Page 57 – Birding New Jersey

June 20, 2015June 20, 2015

Hostile Birds

Otto Kleinschmidt seems to have been decidedly a my-country-right-or-wrong kind of guy, an attitude that inevitably and continually put him on the wrong side of history over a long lifetime that included both world wars and the foundation of the German Democratic Republic.

Kleinschmidt, founder of the notion of the Formenkreis, no doubt harbored some genuinely intellectual objections to the Darwinism of his day — but by 1915, he had largely abandoned argument in favor of nationalistic name-calling.

Now just why is Darwin’s work scientifically inferior?… Considered critically, the book’s treatment of evidence recalls the war bulletins of the British and the French, in which small advantages are puffed up while large failures are understated or even entirely suppressed…. The sturdy stability of German scientific effort, which keeps its feet on solid ground, is entirely foreign to this book.

And he never let up. Even in naming newly recognized forms, Kleinschmidt’s animus comes through loud and clear.

Six barn owls from England … show a tarsus length varying between low extreme values. I shall name the English form hostilis.

America wouldn’t enter the war for another two years, but we came in for some subtle needling, too:

The cautious Americans have called their house sparrow Passer domesticus…. In any event, the English house sparrow is separable [from that of Germany] and probably identical with the American bird…. I shall name both hostilis…. the small size of American specimens is not evidence of rapid adaptability, but rather proof of the persistence of racial characteristics, as determined by von Virchow, as the American house sparrow probably originated principally from England.

Just in case the reader misses his point, Kleinschmidt adds that

the hostile barn owl and the hostile sparrow will certainly have a hostile reception, that is to say, rejection, in their home range. We don’t care, because we have not described and named them for the benefit of British ornithologists, but for the benefit of the thoroughness of German science.

June 18, 2015June 18, 2015

Buying Prince Masséna’s Birds

In 1846, Dr. Thomas B. Wilson, one of the great early benefactors of the Academy of Natural Sciences, asked his brother in England “to make a collection of birds” for the Philadelphia institution. Edward Wilson set about the task with his usual industry, and soon came to J.E. Grey at the British Museum.

Grey suggested, sensibly enough, that rather than assemble specimens piecemeal from dealers, Wilson purchase one of the several complete collections then on the market.

I mentioned two or three, among the others Prince Masséna’s collection in Paris…. I said that I intended to go to Paris in a very short time, and that, if he liked it, I would see what could be done.

Wilson, fearing that that famous cabinet would be beyond even his lavish budget, hesitated, but a few days later agreed to give it a try. Grey arrived in Paris,

and immediately sent a note to the Prince Masséna, saying that I was willing to purchase the collection of birds … and that I was prepared to pay for it in ready money. While sitting at dinner at the table d’hôte, an aide-de-camp came in, all green and gold, with a cocked hat and a large white feather, to inquire for me, with a message from the Prince to inquire what I intended by ready money, and … if I was ready to pay the sum that evening.

The banks were already closed, but the next morning, Wilson

gave his highness a cheque … and he gave me a receipt and handed me the keys of the cases, and I sealed them up, the affair being settled in a few minutes.

Wilson was “much pleased with the purchase,” as one might imagine, and the collection, “a very large and good one,” is now one of the greatest treasures held in any American museum.

June 17, 2015June 23, 2018

Other People’s Bird Books: The Hendersons of Press

Thanks to the great generosity of our friend Judy, we are the trustees of eight volumes of Alexander Wilson‘s American Ornithology.

The first volume is dated 1808, but thanks to the bibliographic scholarship of Walter Faxon, we know that the this set in fact represents the “Ord reprint” 1824, plus the Supplement (Volume Nine) of 1825, which contains the first complete biography of the Father of American Ornithology.

All of the volumes are adorned with the bookplate of one Thomas Henderson of Press Castle. Thomas came from an Edinburgh banking family, and held the position of land tax commissioner in the 1830s; he seems to have devoted much of his attention to matters horticultural, and at one point supported a scheme for the “speedy increase” of beekeeping in Scotland.

Henderson married Elizabeth Mack on September 14, 1830. (And was obviously very forgiving of her severely malformed arms and hands.)

Their son, Alexander Henderson (1831-1913), emigrated to eastern Canada in 1855, where he became a professional photographer. His equipment spent the forty years after Alexander’s death in a basement, until in the early 1950s

his grandson Thomas Greenshields Henderson, the only surviving descendant, spent a day carrying the boxes of negatives to the alley for the garbage collectors.

Happily for us, Wilson’s volumes did not share the same fate.

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015

What Good Is a Green Heron?

It enlivens our summertime marshes with its dark beauty and its comical calls, but the green heron — the 2015 ABA Bird of the Year — has also been put to more practical use.

According to John Brickell, writing in his 1737 Natural History of North Carolina,

The Skin and Feathers calcin’d, stop Bleeding. The Grease eases pain of the Gout, helps Deafness, clears the sight, and is excellent bait to catch Fish with.

Economic ornithology at its finest.

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015

Get A Load o’This!

One of the biggest things about the Biggest Week is getting to run into old friends and new at every turn. Among many others, it was fun to get to see our Nebraska friend Phil, with whom I’d last birded in Arizona last summer.

Not much of a coincidence, of course, running into a birder at a birding site like Magee Marsh — but get this.

A few days ago, as we drove across Minnesota, I saw a red-winged blackbird perched on the back of a white-tailed deer. That struck me then, and strikes me now, as an unusual sight, and I asked whether anyone else had witnessed such a thing.

In response, an e-mail from Phil.

I saw your blog about a RWBB on the back of a [deer]…. Anyway, I have never seen this………until this year at Magee Marsh. When walking the boardwalk by the Maumee Bay Hotel, I saw a RWBB on the back of a deer. Got a photo of it just as it was taking off. Interesting that all the combined years that we have been birding that we would both have this first time experience at the same time. I assume that this might be somewhat regular behavior.

Photograph: Phil Swanson

Astonishing. Thanks, Phil!