By Comte de Buffon, translated by Daniel Alexander Payne (Bishop Payne)
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Martin Johnson Heade. Amethyst Woodstar. Oil on canvas, ca. 1863-1864, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AR). Public Domain.
Beautiful and useful translations from the French of Buffon. By BISHOP PAYNE. [Original byline in the Repository of Religion and Literature, and of Science and Art.]
Of all animated beings, behold the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and the metals polished by our art, are not comparable to this jewel of nature: in the order of birds she has placed it, in the last degree of the scale of size; her master-piece is the little humming-bird: she has overwhelmed her, with all the gifts she has divided among other birds; lightness, rapidity, swiftness, grace, and rich attire, all appertain to this little favorite.[1] The emerald, the ruby, the topaz, glitter upon its robes: it never soils them with the dust of the earth, and in its life all aereal, one hardly sees it touch the grass by moments; it is always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness, as it has their brilliance; it lives upon their nectar, and it dwells in climates, where, without ceasing, it renews itself.
It is in the warmest countries of the New World, where one finds all the species of the humming-birds; they are very numerous, and appear to be confined between the two tropics; for those of them that advance into the temperate zones, there may be but a short sojourn: they seem to follow the movements of the sun, to advance, and to retire with him, and to fly upon the wings of zephyrs, in the retinue of an eternal spring.[2]
The Indians, smitten by the splendor of the fire which radiate from the colors of these brilliant birds, have given to them the name of rays and hues of the sun.[3] The smallest species of these birds are less than the ox-fly in length, and the drone-bee in thickness. [4] Their bill is like a fine needle, and their tongue, as a delicate thread; their little black eyes appear as just two brilliant points; the plumes of their wings are so delicate, that they appear transparent. Their feet are so short and small, that one with difficulty perceives them; they make but little use of them; they only set them down to sleep during the night, and during the day keep them pendant in the air; their flight is continuous, rapid, and humming; and some one has compared the noice of their wings to that of a spinning-wheel. Their clapping is so swift, that the bird in the air, stopping itself, appear not only immoveable, but all at once without action. One may see it thus arrest itself for a few moments before a flower, and then to dart from it like an arrow to another; it visits all; plunges its little tongue into their bosoms; caressing it with its wings, without alighting upon them, but also without ever quitting them.
He passes his inconstancies, but for the better to follow his loves, and to multiply its innocent enjoyments; for this lover, by slighting its flowers, lives at their expense, without withering them. He does but pump their honey, and it is to this use that his tongue seems to be so uniquely destined, it is composed of two hollow fibres, forming one little canal, divided at the end into two fillets; it has the form of a proboscis, and performs the functions of that instrument; the bird darts it out of his bill and plunges it into the bottom of the cup of the flowers, and thus extracts the nectar from them. Nothing equals the vivacity of these little birds, if it be not their courage, or rather, their audacity. One may often see them pursuing, with fury, some birds twenty times their size, attaching themselves to their bodies, and alluring them to carry them in their flight, peck them with repeated blows.[5]
Impatience seems to be their soul; if they approach a flower, and find it withered, they pluck out its petals, with a precipitation that marks its spite. The nest which they construct, respond to the delicacy of their bodies; it is made either of fine cotton or a silken hair, gathered from certain flowers; this nest is strongly tissued, and of the consistence of a soft and downy skin; the female charges herself with the work, and leave to the male the care of bringing the materials. One may see her at this cherished work, seeking, choosing, employing, blade by blade, such fibres as are proper to form the tissue of that soft cradle, which is designed for its progeny. She polishes the borders of it with her neck, and the interior with her tail; she coats it on the outside with little pieces of the bark of resinous plants, which she glues around it, to defend it from the injuries of the air, so as to render it more solid; the whole is attached to two leaves, or to a single blade of the orange or citron tree; or sometimes to a straw which hangs at the eves of a cottage. This nest is no bigger than the half of an apricot, and formed like a half cup. One there finds two eggs all white, and no larger than little peas, The male and the female cover them by turns, during twelve days; the little ones are hatched on the thirteenth, and are then no larger than some flies. “I have never been able to discover,” says P. Durterte, “what kind of billfull the mother gives them, only that she gives them her tongue to suck, while yet it is enameled with the sugar drawn from the flowers.” [6]
Martin Johnson Heade. Hummingbird and Passionflowers. Oil on canvas, ca. 1875-85, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, NY). Public Domain.
BUFFON (TRANSLATED BY BISHOP PAYNE). “THE HUMMING-BIRD.” REPOSITORY OF RELIGION AND LITERATURE, AND OF SCIENCE AND ART’S VOL. III, NO. 3 (JULY 1861): 122-4.
[1] “. . . in the last degree of the scale of size”: The Bee Hummingbird, which can be found in Cuba, is not only the smallest hummingbird, but also the smallest bird in the world.
[2] “It is in the warmest countries of the New World . . .”: There are almost 340 species of hummingbirds in the world, all of them occurring, in fact, in the American continent.
[4] The ox-fly, also known as warble fly, refers to a kind of large flies that lay their eggs on mammals. A drone-bee is a male honey bee.
[5] Hummingbirds can be aggressive and territorial. Males will usually fight each other to assert their breeding grounds. Interestingly, the symbols of authority of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of sun and war, are the hummingbird and fire. In fact, Huitzilopochtli means “blue hummingbird on the left.”
The Repository of Religion and Literature, and of Science and Arts was a short-lived (1858-63) quarterly for Black children published by a group of African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) societies. Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne (1811-1893), who translated “The Humming-Bird,” was one of the magazine editors and a main figure in the A.M.E. He was also an educator, administrator, and author. George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1749-1788), was an influential French naturalist.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
aereal: Aerial. Dwelling, flying, or moving in the air, above the earth; occurring or taking place in the air; (spec. of birds or bats) spending much of the time airborne.
appertain: To belong as parts to the whole, or as members to a family or class, and hence, to the head of the family; to be related, akin to.
proboscis: Any of various elongated, tubular, and usually flexible mouthparts of insects, used for sucking liquids and sometimes for piercing, as in bees, flies, mosquitoes, bugs, and butterflies and moths (in which it is coiled when not in use).
progeny: Offspring, issue, children; descendants. Occasionally: a child, a descendant; a family.
Interactive experience designed to accompany a 2020 exhibition about Martin Johnson Heade’s hummingbird paintings. Courtesy of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AR).
Illustration from the cover of How to Grow Roses, thirteenth edition, 1920, published by The Conard & Jones Co.
In a lovely garden filled with fair and blooming flowers stood a beautiful rose tree.[1] It was the centre of attraction and won the admiration of every eye; its beauteous flowers were sought to adorn the bridal wreath and deck the funeral bier. It was a thing of joy and beauty, and its earth mission was a blessing. Kind hands plucked its flowers to gladden the chamber of sickness and adorn the prisoner’s lonely cell. Young girls wore them ’mid their clustering curls, and grave brows relaxed when they gazed upon their wondrous beauty.—Now the rose was very kind and generous hearted, and seeing how much joy she dispensed wished that every flower could only be a rose and like herself have the privilege of giving joy to the children of men; and while she thus mused a bright and lovely spirit approached her and said, “I know thy wishes and will grant thy desires.—Thou shall have power to change every flower in the garden to thine own likeness. When the soft winds come wooing thy fairest buds and flowers, thou shalt breathe gently on thy sister plants, and beneath thy influence they shall change to beautiful roses.” The rose tree bowed her head in silent gratitude to the gentle being who had granted her this wondrous power. All night the stars bent over her from their holy homes above, but she scarcely heeded their vigils. The gentle dews nestled in her arms and kissed the cheeks of her daughters; but she hardly noticed them;—she was waiting for the soft airs to awaken and seek her charming abode. At length the gentle airs greeted her and she hailed them with a joyous welcome, and then commenced her work of change. The first object that met her vision was a tulip superbly arrayed in scarlet and gold. When she was aware of the intention
Ellen T. Fisher. Tulips. Color Chromolithograph, ca. 1861-1897, Boston Public Library. Public Domain.
of her neighbor her cheeks flamed with anger, her eyes flashed indignantly, and she haughtily refused to change her proud robes for the garb the rose tree had prepared for her, but she could not resist the spell that was upon her. And she passively permitted the garments of the rose to enfold her yielding limbs.—The verbenas saw the change that had fallen upon the tulip, and dreading that a similar fate awaited them crept closely to the ground, and while tears gathered in their eyes, they felt a change pass through their sensitive frames, and instead of gentle verbenas they were blushing roses. She breathed upon the sleepy poppies; a deeper slumber fell upon their senses, and when they awoke, they too had changed to bright and beautiful roses. The heliotrope read her fate in the lot of her sisters, and bowing her fair head in silent sorrow, gracefully submitted to her unwelcome destiny. The violets, whose mission was to herald the approach, were averse to losing their individuality. Surely, said they, we have a mission as well as the rose;
Ellen T. Fisher. Poppies No. 3. Color Chromolithograph, c. 1886, Boston Public Library. Public Domain
but with heavy hearts they saw themselves changed like their sister plants. The snow drop drew around her her robes of virgin white; she would not willingly exchange them for the most brilliant attire that ever decked a flower’s form; to her they were the emblems of purity and innocence; but the rose tree breathed upon her, and with a bitter sob she reluctantly consented to the change. The dahlias lifted their heads proudly and defiantly; they dreaded the change but scorned submission; they loved the fading year, and wished to spread around his dying couch their brightest, fairest flowers; but vainly they struggled, the doom was upon them, and they could not escape. A modest lily that grew near the rose tree shrank instinctively from her; but it was in vain, and with tearful eyes and trembling lips she yielded, while a quiver of agony convulsed her frame. The marygolds sighed submissively and made no remonstrance. The garden pinks grew careless and submitted without a murmur; while other flowers less fragrant or less
Auguste Schmidt. Floral Arrangement with Violets. Color chromolithograph, ca. 1861-1897, Boston Public Library. Public Domain.
fair paled with sorrow or reddened with anger, but the spell of the rose tree was upon them and every flower was changed by her power, and that once beautiful garden was overrun with roses; it had become a perfect wilderness of roses; the garden had changed, but that variety which had lent it so much beauty was gone, and men grew tired of the roses, for they were everywhere. The smallest violet peeping faintly from its bed would have been welcome, the humblest primrose would have been hailed with delight;—even a dandelion would have been a harbinger of joy, and when the rose saw that the children of men were dissatisfied with the change
Ellen T. Fisher. Marigolds. Color chromolithograph, ca. 1861-1897, Boston Public Library. Public Domain.
she had made, her heart grew sad within her, and she wished the power had never been given her to change her sister plants to roses, and tears come into her eyes as she mused, when suddenly a rough wind shook her drooping form and she opened her eyes and found that she had only been dreaming. But an important lessons had been taught; she had learned to respect the individuality of her sister flowers and began to see that they, as well as herself, had their own missions,—some to gladden the eye with their loveliness and thrill the soul with delight; some to transmit fragrance to the air; others to breathe a refining influence upon the world; some had power to lull the aching brow and soothe the weary heart and brain into forgetfulness, and of those whose mission she did not understand she wisely concluded there must be some object in their creation, and resolved to be true to her own earth mission and lay her fairest buds and flowers upon the altars of love and truth.
WATKINS, FRANCES E. “THE MISSION OF THE FLOWERS.” REPOSITORY OF RELIGION AND LITERATURE, AND OF SCIENCE AND ART’S VOL. III, NO. 1 (JANUARY 1860): 26-8.
[1] A Tree Rose or Rose Standard is not a rose variety, but the result of grafting a regular rose plant onto a trunk to achieve the appearance of a tree.
Verbena (Verbena chamaedrifolia), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Heliotrope (Heliotropium Peruvianum), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Snowdrop (Galanthus Nivalis), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.
Lily of the Valley (Convallaria Majalis), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Dahlia (Dahlia Coccinea), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.
Pinks (Dianthus Caryophyllus), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Primrose (Primula Vulgaris), from the Flowers series for Old Judge Cigarettes. Commercial color lithograph, 1890, printed by George S. Harris & Sons, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Contexts
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) was an African American public speaker, poet, teacher, and social activist. As a public intellectual, she advocated for antislavery, education, and temperance. Her short story “The Two Offers,” which appeared in 1859 in consecutive issues of The Anglo-African Magazine, is the first short story published by an African American writer in the United States.
The Repository of Religion and Literature, and of Science and Arts was a short-lived (1858-63) quarterly for Black children published by a group of African Methodist Episcopal (AME) societies.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
emblem: A picture of an object (or the object itself) serving as a symbolical representation of an abstract quality, an action, state of things, class of persons, etc.
beauteous: Highly pleasing to the senses, esp. the sight; beautiful; (also, in recent use) sensuously alluring, voluptuous. Chiefly literary.
bier: The movable stand on which a corpse, whether in a coffin or not, is placed before burial; that on which it is carried to the grave.
vigil: An occasion or period of keeping awake for some special reason or purpose; a watch kept during the natural time for sleep.
Resources for Further Study
Tabitha Lowery’s scholarly essay “‘Thank God for Little Children’: The Reception History of Frances E. W. Harper’s Children’s Poetry,” included in volume 67, number 2, of ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture (2021).
The house where Frances Ellen Watkins Harper lived in Philadelphia, PA, from 1870 until 1911 is a National Historic Landmark.
Ernst Haeckel. Trochilidae. Illustration, 1904, Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
All the readers of Our Young Folks must remember Mrs. Stowe’s charming sketch of Hum the Son of Buz, which appeared in its first number.[1] It was an interesting account of the peculiar habits of a young Ruby-throated Humming-Bird, for several weeks her petted companion. Some novel facts in regard to the food and manner of life of these tiny specimens of bird-kind were there presented with a freshness that gave them great interest. We shall endeavor to give a general account of this wonderfully beautiful family of birds, although we cannot hope to invest it with an equal charm.
No birds are so universally attractive as the Humming-Birds. They are the smallest in size, the most brilliantly beautiful in plumage, and have the most numerous varieties of any of the feathered families.[2] They are found nowhere except in the New World, but here they may be met with anywhere, from the Falkland Islands of South America almost to Greenland in North America. They are most abundant in the warmer portions of the continent, especially in the West India Islands and in Central America and the northern states of South America.
More than three hundred different kinds of Humming-Birds have been already described, and our best-informed naturalists believe that not less than four hundred exist. So far as men of science have studied their habits, it has been found that all these different varieties have very nearly the same peculiarities, modified chiefly by the differences in their places of residence. Some Humming-Birds, like our common Ruby-throat, are found scattered over a very large extent of country. This variety occurs in all the United States, and as far north as the Arctic regions; other kinds are found only in small lonely islands. Some Humming-Birds remain all the year in the same localities; others only visit certain parts of America during the warm season.[3]
The food of Humming-Birds is now known to consist almost entirely of insects. They were once supposed to subsist chiefly on the sweets they obtained from honey-bearing flowers, and in confinement they have been made to live partly upon sweetened water; but the honey of plants is not alone their natural food, and is insufficient for them.
In order to obtain its insect-food the Humming-Bird is provided with a tongue of very peculiar structure, the anterior portions of which are made up of two long and hollow thread-like tubes. These unite behind and are closed at the end, as represented, magnified, in the figures below. This forked and hollow tongue the bird thrusts in and out of the tube-shaped flowers with the rapidity of a flash, and captures the minute insects lodged in their depths.[4]
M.E.D. Brown. Humming Birds / from Life & on Stone. Print: Lithograph, ca. 1832, Library of Congress. Public Domain.
These tiny birds are adorned with more brilliant plumage than any other family of the whole feathered tribe. It is impossible to give our young readers any adequate description of the beauty and variety of the bright colors of nearly all Humming- Birds. These colors excite wonder and admiration, even when prepared for exhibition in ornithological collections; but when living the brilliancy of their colors is far greater than when dead.
Travellers who have seen them flitting about like beams of variously tinted light in the dark green woods of their native forests tell us they know nothing in nature that can be compared with them. Even the colors of the topaz, the emerald, the ruby, and the amethyst, to which the bright tints of the Humming-Birds have been likened, pale in the comparison. The various hues of all these gems are often seen combined in the plumage of the same bird, now one appearing and now another, with the changes of light and shade.
Without attempting to give a learned account of the different classes into which naturalists now divide Humming-Birds, we will mention only a few of the more marked differences which distinguish them. Some have perfectly straight bills; others have bills very much curved. These are nearly all tropical varieties, living the year round in the same climate. A few varieties have bills which curve upwards in a very singular manner,—an admirable adaptation for reaching up into flowers growing in the forms of pendent tubes or bells. Formerly all Humming-Birds were divided into two classes,—those with straight bills and those with curved bills. But later writers have subdivided the straight-billed into two classes and the curved-billed into three. The first two are those with short rounded tail-feathers, and those with very long and forked tails. These are all or nearly all birds of temperate climates, migrating from them in the colder season. The three varieties of the curved-billed birds are those with long centre tail-feathers, those with curious sabre-like wing-feathers and rounded tails, and those with very short tails and very much rounded bills.
In the tropical regions of America Humming-Birds in great number and variety swarm throughout the forests. In other portions of the same country, where the forests have been cut down and the land tilled, the Humming-Birds equally abound, and seem to delight in the society of man. As we recede from the warm regions their numbers decrease. Some are found in very high northern latitudes, others in equally far southern regions, while others seem to prefer high mountains, where the temperature is quite low. We have the nest of a South American Humming-Bird, which the late Captain Couthouy found on the eastern slope of Mount Pichincha, at a height of ten thousand five hundred feet.[5] Another traveller met with Humming- Birds flying about in a snow-storm near the Straits of Magellan.[6]
Martin Johnson Heade. Two Humming Birds: “Copper-tailed Amazili.” Oil on canvas, ca. 1865-1875, Brooklyn Museum (NY). Public Domain.
The habits of all Humming-Birds are so very nearly alike that a description of the peculiarities of one will serve for them all. They are almost always on the wing, moving with great rapidity and ease. They flit about in short, quick flights. Like flashes of light they dart now this way and now that. Their wings are so constructed as to give them the power of hovering over a flower and keeping themselves in this position a long time; some writers say, for hours.[7]
Their boldness and intrepidity is surprising in birds so small. They do not hesitate to attack birds greatly their superiors in strength that approach too near their nests, or even to fly in the face of any intruder when they have young. This boldness and anxiety is often fatal, betraying their nests to the naturalist seeking them for his collection.
The nests of Humming-Birds are built with exquisite delicacy, of soft materials, and are warm, compact, and strong. They are placed on the horizontal branches of trees, a few feet from the ground, and are usually made of silky vegetable down. Over this they fasten, with their saliva, a strong covering of gray moss. This appears to be an instinctive endeavor to conceal their nest by making it resemble the moss-covered limb on which it is built. It is a curious fact that often this mossy covering is not put on until after the female has occupied the nest, her mate busying himself with completing the moss-work while she is sitting upon her eggs.
But the nests of Humming-Birds are not alike. Some vary in their materials, others in their shape. One kind builds a hanging nest under a large leaf. It is curiously wrought of spiders’ webs, and has its opening underneath. The smallest known bird of this family is found in the island of Jamaica.[8] It is only two inches long, and its outstretched wings are only three inches across. Its nest is not larger than a thimble, and is woven of spiders’ threads and silk and covered on the outside with fine moss. The eggs are very small, looking like little white homœopathic pills. The Humming- Bird’s eggs are always white, and only two in number.[9]
Many attempts have been made to domesticate Humming-Birds, but these have been only partially successful. The birds have soon died, probably from change of diet, or from inability to endure the extremes of cold and heat. If a substitute for their natural food could be found, they would probably live and thrive in confinement, and become very tame and familiar.[10]
Martin Johnson Heade. Hummingbird and Apple Blossoms. Oil on canvas, 1875, Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY). Public Domain.
Several instances are known of their being kept in this manner, and in every case they have been, like Mrs. Stowe’s pet, very docile and affectionate. A young Englishman, as he was about to sail from Jamaica, caught a Mango Humming-Bird on her nest, and, cutting off the twig on which the latter was built, brought nest, eggs, and parent on board. The bird was fed with honey and water, became tame, and hatched out two young birds during the passage. The mother died, but the young birds were brought to England, and were for some weeks in the possession of Lady Hammond, readily taking honey from her lips. One of them lived two months after its arrival.
Within the limits of the United States seven different kinds of Humming-Birds are found, though two of them are very rare and may not belong here.[11] These are the Black-throated or Mango Humming-Bird, one of the curved-billed or tropical forms.[12] This is a common West-Indian variety, and is only found in our most southern State, Florida, and rarely there. Its plumage is resplendent with a metallic lustre of green and gold.
The Black-chinned Humming-Bird of California is similar to our common variety.[14]
The Red-backed Humming-Bird is the most common kind in the States on the Pacific, and is found from the Gulf of California to Nootka Sound.[15] It is very prettily marked, but is not a brilliant bird, having very little lustre in its plumage.
The Broad-tailed Humming-Bird is only found in Texas, and is also very much like the common Ruby-throat.[16]
Our most beautiful variety, the Anna Humming-Bird,—so called in honor of Anna, Duchess of Rivoli, a lady greatly distinguished for her love of natural history, —is very abundant in California.[17] Its entire head, neck, and throat are covered with feathers of a bright metallic amethystine red color. One other variety, with no common name, about which little is known, has been found on the southern borders of California. It most resembles the Anna Humming-Bird.
BREWER, T. M. [THOMAS MAYO]. “ABOUT HUMMING-BIRDS.” OUR YOUNG FOLKS. AN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE’S VOL. V, NO. IX(SEPTEMBER 1869): 578-82.
[1] The author references Harriet Beecher Stowe’s sketch “Hum, the Son of Buz,” also included in our anthology.
[2] There are almost 340 species of hummingbirds in the world, all of them occurring in the American continent.
[5] In part IV of the series of essays “Bird Architecture,” published in Scribner’s Monthly on December, 1878, pp. 161-76, Thomas Brewer refers to a hummingbird nest he received from the late Captain Joseph Couthouy, “taken by him, with its owner, near the snow-line on Mount Pichincha, at a height of 10,500 feet” (p. 168). Brewer identifies the bird as an Eriocnemis luciani. Mount Pichincha is located in Ecuador.
[6] The Strait of Magellan (Estrecho de Magallanes) is a channel that links the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean in South America. It is 350 miles long and 2-20 miles wide.
[7] Watch hummingbirds in flight in this video from Terra Mater.
[8] The smallest hummingbird, which is also the smallest bird in the world, it is actually found in Cuba, not Jamaica. It is known as Bee Hummingbird.
[9] Although two is the typical size of hummingbird clutches, sometimes they will also lay either one or three eggs. Hummingbirds’ nests, the smallest bird nests in the world, are woven with spiderweb thread and camouflaged with other materials.
[10] Trapping or keeping hummingbirds in captivity is illegal in the United States. They are a protected species under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
[11] According to the American Bird Conservancy‘s website, there are fifteen types of hummingbirds in the United States, without counting nine vagrant species.
John Abbot. Red Throated Hummingbird (Troculis Colubris). Transparent and opaque watercolor and graphite on paper, 1791, Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Public Domain.
Thomas Mayo Brewer (1814-1880) was an American naturalist. Trained as a doctor, he gave up medicine and dedicated himself to the sudy of birds and their eggs. In the nineteenth century, Europe became fascinated with hummingbirds and “hundreds of thousands were hunted and killed for their skin.” In fact, the commercial trade in bird feathers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sparked the fierce conservation movement that led to the creation of the National Audubon Societies. Many activists were women who opposed the killing of birds for the sake of the latest fashions.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
amethystine: Of a colour: resembling amethyst. Of an object: amethyst-coloured; violet-purple.
homœopathic: Very small or minute, like the doses usually given in homoeopathy. (Often humorous.)
ornithological: Of or relating to birds; avian.
pendent: Hanging; suspended from or as from the point of attachment, with the point or end hanging downwards; dependent. Of a tree: having branches that hang or droop down.
topaz: The name given (with or without distinguishing adjunct) to several highly valued precious stones. Also, the dark yellow colour of topaz.
Interactive experience designed to accompany a 2020 exhibition about Martin Johnson Heade’s hummingbird paintings. Courtesy of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Bentonville, AR).
The Talk of the Trees that Stand in the Village Street
By Jane Andrews
Annotations by Josh benjamin
Childe Hassam. The Vermont Village (Peacham). Etching on paper, 1923. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
HOW still it is! — nobody in the village street; the children all at school, and the very dogs sleeping lazily in the sunshine; only a south wind blows lightly through the trees, lifting the great fans of the horse-chestnut, tossing the slight branches of the elm against the sky, like single feathers of a great plume, and swinging out fragrance from the heavy-hanging linden-blossoms.
Through the silence there is a little murmur, like a low song; it is the song of the trees; each has its own voice, which may be known from all others by the ear that has learned how to listen.
The topmost branches of the elm are talking of the sky, — of those highest white clouds that float like tresses of silver hair in the far blue, — of the sunrise gold and the rose-color of sunset, that always rest upon them most lovingly. But down deep in the heart of the great branches, you may hear something quite different, and not less sweet.
“Peep under my leaves,” sings the elm-tree, “out at the ends of my broadest branches. What hangs there so soft and gray? Who comes with a flash of wings and gleam of golden breast among the dark leaves, and sits above the gray hanging nest to sing his full sweet tune? Who worked there together so happily all the May-time, with gray honeysuckle fibres, twining the little nest, until there it hung securely over the road, bound and tied and woven firmly to the slender twigs, — so slender, that the squirrels even cannot creep down for the eggs, much less can Jack or Neddy, who are so fond of bird’s-nesting, ever hope to reach the home of our golden robin?
“There my leaves shelter him like a roof from rain and from sunshine. I rock the cradle when the father and mother are away, and the little ones cry, and in my softest tone I sing to them; yet they are never quite satisfied with me, but beat their wings, and stretch out their heads, and cannot be happy until they hear their father.
“The squirrel, who lives in the hole where the two great branches part, hears what I say, and curls up his tail, while he turns his bright eyes towards the swinging nest which he can never reach.”
Childe Hassam. Easthampton Elms in May. Etching on paper, 1925. Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
The fanning wind wafts across the road the voice of the old horse-chestnut, who also has a word to say about the bird’s-nests.
“When my blossoms were fresh white pyramids, came a swift flutter of wings about them one day, and a dazzlingly beautiful little bird thrust his long, delicate bill among the flowers; and while he held himself there in the air, without touching his tiny feet to twig or stem, but only by the swift fanning of long green-tinted wings, I offered him my best flowers for his breakfast, and bowed my great leaves as a welcome to him. The dear little thing had been here before, while yet the sticky brown buds which wrap up my leaves had not burst open to the warm sunshine. He and his mate, whose feather dress was not so fine as his, gathered the gum from the outside of the buds, and pulled the warm wool from the inside; and I could watch them, as they flew away to the maple yonder; for then the trees that stand between us had no leaves to hide the maple as they do now.
“Back and forth flew the birds, from the topmost maple-branch to my opening buds; and day by day I saw a little nest growing, very small and round, lined warmly with wool from my buds, and thatched all over the outside with bits of lichen, gray and green, to match what grew on the maple-branches about it; and this thatch was glued on with the gum from my brown buds. When it was finished, it was delicate enough for the cradle of a little princess; and the outside was so carefully matched to the tree by lichens that the sharpest eyes from below could not detect it. What a safe, snug home for the humming-birds!
“By the time the two tiny eggs were laid, I could no longer see the nest, for the thick foliage of other trees had built up a green wall between me and it. But for many days the mother-bird stayed away, and the father came alone to drink honey from my blossom cups; so I knew that the eggs were hatching under her warm folded wings; for I have seen such things before among my own branches in the robins’ nests and the bluebirds’.
Mannevillette Elihu Dearing Brown. Humming birds / from life & on stone. Lithograph, c. 1832. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.
“Now my flowers are all gone, and in their place the nuts are growing in their prickly balls. I have nothing to tempt the humming-bird, and he never visits me; only the yellow birds hop gayly from branch to branch, and the robins come sometimes.” And the horse-chestnut sighed, for he missed the humming-bird; and he flapped his great leaves in the very face of the linden-blossoms, and forgot to say, “Excuse me.” But the linden is now, and for many days, full of sweetness, and will not answer ungraciously even so careless a touch.
Yes, the linden is full of sweetness, and sends out the fragrance from his blossoms in through the chamber windows, and down upon the people who pass in the street below; and he tells, all the time, his story of how his pink-covered leaf-buds opened in the spring mornings, and unfolded the fresh green leaves, which were so tender and full of green juices that it was no wonder the mother-moth had thought the branches a good place whereon to lay her eggs; for, as soon as they should be all laid, she would die, and there would be no one to provide food for her babies when they should creep out.
So the nice mother-moth made a toilsome journey up my great trunk,” sung the linden, “and left her eggs where she knew the freshest green leaves, would be coming out by the time the young ones should leave the eggs.
Mary Nimmo Moran. Old Lindens — Near Easthampton. Etching on paper, 1885. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
“And they came out indeed, somewhat to my sorrow; for instead of being, like their mother, sober, well-behaved little moths, they were green canker-worms [1], and such hungry little things, that I really began to fear I should have not a whole leaf left upon me, when one day they spun for themselves fine silken ropes, and swung themselves down from leaf to leaf, and from branch to branch, and in a day or two were all gone.
“A little flaxen-haired girl sat on the broad doorstep at my feet, and caught the canker-worms in her white apron. She liked to see them hump up their backs and measure off the inches of her white checked apron with their little green bodies. And I, although I liked them well enough at first, was not sorry to lose them when they went. I heard the child’s mother telling her that they had come down to make for themselves beds in the earth, where they would sleep until the early spring, and wake to find themselves grown into moths just like their mothers who climbed up the tree to lay eggs. We shall see, when next spring comes, if that is so. Now since they went I have done my best to refresh my leaves and keep young and happy; and here are my sweet blossoms to prove that I have yet within me vigorous life.”
The elm-tree heard what the linden sung, and said, “Very true, very true: I too have suffered from the canker-worms; but I have yet leaves enough left for a beautiful shade, and the poor crawling things must surely eat something.” And the elm bowed gracefully to the linden, out of sympathy for him.
But the linden has heard the voices of the young robins who live in the nest among his highest boughs; and he must yet tell to the horse-chestnut how sad it was, the other day in the thunder-storm, when the wind upset the nest, and one little bird was thrown out and killed, while the father and mother flew about in the greatest distress, until Charley came, climbed the tree, and fitted the nest safely back into its place.
George Elbert Burr. Old Pine and Cedar. Etching on paper, c. 1923. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
How much the trees have to say! And there is the pine, who was born and brought up in the woods: he is always whispering secrets of the great forest, and of the river beside which he grew. The other trees can’t always understand him; he is the poet among them, and a poet is always suspected of knowing a little more than any one else.
Sometime I may try to tell you something of what he says; but here ends the talk of the trees that stood in the village street.
Andrews, Jane. “The talk of the trees that stand in the village street.” Our Young Folks 4, no. 10 (October 1868): 598-600.
[1] Cankerworm larvae are commonly called inchworms. They start as eggs deposited on trees, transform into pupae in the soil, and emerge as moths. Significant cankerworm feeding over several years can cause trees to lose all their leaves, weakening and killing the branches.
Contexts
This article appeared on the cusp of a shift in where people lived in the U.S., as the late 19th century brought rapid growth of cities. While most people still lived in rural areas, the expansion of city life helped shape many aspects of modern life.
Resources for Further Study
Urban Forests by Jill Jonnes considers a historical context for how trees have been integrated into U.S. cities.
Arnoldia, the quarterly magazine of Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, contributes to an ongoing conversation about the importance of trees.
Contemporary Connections
Several modern organizations work to promote and support maintaining and increasing the presence of trees in cities:
American Forests positions trees as a matter of environmental justice
Henry Ward Ranger. The Cornfield. Oil on canvas, n.d. Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
THE children came in from the field with their hands full of the soft, pale-green corn-silk. Annie had rolled hers into a bird’s-nest, while Willie had dressed his little sister’s hair with the long, damp tresses, until she seemed more like a mermaid, with pale blue eyes shining out between the locks of her sea-green hair, than like our own Alice.
They brought their treasures to the mother, who sat on the door-step of the farm-house, under the tall, old elm-tree that had been growing there ever since her mother was a child. She praised the beauty of the bird’s-nest, and kissed the little mermaiden to find if her lips tasted of salt water; but then she said, “Don’t break any more of the silk, dear children, else we shall have no ears of corn in the field, — none to roast before our picnic fires, and none to dry and pop at Christmas time next winter.”
Now the children wondered at what their mother said, and begged that she would tell them how the silk could make the round, full kernels of corn. And this is the story that the mother told, while they all sat on the door-step under the old elm.
“When your father broke up the ground with his plough, and scattered in the seed-corn, the crows were watching from the old apple-tree; and they came down to pick up the corn; and indeed they did carry away a good deal ; but the days went by, the spring showers moistened the earth, and the sun shone, and so the seed-corn swelled, and, bursting open, thrust out two little hands, one reaching down to hold itself firmly in the earth, and one reaching up to the light and air. The first was never very beautiful, but certainly quite useful; for, besides holding the corn firmly in its place, it drew up water and food for the whole plant; but the second spread out two long, slender green leaves, that waved with every breath of air, and seemed to rejoice in every ray of sunshine. Day by day it grew taller and taller, and by and by put out new streamers broader and stronger, until it stood higher than Willie’s head; then, at the top, came a new kind of bud, quite different from those that folded the green streamers, and when that opened, it showed a nodding flower which swayed and bowed at the top of the stalk like the crown of the whole plant. And yet this was not the best that the corn plant could do, — for lower down, and partly hidden by the leaves, it had hung out a silken tassel of pale, sea-green color, like the hair of a little mermaid. Now, every silken thread was in truth a tiny tube, so fine that our eyes cannot see the bore of it. The nodding flower that grew so gayly up above there was day by day ripening a golden dust called pollen, and every grain of this pollen — and they were very small grains indeed — knew perfectly well that the silken threads were tubes; and they felt an irresistible desire to enter the shining passages and explore them to the very end; so one day, when the wind was tossing the whole blossoms this way and that, the pollen-grains danced out, and, sailing down on the soft breeze, each one crept in at the open door of a sea-green tube. Down they slid over the shining floors, and what was their delight to find, when they reached the end, that they had all along been expected, and for each one was a little room prepared, and sweet food for their nourishment; and from this time they had no desire to go away, but remained each in his own place, and grew every day stronger and larger and rounder, even as Baby in the cradle there, who has nothing to do but grow.
Henry Ward Ranger. Untitled. Watercolor, 1883. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
“Side by side were their cradles, one beyond another in beautiful straight rows; and as the pollen-grains grew daily larger, the cradles also grew for their accommodation, until at last they felt themselves really full of sweet, delicious life; and those who lived at the tops of the rows peeped out from the opening of the dry leaves which wrapped them all together, and saw a little boy with his father coming through the corn-field, while yet everything was beaded with dew, and the sun was scarcely an hour high. The boy carried a basket, and the father broke from the corn-stalks the full, firm ears of sweet corn, and heaped the basket full.”
“O mother!” cried Willie,“ that was father and I. Don’t you remember how we used to go out last summer every morning before breakfast to bring in the corn? And we must have taken that very ear; for I remember how the full kernels lay in straight rows, side by side, just as you have told.”
Now Alice is breaking her threads of silk, and trying to see the tiny opening of the tube; and Annie thinks she will look for the pollen-grains the very next time she goes to the cornfield.
Andrews, Jane. “How the indian corn grows.” Our Young Folks 1, No. 10 (October 1865): 630-31.
Contexts
This story, while not about large-scale agriculture, did come at a time when the strength of farming in several northern states helped buoy U.S. Civil War efforts. At the start of the war, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa were seeing incredible growth in crop production, including wheat, corn, and oats. Plentiful domestic food sources were situated in the north, far from the fighting. The abundance also helped maintain U.S. economic importance for Europe as the Confederate States’ cotton exports dwindled. For more information on the economics of U.S. agriculture during the Civil War, see this paper by Emerson D. Fite.
Native Seeds/SEARCH shows corn’s integral role in the Three Sisters garden, and Oneida Nation Elder Gail Danforth talks about the Three Sisters:
Contemporary Connections
Organizations like Native Seeds/SEARCH and Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance seek to preserve heirloom seeds and plants as part of larger missions involving food security and sovereignty for Native Americans. Corn is one of the important foods in these efforts, which presents a different philosophy than what makes corn the largest industrial farm product in the U.S. — an industry that supports animal farming, ethanol production, and processed foods.
How Quercus Alba Went to Explore the Under-World, and What Came of It
By Jane Andrews
Annotations by Josh benjamin
Samuel Colman. “Oak Wood, Montauk, New York.” Graphite, pen and brown ink, brush and watercolor and white gouache on gray-green wove paper, 1880. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY.
QUERCUS ALBA lay on the ground, looking up at the sky. He lay in a little, brown, rustic cradle which would be pretty for any baby, but was specially becoming to his shining, bronzed complexion; for although his name, Alba, is the Latin word for white, he did not belong to the white race. He was trying to play with his cousins, Coccinea and Rubra, but they were two or three yards away from him, and not one of the three dared to roll any distance for fear of rolling out of his cradle; so it was n’t a lively play, as you may easily imagine. Presently, Rubra, who was a sturdy little fellow, hardly afraid of anything, summoned courage to roll full half a yard, and, having come within speaking distance, began to tell how his elder brother had, that very morning, started on the grand underground tour, which to the Quercus family is what going to Europe would be for you and me. Coccinea thought the account very stupid, said his brothers had all been, and he should go too sometime he supposed, and, giving a little shrug of his shoulders which set his cradle rocking, fell asleep in the very face of his visitors. Not so Alba; this was all news to him, — grand news. He was young and inexperienced, and, moreover, full of roving fancies; so he lifted his head as far as he dared, nodded delightedly as Rubra described the departure, and, when his cousin ceased speaking, asked eagerly, “And what will he do there ?”
Original illustration from Our Young Folks, p. 641.
“Do?” said Rubra, — “do ? why, he will do just what everybody else does who goes on the grand tour. What a foolish fellow you are to ask such a question!”
Now this was no answer at all, as you see plainly, and yet little Alba was quite abashed by it, and dared not push the question further for fear of displaying his ignorance; never thinking that we children are not born with our heads full of information on all subjects, and that the only way to fill them is to push our questions until we are utterly satisfied with the answers; and that no one has reason to feel ashamed of ignorance which is not now his own fault, but will soon become so if he hushes his questions for fear of showing it.
Here Alba made his first mistake. There is only one way to correct a mistake of this kind, and it is so excellent a way that it even brings you out at the end wiser than the other course could have done. Alba, I am happy to say, resolved at once on this course. “If,” said he, “Rubra does not choose to tell me about the grand tour, I will go and see for myself.” It was a brave resolve for a little fellow like him. He lost no time in preparing to carry it out; but, on pushing against the gate that led to the underground road, he found that the frost had fastened it securely, and he must wait for a warmer day. In the mean time, afraid to ask any more questions, he yet kept his ears open to gather any scraps of information that might be useful for his journey.
Listening ears can always hear; and Alba very soon began to learn, from the old trees overhead, from the dry rustling leaves around him, and from the little chipping-birds [1] that chatted together in the sunshine. Some said the only advantage of the grand tour was to make one a perfect and accomplished gentleman; others, that all the useful arts were taught abroad, and no one who wished to improve the world in which he lived would stay at home another year. Old grandfather Rubra, standing tall and grand, and stretching his knotty arms, as if to give force to his words, said, “Of all arts, the art of building is the noblest, and that can only be learned by those who take the grand tour; therefore all my boys have been sent long ago, and already many of my grandsons have followed them.”
Frank Lauder. “Red Oak Tree.” Autochrome photograph, 1933. Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, MO.
Then there was a whisper among the leaves: “All very well, old Rubra, but of your sons or grandsons ever come back from the grand tour?
There was no answer; indeed, the leaves had n’t spoken loudly enough for the old gentleman to hear, for he was known to have a fiery temper, and it was scarcely safe to offend him; but the little brown chipping-birds said, one to another, “No, no, no, they never came back! they never came back!”
All this sent a chill through Alba’s heart, but he still held to his purpose; and in the night a warm and friendly rain melted the frozen gateway, and he boldly rolled out of his cradle forever, and, slipping through the portal, was lost to sight.
His mother looked for her baby; his brothers and cousins rolled over and about in search for him. Rubra began to feel sorry for the last scornful words he had said, and would have petted his little cousin with all his heart, if he could only have had him once again; but Alba was never again seen by his old friends and companions.
“How dark it is here, and how difficult for one to make his way through the thick atmosphere!” so thought little Alba, as he pushed and pushed slowly into the soft mud. Presently, a busy hum sounded all about him, and, becoming accustomed to the darkness, he could see little forms moving swiftly and industriously to and fro.
You children who live above, and play about on the hillsides and in the woods, have no idea what is going on all the while under your feet; how the dwarfs and the fairies are working there, weaving moss carpets and grass-blades, forming and painting flowers and scarlet mushrooms, tending and nursing all manner of delicate things which have yet to grow strong enough to push up and see the outside life, and learn to bear its cold winds and rejoice in its sunshine.
While Alba was seeing all this, he was still struggling on, but very slowly; for first he ran against the strong root of an old tree, then knocked his head upon a sharp stone, and finally, bruised and sore, tired, and quite in despair, he sighed a great sigh, and declared he could go no further. At that two odd little beings sprang to his side, – the one brown as the earth itself, with eyes like diamonds for brightness, and deft little fingers, cunning in all works of skill. Pulling off his wisp of a cap, and making a grotesque little bow, he asked, “Will you take a guide for the under-world tour?” “That I will,” said Alba, “for I no longer find myself able to move a step.” “Ha, ha!” laughed the dwarf, “of course you can’t move in that great body, the ways are too narrow; you must come out of yourself before you can get on in this journey. Put out your foot now, and I will show you where to step.” “Out of myself !” cried Alba, “why that is to die! My foot, did you say? I have n’t any feet; I was born in a cradle, and always lived in it until now, and could never do anything but rock and roll.”
“Ha, ha ha!” again laughed the dwarf, “ hear him talk! This is the way with all of them. No feet, does he say? Why, he has a thousand, if he only knew it; hands too, more than he can count. Ask him, sister, and see what he will say to you.”
With that a soft little voice said cheerfully, “Give me your hand, that I may lead you on the upward part of your journey; for, poor little fellow! it is indeed true that you do not know how to live out of your cradle, and we must show you the way.”
Encouraged by this kindly speech, Alba turned a little towards the speaker, and was about to say (as his mother had long ago taught him that he should in all difficulties) “I’ll try,” when a little cracking noise startled the whole company, and, hardly knowing what he did, Alba thrust out, through a slit in his shiny brown skin, a little foot reaching downward to follow the dwarf’s lead, and a little hand, extending upward, quickly clasped by that of the fairy, who stood smiling and lovely in her fair green garments, with a tender, tiny grass-blade binding back her golden hair. O, what a thrill went through Alba, as he felt this new possession! a hand and a foot, a thousand such, had they not said ? What it all meant he could only wonder; but the one real possession was at least certain, and in that he began to feel that all things were possible.
William N. Buckner, Jr. “Leaves.” Oil stick on paper, 1909. Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, Washington, D.C.
And now shall we see where the dwarf led him, and where the fairy? and what was actually done in the underground tour?
The dwarf had need of his bright eyes and his skilful hands; for the soft, tiny foot intrusted to him was a mere baby that had to find its way through a strange dark world, and, what was more, it must not only be guided, but also fed and tended carefully; so the bright eyes go before, and the brown fingers dig out a road-way, and the foot that has learned to trust its guide utterly follows on. There is no longer any danger; he runs against no rocks, he loses his way among no tangled roots ; and the hard earth seems to open gently before him, leading him to the fields where his own best food lies, and to hidden springs of sweet fresh water.
Do you wonder when I say the foot must be fed? Are n’t your feet fed? To be sure, your feet have no mouths of their own; but does n’t the mouth in your face eat for your whole body, hands and feet, ears and eyes, and all the rest? else how do they grow? The only difference here between you and Alba is that his foot has mouths of its own, and as it wanders on through the earth, and finds anything good for food, eats both for itself and for the rest of the body; for I must tell you that, as the little foot progresses, it does not take the body with it, but only grows longer and longer and longer, until, while one end remains at home, fastened to the body, the other end has travelled a distance such as would be counted miles by the atoms of people who live in the under-world. And, moreover, the foot no longer goes on alone; others have come, by tens, even by hundreds, to join it, and Alba begins to understand what the dwarf meant by thousands. Thus the feet travel on, running some to this side, some to that; here digging through a bed of clay, and there burying themselves in a soft sand-hill; taking a mouthful of carbon here and of nitrogen there. But what are these two strange articles of food? Nothing at all like bread and butter, you think. Different, indeed, they seem; but you will one day learn that bread and butter are made in part of these very same things, and they are just as useful to Alba as your breakfast, dinner, and supper are to you; for just as bread and butter, and other food, build your body, so carbon and nitrogen are going to build his; and you will presently see what a fine, large, strong body they can make; then, perhaps, you will be better able to understand what they are.
Shall we leave the feet to travel their own way for a while, and see where the fairy has led the little hand?
Frank Lauder. “Scarlet Oak.” Autochrome photograph, 1937. Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, MO.
QUERCUS ALBA’S NEW SIGHT OF THE UPPER-WORLD.
It was a soft, helpless, little baby hand. Its folded fingers lay listlessly in the fairy’s gentle grasp. “Now we will go up,” she said. He had thought he was going down, and he had heard the chipping-birds say he would never come back again; but he had no will to resist the gentle motion, which seemed, after all, to be exactly what he wanted; so he presently found himself lifted out of the dark earth, feeling the sunshine again, and stirred by the breeze that rustled the dry leaves that lay all about him. Here again were all his old companions, — the chipping-birds, his cousins, old grandfather Rubra, and, best of all, his dear mother; but the odd thing about it all was that nobody seemed to know him; even his mother, although she stretched her arms towards him, turned her head away, looking here and there for her lost baby, and never seeing how he stood gazing up into her face. Now he began to understand why the chipping-birds said, “They never came back! they never came back!” for they truly came in so new a form that none of their old friends recognized them.
Everything that has hands wants to work, — that is, hands are such excellent tools that no one who is the happy possessor of a pair is quite happy until he uses them; so Alba began to have a longing desire to build a stem and lift himself up among his neighbors. But what should he build with? Here the little feet answered promptly, “You want to build, — do you? Well, here is carbon, the very best material; there is nothing like it for walls; it makes the most beautiful, firm wood; wait a minute, and we will send up some that we have been storing for your use.”
And the busy hands go to work, and the child grows day by day. His body and limbs are brown now, but his hands of a fine shining green. And, having learned the use of carbon, these busy hands undertake to gather it for themselves out of the air about them, which is a great storehouse full of many materials that our eyes cannot see. And he has also learned that to grow and to build are indeed the same thing; for his body is taking the form of a strong young tree; his branches are spreading for a roof over the heads of a hundred delicate flowers, making a home for many a bushy-tailed squirrel and pleasant-voiced wood-bird; for, you see, whoever builds cannot build for himself alone; all his neighbors have the benefit of his work, and all enjoy it together.
What at the first was so hard to attempt became grand and beautiful in the doing; and little Alba, instead of serving merely for a squirrel’s breakfast, as he might have done had he not bravely ventured on his journey, stands before us a noble tree, which is to live a hundred years or more.
Do you want to know what kind of a tree?
Well, Lillie, who studies Latin, will tell you that Quercus means oak. And now can you tell me what Alba’s rustic cradle was, and who were his cousins Rubra and Coccinea? [2]
P. Freeman Heim. “White Oak.” Photograph, 1971. National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.
Andrews, Jane. “How Quercus alba went to explore the under-world, and what came of it.” Our Young Folks 4, no. 11 (November 1868): 641-45.
[1] The chipping-bird is likely the chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina), which is common throughout much of North America.
In 1897, the Organic Administration Act established much of the national forests in the U.S., with the Weeks Law of 1911 creating more through the restoration of deforested lands. Increased logging for building materials led to additional laws in the 1960s and 70s that would help further protect forests. The U.S. Forest Service’s approaches have not been without controversy, however, and some areas have turned to Native American forest management knowledge to improve the health and longevity of our forest resources.
An NPR article describes the benefits of cultural burning practices.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture provides field guides to the native oak species in Eastern North America, which includes the three species mentioned in this story.
The Arbor Day Foundation has plentiful tree conservation and education resources, including a statement about the November 2004 naming of the oak as the U.S. national tree.
Contemporary Connections
Margaret Roach’s piece in the New York Times about planting oak trees describes some of the benefits the trees provide for the environment.
Artist Unknown. “Buttermilk Falls [near Ithaca, N.Y.].” Illustration in The PortfolioMagazine 1, no. 101 (1809). Engraving, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.
To the young folks, — to all the young folks, — to my especial friends I among them, and to those whom I shall never know except as a distant crowd of bright and happy boys and girls whom I like to imagine reading this Magazine, I dedicate the following pages. Sometimes, perhaps, when they have finished the stories, they will enjoy turning to my more serious chapters.
There are few among you, I fancy, who have not grown up under the impression that the world we live upon has been always, so far as its general features are concerned, much what it is now. You know that forests have been cleared, that countries have been marked out according to certain boundaries, that cities have been built, and that countless changes have taken place upon the earth’s surface; but these changes are all connected with the history of man. Your school-books tell you little or nothing of the extraordinary events which preceded by ages the very existence of mankind, and prepared the world to be our home. Your map shows you the United States as they exist to-day, and your lesson in geography gives you the name and boundaries, the rivers, mountains, and lakes, the cities and towns, of every State; but while it teaches you so many facts about the State of New York, for instance, it tells you nothing of an ancient sea-shore running through its centre from east to west, the record of a time when America itself was but a long, narrow island, around which the ocean washed.
You go, perhaps, to Trenton Falls, and gather there the curious animal remains of which the rocks are full; but as you pick up the fossil shells, or look at the curious old crustacea called trilobites, I doubt whether it occurs to you that you are doing just what you might do at Newport, or Long Branch, or Nahant, namely, walking on a beach, and picking up the animals which lived upon it.
In the very spot from which I write, Ithaca, in the State of New York, lying on a line parallel with the old sea-shore of Trenton, the young people are all familiar with the broken bits of clay, slate, or limestone, to be found at every roadside, filled with shells and remains of marine animals; but I doubt whether they ask themselves how it happens that here, so far from the ocean, sea-shells are so common that the very rocks are crowded with them. Perhaps they wonder how they came there; but, as their school-books tell them nothing about it, they are contented to let it remain a mystery. Indeed, it is not very long since the wiseșt scientific men asked themselves the same question, and could find no answer. Only by very slow degrees have they learned, that, in the process of building the world, sand and mud, sea-shores, lake and river bottoms, have been consolidated, have hardened into rock, petrifying within them the animals living upon their surface, and the plants growing upon their soil. It is not very difficult, when one has the clew to it, to understand how this may happen. An animal, dying, sinks into the sand or mud, as the case may be; his solid parts — such as the hard envelopes we call shells, or the skeleton of a fish — do not decay; if more and more sand or mud is piled above him, and hardens into rock, in the course of time, by the pressure of its own weight, the animal is embalmed there for ages, till for some purpose or other the rock is split, and he is found in his strange tomb.
Of these things I will tell you more in detail hereafter, if you care to listen. Just now I only want to show that our world has assumed its present outline and general character very gradually, and that creation has been a process of growth, not a single complete act.
Let us return to our geography lesson. Go a little farther west, and we come to the bank of the Mississippi, and our map shows us the great river flowing from north to south, from Minnesota to Louisiana, till it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, but our geography tells us nothing of a great gulf once occupying almost the whole of what is called the Mississippi Valley, when the States now forming the boundaries of the river had no existence, and all that part of our continent lay open to the ocean. Nor does it say anything of a time when there were neither Rocky Mountains nor Alleghanies, when immense marshes, on which grew forests wholly unlike our forests, filled the central part of the United States. No doubt it speaks of the coal beds in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and explains how coal is formed by the decomposition of plants; but these coal beds have a story of their own to tell, which would interest the dullest mind. They were built up by the slow decay of vast forests, in which the largest trees were of a kind known to us now almost entirely as ferns, rushes, reeds, and the like. It is true that some large representatives of them still exist, but they grow in very different climates from ours, — in the tropical parts of South America, where there are tall and stately tree-ferns, and where some of the palms also resemble the trees of the coal forests.
Jacques Francois Benard and Nicolas de Fer. “Mississippi River Valley.” Hand-colored map, 1718. Map provided courtesy of the Map Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
You may ask how we know all this, if nothing remains of these forests except the coal. We know it because the coal beds are full of stems, leaves, fragments of trunks, fruits, seed-vessels, in all of which the structure is perfectly preserved. The coal, you must remember, was once only mud, the trees falling in swampy ground, soaked with rain, slowly decomposing, and forming a rich loamy soil, as trees do now, if they are left to decay where they lie. My young readers must not suppose, however, that one or twenty such forests would make a coal deposit of much thickness; on the contrary, countless generations of trees must have grown up and perished, before the beds of coal were formed which feed all our fires to-day. As the layers of vegetable soil formed by the decomposition of such successive forests were heaped one upon another, the pressure of the upper ones consolidated those below, and gradually transformed the whole mass from a soft to a hard substance. Here and there, however, a branch, a fallen leaf, a fruit or seed, has been buried in this soil without decaying; and by such remains we are enabled to decipher the character of these old woods.
Then came another process; this mass had to be baked, to give it the character of coal. For reasons which, so far as I understand them myself, I shall try to explain hereafter, the interior of the earth is hotter than its surface. Here and there this internal heat finds an outlet, — comes in contact with what geologists call the crust of our globe, that is, with the solid envelope which forms its surface. This envelope is composed of a great number of materials, — sand, mud, lime, &c.; and these materials are changed into a variety of substances by the action of heat. The effect of this heating process upon the deposits left by the dying forests of which we have been talking was to change them into coal. We shall see hereafter, if you care to know more about it, how the petroleum of which we hear so much nowadays is connected with this same internal furnace, and with the coal beds themselves.
Petrified tree trunk outside the United States National Museum, now known as the Arts and Industries Building, Washington, D.C. From 8″ x 10″ glass negative, c. 1880s.
Leaving the Middle States, and going farther south, we read there the same story of change and gradual growth. In the days when the coal forests existed, there was no Florida at all. It has been built on to our continent by coral animals, — strange little workmen, the busiest and most patient architects the world has ever seen, whose history we will study together.
In short, all the countries with the present aspect of which your geography makes you familiar have grown slowly, through innumerable ages, to be what we find them. Europe was once an archipelago of islands in the wide ocean, — a bit of France here, a fraction of Germany there, Russia just showing herself above the waters, neither Alps nor Apennines nor Pyrenees to be seen. There are regions of Central Europe, now far removed from the sea-shores, the soil of which is so filled with remains of marine animals, that you cannot take up a handful of roadside dust without gathering a variety of shells. The mountains of the Jura, in Switzerland, are full of such localities. There is a very romantic gorge running from the base of the Jura, near Montagny, to the village of St. Croix, about half-way up the slope of the range. I well remember wandering through it one summer afternoon with a party of friends, and our amusing ourselves, as we walked along, by breaking off bits from the brittle rocks forming the walls of the precipitous chasm, and examining the shells which fell from them as they crumbled under our touch. Resting afterwards on the mountain terrace above, while we ate our lunch of bread and cheese, and looking across the plain of Switzerland to the Alps, it was difficult to believe that the ocean had ever washed over that fertile land, and had broken against the base of the very range on which we sat.
In the series of chapters I propose to write for “Our Young Folks,” I shall attempt to explain, as far as modern geology teaches it to us, how these changes were brought about; what agents have been at work fashioning this earth on which we live, building it up or wearing it away, heating it in the great furnace of nature, cooling it gradually till a crust was formed upon its surface. We shall see that vapors condensed, and oceans slowly gathered about this world of ours, that gradually land was lifted above the face of the waters, that after a while life stirred on those newly baptized shores, and that at last the earth, so carefully prepared for this end, became inhabited, but not by beings of exactly the same kind as those which live upon it now.
True, there were corals and strange old star-fishes mounted on stems, and spreading their fringed cups like flowers in the water; there were shells endless in number, infinite in variety; there were crustacea, that is, animals resembling our shrimps, crabs, and lobsters; and there were fishes also, — but neither fish nor shrimp nor shell nor star-fish was our familiar acquaintance of to-day. In their general structure they were the same, so that the naturalist recognizes them at once; but that structure was presented under singular, old-fashioned forms, very unlike their representatives now.
All the earliest animals were marine, for the very good reason that in those days the world was wholly ocean and low sea-shore. There was neither forest nor field; no very wide expanses of surface were raised above the water, and the dry land was not yet prepared to receive its myriads of inhabitants. But the beaches were ready; their sands and shallows swarmed with a busy, crowded life; and let me remind you again that, when we split some bit of inland rock, and find it full of shells, broken fragments of crustacea, or star-fish, we do but break in upon one of the little colonies which had their homes upon those primitive shores, lived and died upon them as our animals of the same kind live and die upon our sea-shores to-day.
Hall of Fossil Plants and Invertebrate Animals exhibit case in the Museum of Natural History, featuring “Silurian Sea Scorpion” fossil, Washington, D.C. Photo of gelatin silver print, 1961.
Nor is it strange that we find small fragments of rock thronged with these remains, while large masses in their immediate neighborhood do not contain any. We see the same thing on our beaches now; many of these animals are naturally gregarious; others are brought together by the fact that in certain very limited localities they find exactly what they need to sustain existence. How often, in looking for sea-anemones, or star-fishes, or crabs, we find them crowded into some little corner they have chosen for their home, while we may hunt for them in vain over all the neighboring space.
Gradually I hope to make you acquainted with some of these early animals, and to show you that not only the earth, but the beings living upon its surface, have been different at successive periods. We must, however, always remember that there has been a connection between the past and present; that the period to which we ourselves belong, and all those preceding it, are chapters of one and the same story, intelligently linked from first to last. We know it but in part; many of the pages are so torn and defaced that it seems impossible to decipher them, and some are wholly missing. And yet, bit by bit, the students of nature are putting the broken record together, and puzzling it out for us.
We will not, however, go back at once to the ancient world and its inhabitants, in our talks about Natural History. What is near and familiar is more readily understood than what is strange and distant; a special fact is more easily explained than a wide, comprehensive view. So I will begin, not with the great features of the world’s history, but with a very small portion of its present surface.
In my next chapter I will tell you something of the peninsula of Florida. We shall see with what silent, quiet patience the ages have added this single outlying State to our continent, and we shall then be better prepared to understand the more general phenomena affecting the outline and character of the whole earth.
Agassiz, Elizabeth CAbot Cary. “The world we live on.” Our Young folks 5, No. 1 (january 1869): 38-41.
Contexts
By the time of this chapter’s appearance, Agassiz had published her own natural history texts and contributed to her husband’s expedition journals and publications. There was widespread interest among white Americans in expeditions to explore, study, and map locations throughout the country; for example, the Folsom-Cook exploration of the upper Yellowstone and the Powell Geographic Expedition along the Green and Colorado rivers set out later in 1869.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 536.
I PROMISED to write you, my young friends, from the Florida Reefs, and I perhaps I cannot do better than to give you the narrative of a single excursion, — one which you would have enjoyed as much as we did, could I have invited you to share our holiday. Do you remember that in a former chapter I spoke of a channel lying between the Reef and the Keys, called the “Ship Channel”? I told you that it made a very quiet anchorage, and that, when there was a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, vessels were very glad to find shelter in this channel, and wait till the blow was over.
This was our case. We had started from Key West some days before, on board the steamer Bibb, for a cruise in the Gulf Stream off the Florida coast. We were intending to make soundings, — that is, to ascertain the depth of the water in certain parts of the Stream, and to see what was the strength and direction of the currents, and at the same time to dredge on the ocean bottom for any animals which might be living there.
I say we, because I was looking on, and so it seemed to me as if I were helping, which is the way with a great many people who stand and look on and feel as if they did all the work. But in truth I did nothing at all, except to follow the operations with a great deal of interest, as I dare say you would have done; watching, especially when the dredge came up, to see what beautiful things it brought from the ocean depth. The dredge is a strong net fastened upon an iron frame, so heavy that it will sink very far in the water, and when loaded may fall even to a depth of several thousand feet. Being thrown over the side of the vessel it drags on the bottom, and scoops up whatever comes in its way.
I wish you could have taken a peep with me sometimes into the glass bowls, where, after the contents of the dredge were assorted, we kept the living animals. Sometimes you would have seen corals which you would surely have taken for flowers rather than animals. Their pure white cups, occasionally mounted on shells, were so frail and delicate that you would scarcely believe them to be hard till you touched them. Their soft tentacles gently stirring in the water only confirmed the deception. Here you have a picture of some of them, but you do not see their tentacles, because all their soft parts die and shrivel up when they are taken from the water. When the tentacles are spread out in the living animal they form a delicate fringe, extending beyond the edge of the cups, and are in constant motion. When drawn in, they lie folded like a colored lining against the inner side of the cup.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 536.
Then I should have shown you little shrimps of a bright red color, with large blue eyes, and tiny cuttle-fishes [1], and crimson, orange, or purple sponges, and feather stars as many tinted as the rainbow. Or look at this minute sea-urchin who has come up in a bit of rock, where he just fits into a little hole which he has worn for himself. That is the way he makes his house. I wonder whether when he grows bigger, as all young folks must do, he will enlarge his house to suit his dimensions. Now he is packed into it so snugly that there is no room to spare.
We had often beautiful sea-anemones also, though these did not usually come up in the dredge, but were caught when we made boating excursions to the land or to the shoals of the reef. Sometimes the body was orange color, while the tentacles were bright green; in other cases the whole animal was green; in others, pink or red. I remember two crimson ones which interested us especially, because they lived for many days, and we used to watch them. One day, some exceedingly small fishes, not more than a third of an inch in length, were caught in the hand-net, and chanced to be thrown alive into the glass bowl where these anemones were kept. They had not had anything to eat for some time, and I suppose they felt hungry, for presently I saw one of the anemones spread out his soft, treacherous feelers. Instantly one of the little fishes seemed to be stranded against them, entangled, no doubt, in the web of invisible cords thrown out from their lasso cells. I do not remember whether I told you about these singular weapons of theirs, when explaining the structure of the sea-anemone. Their tentacles are covered with little cells in which threads or whips, so delicate that they cannot be seen by the naked eye, are coiled up. When they desire to catch any prey they throw out these whips by hundreds, and no doubt the poor little fish was caught among them. At all events, it lay for a moment upon the tentacles, a slight quiver showing once or twice that it was not quite dead, and presently the tentacles closed in with it and drew it down to the mouth, where it soon disappeared. The other sea-anemone, observing that his companion was dining so sumptuously, followed his example and also helped himself to a fish, which disappeared after the same fashion. For some days after that our anemones looked remarkably well and thriving. Evidently their hearty meal agreed with them. Such were a few of our specimens, but indeed there was no end to the pretty things which we collected daily.
Unfortunately, however, our work was interrupted by what is called a “norther” in these regions; that is, a very strong blow from the north. We were very glad to take shelter behind the reef, in a harbor called “The old Rhodes,” which is entirely shut in by keys, as all islands about the Florida coast are called, and is therefore very quiet. We had been prisoners here for several days; we had exhausted all the excursions which could be undertaken in small boats in the neighborhood, and therefore we were delighted to wake up one morning after a heavy rain, and find that the sea had gone down, the sun was shining brightly, and the surface of the water was without a ripple. Glad to be once more on our way, we left old Rhodes, and, proceeding down the reef, anchored before Carysfort Lighthouse.
*”I owe this sketch to the courtesy of Colonel Blunt, of the U. S. Corps of Engineers” (Agassiz 539).
You must know that the Carysfort Light is a beacon famous on the reef, partly because its ray penetrates so far that sailors recognize it at a distance of more than twenty miles, and feel safe, for they know that, guided by its light, they can avoid the dangerous shore; and partly because its foundations strike fast and deep into one of the most beautiful and extensive fields of coral growth known on this or perhaps on any other coast. This field we wanted to see, and therefore we anchored very near the lighthouse. It is a singular structure, rising, as you see, directly from the ocean, without a foot of land about it; for you must remember that our coral field is under the sea. The light is lifted on a solid shaft a hundred feet above the surface of the water. This shaft is strengthened on the outside by an iron framework of columns slanting outward, and the rooms occupied by the keeper are built in between the shaft and the outside columns at about half height, standing perhaps some forty or fifty feet above the water.
After breakfast we rowed to the lighthouse, and, arriving under the columns, stepped from our boat on to a perpendicular ladder somewhat steep to climb, which brought us to a rough flooring. From this point there was a spiral staircase, by which we reached the rooms of the lighthouse-keeper. He was glad enough to see us, for he and his two assistants live a lonely life out on the reef, with no soul to speak to except each other, and nothing to do but to trim and feed the lamp on which so many lives depend, and watch the sails go by. He was an old man, who had led a seafaring life himself, and he told us that forty years ago he was wrecked on the very spot where Carysfort Light now ‘stands. I dare say that sometimes, when he lights up his huge lantern at dusk, and sets the lamp revolving within the great glass lenses which multiply its brilliancy a hundred-fold, he remembers the night when, if such a glowing eye had shone upon his track, he would have been saved from great disaster and loss.
This was not the only lighthouse we had visited on our cruise. A few weeks before we had stopped at one which was built on a rock in the ocean, so barren that Carysfort itself, with no land at all about it, seemed to me cheerful in comparison. I mention it because I think you will be surprised to hear that on this desolate rock there lived a family of children with their father and mother. Do you not think it must be a sad life? And yet they looked bright and happy, though they never have any other children to come and play with them, never see a green field or a flower, and never know what it is to run and play at will as children do on land, because the rock is so small, and is pierced with so many holes and caverns, that their parents fear to let them go about alone. I wished I had had some playthings, some pretty books or pictures, for them. But as it was, instead of my giving them anything, they loaded me with presents, bringing me, in a shy, affectionate way, all the pretty shells and stones which are their substitutes for playthings, and insisting upon my accepting them. But let us go back to Carysfort. I am forgetting the subject of our talk in telling you about those solitary little people anchored so far away from all your amusements and pleasures.
After we had talked with the lighthouse-keeper for a while, he invited us to step out upon a sort of ledge or balcony which runs around his rooms on the outside, and is protected by a railing. From this perch we looked down into the sea, and I want you to look down with me. If you do not, I am afraid you will hardly believe what I tell you.
As far as the eye could reach, the coral field stretched out around the lighthouse, and so transparent was the water, that we saw the ocean bottom as we might have seen a garden spread out beneath us. This comparison may, however, mislead you, and I think I have perhaps misled you already, when in a former chapter I compared the appearance of a growing coral reef to a shrubbery of waving, many-colored plants. When I wrote that I had never seen, and hardly expected to see, a coral reef, and I described its appearance as I had understood it from the descriptions of others. But Nature is not poor in invention. She does not simply repeat the grace and loveliness of her fields when she spreads her ocean floor with a beauty all its own. And though I confess that there is something in the branching, leaf-like growth of the corals, as well as in their motion and color, which reminds one of plants, yet I think there is a glory of the sea as there is a glory of the land, and they are not the same.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 540.
The coral field consisted, in a great degree, of what are called leaf-corals (Madrepora palmata). They often, though not always, grow in spirals, their broad, flat branches rising tier upon tier, one above the other. Looking down upon them, I understood where the animals living upon the reef make their homes and find a shelter. Between the almost level floors of these expansions, which often stretch for many yards in circumference on one single stock, there are hundreds of protected recesses, little holes and shady nooks and corners, which seem, I dare say, like large caves to the small animals which inhabit them.
Numbers of fishes were playing among these spreading branches. Darting, shooting, winding in and out between the corals, seen one moment, hidden the next, chasing one another as if in a game of hide-and-seek, or following in shoals of twenty or thirty, as if bound on some special errand, they all seemed as busy and as happy as birds in a wood. Most of them were very brilliant in color. In some, the whole body was of the most vivid blue, others were blue and black, others, again, red and green, others black banded with yellow, and one, the most beautiful of all, was a bright canary color on the lower side, and dark violet above. Now and then some large fish, a garupa [2] or a barracuda, or even a shark, would pass by, and then all the smaller fry scattered, hiding themselves under the coral, and were seen no more till their enemy was out of sight.
We passed a couple of hours in the lighthouse, watching this strange and beautiful spectacle. We then returned to the ship for lunch, but started again in boats in the afternoon, for the purpose of floating over the whole expanse of the reef, and collecting coral. This was, if possible, more interesting, for, being almost on a level with the water, we could see every object beneath it with even greater distinctness than from the lighthouse, though at that height we had, of course, a more extensive view.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 542.
I have mentioned especially the leaf-coral, because that was the most conspicuous at first sight; but there were many heads of brain-coral, or Mæandrina, of Astræa, commonly called Star Coral, and of Porites, ranging in size from little tufts not bigger than your fist to enormous masses from six to ten feet in diameter. There were many also of the more delicate branching kinds, known as finger-corals, and great numbers of the so-called sea-fans. These latter resemble plants so much, that in seeing them you cease to wonder at the frequent comparison of coral-beds to gardens or shrubbery. The broad expansions of the leaf-coral spread horizontally, and are perfectly rigid and motionless, the soft parts of the animals composing the mass being very small in comparison to the solid portions of which the whole structure is built. The fan-corals, on the contrary, are elastic and flexible. They stand upon the ocean bottom on a sort of root, or at least upon a solid base which resembles a root, and their spreading leaves rise lightly in the water and wave with its motion as if stirred by the wind. They are of many colors, — various shades of brown, green, and purple, the latter being especially predominant. Mingled as they often are with a kind of vegetable coral called coralline, resembling sea-weed, and with the bright red, purple, or orange-colored sponges which abound along the Florida coast, you may well be reminded, when looking down upon them, of a brilliant flower-bed.
We could not have had a better day for our excursion than the one we had chosen. It happened to be a season of spring tides, so that the ebb tide was remarkably low. In some places large masses of coral were left exposed, and indeed there were portions of the reef over which one might walk, not dry shod certainly, but springing from one coral stock to another. Other portions were still covered, even at the lowest tide, by six or eight feet or even three or four fathoms of water. I am sure that all the boys who read this would gladly have shared in the fun of that afternoon. We had three or four boats, and the greater part of the ship’s company were in them. All had come dressed for aquatic adventures, and soon there was scarcely a man left in the boats. In every variety of rough and picturesque costume, they were stalking about on the reef, — sometimes wading up to their waists or their shoulders, sometimes swimming in the deeper places, sometimes diving after a desirable specimen. Armed with boat-hooks, crow-bars, logs of wood, or whatever else they could lay their hands upon, all were engaged in dislodging the more solid and heavier masses, or in breaking off the delicate fans and the finger-corals. It was a play-day for all. I doubt if ever before the reef had resounded to such gayety, — the shouts and laughter of the men echoing on every side as they plunged and tumbled about in the water. Now and then the mirth was varied by cries of another kind, when some one, by mistake, laid hold of the sharp spines of a sea urchin, or got a sting from the so-called sea-worm. But these incidents were not numerous, and, after all, raised a laugh in the end.
At last, when all were fairly tired out with work and play, we returned to the vessel, rowing back in the sunset over a sea so calm that no ripple, except those made by our oars, broke its surface. Such was our day at Carysfort Reef, and if I have told my story well, I think you will admit that it was one to be pleasantly remembered. In my next article I shall tell you something of the different kinds of coral when alive, as I saw them during our cruise, and explain the reefs and keys of Florida more at length.
Original illustration by John Harley from Our Young Folks, p. 543.
End illustration by John Harley.
Agassiz, Elizabeth CAbot Cary. “A Day on carysfort reef.” Our Young folks 5, No. 8 (August 1869): 536-43.
[1] Cuttlefish are small invertebrates (just over an inch to 20 inches long) with eight arms and two tentacles attached to their heads. There are over 120 species of these tiny cephalopods (a group that also includes octopuses, squid, and nautiluses) all over the world.
[2] This is most likely an anglicized version of the Portuguese word “garoupa,” or grouper. Groupers are among the most common fish in the Florida Keys.
Contexts
Carysfort Reef, like several others in the Keys, is named for a British warship that ran aground at that section of reef. The Florida Keys reefs were dangerous to the increasing ship traffic of the 18th and 19th centuries. An industry grew around salvaging ships and their goods. For a time, Key West was the wealthiest U.S. city per capita. Dry Tortugas and Carysfort had lightships (anchored boats with lanterns on their masts) by 1825 and 1826, respectively, but ships still ran aground.
In 1851, the U.S. Coast Survey, which had begun overseeing mapping of the Keys reefs, had Louis Agassiz examine potential lighthouse locations. This return trip to Carysfort that Elizabeth Agassiz describes happened between two expeditions she planned. She traveled to Brazil in 1865, managed the trip, and kept a journal that she would later combine with Louis’s notes and publish. Later, she negotiated Louis’s involvement in the Hassler Expedition to the Straits of Magellan. Agassiz became the first president of the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women, which would later become Radcliffe College.
Resources for Further Study
Carysfort Reef is one of the many reefs that are now part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS), one of the National Marine Sanctuaries that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) manages.
Carysfort Reef is one of the Florida Keys’ Sanctuary Preservation Areas, which protect the threatened elkhorn, star, and brain corals — North America’s only living barrier reef. These shallow corals are popular with snorkelers and scuba divers and were historically frequented by fishers, but overuse contributed to the reef’s decline. Permanent mooring buoys now prevent damage from boat anchors, and sanctuary staff closely monitors activity along the reef. NOAA leads an ongoing partnership for Mission: Iconic Reefs, which manages coral outplanting in an effort to restore reefs within FKNMS.
Rescued hummingbird. Image from Stowe’s story in Our Young Folks: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls 1, no. 1 (January 1865): 5. Public Domain.
At Rye Beach [1] during our summer’s vacation, there came, as there always will to seaside visitors, two or three cold, chilly, rainy days,–days when the skies that long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to bethink themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, not by drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind blew and whistled, the water dashed along the ground and careered in foamy rills along the roadside, and the bushes bent beneath the constant flood. It was plain that there was to be no sea-bathing on such a day, no walks, no rides; and so, shivering and drawing our blanket- shawls close about us, we sat down at the window to watch the storm outside. The rose-bushes under the window hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a constant shower on the spray below it. On one of these lower sprays, under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued down by the rain that he looked not much bigger than a honey-bee, and as different as possible from the smart, pert, airy little character that we had so often seen flirting with the flowers. He was evidently a humming-bird in adversity, and whether he ever would hum again looked to us exceedingly doubtful. Immediately, however, we sent out to have him taken in. When the friendly hand seized him, he gave a little, faint, watery squeak, evidently thinking that his last hour was come, and that grim death was about to carry him off to the land of dead birds. What a time we had reviving him,–holding the little wet thing in the warm hollow of our hands, and feeling him shiver and palpitate! His eyes were fast closed; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, were knotted close to his body, and it was long before one could feel the least motion in them. Finally, to our great joy, we felt a brisk little kick, and then a flutter of wings, and then a determined peck of the beak, which showed that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he meant at any rate to find out where he was.
Unclosing our hands a small space, out popped the little head with a pair of round brilliant eyes. Then we bethought ourselves of feeding him, and forthwith prepared him a stiff glass of sugar and water, a drop of which we held to his bill. After turning his head attentively, like a bird who knew what he was about and didn’t mean to be chaffed, he briskly put out a long, flexible tongue, slightly forked at the end, and licked off the comfortable beverage with great relish. Immediately he was pronounced out of danger by the small humane society which had undertaken the charge of his restoration, and we began to cast about for getting him a settled establishment in our apartment. I gave up my work-box to him for a sleeping-room, and it was medically ordered that he should take a nap. So we filled the box with cotton, and he was formally put to bed, with a folded cambric handkerchief round his neck, to keep him from beating his wings. Out of his white wrappings he looked forth green and grave as any judge with his bright round eyes. Like a bird of discretion, he seemed to understand what was being done to him, and resigned himself sensibly to go to sleep.
The box was covered with a sheet of paper perforated with holes for purposes of ventilation; for even humming-birds have a little pair of lungs, and need their own little portion of air to fill them, so that they may make bright scarlet little drops of blood to keep life’s fire burning in their tiny bodies. Our bird’s lungs manufactured brilliant blood, as we found out by experience; for in his first nap he contrived to nestle himself into the cotton of which his bed was made, and to get more of it than he needed into his long bill. We pulled it out as carefully as we could, but there came out of his bill two round, bright scarlet, little drops of blood. Our chief medical authority looked grave, pronounced a probable hemorrhage from the lungs, and gave him over at once. We, less scientific, declared that we had only cut his little tongue by drawing out the filaments of cotton, and that he would do well enough in time,–as it afterwards appeared he did, for from that day there was no more bleeding. In the course of the second day he began to take short flights about the room, though he seemed to prefer to return to us; perching on our fingers or heads or shoulders, and sometimes choosing to sit in this way for half an hour at a time. “These great giants,” he seemed to say to himself, “are not bad people after all; they have a comfortable way with them; how nicely they dried and warmed me! Truly a bird might do worse than to live with them.” So he made up his mind to form a fourth in the little company of three that usually sat and read, worked and sketched, in that apartment, and we christened him “Hum, the son of Buz.” He became an individuality, a character, whose little doings formed a part of every letter, and some extracts from these will show what some of his little ways were.
“Hum has learned to sit upon my finger, and eat his sugar and water out of a teaspoon with most Christian-like decorum. He has but one weakness–he will occasionally jump into the spoon and sit in his sugar and water, and then appear to wonder where it goes to. His plumage is in rather a drabbled state, owing to these performances. I have sketched him as he sat to-day on a bit of Spiraea which I brought in for him. When absorbed in reflection, he sits with his bill straight up in the air, as I have drawn him. Mr. A—- reads Macaulay [2] to us, and you should see the wise air with which, perched on Jenny’s thumb, he cocked his head now one side and then the other, apparently listening with most critical attention. His confidence in us seems unbounded: he lets us stroke his head, smooth his feathers, without a flutter; and is never better pleased than when sitting, as he has been doing all this while, on my hand, turning up his bill, and watching my face with great edification.
“I have just been having a sort of maternal struggle to make him go to bed in his box; but he evidently considers himself sufficiently convalescent to make a stand for his rights as a bird, and so scratched indignantly out of his wrappings, and set himself up to roost on the edge of the box, with an air worthy of a turkey, at the very least. Having brought in a lamp, he has opened his eyes round and wide, and sits cocking his little head at me reflectively.”
When the weather cleared away, and the sun came out bright, Hum became entirely well, and seemed resolved to take the measure of his new life with us. Our windows were closed in the lower part of the sash by frames with mosquito gauze [3], so that the sun and air found free admission, and yet our little rover could not pass out. On the first sunny day he took an exact survey of our apartment from ceiling to floor, humming about, examining every point with his bill–all the crevices, mouldings, each little indentation in the bed-posts, each window-pane, each chair and stand; and, as it was a very simply furnished seaside apartment, his scrutiny was soon finished. We wondered at first what this was all about; but on watching him more closely, we found that he was actively engaged in getting his living, by darting out his long tongue hither and thither, and drawing in all the tiny flies and insects which in summer time are to be found in an apartment. In short, we found that, though the nectar of flowers was his dessert, yet he had his roast beef and mutton-chop to look after, and that his bright, brilliant blood was not made out of a simple vegetarian diet. Very shrewd and keen he was, too, in measuring the size of insects before he attempted to swallow them. The smallest class were whisked off with lightning speed; but about larger ones he would sometimes wheel and hum for some minutes, darting hither and thither, and surveying them warily, and if satisfied that they could be carried, he would come down with a quick, central dart which would finish the unfortunate at a snap. The larger flies seemed to irritate him, especially when they intimated to him that his plumage was sugary, by settling on his wings and tail; when he would lay about him spitefully, wielding his bill like a sword. A grasshopper that strayed in, and was sunning himself on the window-seat, gave him great discomposure. Hum evidently considered him an intruder, and seemed to long to make a dive at him; but, with characteristic prudence, confined himself to threatening movements, which did not exactly hit. He saw evidently that he could not swallow him whole, and what might ensue from trying him piecemeal he wisely forbore to essay [4].
Hum had his own favourite places and perches. From the first day he chose for his nightly roost a towel-line which had been drawn across the corner over the wash-stand, where he every night established himself with one claw in the edge of the towel and the other clasping the line, and, ruffling up his feathers till he looked like a little chestnut-burr, he would resign himself to the soundest sleep. He did not tuck his head under his wing, but seemed to sink it down between his shoulders, with his bill almost straight up in the air. One evening one of us, going to use the towel, jarred the line, and soon after found that Hum had been thrown from his perch, and was hanging head downward, fast asleep, still clinging to the line. Another evening, being discomposed by somebody coming to the towel-line after he had settled himself, he fluttered off; but so sleepy that he had not discretion to poise himself again, and was found clinging, like a little bunch of green floss silk, to the mosquito netting of the window.
A day after this we brought in a large green bough, and put it up over the looking-glass. Hum noticed it before it had been there five minutes, flew to it, and began a regular survey, perching now here, now there, till he seemed to find a twig that exactly suited him; and after that he roosted there every night. Who does not see in this change all the signs of reflection and reason that are shown by us in thinking over our circumstances, and trying to better them? It seemed to say in so many words: “That towel-line is an unsafe place for a bird; I get frightened, and wake from bad dreams to find myself head downward; so I will find a better roost on this twig.”
When our little Jenny one day put on a clean white muslin gown embellished with red sprigs, Hum flew towards her, and with his bill made instant examination of these new appearances; and one day, being very affectionately disposed, perched himself on her shoulder, and sat some time. On another occasion, while Mr. A—- was reading, Hum established himself on the top of his head just over the middle of his forehead, in the precise place where our young belles have lately worn stuffed humming-birds [5], making him look as if dressed out for a party. Hum’s most favourite perch was the back of the great rocking-chair, which, being covered by a tidy, gave some hold into which he could catch his little claws. There he would sit, balancing himself cleverly if its occupant chose to swing to and fro, and seeming to be listening to the conversation or reading.
Hum had his different moods, like human beings. On cold, cloudy, gray days he appeared to be somewhat depressed in spirits, hummed less about the room, and sat humped up with his feathers ruffled, looking as much like a bird in a great-coat as possible. But on hot, sunny days, every feather sleeked itself down, and his little body looked natty and trim, his head alert, his eyes bright, and it was impossible to come near him, for his agility. Then let mosquitoes and little flies look about them! Hum snapped them up without mercy, and seemed to be all over the ceiling in a moment, and resisted all our efforts at any personal familiarity with a saucy alacrity.
Hum had his established institutions in our room, the chief of which was a tumbler with a little sugar and water mixed in it, and a spoon laid across, out of which he helped himself whenever he felt in the mood–sitting on the edge of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill, and lapping with his little forked tongue like a kitten. When he found his spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his bill in the water in the tumbler; which caused the prophecy on the part of some of his guardians that he would fall in some day and be drowned. For which reason it was agreed to keep only an inch in depth of the fluid at the bottom of the tumbler. A wise precaution this proved; for the next morning I was awaked, not by the usual hum over my head, but by a sharp little flutter, and found Mr. Hum beating his wings in the tumbler, –having actually tumbled in during his energetic efforts to get his morning coffee before I was awake.
Hum seemed perfectly happy and satisfied in his quarters, — but one day, when the door was left open, he made a dart out, and so into the open sunshine. Then, to be sure, we thought we had lost him. We took the mosquito netting out of all the windows, and, setting his tumbler of sugar and water in a conspicuous place, went about our usual occupations. We saw him joyous and brisk among the honeysuckles outside the window, and it was gravely predicted that he would return no more. But at dinner-time in came Hum, familiar as possible, and sat down to his spoon as if nothing had happened. Instantly we closed our windows and had him secure once more.
At another time I was going to ride to the Atlantic House, about a mile from my boarding-place. I left all secure, as I supposed, at home. While gathering moss on the walls there, I was surprised by a little green humming-bird flying familiarly right towards my face and humming above my head. I called out, “Here is Hum’s very brother.” But, on returning home, I saw that the door of the room was open, and Hum was gone. Now certainly we gave him up for lost. I sat down to painting, and in a few minutes in flew Hum, and settled on the edge of my tumbler in a social, confidential way, which seemed to say, “Oh, you’ve got back then.” After taking his usual drink of sugar and water, he began to fly about the ceiling as usual, and we gladly shut him in.
When our five weeks at the seaside were up, and it was time to go home, we had great questionings what was to be done with Hum. To get him home with us was our desire; but who ever heard of a humming-bird travelling by railroad? Great were the consultings. A little basket of Indian work was filled up with cambric handkerchiefs, and a bottle of sugar and water provided, and we started with him for a day’s journey. When we arrived at night the first care was to see what had become of Hum, who had not been looked at since we fed him with sugar and water in Boston. We found him alive and well, but so dead asleep that we could not wake him to roost; so we put him to bed on a toilet cushion, and arranged his tumbler for morning. The next day found him alive and humming, exploring the room and pictures, perching now here and now there; but as the weather was chilly, he sat for the most part of the time in a humped-up state on the tip of a pair of stag’s horns. We moved him to a more sunny apartment; but, alas! the equinoctial storm came on, and there was no sun to be had for days. Hum was blue; the pleasant seaside days were over; his room was lonely, the pleasant three that had enlivened the apartment at Rye no longer came in and out; evidently he was lonesome, and gave way to depression. One chilly morning he managed again to fall into his tumbler, and wet himself through; and notwithstanding warm bathings and tender nursings, the poor little fellow seemed to get diptheria, or something quite as bad for humming-birds.
We carried him to a neighboring sunny parlour, where ivy embowers all the walls and the sun lies all day. There he revived a little, danced up and down, perched on a green spray that was wreathed across the breast of a Psyche, [6] and looked then like a little flitting soul returning to its rest. Towards evening he drooped; and, having been nursed and warmed and cared for, he was put to sleep on a green twig laid on the piano. In that sleep the little head drooped–nodded–fell; and little Hum went where other bright dreams go–to the Land of the Hereafter. [7]
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. “Hum, the son of Buz,” In our young folks: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls 1, No. 1 (January 1865): 1-7.
[1] Rye Beach is a coastal town in New Hampshire, only an hour away from Boston (by today’s means of conveyance).
[3] Mosquito gauze was used to create a window screen.
[4] He choose not to pursue the insect further.
[5] During the Victorian era many stylish women wore hats adorned with stuffed birds and feathers. In 1886 Sometime in 1886, Frank Chapman (1864–1945), an accomplished ornithologist, found more than 40 species of stuffed birds in New York City, all adorning ladies hats. In Boston, Massachusetts, in 1896 Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall led a campaign against this practice. Steadily attracting more and more supporters, they formed the Audubon Society–today one of the largest bird protection charities in the world–and took on the millinery trade. Although some protective legislation was passed in the US after a few years, the importation of feathers wasn’t banned until 1918, when the US Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
[6] In Greek mythology, Psyche was a beautiful princess who fell in love with Eros (Cupid), god of love, and went through terrible trials before being allowed to marry him. The story is often understood to be about the soul redeeming itself through love.
[7] The Land of the Hereafter refers to Heaven, and tells us that little Hum has died.
Contexts
Harriet Beecher Stowe is most famous for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which brought the daily horrors of slavery to a wide audience and is credited by scholars with contributing to the start of the American Civil War. She was a passionate abolitionist and a prolific writer. She found time to raise a family of seven children and add stories for children to her portfolio of work. Her first published book, in 1833, was Primary Geography for Children (you can find the 1855 revised edition, titled A New Geography for Children at Hathi Trust). Learn more about Stowe’s life and work.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:
chaffed: To banter, rail at, or rally, in a light and non-serious manner, or without anger, but so as to try the good nature or temper of the person “chaffed.”
cambric: A kind of fine white linen, originally made at Cambray in Flanders. (Also applied to an imitation made of hard-spun cotton yarn.)
chestnut burr: The large edible seed or “nut” of the chestnut-tree, two or more of which are enclosed in a prickly pericarp or “burr.”
Chestnut burrs. Photo courtesy of pxfuel.com.
diptheria: An infectious disease that is characterized by severe inflammation of mucous membranes, esp. of the throat but often also of the nose, larynx, trachea, and bronchi, with formation of a thick layer of exudate sometimes causing obstruction to breathing, and which is caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Also: infection of other sites, especially the skin, by this bacterium.
palpitate: (of the heart) to beat rapidly and/or in an irregular way especially because of fear or excitement.
rills: shallow channels cut by water flowing over rock or soil.
spiraea: One or other species of an extensive genus of rosaceous plants or shrubs, many of which are largely cultivated for their handsome foliage and flowers.
Climate change is threatening hummingbirds by disrupting their patterns of migration and feeding routines. As bloom times change they may arrive at a known source of nutrition too early or too late. In short, they have lost their synchronization with nature. Scientists are still studying the problem and possible remedies, but you can help by turning your home into a hummingbird haven and following other tips in the article “Turn Your Yard Into A Hummingbird Spectacular,” published in Audubon Magazine.
George Catlin. Weapons and Physiognomy of the Grizzly Bear. Oil on canvas, c. 1846-48, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
My first adventure with a bear occurred when I was about eight years old. It was in summer, when our people lead their flocks to the upper pastures, which the melted snow leaves uncovered.
My parents had gone to a mountain chalet, leaving me in the valley under the charge of a servant. One day I made my escape, and set out to meet them. I walked on, eating the bread and cheese given me for breakfast, when, as I was passing through a wood, I saw lying asleep across my path an animal which I took for a huge brown dog.
I felt frightened; but the wish to rejoin my parents, who had been detained from home longer than they expected, prevailed, and on I went, gliding as silently as possible past the unknown beast. Despite, however, the little noise I made, the creature roused himself and came towards me.
Wishing to propitiate him, I threw down a bit of bread; he smelt it, swallowed it with apparent pleasure, and stretched out his head as if asking for more. I ventured to caress him, which he suffered me to do, although uttering a sort of protesting growl.
Throwing my breakfast behind me bit by bit, in order to occupy the attention of my strange companion, whose presence was any thing but agreeable, I reached at length the boundary of our farm. There he ceased to follow me.
I entered the chalet, where, to my great joy, I found my father, and told him my adventure. He immediately seized his gun, sallied forth, and returning at night after a fruitless chase, told me that my morning’s acquaintance was no other than a bear, from whom I had had an almost miraculous escape.
Twelve years passed on without my renewing my acquaintance with the ursine tribe. I assisted my father in managing his farm, and spent my leisure time in reading, taking particular pleasure in narratives of travel and adventure.
It happened one day that a neighbor named Raymond, a practised hunter of bears and chamois [1], asked me to accompany him on a mountain expedition. I gladly consented, and we set out, each carrying a carabine [2] on his shoulder, and a small, sharp hatchet fastened in his belt.
It was a beautiful autumn day. Towards five o’clock in the evening, having shot only a few birds, we began to think of returning. As we were passing through a thick wood, Raymond, who was grumbling at our want of success, recollected that there lay at a short distance a sort of little meadow where chamois often went to feed. At that hour there was not much chance of meeting them, but Raymond determined to make the trial. Placing me in ambush, he directed me to watch narrowly, and if he did not return at the end of half an hour, to descend the mountain. I saw him plunge into the wood, and then stoop down and creep warily along.
Edward Kemeys. Grizzly Bear at Bay. Painted plaster, c. 1871-85, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
When I found myself alone, my first movement was to inspect the post assigned to me, in order to guard against surprise. Twilight already darkened the tops of the fir-trees, although it was scarcely six o’clock. The fatigues of the day had abated not only my strength, but my courage. I instinctively sought for a fir-tree, less denuded of the lower branches than they commonly are, to serve as an asylum in case of necessity.
I then took up my position beneath it, slung my carabine and waited patiently. The shadows of evening were fast darkening, although the setting sun still gilded the western horizon. The appointed half-hour had expired without my seeing any thing, and I began to think of returning. Just as I was about to unsling my carabine and leave my solitary position, I heard a rustling noise, too loud to be caused by the passage of a chamois.
“It is probably Raymond,” I said to myself, and was going to meet him, when it struck me that the approaching tread, crashing through the withered branches, was too slow and heavy for that of my comrade. I retreated to my tree, and another moment revealed the newcomer.
It was an enormous bear, with fiery eyes, who came on with lowered head, not having yet perceived me. Almost mechanically, I took aim and fired at him. The shot, I believe, carried off one of his ears; and with a terrific roar he bounded towards me.
Throwing away my carabine, I climbed the tree, and when the infuriated creature raised his fore paws against the trunk, I was seated on a strong branch about ten feet above him. With the courage of despair I drew my hatchet and waited to see what he would do. For a few moments he continued standing on his hind-legs against the tree, devouring me with his fierce eyes, and snorting with a loud noise; then he began to climb.
When he came near, I raised my hatchet and struck. I did so with too much precipitation, for the blow merely cut one of his fore-paws without severing it. Down he dropped, but too slightly wounded to abandon the pursuit. For some time he remained, as it were, undecided, sending forth furious howlings, which resounded through the woods.
At length, having once more begun to climb, he stopped, seemed to change his mind, and redescended. Then I saw him snuffing the earth round the fir-tree, and finally he fell to work in good earnest.
Even to this moment I shudder at the recollection of what he undertook; it was nothing else than uprooting the tree with his snout and paws, in order to bring it down. For a bear the idea was not a bad one; and I presently learned that whenever this animal fails, it is not for want of perseverance. Happily, the tree I had chosen was thick, firmly rooted, and capable of resisting the animal’s efforts for a considerable time. The only hope I had left was, that Raymond might hear the roaring of the bear, and come to my succor.
Edward Kemeys. Grizzly Bear Sitting. Plaster, c. 1871-94, Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Alas, every minute seemed an hour! Night came on, and with its approach my courage gave way. I could no longer see my terrible enemy; his snorting respiration and the dull noise of his indefatigable labor reached my ears, mingled with the last faint evening sounds from the valley, whose inhabitants, happy and tranquil, were going to repose in peace, while I felt myself given up to a horrible and inevitable death. In my extremity I sought help where it is never asked in vain, and I passed that awful night in fervent prayer.
Morning dawned, and the bear was still mining away.
Presently the tree began to totter. I closed my eyes. But all at once he ceased to dig, and threw up his snout towards the wind. I thought I heard a distant sound amongst the fir trees; the bear heard it too, and listened, lowering his head. The noise approached, and I distinguished my own name shouted by many voices. Apparently my ferocious adversary perceived that efficient help was coming; for after having once more snuffed the breeze he plunged into the forest.
Five minutes afterward Raymond was at the foot of the tree. It was quite time; it toppled over as I descended.
“Adventure with an alpine bear.” Youth’s companion 39, no. 52 (December 1866): 206.
[1] There are two species of chamois, which are similar to antelopes and goats. They typically live on mountains or at high elevations and are hunted for their meat and soft pelts, which are used for chamois leather. Their native habitat ranges from the Pyrenees Mountains through the Alps to the Carpathians and south into Turkey.
[2] Carabine is an alternate spelling of carbine, a type of rifle. It is typically shorter, more compact, lighter, and easier to handle than longer firearms.
Contexts
The Koniag (Kodiak is a Russian spelling of the Alutiiq word) bear is entwined with the history of the Alutiiq tribe. For indigenous Alaskans, the animal was a source of meat and hide that held cultural significance and has had a shifting relationship with the people, ongoing to this day on Kodiak Island. An article by Hannah Pembroke for the Alaska Wildlife Alliance highlights the critical connection between bears and humans.
Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary
denuded: To make naked or bare; to strip of clothing or covering.
indefatigable: Incapable of being wearied; that cannot be tired out; unwearied, untiring, unremitting in labor or effort.
propitiate: To make well-disposed or favorably inclined; to win or regain the favor of; to appease, conciliate.
ursine: Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, due to, a bear or bears.
Resources for Further Study
The Alpine bear (Ursus arctos) is also known as the brown, grizzly, or Kodiak bear, depending on the region it inhabits.
