylvania . . . [who] heard above the bustle of the crowd rushing on board at the hour of starting the familiar name of Audubon spoken. ‘Mr. Audubon is last on the list,’ said the speaker; ‘I fear he will not get a bed, we are so crowded.’ ‘What, is it possible Mr. Audubon can be on board?’ they rejoiced almost simultaneously. ‘He is the man of all others that we most wish to see. Where? Which is he?’” (pp. 243–244). 3. Peirce, Audubon’s Adventure, p. 13. 4. Maria R. Audubon, “Audubon’s Story of His Youth,” Scribner’s Magazine 12, no. 3 (Mar. 1893): 267–289, see “Myself, J. J. Audubon,” pp. 267–289; Maria R. Audubon, ed., Audubon and His Journals, 2 vols., with zoological and other notes by Elliott Coues (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897), quotation from vol. 1, p. 7n1. Grinnell is acknowledged on p. viii. 5. Maria Audubon, ed., Audubon and His Journals, “Preface,” vii–x, quotations on pp. viii–x. 6. Mary Fluker Bradford, Audubon (New Orleans: L. Graham & Son, 1897), quotations on pp. 5–6; on the hoped-for monument in New Orleans, see p. 74. 7. Bradford, Audubon, quotation on p. 73. Bradford used and quoted phrases from Lucy Audubon’s The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1875), pp. 18–19, 24–25; see Bradford, Audubon, pp. 17–18, 20–21. See also Maria R. Audubon, “Audubon’s Story of His Youth,” pp. 268–272; and Bradford, Audubon, pp. 12–13. See also Maria R. Audubon, “Audubon’s Story of His Youth,” pp. 277–278; and Bradford, Audubon, pp. 18–19. 8. On the history of Mary Fluker Bradford’s efforts to raise funds for the statue of John James Audubon, see htt p://louisdl.louislibraries.org/cdm/ref/collection/LWP /id/7167. 9. John Burroughs, John James Audubon (Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., 1902), pp. ix–xii, xiii–xvii, 143–144, quotation on p. ix. See also John Burroughs, “John James

Merchant-final.indb 299

4/28/16 8:35 PM

300 • Notes to Pages 246–251 Audubon,” The Nation 9, no. 209 (Jul. 1, 1869): 13–14; reprinted as the introduction to Robert Buchanan, The Life and Adventures of Audubon the Naturalist, with an introduction by John Burroughs [dated July 1869] (London: J. M. Dent and Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1913. 10. Burroughs, John James Audubon, quotations on pp. 120, 125, 126. 11. Francis Hobart Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1917; 2nd ed., 1938); see vol. 1, pp. 25, 32, 56, 57, 59; on Rosa’s death in 1842, see vol. 1, p. 269. 12. Alice Ford, John James Audubon (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964); Alice Ford, ed., Audubon by Himself (Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1969). 13. Carolyn E. DeLatte, Lucy Audubon: A Biography, updated edition with a foreword by Christoph Irmscher (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008); see esp. Irmscher’s introduction, pp. xi–xx, and DeLatte’s discussion of Lucy’s years in Louisiana, pp. 162–193. 14. Richard Rhodes, John James Audubon: The Making of an American. New York: Vintage, 2006); William Souder, Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of “The Birds of America” (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2004). Lawrence Hott and Diane Garey, “John James Audubon: Drawn from Nature,” Florentine Films, 2006; Edward H. Burtt and William E. Davis Jr., Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).

Appendix 2. Producing Audubon’s Birds of America and Grinnell’s Monthly Birds 1. Lee A. Vedder, John James Audubon and the Birds of America: A Visionary Achievement in Ornithological Illustration (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 2006), pp. 5–7, quotation on p. 6. 2. Vedder, Audubon and the Birds, pp. 8–9, quotation on p. 8. 3. Ibid., quotation, p. 19 4. Ibid., p. 20. 5. Ibid., p. 28. 6. On the history and process of engraving, see htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Engraving. 7. Vedder, Audubon and the Birds, p. 32. Havell’s edition was published as John James Audubon, The Birds of America: From Original Drawings with 435 Plates Showing 1,065 Lifesized Figures, 4 vols., Double-Elephant Folio (London: Robert Havell, 1827–1838). 8. Ibid., quotation p. 30. 9. Ibid., p. 31. 10. John James Audubon, Audubon’s Birds of America: Containing All of the Original Plates Reprinted from the First Royal Octavo Edition [1840–1844], with an introduction by Suzanne M. Low (San Diego, CA: Thunder Bay Press, 1994). See p. 10 on the use of the camera lucida to reduce the double-elephant folio paintings to octavo size. For more on the camera lucida technique for reducing image sizes, see htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Camera_lucida.

Merchant-final.indb 300

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Notes to Pages 251–253 • 301 11. On lithography, see htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography; and htt p:// www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/343748/lithography. 12. Audubon, Audubon’s Birds of America: Octavo Edition, pp. 10–11. See also “Bowen Royal Octavo Edition,” htt p://www.audubonhouse.org/Bowen_Octavo.aspx. Th is site explains that “Bowen used the camera lucida process to project a smaller, reversed image of the full-sized prints onto the stone for copying. Audubon increased the number of plates from 435 to 500, separating into individual images some birds which were originally portrayed together on a single plate. The fi rst edition was published in 1840–1844 and numbered 1,198 copies.” 13. John James Audubon, The Birds of America. The Bien Chromolithographic Edition, text by Joel Oppenheimer, edited by Laura Oppenheimer (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013). For an illuminating discussion of the development of lithography and chromolithography, see pp. 44–46, 50; on Bien, see pp. 47–50. The book is a faithful replica of the Bien edition, but it is not in double-elephant folio. Oppenheimer does not discuss the camera lucida as a means for reducing the double-elephant folio to octavo size, and he does not cite Suzanne Low’s introduction to Audubon’s Birds of America: Octavo Edition (see earlier note 10 to this chapter) or her discussion of the camera lucida. 14. Vedder, Audubon and the Birds, p. 36. 15. Audubon, Audubon’s Birds of America: Octavo Edition, p. 10; Bill Steiner, Audubon Art Prints: A Collector’s Guide to Every Edition (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), quotation on pp. 260–261; see also Francis Hobart Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time, vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1917; 2nd ed., 1938) pp. 203–204. Waldemar H. Fries, The Double Elephant Folio: The Story of Audubon’s “Birds of America” (Chicago: American Library Association, 1973), pp. 172– 174, 181. Fries notes, “Though the New York Society Library had obtained the Octavo edition of the Birds of America . . . it was not until December 1883 that the Double Elephant folio, through the gift of Charles H. Contoit, came into its possession. . . . It appears to have been assembled from loose prints which had been brought over from England by Havell after completion of the engraving” (p. 295). Fries states, however, that “in March 1973, the author was advised by letter that this folio had been stolen” (p. 296). Fries lists other organizations in New York City that had complete sets at the time he was writing in 1973, but which do not seem to have been there when Grinnell was working in the late 1880s. These included the American Museum of Natural History (in 1904, p. 227), the National Audubon Society (in 1957, p. 289), the New-York Historical Society (in 1954; original watercolors sold by Lucy Audubon, 1863, p. 291), and the New York Public Library (pp. 292–294). A set at the American Academy of Arts and Letters originally owned by Colis Huntington was sold and broken up (p. 181). 16. John James Audubon, The Original Water-Color Paintings by John James Audubon for “The Birds of America,” Reproduced in Color for the First Time from the Collection at Th e New-York Historical Society, 2 vols., introduction by Marshall B. Davidson (New York: American Heritage, 1966). For example, both Grinnell’s and Havell’s prints of the Towhee Bunting (Grinnell, in The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 8 [Sept. 1888]: 156; and Audubon, The Birds of America [London: Robert Havell], Havell print 29) differ from Audubon, Original Water-Color Paintings, Watercolor 20 by omitt ing a portion of a twig in the lower right corner. In both Grinnell’s and Havell’s prints of the Fork-tailed Flycatcher

Merchant-final.indb 301

4/28/16 8:35 PM

302 • Notes to Pages 254–255 (compare Grinnell 2.9; Havell 168; Watercolor 40), portions of the leaves in the upper right flower are altered. In both Grinnell’s and Havell’s prints of the Rusty Grackle (compare Grinnell 2.2; Havell 157; Watercolor 117), branches have been added in the lower left corner. 17. On the development of cameras and dry plate negatives, see “Dawn’s Early Light: The First 50 Years of Photography,” Cornell University, htt p://rmc.library.cornell.edu /DawnsEarlyLight/exhibition/modernphotography/index.html. 18. On printing directly from a photograph, see htt p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily _Graphic. 19. [George Bird Grinnell], “Audubon Bird Plates,” Forest and Stream 47, no. 10 (Sept. 5, 1896): 181, italics added. 20. Ibid., p. 181. 21. [George Bird Grinnell], “Audubon Bird Plates,” Forest and Stream 47, no. 12 (Sept. 26, 1896): 242, image of “The Dusky Duck” on p. 243. See also Fries, The Double Elephant Folio, p. 368; and Waldemar H. Fries, “Reproductions of Audubon’s Birds of America,” htt p://www.Audubon-prints.com/reproductions-of-audubons-birds-of-america/. Fries writes, “The fi rst reproductions of the Audubon prints made in the United States seem to have been those announced by Forest and Stream in the 5 September 1896 issue 1. Here it was stated that a series of halftone reproductions of selected Audubon bird plates were to be included in forthcoming issues, the plates having been photographed especially for this purpose from a copy of the original Double Elephant folio of the work (erroneously dated 1827–1835 in the announcement) in possession of a member of the Forest and Stream Publishing Company” (p. 368). 22. Letter from M. R. Audubon, Forest and Stream 47, no. 16 (Oct. 17, 1896): 301. See also Fries, The Double Elephant Folio, quotation on p. 368. Fries, apparently unaware of the prints in The Audubon Magazine, states, “Miss Audubon seemed here to intimate that other reproductions had been made. However, none prior to 1896 have been located by the present author” (p. 368).

Merchant-final.indb 302

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Bibliography

Allen, J. A. “The Audubon Society.” Forest and Stream 26, no. 7 (March 11, 1886): 124. Allen, J. A. “Biographical Memoir of Elliott Coues, 1842–1899.” National Academy Biographical Memoirs. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1909. Vol. 4, pp. 395–446. Allen, J. A. “In Memoriam: George Burritt Sennett .” The Auk 18 (January 1901): 11–23. Allen, J. A. “The Present Wholesale Destruction of Bird-Life in the United States.” Science 7 (1886): 191–193. Allport, Thomas, James Dixon, and Emily Fletcher. Monandrian Plants of the Order Scitamineae Chiefly Drawn from Living Specimens in the Botanic Garden at Liverpool, Arranged According to the System of Linnaeus with Descriptions and Observations by William Roscoe. Charleston, SC: Bibliolife/Nabu Press, 2011. Anonymous. “Apropos of Audubon.” The Monthly Chronicle 6 (July–December, 1840): 279–282. Anonymous. Homes of American Authors Comprising Anecdotal, Personal and Descriptive Sketches, by Various Writers. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1853. Anonymous. “John James Audubon.” In The Student, A Family Miscellany and Monthly School Reader. Edited by N. A. Calkins. Vols. 3–4, 3–6. New York: Fowlers and Wells, 1851. Anonymous. “‘John J. Audubon: Interesting Reminiscences of the Great Ornithologist’s Early Life in Henderson, KY,’ from the Henderson (KY) Reporter.” New York Times, August 4, 1878. Anonymous. “Timeline: Audubon Milestones.” Audubon 106, no. 5 (November–December 2004): 52–53. Audubon Magazine, The. Published in the Interests of the Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds. New York: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 1887–1889. Digital version hosted by the University of Toronto at htt ps://archive.org/details/n5audubon magazin01audu; by HathiTrust at htt p://hdl.handl.net/2027/coo.31924056412871; by

• 303

Merchant-final.indb 303

4/28/16 8:35 PM

304 • Bibliography the Biodiversity Heritage Library (audubonmag12188789nati.pdf); and by the Internet Archive at htt ps://archive.org/details/audubonmag12188789nati. Audubon, Special Centennial Issue, 100 Years of Conservation 106, no. 5 (November– December 2004): 1–100. Audubon, John James. Audubon’s Birds of America: Containing All of the Original Plates Reprinted from the First Royal Octavo Edition [1840–1844]. Introduction by Suzanne M. Low. San Diego, CA: Thunder Bay Press, 1994. Audubon, John James. Audubon, By Himself: A Profile of John James Audubon from Writings Selected, Arranged, and Edited by Alice Ford. Garden City, NY: The Natural History Press for the American Museum of Natural History, 1969. Audubon, John James. The Birds of America: From Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories. 7 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier, 1840–1844. Audubon, John James. The Birds of America: From Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories. 7 vols. New York: Roe Lockwood and Son, 1861. Audubon, John James. The Birds of America: From Drawings Made in the United States and Their Territories. With a Preface by George R. Lockwood. New York: Geo. R. Lockwood and Son, 1870. Audubon, John James. The Birds of America: From Original Drawings with 435 Plates Showing 1,065 Life-sized Figures. 4 vols. Double-Elephant Folio. London: Robert Havell, 1827–1838. Audubon, John James. The Birds of America: The Bien Chromolithographic Edition. Text by Joel Oppenheimer. Edited by Laura Oppenheimer. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013. Audubon, John James. Delineations of American Scenery and Character. Introduction by Francis Hobart Herrick. New York: G. Baker, 1926. Audubon, John James. The 1826 Journal of John James Audubon. Transcribed by Alice Ford. New York: Abbeville Press, 1987. Audubon, John James. “Letter from John J. Audubon, superscribed to ‘Rich r Harlan Esqr M.D. &c &c &c Philadelphia Pensa’; now in the possession of R. W. Shufeldt, M.D. and heretofore unpublished.” Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club 5 (1880): 202–203. Audubon, John James. Letters of John James Audubon. Edited by Howard Corning. New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1969. Audubon, John James. The Original Water-Color Paintings by John James Audubon for “The Birds of America,” Reproduced in Color for the First Time from the Collection at The New-York Historical Society. 2 vols. Introduction by Marshall B. Davidson. New York: American Heritage, 1966. Audubon, John James. Ornithological Biography; or, An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America; Accompanied by Descriptions of the Objects Represented in the Work Entitled “The Birds of America,” and Interspersed with Delineations of American Scenery and Manners. 5 vols. Edinburgh: A. Black, 1831–1849 [1839]; Philadelphia: E. I. Carey and A. Hart, 1832–1839. Online version of plates and descriptions at the University of Pitt sburgh at htt p://digital.library.pitt .edu/a/audubon/plates.html. Audubon, John James, and Rev. John Bachman, assisted by Victor Gifford Audubon. The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. London: Wiley and Putnam, 1845–1848. Audubon, Lucy. The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with

Merchant-final.indb 304

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Bibliography • 305 an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson. New York: G. Putnam and Son, 1869; copyrighted 1868 by Mrs. J. Audubon. Audubon, Lucy. The Life of John James Audubon the Naturalist, Edited by His Widow, with an Introduction by Ja[me]s Grant Wilson. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1875. Audubon, Maria R. “Audubon’s Story of His Youth.” Scribner’s Magazine 12, no. 3 (March 1893). Audubon, Maria R., ed. Audubon and His Journals. 2 vols. With zoological and other notes by Elliott Coues. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897. Auk, The. American Ornithologists’ Union: Washington, DC, 1884–present. Bachman, John. Selected Writings on Science, Race, and Religion. Edited by Gene Waddell. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1911. Baird, S[pencer] F[ullerton], T. M. Brewer, and R. Ridgway. The Water Birds of North America. 2 vols. Boston: Litt le Brown and Co., 1884. Barrow, Mark V., Jr. A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology After Audubon. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Beckham, Charles W. “A List of the Birds of Bardstown Kentucky.” Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History 6, no. 2 (July 1883): 136–147. Bird-Lore. Official Organ of the Audubon Societies. New York: Macmillan, 1899–1940. Blanchan, Neltje. Bird Neighbors. New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1897. Blanchan, Neltje. Birds That Hunt and Are Hunted: Life Histories of One Hundred and Seventy Birds of Prey, Game Birds and Water-Fowls. New York: Doubleday and McClure, 1898. Bland, D. S. John James Audubon in Liverpool: 1827–1827. Liverpool: University of Liverpool, 1977. Blaugrund, Annette, and Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. The Watercolors for the Birds of America. New York: Villard Books, New-York Historical Society, 1993. Boase, George Clement. “St. John, Horace Stebbing Roscoe.” In Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900. Vol. 5. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1885–1901. Bradford, Mary Fluker. Audubon. New Orleans: L. Graham and Son, 1897. Brinkley, Douglas. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Brooks, Paul. “Birds and Women.” Audubon 82, no. 5 (September 1980): 88–97. Buchanan, Robert. The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist. Edited by Robert Buchanan from materials supplied by his widow. London: S. Low, Son and Marston, 1868. Buchanan, Robert. The Life and Adventures of Audubon the Naturalist. With an introduction by John Burroughs [July 1869]. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1913; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1913. Buchholtz, Curt. Man in Glacier. West Glacier, MT: Glacier Natural History Association, 1976. Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. 8 vols. Cambridge, MA: The Club, 1876–1883. Burns, Frank. “Alexander Wilson I: The Audubon Controversy.” The Wilson Bulletin 20, no. 1 (March 1908): 2–18. Burns, Frank. “Alexander Wilson VII: Biographies, Portraits, and a Bibliography of His Works.” The Wilson Bulletin 21, no. 4 (December 1909): 165–186.

Merchant-final.indb 305

4/28/16 8:35 PM

306 • Bibliography Burns, Frank. “Alexander Wilson VIII: His Early Life and Writings.The Wilson Bulletin 22, no. 2 (June 1910): 79–96. Burroughs, John. “John James Audubon.” The Nation 9, no. 209 (July 1, 1869): 13–14. Burroughs, John. John James Audubon. Boston: Small, Maynard and Co., 1902. Burt, Edward H., and William E. Davis Jr. Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. California Federation of Women’s Clubs. Club Life. 4 vols. San Francisco: The Clubwoman’s Guild, 1902–1906. Cantwell, Robert. Alexander Wilson: Naturalist and Pioneer, a Biography. Philadelphia: Lippincott , 1961. Cassino, Samuel E. Naturalists’ Directory. Boston: S. E. Cassino Publishers, 1896. Chapman, Frank M. “Birds and Bonnets,” Forest and Stream 26, no. 5 (February 25, 1886): 84. Chauvenet, W. M. “How I Learned to Love and Not to Kill,” The Audubon Magazine 2 no. 4 (May 1888): 79–81. Cott , Nancy. The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977. Coues, Elliott . Birds of the Colorado Valley: A Repository of Scientific and Popular Information Concerning North American Ornithology. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1878. Coues, Elliott . Birds of the Northwest: A Handbook of the Ornithology of the Region Drained by the Missouri River and its Tributaries. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1874. Coues, Elliott . A Dictionary and Check List of North American Birds. Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1882. Coues, Elliott . Key to North American Birds. Boston: Estes and Lauriat, 1872, 1884, 1901. Crichton, Thomas. Biographical Sketch of the Late Alexander Wilson to a Young Friend. Paisley, UK: J. Neilson, 1819. Dean, Sharon L. “Isles of Shoals Study Guide.” Nashua, NH: Department of English and Communications, Rivier College. Delatte, Carolyn E. Lucy Audubon: A Biography. Updated edition with a foreword by Christoph Irmscher. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008. Delineator, The. Toronto: Delineator Publishing Co., 1873–1900 (1898). DeOrsey, Stan, and Barbara A. Butler. Birds of Duchess County, New York: Today and Yesterday: A Survey of Current Status with Historical Changes Since 1870. Poughkeepsie, NY: The Ralph T. Waterman Bird Club, 2014. Dorsey, Kurkpatrick. The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era. Seatt le: University of Washington Press, 1998. Doughty, Robin W. “Concern for Fashionable Feathers.” Forest History 16, no. 2 (July 1972): 4–11. Doughty, Robin W. Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation: A Study in Nature Protection. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Duke of Argyll, “Hibernation of Birds,” Nature 15, no. 390 (April 19, 1877): 527–528. Dunlap, Thomas R. In the Field, Among the Feathered: A History of Birders and Their Guides. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Merchant-final.indb 306

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Bibliography • 307 Dunlap, Thomas R. Saving America’s Wildlife. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. Egede, Hans. A Description of Greenland. London: C. Wood, 1818 [1745]. Fair Chase: The Official Publication of the Boone and Crockett Club. Missoula, MT: The Boone and Crockett Club, 1994–present. Field and Forest. Washington, DC: Columbia Press, 1875–1878. Forbes, Stephen Alfred. List of Illinois Crustacea with Descriptions of New Species, Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History. Bloomington, IL: Pantagraphic Printing, 1884. Ford, Alice. The 1826 Journal of John James Audubon. Transcribed with an introduction and notes from the original in the collection of Henry Bradley Martin. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967. Ford, Alice. John James Audubon. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. Ford, Alice, ed. Audubon by Himself. Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1969. Forest and Stream. New York: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 1873–1930. Internet Archive at htt p://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/60651#/summary. Fries, Waldemar H. The Double Elephant Folio: The Story of Audubon’s “Birds of America.” Chicago: American Library Association, 1973. Fries, Waldemar H. “Reproductions of Audubon’s Birds of America.” htt p://www .Audubon-prints.com/reproductions-of-audubons-birds-of-america/. Fuller, Errol. The Passenger Pigeon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Giraud, Jacob Post, Jr. The Birds of Long Island. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1844. Giraud, Jacob Post, Jr. A Description of Sixteen New Species of North American Birds Described in the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History . . . Collected in Texas, 1838. New York: George F. Nesbitt , 1841. Giraud, Jacob Post, Jr. “A Letter of J. P. Giraud, Jr.” Reproduced in The Auk 38, no. 2 (April 1921): 314–315. Goddu, Joseph. “From Drawing to Print: The Making of Audubon’s The Birds of America.” In John James Audubon and Robert Havell Jr.: Artist’s Proofs for “The Birds of America.” Exhibition Catalogue. New York: Hirschl and Adler Galleries, 2002. Godey, Louis Antoine. Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine. Philadelphia: L. A. Godey, 1883. Goodwin, Parke, Esq. “John James Audubon.” In Wellman’s Literary Miscellany [Monthly Literary Miscellany], edited by Daniel F. Quinby, vols. 4 and 5, pp. 157–163. Detroit: Beecher and Quinby, 1851. Graham, Frank, Jr. The Audubon Ark: A History of the National Audubon Society. New York: Knopf, 1990. Graham, Frank, Jr. “Audubon’s Legacy: Where It All Began.” Audubon 106, no. 5 (November–December 2004): 62–69. Graybill, Andrew. “George Bird Grinnell and the Crown of the Continent.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History, Tallahassee, FL, February 28, 2009. Greenberg, Amy S. Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Greenberg, Joel. A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Merchant-final.indb 307

4/28/16 8:35 PM

308 • Bibliography [Grinnell, George Bird]. “Some Audubon Letters.” The Auk 33, no. 2 (April 1916): 119–130. Grinnell, George Bird. Guide to the George Bird Grinnell Collection, 1870–1987. Missoula, MT: Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, University of Montana. htt p://nwda .orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv37623. Grinnell, George Bird. Guide to the George Bird Grinnell Papers, 1859–1939. New Haven, CT: Sterling Library, Yale University. htt p://drs.library.yale.edu/HLTransformer /HLTransServlet?stylename=yul.ead2002.x. html.xsl&pid=mssa:ms.1388&clear -stylesheet-cache=yes. Grinnell, George Bird. The Passing of the Great West: Selected Papers of George Bird Grinnell. Edited by John F. Reiger. New York: Winchester Press, 1972. Grinnell, George Bird. When Buffalo Ran. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. Grinnell, George Bird, and Charles Shelton, eds. Hunting and Conservation: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1925. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. “John James Audubon.” In The Prose Writers of America: With a Survey of the Intellectual History, Condition, and Prospects of the Country, pp. 187–190. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1847. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. “John James Audubon.” The International Monthly Magazine of Literature, Science, and Art 2 (December 1850–March 1851): 469–474. Grosart, Reverend Alexander B. The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson. 2 vols. Paisley, UK: Alexander Gardner, 1876. Hall, Minna B. “A New Audubon Society.” Letter 5. Forest and Stream 46, no. 16 (April 18, 1896): 314. Hallock, Charles. “Spare the Birds.” Forest and Stream 4, no. 7 (Mar. 25, 1875): 104. Hallock, Charles. The Sportsman’s Gazetteer and General Guide: The Game Animals, Birds, and Fishes of North America. New York: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 1877, 1878, 1880; New York: Orange Judd, 1883; reprint, Biodiversity Heritage Library, htt p:// www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/22487#/summary. Handy, Moses P., ed. Official Directory of the World’s Columbian Exposition, May 1–Oct 30, 1893: A Reference Book. Chicago: W. B. Conkey Co., 1893. Handy, Moses P., ed. World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893: Official Catalogue. Part I. Agriculture Building and Dairy Building. Chicago: W. B. Conkey Co., 1893. Hart-Davis, Duff . Audubon’s Elephant: America’s Greatest Naturalist and the Making of “The Birds of America.” New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Herrick, Francis Hobart. Audubon the Naturalist: A History of His Life and Time. 2 vols. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1917, 1938. Hilkey, Judy Arlene. Character Is Capital: Success Manuals and Manhood in Gilded Age America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Hott , Lawrence, and Diane Garey. “John James Audubon: Drawn from Nature.” Florentine Films, 2006. Hoy, Suellen. Chasing Dirt: The American Pursuit of Cleanliness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Hudson, William Henry. “On the Herons of the Argentine Republic.” Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 43, no. 1 (November 16, 1875): 623–631. Hunter, Clark, ed. The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1983.

Merchant-final.indb 308

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Bibliography • 309 Hunter, Emily. “Women and Botany.” March 19, 2012. htt p://nmnh.typepad.com/field books/2012/03/women-botany.html. Isenberg, Andrew. The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000. Isenberg, Andrew. “The Returns of the Bison: Nostalgia, Profit, and Preservation.” Environmental History 2 (April 1997): 179–196. Jackson, Elizabeth Christine, and Peter Davis. Sir William Jardine: A Life in Natural History. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 2001. Jardine, William. “The Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson.” In Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte, American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States. 4 vols. Edinburgh: Constable and Co., 1831. Jardine, William. “Memoir of Alexander Wilson.” In Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, pp. 17–50. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1860. Jardine, William. The Naturalist’s Library. 40 vols. Edinburgh: W. H. Lizars, 1833–1843. Josselyn, John. New Englands Rarities Discovered. London: G. Widdowes, 1672 [1663]. Kaufmann, Kenn. “Taking a Stand: Seven Birds that Defi ne Audubon’s Mission.” Audubon 106, no. 5 (November–December): 43, 49, 51, 61, 67, 70, 75. Langford, Nathaniel Pitt . Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in 1870. St. Paul, MN: J. E. Haynes, 1905. Levitt , James N. “Conservation Innovation in America: Past, Present, and Future.” Occasional papers, Institute for Government Innovation, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2003. Low, Susanne M. Catalogue of the New “Birds of America” Section of the Audubon Archives. New York: American Museum of Natural History, published by the author, 1993. Low, Susanne M. A Guide to Audubon’s Birds of America: A Concordance Containing Current Names of the Birds, Plate Names with Descriptions of Plate Variants, a Description of the Bien Edition, and Corresponding Indexes. New Haven: William Reese Co. and Donald A. Heald, 2002. Mckenzie, Callum. “The British Big-Game Hunting Tradition, Masculinity and Fraternalism with Particular Reference to the ‘The Shikar Club.’” The Sports Historian 20, no. 1 (2000): 70–96. McNeill, Sir John, and R. R. McLeod. “Correspondence.” Field and Forest 3, no. 2 (August 1877): 35–36. Merchant, Carolyn. American Environmental History: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Merchant, Carolyn. “George Bird Grinnell’s Audubon Society: Bridging the Gender Divide in Conservation.” Environmental History 15, no. 1 (January 2010): 3–30. Merchant, Carolyn. “Women of the Progressive Conservation Crusade, 1900–1915.” In Environmental History: Critical Issues in Comparative Perspective, pp. 153–75. Edited by Kendall Bailes. New York: University Press of America, 1985. Merchant, Carolyn. “Women of the Progressive Conservation Movement, 1900–1916.” Environmental Review 8 (Spring 1984): 57–85. Merriam [Bailey], Florence. A-Birding on a Bronco. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1896. Merriam [Bailey], Florence. Birds of Village and Field. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1898. Merriam [Bailey], Florence. Birds Through an Opera Glass. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1891; New York: Chautauqua, 1889; reprinted with a new introduction in 1899.

Merchant-final.indb 309

4/28/16 8:35 PM

310 • Bibliography Merriam [Bailey], Florence. Handbook of Birds of the Western United States, Including the Great Basin, Pacific Slope, and Lower Rio Grande Valley. 2nd ed. New York: Houghton Miffl in, 1904. Merriam [Bailey], Florence. “Hints to Audubon Workers: Fift y Common Birds and How to Know Them.” Serialized in The Audubon Magazine 1, nos. 5–12 (June 1887–December 1888). Miller, Olive Thorne. A Bird Lover in the West. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1894. Miller, Olive Thorne. Bird Ways. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1885. Miller, Olive Thorne. In Nesting Time. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1888. Miller, Olive Thorne. Little Brothers in the Air. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1892. Minot, Henry D. The Land Birds and Game Birds of New England. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1903. Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 3rd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982. National Audubon Society. The Audubon Magazine. Vol. 1, 1887. London: Forgotten Books, 2013. Nutt all, Thomas. A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada: The Land Birds. Boston: Hillyard Gray and Co., 1832. Nutt all, Thomas. A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada: The Water Birds. Boston: Hillyard Gray and Co., 1834. Nutt all, Thomas. A Popular Handbook of the Birds of the United States and Canada. Boston: Litt le Brown, and Co., 1903. Revised and annotated by Montague Chamberlin. Boston: Litt le Brown, and Co., 1905. Ogilby, Stuart. Forest and Stream 24, no. 12 (June 25, 1885): 427. Olson, Roberta J. M. Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for the Birds of America. New York: New-York Historical Society, 2012. Ord, George. Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, Author of the “American Ornithology.” Philadelphia: Harrison Hall, 1828. Parton, James. “Audubon,” In People’s Book of Biography; or, Short Lives of the Most Interesting Persons of All Ages and Countries. . . , pp. 163–167. Hartford, CT: A. S. Hale, 1868. Paton, Alan Park. Wilson the Ornithologist: A New Chapter in His Life. New York: Longmans, Green, 1863. Pearson, T. Gilbert. Fift y Years of Bird Protection in the United States. New York: National Association of Audubon Societies, 1933. Peirce, Bradford Kinney. Audubon’s Adventure; or, Life in the Woods. New York: Hunt and Eaton; Cincinnati, Cranston and Stowe, 1889. Peirce, Bradford Kinney. A Half-Century with Juvenile Delinquents; or, The New York House of Refuge and Its Times. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1869. Peirce, Bradford Kinney. Notes on the Acts of the Apostles: Designed for Sunday Schools, Bible Classes, and Private Reading. New York: Carlton and Phillips, 1854. Peirce, Bradford Kinney. The Word of God Opened, Its Inspiration, Canon, and Interpretation Considered and Illustrated. New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1868. Peterson, Roger Tory, and Virginia Marie Peterson. Audubon’s Birds of America: The National Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio. New York: Abbeville Press, 1981, 1991.

Merchant-final.indb 310

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Bibliography • 311 Plate, Robert. Alexander Wilson: Wanderer in the Wilderness. New York: David McKay, 1966. Price, Jennifer. Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Price, Jennifer. “Hats Off to Audubon.” Audubon 106, no. 5 (November–December 2004): 44–50. Proceedings of the First National Conservation Congress held at Seattle, Washington. N.p., August 26–28, 1909. Proceedings of the Fourth National Conservation Congress held at Indianapolis, Indiana. N.p., October 1–4, 1912. Punke, Michael. Last Stand: George Bird Grinnell, the Battle to Save the Buffalo, and the Birth of the New West. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2007. Putney, Clifford. Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880– 1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. Reiger, John. American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation. 3rd ed. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001. Reiger, John. Escaping into Nature: The Making of a Sportsman-Conservationist and Environmental Historian. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2013. Reiger, John. “An Inspiration to Us All: The Boone and Crockett Club’s Place in the History of American Conservation.” Fair Chase 19 (Fall 2004): 50–57. Reiger, John, ed. The Passing of the Great West: Selected Papers of George Bird Grinnell. New York: Winchester Press, 1972. Reiger, John. “Pathbreaking Conservationist: George Bird Grinnell (1849–1938).” Forest History Today (Spring/Fall 2005): 16–19. Rhodes, Richard. John James Audubon: The Making of an American. New York: Vintage, 2006. Rigal, Laura. “Empire of Birds: Alexander Wilson’s American Ornithology.” Huntington Library Quarterly 59, no. 2/3 (1996): 232–268. Riley, Glenda. Women and Nature: Saving the Wild West. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Rome, Adam. “‘Political Hermaphrodites’: Gender and Environmental Reform in Progressive America.” Environmental History 11 (July 2006): 440–463. Roscoe, William. Monandrian Plants of the Order Scitamineae, Chiefly Drawn from Living Specimens in the Botanic Gardens at Liverpool, Arranged According to the System of Linnaeus with Descriptions and Observations. Liverpool: George Smith, 1828. Rotundo, E. Anthony. American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Ryan, Mary P. “American Society and the Cult of Domesticity, 1830–1860.” PhD diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1971. Ryan, Mary P. Womanhood in America: From Colonial Times to the Present. New York, F. Watt s, 1983. St. John, Horace. The Indian Archipelago: Its History and Present State. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1853. St. John, Mrs. Horace. Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World. His Adventures and Discoveries. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1856.

Merchant-final.indb 311

4/28/16 8:35 PM

312 • Bibliography St. John, Mrs. Horace. Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World: His Adventures and Discoveries. New York: C. S. Francis and Co., 1856. St. John, Mrs. Horace. Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World: His Adventures and Discoveries. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, Lee and Co., 1861, 1864; New York: A. L. Burt, 1894. St. John, Mrs. Horace. Englishwomen and the Age. London, 1860. St. John, Mrs. Horace. Masaniello of Naples: The Record of a Nine Days Revolution. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1865. St. John, Mrs. Horace Stebbing Roscoe, and John William Orr. Boy’s Life of Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World: His Adventures and Discoveries. Revised and corrected with additions and illustrated with engravings. New York: Allen Bros., 1869; Leavitt and Allen Bros., 1870, 1871. Scharff, Virginia J., ed. Seeing Nature Through Gender: Development of Western Resources. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Scheppegrell, William, ed. Glimpses of Audubon Park: Annual Souvenir Book of Audubon Park New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans: Audubon Park Commission, 1917. Schrepfer, Susan R. Nature’s Altars: Mountains, Gender, and American Environmentalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. Shufeldt, Robert W. America’s Greatest Problem: The Negro. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1915. Shufeldt, Robert W. The Negro: A Menace to American Civilization. Boston: Gorman Press, 1907. Shufeldt, Robert W. “On an Old Portrait of Audubon Painted by Himself and a Word about Some of His Early Drawings.” The Auk 3, no. 4 (October 1886): 417–420. Shufeldt, Robert W. Studies of the Human Form for Artists, Sculptors, and Scientists. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1908. Smalley, Andrea L. “‘Our Lady Sportsmen’: Gender, Class, and Conservation in Sport Hunting Magazines, 1873–1920.” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 4, no. 4 (October 2005): 355–80. Souder, William. Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of “The Birds of America.” New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2004. Spady, Matt hew. “Audubon Park Historic District.” htt p://www.audubonparkny.com. Spady, Matt hew. Audubon Park Perspectives: News, Views, and Information from the Audubon Park Historic District. htt p://audubonparkperspectives.org/. Spence, Mark. Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks. New York: Oxford, 1999. Stange, Mary Zeiss. Woman the Hunter. Boston: Beacon, 1997. Stange, Mary Zeiss, and Carol Oyster. Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Steiner, Bill. Audubon Art Prints: A Collector’s Guide to Every Edition. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003. Stone, Witmer. “Jacob Post Giraud Jr. and His Works,” The Auk 36, no. 4 (1919): 464–472. Strom, Deborah, ed. Bird Watching with American Women. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. Swainson, William. “Some Account of the Work Now Publishing by M[onsieur] Audubon, Entitled The Birds of America.” Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zo-

Merchant-final.indb 312

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Bibliography • 313 ology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, and Meteorology 1 (May 1828), Part II, Reviews: 43–52. Th axter, Celia. Among the Isles of Shoals. Boston: JR Osgood, 1873; Rpt. Hanover: University Press of New England, 2003; 1894; reprinted in Sharon L. Dean, “Isles of Shoals Study Guide,” Nashua, NH: Department of English and Communications, Rivier College. Th axter, Celia. An Island Garden. Boston: Houghton Miffl in, 1988. Th axter, Celia. Selected Writings and Anthology. Edited by Julia Older. Hancock, NH: Appledore Books, 1998. Th axter, Celia. “Woman’s Heartlessness.” The Audubon Magazine 1, no. 1 (February 1887): 13–14. Th axter, Rosamond. Sandpiper: The Life and Letters of Celia Thaxter. Francestown, NH: Marshall Jones, 1963. Turner, Frederick Jackson. “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” In Report of the American Historical Association for 1893, 199–227. Vallier, Jane E. Poet on Demand: The Life, Letters and Works of Celia Thaxter. Camden, ME: Down East Books/Peter Randall, 1982. Vedder, Lee A. John James Audubon and the Birds of America: A Visionary Achievement in Ornithological Illustration. San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 2006. Verrill, Addison Emery. “Catalogue of the Birds Observed at Anticosti and Vicinity.” Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History 9 (1862–1863): 137–143. Verrill, Addison Emery. “Notes . . . on the Supposed Eastern Migration of the Cliff Swallow.” Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History 9 (1862–1863): 232. Webber, Charles Wilkins. The Hunter-Naturalist: Romance of Sporting; or, Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters. Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, 1851. Weidensaul, Scott . Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding. New York: Harcourt, 2007. Welker, Robert. Birds and Men. New York: Atheneum, 1966; originally published Harvard University Press, 1950. Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820–1860.” American Quarterly 18 (Summer 1966): 151–174. Whitbourne, Richard. A Discovrse and Discovery of Nevv-fovnd-land, with Many Reasons to Prooue How Worthy and Beneficiall a Plantation May There Be Made. . . . Edited and Illustrated by T Whitburn. London: S. Low Son and Marston, 1870. Whorton, James. Before “Silent Spring”: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974. Widmann, Otto. “Extracts from the Diary of Otto Widmann, ‘How Young Birds Are Fed.’” Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis (July 17, 1884): 186–188. Williams, Violet S. “A Family on My Hands.” The Audubon Magazine 2, no. 1 (February 1888): 18–19. Williams, Violet S. “Note.” The Oologist: For the Student of Birds, Their Nests and Eggs 11, no. 4 (April 1894): 129. Wilson, Alexander. American Ornithology; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the United States. 9 vols. Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1808–1814. Wilson, Alexander, and Charles Lucian Bonaparte. American Ornithology; or, The Nat-

Merchant-final.indb 313

4/28/16 8:35 PM

314 • Bibliography ural History of the Birds of the United States. 4 vols. Edinburgh: Constable and Co., 1831. Wilson, James Southall. Alexander Wilson, Poet-Naturalist: A Study of His Life with Selected Poems. New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1906. Wright, Mabel Osgood. Birdcraft: A Field Book of Two Hundred Song, Game, and Water Birds. New York: Macmillan, 1895. Wright, Mabel Osgood. Birds of Village and Field: A Bird Book for Beginners. New York: Houghton Miffl in, 1898. Wright, Mabel Osgood. Citizen Bird: Scenes from Bird-Life in Plain English for Beginners. New York: Macmillan, 1897. Wright, Mabel Osgood. The Friendship of Nature: A New England Chronicle of Birds and Flowers. New York: Macmillan, 1894.

Merchant-final.indb 314

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Index

John James Audubon is often referred to as “Audubon.” For brevity, titles of persons, such as Reverend, are not given. Page numbers for figures are in bold type. All text including that under figures is listed by page number. Notes are listed by page and number. “Act to Protect the Birds and Animals of Yellowstone National Park,” 235, 263 Adams, Charles Coffi n, 52, 54 Alabama, Audubon’s bird studies in, 81, 259 albino crows, 215. See also Crow Alleghany River, Wilson’s ride down, 137–138 Allen, J. A., 29–30, 189, 220, 270n35, 292n28 Allport, Thomas, 47 American Bison Society, 235, 263 American Crow. See Crow American Humane Society, 28 American Museum of Natural History, 18, 20, 26 American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU), 25–26, 27, 29–30, 33, 41, 262; Bird Protective Committee, 34; Grinnell a member, 262. See also Auk American Ornithology (Wilson and Bonaparte), 50, 64, 66–67, 144 American Sportsman, 16

American Swift . See Chimney Swift AOU. See American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU) aquatint process, 249, 250. See also engraving; printing, 19th century techniques Audubon, Harriet Bachman, 9, 10, 259, 284n13 Audubon, Jean (Audubon’s father), 77, 246–247, 248, 258 Audubon, Jean Rabin. See Audubon, John James Audubon, John James, 3, 6; attempt on his life, 76, 101–104; birth of, 56, 246, 247, 258, 283n1; death of, 8, 90–92, 260, 285nn18, 20; fi nancial problems, 58, 73, 77, 82, 83, 88, 285n15; meeting and marrying Lucy Bakewell, 56, 71–72, 95, 111, 245, 258; personal journals and entries, 52–54, 57–58, 76, 78, 83, 90, 95, 244; relationship with Lucy, 96–97, 98–99; timeline of, 258–261; travels and work of (see by place); writings (see by title, e.g. Birds of America)

• 315

Merchant-final.indb 315

4/28/16 8:35 PM

316 • Index Audubon, John James (continued) —biographies of, 243–247. See also Audubon Magazine biography of John James Audubon (Grinnell); Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World (St. John, E. A. R.); The Life of John James Audubon, (Lucy Audubon); and by title —character of, 93–98, 100–101, 286n5; “(The) Character of John James Audubon” (Grinnell), 33, 60, 93–98, 93(ch.); passion for the outdoors, 93, 97, 112, 113, 115; self-described in his journals, 95 —early life of, 56–57; his formal adoption, 246, 248, 258; in Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, 56, 71–72, 248, 258, 284–285n13; in Nantes, France, 70–71, 106, 246, 248, 258; U.S. citizenship, 259 —illustrations of birds and wildlife, 10, 26–27, 45, 57, 105(ch.), 258, 285–286n13; Eagle and the Lamb (The), 10, 87, 261, 284–285n13; early drawings, 68–69, 106–109, 248, 279–280n30; featured by Grinnell in “Monthly Birds,” 149– 151, 149(ch.), 152–154t, 200(ch.); life size watercolors, 248–249, 252, 253; Shufeldt’s analysis of, 63; supervision of engraving processes, 250. See also Plates 1.1 through 2.12; and by title —as an ornithologist; expeditions (see also Mississippi River journey and by locale); museum curator in Cincinnati, 57, 77–81; named a Fellow of the Royal Society, 87; as a naturalist, 55, 57, 60–61, 68; observation and studies of birds, 72, 87, 168–170, 190, 258, 259, 284–285n; wilderness excursions, 62, 93–94, 97, 100–101. See also by excursion and birds observed —occupations, 72–73, 82–83, 93; instructor, 82–83; museum curator, 57, 77–81; portrait painter, 72–73, 82, 85 —portraits of, pl. 2, 6, 51, 63, 85–86, 110; self-portrait, 10, 33, 63, 105, 106 Audubon, John Woodhouse, 3, 7–10, 7, 8–9, 10, 259–260; portrait of Audubon

Merchant-final.indb 316

by, pl. 2, 51; portraits and images of, 7, 14; publishing editions of Audubon’s work, 259–260 Audubon, Lucy Bachman, 10, 259 Audubon, Lucy Bakewell, 3, 12, 56, 11; biography of Audubon. See The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist (Lucy Audubon); biography of, 247; early life, 258; governess and teaching work, 58, 63, 83, 109–110, 245, 259; her drawings from nature, 280n40; meeting and marrying Audubon, 56, 71–72, 95, 111, 245, 258; moving to Louisville in her fi nal years, 10, 113, 261; portraits and images of, 6, 10, 12, 114; teaching at the Audubon Park schoolroom, 4–5, 8, 250; timeline of, 258–261 —character and descriptions of, 12, 63, 68, 92, 112; Grinnell on the character of, 61–62; her influence on Grinnell, 3, 8–11, 13, 61–62, 268n8; her importance to Audubon’s accomplishments (Grinnell), 95, 98, 99 Audubon Magazine (The); articles opposing the hat trade, 22, 31, 33–36; Audubon’s self-portrait in, 105–106, 106; cessation of, 36–38, 37t, 55; Grinnell founding and editing of, 13–14, 15, 22, 45, 68; “Monthly Birds” (Audubon illus.) with “Descriptive Ornithologies” (Grinnell) (see also by bird), 149– 151, 149(ch.), 152–154t, pl. 1.1, 13, 35–36 —biography of John James Audubon (Grinnell) vol. 1, nos. 1–8: “Incidents of Audubon’s Life,” 33, 62, 100(ch.); “The Character of John James Audubon,” 33, 60, 93–98, 93(ch.); “The Life of John James Audubon,” 45, 53, 70(ch.) Audubon, Maria R.: Audubon’s granddaughter, 243, 255; “Audubon’s Story of His Youth” featuring Audubon’s journals, 243–244, 245, 279n29; with Coues, Audubon and His Journals, 279n29

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Index • 317 Audubon monument, 69 Audubon the Naturalist (Herrick), 246 Audubon Park: along the Hudson River, 3, 10, 90, 240, 260, 262, 286n3; the Audubon home at, 4, 5, 8, 9–10, 9, 55, 260; Audubon’s declining years in, 90–91; Grinnell’s childhood at, 3, 8–11, 13, 262; Lucy Audubon teaching at, 4–5, 8, 250 Audubon, Rose, 77, 246, 258, 300n11 Audubon Society of the District of Columbia, 38, 263 Audubon Society (The); burgeoning membership placing stress on founders, 35–36, 37t, 263, 263n63, 271n46, 273–274n64; “Certificate of Incorporation of the Audubon Society for the Protection of Birds,” 32; founded by Grinnell, 13, 15, 26, 55, 238–239, 263, 271n50; goals to conserve the bird population (see also bird protection and preservation), 27; post-Society Audubon movement, 38–41; role in advocating for birds, 26–27 Audubon Societies: National Association of, 20, 26, 39, 230, 238, 239–240, 263; 298n10; post-Society Audubon movement, 38–41; women forming chapters, 30, 38, 239–240, 263 —early chapters: Audubon Society of the District of Columbia, 38, 263; Connecticut Audubon Society, 38, 263; Golden Gate Audubon Society, 298n10; Massachusett s Audubon Society, 263 Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World (St. John, E. A. R.), 8, 45–46, 48, 49– 50, 55, 276n4; chronological account of Audubon’s life, 50–51; further editions and corrections, 51–52; juvenile version (A Boy’s Life of Audubon), 52, 243 Audubon, Victor (“Gifford”), 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 258, 259, 260; work on Birds of America, 88, 250 Audubon’s Adventure (Peirce), 243

Merchant-final.indb 317

“Audubon’s Story of His Youth” (Maria Audubon), 243–244 Auk (The), magazine of the AOU, 63, 105; Audubon’s self-portrait in, 63, 105, 105– 106, 110; Audubon’s sketches of birds in, 106–110 “Autumn Anticipations” (Grinnell), 237 avifauna. See bird protection and preservation; birds Bachman, John, 5, 9, 59, 190, 216, 259; birds named for him, 59; raising birds, 190 Bachman, Maria Rebecca (Audubon), 9; marries John Woodhouse Audubon, 259, 260 Bachman, Mary Eliza, marries Victor Gifford Audubon, 259, 260 Baird, Spencer Fullerton, 69 Bald Eagle, 127 Bakewell, Eliza, 253 Bakewell, Lucy. See Audubon, Lucy Bakewell Baltimore Oriole, 155, 160; Audubon’s illus., pl. 1; common names of, 152t, 155, 290n1; described, 160; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 152t, 155; as an insectivore and fruit eater, 156–157, 159; migration and range of, 55–56, 160; nesting and egg incubation, 157–158; as the Northern Oriole, 290n1; raised and fed in captivity, 159–160; song of, 158–159 Barrett , William T., 112 Bartram, William: “Bartram’s botanical garden,” 65–66, 124, 134; as a friend and supporter of Wilson, 124, 126, 128, 129 Bayou Sara, Louisiana, 2, 58, 83, 85, 87, 245 Beckham, Charles W., 227 Bee Martin. See Kingbird Beecher, Henry Ward, 27 Bergh, Henry, 69 Berthoud, Nicholas, 81, 253 Bien, Julius, 252; Birds of America, Bien Chromolithographic edition, 252, 301n13

4/28/16 8:35 PM

318 • Index Big Bone Creek, 140–141 Big Grave Creek, 139–140 Bird-Lore, 18, 26, 38, 234, 238, 263 bird protection and preservation, 16, 39– 41, 266n1, 269–270n27; classifying birds for purposes of (see game birds; nongame birds; plume birds; song birds); gender divide in (see gendered dialectic over bird conservation); Grinnell’s role and influence in, 21–22, 36–37, 41, 234(ch.), 235–236; opposing exploitative bird hunting, 22–24, 26– 27; resistance to, 31, 36; women’s role in (see women and the movement to protect birds). Bird Ways (Miller), 38 birds. See ecological role of birds; game birds; nongame birds; plume birds; songbirds; and by name Birds of America (The), pl. 1.1–2.12, 3, 5, 13, 18, 55–56; Audubon’s search for a publisher, 259; Grinnell on, 62; lithographic and chromolithographic processes, 251–252; octavo editions, 251–252, 259, 260, 301nn12, 15; prints influencing St. John, 46, 47, 48–49 —double-elephant folio edition(s), 45, 55, 57–59, 62, 85–86, 247, 253, 259, 277n9; engraving and publishing processes, 58, 247, 248, 249–250; Grinnell’s black and white photographs of, 253–254; Grinnell’s frontispiece(s) from, 151, 155; Grinnell’s possession or access to, 254–255; plates produced by Havell, 250, 253; serial publication of, 45, 250 Birds Through an Opera Glass (Merriam), 34, 38 Black Hills expedition, Grinnell’s participation, 262 Black and White Warbler; Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.5; description of, 210, 211; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 209; as fruit eaters and role in agriculture, 210; migration and range of, 210–211; nesting behavior, 211

Merchant-final.indb 318

Blackbird, rusty. See Rusty Grackle Black-Crowned Night Heron. See Night Heron Blackfoot Lodge Tales (Grinnell), 263 Blackwood’s Magazine, 86 Bluebirds, 22 Boardman, George A., 162 Bonaparte, Charles Lucian, 64, 74, 84, 91, 221, 223 Boone and Crockett Club, 13, 16, 235, 238, 296–297n1; founded by Grinnell and T. Roosevelt, 21, 38, 234, 263 Boone, Daniel, 79–80 Boston, Audubon’s stay in, 88 Bowen, John, 252, 301n12 Boy’s Life of Audubon, (St. John, E. A. R.), 52 Bradford, Mary Fluker, Audubon, 244–245 Bradford, Samuel F., 129 Brewster, William, 25 Brinkley, Douglas, (The) Wilderness Warrior, 235, 274n72 Brown Th rasher: Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.9; courtship and nesting behavior, 189– 190, 191–192; as defenders of their nest, 188, 191; described, 189, 192; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 152t, 188; as an insectivore, 190, 191; migration and range of, 189 Buchanan, Robert, 53–54, 94, 260; (The) Life and Adventures of Audubon the Naturalist, 61, 244, 279n25 buffalo hunting, 237, 270n28 Buffalo N.Y., 84 Burroughs, John, 18, 31, 279n25; John James Audubon, 245–246 Burtt , Edward H., and William E. Davis Jr., Alexander Wilson, 247 camera lucida process, 251–252. See also printing, 19th. century techniques Cape Girardeau, Audubon’s stay in, 76 Cardinal, 40, 159 Cedar Bird; as an insectivore, fruit eater and tree planter, 164, 165–166; Au-

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Index • 319 dubon’s illus., pl. 1.3, 163; described, 166; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 152t; large flocks of, 163; migration and range of, breeding behavior and diet of, 164, 165; personality of, 164–165; plumage, 163 Cedar Waxwing. See Cedar Bird Chapman, Frank, 20, 26; an advocate for bird protection, 20, 28–29; ridiculed for his associations with women, 18, 20–21, 20 “Character of John James Audubon (The)” (Grinnell), 33, 60, 93–98, 93(ch.) Chauvenet, W. M., “How I Learned to Love and Not to Kill,” 35–36 Cheyenne Indians (Grinnell), 264 Chimney Swift , 152t, 291n17; Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.4; described, 166, 167, 172; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 152t, 166; hollow tree nesting (from Ornithological Biography), 168– 170; as an insectivore, 169, 172; large numbers in flocks, 166, 168, 169, 170; migration and range of, 166–167, 170; nesting, roosting and risks to fledglings, 167–168, 170–171 chromolithographic process, 248, 252. See also printing, 19th century techniques Cincinnati, Ohio, 57, 77–78, 137 Cliff Swallow, 293n34; Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.11; common names of, 153t, 195; described, 199; Coues on, 196, 197, 198, 199; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 195; as an insectivore, 199; migration and range of, 196–197, 293n14; nesting behavior, 195–196, 197–199 Coale, Henry K., 110, 111 Colburn, W. W., list of common names for the Golden-Winged Woodpecker, 173–73 Committee on the Protection of North American Birds, 25–26 Condor (The) journal, 20–21, 20 Connecticut Audubon Society, 38, 263

Merchant-final.indb 319

conservation movement: gendered perceptions in the 19th. c., 17–21, 19, 20. See also bird protection and preservation; gender Coot, European (Audubon’s drawing of), 106, 107, 108–109, 153t copper plate etching, 248. See also printing, 19th century techniques Coues, Elliott , editing Maria R. Audubon’s works, 244, 279n29; Key to North American Birds, 150, 172, 197, 198, 207; Birds of the Colorado Valley, 196, 197, 198, 293n35, 37, 38, 39; on the Black and White Warbler, 209–210; on the Chimney Swift , 172; on the Cliff Swallow, 196, 197, 198, 199; on the Hermit Th rush, 231–232; on the Night Heron, 297 Creepers, 210. See also Black and White Warbler Crocker, Marion A., 40 Crow: as an insectivore, 212; att itudes about, 211–212; Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.6; defense of the nest, 214–215; described, 215; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 211; flocks of, 215; migration and range of, 213; nesting behavior, 213–214; raised in captivity, 214 Cruikshank, Frederick, portraits of the Audubons, 6, 7 Cuvier, Georges, 58 Da Costa, François, 72 Deane, Ruthven, 162 DeLatte, Carolyn, Lucy Audubon, 247 Delineations of American Character and Scenery (Audubon), 50 Doughty, Robin, Feather Fashions, 37t, 266n1, 268n11,16, 269n17, 23, 273n63 Dunk, Walter M., 238 Dunlap, Thomas R., 277n9 Dutcher, William, 39, 239 Dwarf Hermit Th rush, 233. See also Hermit Th rush

4/28/16 8:35 PM

320 • Index Eagle and the Lamb (Audubon illus.), 10, 87, 261, 284–285n13 Eastern Kingbird. See Kingbird Eastern Towhee. See Towhee Bunting ecological role of birds, 24; of fruit-eating birds, 156, 165–166; of insectivores, 26, 35, 157, 165, 176, 177, 210, 217, 225 Edinburgh: Audubon’s stay in, 58–59, 86– 88, 89, 249, 250, 259; edition of Ornithological Biography, 45, 52, 87–88; edition of The Birds of America, 55, 85–86; Wilson in, 122 Egede, Hans, 162 Egrets, 22 engraving(s): of Birds of America double-elephant folio edition(s), 58, 247, 248, 249–250; by Lawson of Wilson’s drawings, 125, 129; by Lizars of Audubon’s watercolors, 58, 85, 249; engraving process, 249–250. See also printing, 19th century techniques “Ferruginous Th rush”. See Brown Th rasher “Fift y Common Birds and How to Know Them” (Merriam), 34, 222 Fighting Cheyenne (Grinnell), 263 Fish Hawk, 127 Florida: Audubon studies and paints birds in, 55, 89, 259; birds native or migrating to, 173, 186, 213, 232 Flycatchers, 221, 222; “bird of paradise,” 222. See also Fork-Tailed Flycatcher; Kingbird Ford, Alice, John James Audubon, 247 Forest and Stream, 16, 21, 26, 37, 150, 264; Audubon plates printed in, 302n21; “Autumn Anticipations” (Grinnell), 237; descriptions of birds in, 175, 177– 178; Grinnell editing, 13, 14, 23, 262, 263; hunting orientation, 35, 150; letter to indicting women’s fashion, 30; opposing exploitative bird hunting, 22– 24, 26–27; “Shooting Without a Gun” (Grinnell), 237–238, 239

Merchant-final.indb 320

“Foresters” (Wilson), 127 Fork-Tailed Flycatcher: also called the Tyrant Flycatcher, 154t, 221; Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.9; described, 221–222, 223, 295n24; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 154t, 221; as an insectivore, fruit and berry eater, 222, 223; migration and range of, 221, 222 French Mockingbird. See Chimney Swift Fries, Waldemar H., The Double Elephant Folio, 253, 302n21 fruit-eating birds, 164, 165–166, 175, 217; environmental services, 156, 165–166 game birds, 18, 22, 23, 25, 32, 150, 238, 268n12; Audubon’s plates of, 255; protection of, 269–270n27; vs. nongame birds, 297n9 gender: expansion of women’s roles, 16–17; gender roles and spheres, 13, 15, 16; gendered hierarchy in hunting (19th. c.), 267–268n6. See also women and the movement to protect birds gendered dialectic over bird conservation: economic concerns expressed, 30; (eventual) co-leadership of the movement, 38–39; Grinnell helping to bridge the divide, 27, 30–31, 33–35, 234, 238; indictment of women for fashions (see also hat trade), 22–23, 24, 27– 30, 269n18; men assuming responsibility, 29; perceptions in the 19th. c. conservation movement, 17–21, 19, 20; women assuming responsibility (opposing bird exploitation), 31–33 General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC), 39, 40 GFWC. See General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) Giraud, Jacob Post, Jr., 227 Glacier National Park, 38, 236, 262, 263 Glasgow Magazine, 122 Golden Gate Audubon Society, 298n10 Golden-Winged Woodpecker, 12, 29; Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.5, 176; common

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Index • 321 names of, 112–113, 152t, 173–174; courtship, nesting and numerous eggs of, 174–175; described, 175–176; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 152t, 160, 173, 252t; as an insectivore and berry eater, 175; as the Yellow-Hammer Flicker, 112–113 Goodwin, Parke (quoted in Grinnell), 93–94 Gordon, G. E., 28 Graves, George, 47 Great Auk; Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.2; common names of, 152t, 161; described, 163; extinction of, 160–161; as a North Atlantic “penguin,” 161, 162; sited by Audubon and others, 162–163 Green Woodpecker (Audubon’s drawing of), 63, 106, 108, 109, 153t Grinnell, Elizabeth Curtis Williams, 236, 263, 284 Grinnell, George Bird, ix–xi, 2, 8, 236, 263–264, 265n1; childhood home (“The Hemlocks”), 5; education of (see also Yale University), 9–10, 15, 262; interests in bird conservation and sports shooting said to confl ict, 31–32; Lucy Audubon’s influence on, 3, 8–11, 13, 268n8; shooting experiences. (see under hunting); techniques in reproducing Audubon’s prints, 252–255, 301– 302n16, 302n21; timeline of, 262–264 —achievements, 21–22, 36–37, 41, 234(ch.), 235, 240; bridging the gender divide over bird conservation, 27, 30– 31, 33–35, 234, 237–238; efforts to preserve Glacier National Park, 38, 236, 262, 263; efforts to protect Yellowstone, 235, 262, 263; founding the Audubon Society, 13, 15, 26, 55, 234, 238– 239, 263; founding the Boone and Crockett Club, 21, 38, 234–235, 263; founding and editing The Audubon Magazine, 13–14, 15, 22, 45, 68, 234; role and influence in the conservation movement, 21–22, 36–37, 41, 234(ch.),

Merchant-final.indb 321

235–236. See also Audubon Magazine (The); Audubon Society —writings: “Autumn Anticipations,” 237; biography of Alexander Wilson, Audubon Magazine (The) vol. 2, nos. 5–12, 64–67, 68, 69, 116(ch.), 234; books on the Blackfoot, Pawnee, and Cheyenne (see also by title), 263–264; “Memoirs,” 10–11, 12; “Sacrifice of Song Birds (The)” (Grinnell), 24; serialized descriptions of birds. See “Monthly Birds” with “Descriptive Ornithologies” (Grinnell); “Shooting Without a Gun,” 237–238; When Buffalo Ran, 263. See also Audubon Magazine (The) biography of John James Audubon (Grinnell) guns, 10, 21, 22, 25, 79–80; increasing shooting power, 23. See also hunting Gurney, John Henry, 110 Hall, Caroline, 9, 260 Hall, Minna B., 38, 263 Hallock, Charles: founding editor Forest and Stream, 17, 23, 150, 262; “Spare the Birds,” xii, 23 Handbook of Birds of the Western United States (Merriam), 34, 35 Hardy, Fannie Eckstorm, 31; articles on game laws, 31 Harlan, Richard, 84, 113 Harlan’s hawk, 113 Harriman expedition, Grinnell a member, 263 Harris, Edward, 84 hat trade, 15, 26, 35; decimation of birds for (see also plume birds; songbirds), 22, 23, 24–27, 31–32, 268n12; economic concerns over, 30; milliners and weavers, 24–25, 30, 270n35; “Save the Birds” hats, 40; shift from flower to bird decorations, 30; women key to opposing, 22, 26, 31–32; women’s fashionable headwear and, 18, 26–28. See also milliners

4/28/16 8:35 PM

322 • Index Havell, Henry, 162 Havell, Robert Jr., 250, 251; engravings of Audubon’s drawings, 58, 86, 253, 260, 301–302n16; plates used by Grinnell in Audubon Magazine reproductions, 253, 301n15; printing Birds of America double-elephant folio edition, 259 Hemenway, Harriet Lawrence, 38, 263 Henderson, Ky., Audubon residence and store in, 54, 57, 63, 75–77, 101, 111–113, 259, 283n34, 284n5, 295n24 Hermit Th rush: Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.12, 233; described, 231, 232, 233, 296n35; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 154t, 231; as an insectivore, 232– 233; melody of, 231; migration and range of, 231, 232, 233; nesting behavior, 232 Herons, 22, 205–207 “powder down tracts” on, 207. See also Night Heron Herrick, Francis Hobart, Audubon the Naturalist, 246, 276n4 Hetch Hetchy Valley, 16, 18, 19 Hornaday, William, 235, 263 horned owl/great horned owl, 67, 139, 215 Hott , Lawrence and Diane Garey, DVD on Audubon, 247 Hudson River, Audubon residence on (see also Audubon Park), 3, 10, 90, 240, 260, 262, 286n3 Hudson, William Henry, 206, 207 Hullmandel, Charles, 47 Hunter-Naturalist (The) (Webber), 145– 146, 283n64 hunting, 17, 35, 206, 237; Audubon as a hunter, 51, 56, 57, 61, 74, 79–80, 95, 150; “barking off squirrels,” 79–80; buffalo hunting, 237, 270n28; gendered hierarchy in, 267–268n6; Grinnell as a hunter, 12–13, 21, 234; skinning and preserving birds, 13, 150; “snuffi ng the candle,” 79, 80; Wilson as a hunter, 74, 119, 120, 140, 144–145. See also guns —and bird preservation: opposition to

Merchant-final.indb 322

exploitative bird hunting, 22–24, 26– 27; overhunting of plume birds, 35, 161; overhunting of songbirds, 23; sportsman’s code of game protection, 13, 15, 18, 23, 25, 237, 269–270n27 —insectivores: decimation of, 24–25, 26, 34; environmental services of, 26, 35, 157, 165, 176, 177, 210, 217, 225 Jackson, Andrew, 87 Jameson, Robert, 85 Jardine, William, “Illustrative Notes and Life of Wilson,” 64, 120, 128, 142 Jefferson, Thomas, 128 John James Audubon (Burroughs), 245–246 John James Audubon (Ford), 247 Josselyn, John, New England Rarities, 161–162 Kentucky, 57–58; the Audubons’ years in; Henderson, 111; Lucy’s death in Shelbyville, 113. See also Louisville Kingbird, 222; Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.10; bold nature of, 223–224; described, 226–227; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 154t, 223; as insectivore and fruit eater, 225–226, 227; migration and range of, 224; nesting and hatching of, 224–225; other names of, 154t, 225; powers of fl ight, 223, 224 Knox, Robert, 85 Labrador; Audubon’s excursion to, 55, 88, 244, 259; birds native or migrating to, 162, 186, 202 Lacey Act of 1900, 40 Lawson, Alexander, 125, 129, 133, 142; engraving Wilson’s drawings, 125, 129, 256; Wilson’s letters to, 133, 142 Le Sueur, Charles Alexandre, 84 Life and Adventures of Audubon the Naturalist (Buchanan), 279n25 Life of John James Audubon, The Naturalist (Lucy Audubon), 45, 48, 52–53, 111;

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Index • 323 containing extracts of Audubon’s journals and letters, 52, 53–54, 111; Edited by His Widow . . . , 53, 54–55, 60, 260; editing of fi rst release by Buchanan and his loss of materials, 53, 54, 260 Literary Magazine, 126 lithographic process, 248, 251–252, 277n9. See also printing, 19th century techniques Liverpool; Audubon’s travels to and work in, 46–47, 49, 54–55, 58, 85, 88, 249, 259; edition(s) of Birds in America, 47, 54–55, 58; Roscoes and others residing in, 47–49 Liverpool Botanic Garden, 47 Lizars, William, engraver and publisher, 58, 85, 249, 250 London, Audubon’s stay in, 86, 87, 88 Louisville, Ky.: Audubon’s journal entries on swallows in, 168–170; the Audubons’ years in, 10, 54, 56–58, 72, 73, 75, 77, 85, 258; Lucy Audubon moves to Louisville and Shelbyville in her fi nal years, 10, 113, 261; Wilson meets Audubon in, 73–75, 141, 142–143, 258; Wilson’s journey to, 141–142 Low, Suzanne, 253 MacGillivray, William, 87–88, 275n3. See also Ornithological Biography (Audubon) McLeod, R. R., 171 McNeill, John, 171 Magpie, European (Audubon’s drawing of), 106, 107, 108, 153t Marsh, Othniel Charles, 21, 150 Mason, Joseph, 84, 249 Massachusett s Audubon Society, 263 Merriam (Bailey), Florence; advocacy of birds (see also by title of book or article), 31, 34–35; “Fift y Common Birds and How to Know Them,” 34, 222; founding Audubon societies, 31, 38, 263 Merriam, Clinton Hart, 164 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 41

Merchant-final.indb 323

Mill Grove, Pennsylvania; Audubon center at, 284n13; Audubon’s young adulthood in, 56, 71–72, 248, 258, 284–285n13 Miller, Daniel, 130, 132 Miller, Olive Thorne, 38–39 millinery trade. See hat trade “Minnie’s Land”. See Audubon Park Minot, Henry Davis, 211 Mississippi River journey, 57–58, 59, 81– 82, 128 Mockingbird, 189; Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.13; description of, 205; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 203; mating and nesting habits, 204– 205; melody of and powers of mimicry, 203–204; raised in captivity, 204, 205 Monandrian Plants (Roscoe), 47 Montana, Grinnell’s trip to St. Mary in, 262, 263 “Monthly Birds with Descriptive Ornithologies” (Grinnell), 149–151, 149(ch.), 152–154t, 200(ch.). See also by bird name Morgan, Midy, 30 Muir, John, women’s support for him and the lampooning of, 18, 19 Moynet (Audubon), Anne, 71, 246–247, 248, 258 Nantes, France; Audubon’s early life in, 70–71, 106, 246, 248, 258; Audubon’s later visit to, 72 Nashville, TN, 142 National Association of Audubon Societies, 20, 26, 39, 230, 238, 239–240, 263 National Audubon Society, 284n13 National Conservation Congress, 40 National Parks Association, 264 Natural History Magazine, 91 naturalist, Audubon as a, 55, 57, 60–62, 68; observation and studies of birds, 72, 87, 168–170, 190, 258, 259, 284–285n; wilderness excursions, 62, 93–94, 97, 100–101. See also Audubon, John James

4/28/16 8:35 PM

324 • Index New England Rarities (Josselyn), 161–62 New Orleans: the Audubons’ sojourn in, 57–58, 75, 83; Audubon’s trek to Philadelphia from, 83–84; second effort of the Audubons in, 76–77; Wilson at, 142 New-York Historical Society, 252, 253 Niagara Falls, 84, 126–127 Night Heron: Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.4, 153t; described, 205–206, 208; eating habits, 208; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 205; migration and range of, 207; voice of, 207–208 Nighthawk: Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.10; common names of, 153t, 192, 195; described, 193–195; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 192; as an insectivore, 195; migration and range of, 192–193; the wings and fl ight of, 193– 194, 195 nongame birds, 297n9; devastation of and efforts to protect, 24, 25, 27, 238, 269–270n27 Norris, William, 88 North, Christopher, 145 Northern Flicker. See Golden-Winged Woodpecker Northern Mockingbird. See Mockingbird Northern Oriole. See Baltimore Oriole Nutt all, Thomas, 91, 203, 228, 230, 231; on the Baltimore Oriole, 158; on the Brown Th rasher, 190–191; on the Cedar Bird, 165; on the Hermit Th rush, 232; on the Kingbird, 225–226; on the Mockingbird, 203; Popular Handbook of the Birds of the United States and Canada, 150; on the Tufted Titmouse, 228–229 Nutt y, C. C., 227 Ogilby, Stewart, 175 Ohio River; Audubon’s trip down, 73, 75; Wilson’s voyage down, 66–67 Ord, George, 143, 144; Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, 64–65, 66, 257

Merchant-final.indb 324

Ornithological Biography (Audubon), 2, 21, 27, 45, 46, 52, 168, 259, 275; account of meeting Wilson in, 74–75; descriptions of birds in, 150, 168–170; Edinburgh edition, 45, 52, 87–88; his work on the printing of, 73, 89, 250; landscape sections, 50; “Louisville in Kentucky” episode, 56–57; as a source for Grinnell’s biography, 56, 57, 279– 280n30; “The Prairie,” 62. See also MacGillivray, William “Ornithologist” (Wilson’s skiff ), 136–139 ornithologists. See Audubon, John James; Wilson, Alexander; and by name Orr, John William, engravings, 42, 51– 52, 55 Osage Indians, 76 outdoor clubs: Appalachian Mountain Club, 16; Mazamas (Portland, Oregon), 16. See also Boone and Crockett Club and by name Outdoor Life, 16 Parakeets (“parroquets”), 140 Paris, Audubon in, 55, 58, 86 patriarchy, dual gender spheres under (19th. c.), 16. See also gender Pawnee great hunt, 262 Pawnee Hero Stories (Grinnell), 263 Pearson, T. Gilbert, 39, 238, 239 Peirce, Bradford Kinney, Audubon’s Adventure, 243, 298-299n1-3 Pelican Island, 40–41, 235 Pennsylvania: Audubon in, 50, 299n2. See also Mill Grove, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Audubon in, 54, 57-58, 75, 77, 84, 87-89; Wilson in, 65, 67, 74, 123-124, 129, 133, 142-144 Photography: cameras, 253–254; photographing birds (“hunting without a gun”), 31, 237–238, 239; techniques in the 19th century, 63, 248, 252–253, 255. See also printing, 19th century techniques Picarics, order (bird classification), 167

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Index • 325 pigeon roosts, 142 Pileated Woodpecker, 29, 216, 217–218; Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.7; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 215; as an insectivore and fruit eater, 216, 217; large territory of, 215–216; nesting, eggs and the young, 216–217; other names of, 153t, 215; wildness and resistance to domestication, 216–217 Pinchot, Gifford, 18 Pitt sburg; Audubon’s visit to, 58, 85; Wilson’s visit to, 66, 134–136 Plates and reproductions of Audubon’s birds, pl. 1, 2, 1.1–2.12, 152t–154t, 178ff . plume birds: decline of due to the hat trade (see also hat trade), 22, 23, 24–25, 27–29, 31, 32, 234; efforts to protect, 39, 40, 234, 235; overhunting of, 11, 20, 35, 39, 161. See also Egrets; Herons “Preservation of Song Birds,” 269n18 printing, 19th. century techniques: advances in the 19th. c., 248; and advances in publishing, 247, 248, 254; aquatint process, 249, 250; camera lucida process, 251–252; chromolithographic process, 248, 252; copper plate etching, 248; lithographic process, 248, 251–252, 277n9. See also engraving; photography in the 19th century Purple Martin: Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.6; described, 177–178, 179–180; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 152t, 176; as an insectivore and feeding behavior, 178, 180–181t; migration and range behavior, 177; roosting and nesting of, 177–178, 179; song of, 179 “Quadrupeds of North America” (Audubon), 89, 90 Rabine, Jeanne, 246, 258 Rathbone Warbler, 47 redbird (Cardinal), 40, 159 Rees’ New Cyclopedia (publ. by Bradford), 129, 256

Merchant-final.indb 325

Regulator Law, Kentucky, 57, 76, 103– 104 Reiger, John, x, xii, 37, 297n9, 297–298n10 Reinhardt, Johannes, 161 Republican swallow. See Cliff Swallow Rhodes, Richard, John James Audubon, 247 Richardson, John, 186, 202, 224 Rocky Mountains expedition, 88, 89–90 Rome, Adam, “Political Hermaphrodites,” 18, 21 Roosevelt, Theodore, 13, 18, 20, 235; cofounding the Boone and Crockett Club, 21, 38, 234, 263; as the “wilderness warrior,” 235 Roscoe, Jane. See St. John, Jane Elizabeth Roscoe Roscoe, Thomas, 46, 48, 277n10; and Louisa Ann Twamley, Wanderings and Excursions in South Wales, 48 Roscoe, William, 46, 47 Rosier, Fernand, 73–75, 76, 77, 84 Rouse, H. E., 112 Royal Institute of Edinburgh, 85 Rusty Blackbird. See Rusty Grackle Rusty Grackle: Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.12; described, 202; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 200; mating and nesting behaviors, 201; migration and range, 200–202 “Sacrifice of Song Birds (The)” (Grinnell), 24 St. John, Horace, 46, 48, 277–278n11 St. John, Jane Elizabeth Roscoe (Mrs. Horace): background and familiarity with Audubon (see also Liverpool), 46–49; her biography of Audubon. See Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World St. Mary, Montana, Grinnell’s trip to, 262, 263 St. Mary’s Church, 52, 260 St. Petersburg portrait of Audubon, 110–111

4/28/16 8:35 PM

326 • Index Sandy Mockingbird. See Chimney Swift Scioto River, Ohio, 140 Selby, Prideaux John, 85 self-portrait, Audubon’s, 10, 33, 63, 1056 Shawnee Indians, 76 Shelbyville, Ky., 113, 244, 261 “Shooting Without a Gun” (Grinnell), 237–238, 239 Shufeldt, Florence Audubon, 63, 64, 244 Shufeldt, Robert W., on Audubon, 62– 64, 68; “Audubonian Sketches,” 63, 105(ch.); personal life and writing, 64 Sierra Club, Hetch Hetchy project. See Hetch Hetchy Valley Smalley, Andrea, 17 Smith College, Audubon Society at, 31, 34, 35 snake(s), 83, 113, 188, 208, 219; in Audubon’s illus., 57, 83, 249 Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 69 “Song Birds in Europe and America” (Merriam-Bailey), 35 songbirds, 35, 158; decline of due to the hat trade (see also hat trade), 22, 23, 24–25, 27–29, 32, 268n12; efforts to protect, 30, 39–40, 269–270n27; game birds differentiated from (Grinnell), 32; overhunting of (see also hunting), 23, 24, 32. See also Brown Th rasher; Hermit Th rush; Mockingbird; Purple Martin; Wood Th rush; wood warblers Souder, William, Under a Wild Sky, 247 “Spare the Birds” (Hallock), xii, 23 “Spare the Swallows” (Grinnell), xii, 24 Sportsman’s Gazetteer, 150 Spotted Sandpiper: Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.8; defense of the young, 185–186; described, 186, 187, 188; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 152t, 185; killed for plumage (see also plume birds), 188; migration and range of, 185–186; nesting and hatching of, 187 Steiner, Bill, 253 Story of the Indian (Grinnell), 263

Merchant-final.indb 326

Sully, Thomas, 84 Swainson, William, 58, 59, 86, 91 Swallow, Chimney. See Chimney Swift swimming prowess of the Audubons, 63– 64, 112 tables: (1) 37t; (2) 152–154t; (3) 180–181t Taft , William Howard, 236 Tariff Act of 1913, 41 Texas: Audubon’s expedition to, 89; birds of, 222, 228, 296n31 Th axter, Celia, “Women’s Heartlessness,” 33–34, 272n53 Th rush, Brown. See Brown Th rasher Timelines: of Audubon, John James and Lucy, 258–261; of Grinnell, 262–264; of Wilson, 256–257 Titmice, 228–229. See also Tufted Titmouse Towhee Bunting: Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.8; courtship and nesting of, 219; defense of the nest, 219–220; described, 219, 220; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 153t, 218; migration and range of, 218–219; other names of, 153t, 218 Toxteth Park, Liverpool, 46, 48 “Trade of Bird Skins, The” (Merriam), 35 Tufted Titmouse: Audubon’s illus., pl. 2.11; described, 230; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 154t, 228; feeding on nuts, seeds and insects, 228, 229; range of, 229 Turkeys, wild, 141 Twamley, Louisa Ann, 48 The Romance of Nature, 48 Two Great Scouts and Their Pawnee Battalion (Grinnell), 264 Tyrannidae. See Flycatchers Tyrant Flycatcher. See Fork-Tailed Flycatcher Velie, J. W., 111 Verrill, Addison Emery, 196, 293n34,36 Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (Audubon and Bachman), 51, 260

4/28/16 8:35 PM

Index • 327 Walker, E. C., Mrs., 63, 109–110 Wanderings and Excursions in South Wales (Roscoe and Twamley), 48 Warblers, 22, 210; wood warblers, 209–210. See also Black and White Warbler Washington Heights, the Audubons and Lucy Audubon at, 4, 52, 62, 260; Shufeldt at, 62 Webber, Charles Wilkins, The HunterNaturalist, 145–146, 283n64 When Buffalo Ran (Grinnell), 263 Whippoorwill, 195. See also Nighthawk Whitbourne, Richard, 161 Whitt ier, John Greenleaf, 27–28 Widmann, Otto, 177–179 wilderness, 62; Audubon’s explorations of, 62, 78, 93–94, 97, 100–101; Grinnell on the beauties of, 40, 237–238; Wilson travelling through and poems of, 142, 146 Wilderness Warrior (Brinkley), 235, 274n72. See also Roosevelt, Theodore wildlife loss: Field and Stream concerned over, 23; noted by Audubon, 21. See also bird protection and preservation; conservation movement Williams, Elizabeth Curtis, 236, 263 Williams, Violet S., 175, 291–292n19 Wilson, Alexander, 24, 33, 37, 53–54; arrival and early period in the U.S., 123–124; biographies of, 247; and C. L. Bonaparte, American Ornithology, 50, 64, 66–67, 144; character and importance of, 116–118, 127–128, 145– 146; childhood in Paisley, Scotland, 118–119; early occupations, 119–122; illness and death of, 145; poetry and publication of, 121–122, 126, 127, 145, 256; as a political agitator, 123; portraits and images of, 117; teaching, 122–126, 127; timeline of, 256–247. See also American Ornithology, (Wilson and Bonaparte); Grinnell’s biography of Alexander Wilson” (Audubon Magazine vol. 2, nos. 5–12)

Merchant-final.indb 327

—and Audubon: encountering Audubon in Louisville, 56–57, 73–75, 97, 141–143, 257; Wilson compared with Audubon, 67, 116–118, 145–146, 283n64; Wilsons’s oppositional stance toward Audubon, 64–65, 75 —as an ornithologist: at Egg Harbor, N.J., 144–145; collection and drawing of birds, 125–126, 138–139, 256; hunting activities (see also hunting), 120, 141; journey South, 134, 136–137, 139–142; learning compassion for animals, 126; Ohio River voyage, 66–67, 138; study of natural history, 124–125, 129; trips to the Northeast and New England, 130–133, 143–144; visit to Pitt sburgh, 134–136 —writings: American Ornithology, (with Bonaparte), 50, 64, 66–67, 144; letters of, 130–132; Wilson, James Grant, 53, 60–61, 86, 91, 260 Wilson, John, 85, 86 “Wobble.” See Great Auk Wollaston, William Hyde, 251 Wollaston, Willian Hyde, camera lucida process, 251–252 women and the movement to protect birds: increasing participation, 16– 17, 22–23, 31–35, 38–39; indictment of women for wearing bird feathers, 22– 23, 24, 27–30, 269n18; women forming chapters of the Audubon societies, 30, 38, 239–240, 263; women key to opposing hat trade, 22, 26, 31–32. See also gender; gendered dialectic over bird conservation “Women’s Heartlessness” (Th axter), 33–34 Wood Th rush: Audubon’s illus., pl. 1.7; described, 182, 184–185; featured in Grinnell’s “Monthly Birds,” 152t, 182; migratory patterns, 182, 184; nesting behavior, 181–182; raised in captivity, 183–184; song of, 184

4/28/16 8:35 PM

328 • Index Wood Warblers, 209–210; vocal powers of some varieties, 209. See also Black and White Warbler Woodpeckers, 158, 172, 173, 174, 177, 229, 230. See also Golden-Winged Woodpecker; Green Woodpecker; Pileated Woodpecker Wright, Mabel Osgood; editing Bird-Lore, 18, 38–39, 263. See also Bird-Lore

Merchant-final.indb 328

Yale University, Grinnell’s experiences at, 9, 15, 21, 150, 262 Yellow-hammer. See Golden-Winged Woodpecker Yellowstone Park; Audubon excursion to, 90; Grinnell’s trip to and efforts to protect, 235, 262, 263 Yosemite National Park, 19

4/28/16 8:35 PM