Darwin's Library

 

READ WHAT DARWIN READ
     I have presented other "private libraries", but this one is different, in that you can actually read the works in it, from the comfort of you own. Simply visit, Darwin Online. 
   The two libraries associated with Darwin, the one at Down House, his home in Downe, and the other at Cambridge, hold only a very small percentage of the books he read over his lifetime. In 1875, Darwin composed a "Catalogue of the Library of Charles Darwin", but many of the items listed on the 426 pages had been lost. Over 18 years, scholars have tracked down everything he read. "Darwin Online" now provides access to thousands of volumes and there are virtual links to over 9,000 of them. The leader of the project notes that:
“This unprecedentedly detailed view of Darwin’s complete library allows one to appreciate more than ever that he was not an isolated figure working alone but an expert of his time building on the sophisticated science and studies and other knowledge of thousands of people. Indeed, the size and range of works in the library makes manifest the extraordinary extent of Darwin’s research into the work of others.”
   This 'new' Darwin library contains novels and philosophical works as well as books in languages other than English. It even contains the works he had with him on the Beagle. See, "Charles Darwin's Beagle Library."
   As an example of the exotica to be found, here is one from Audubon taken from the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. It relates to buzzards, but it is so interesting, I have included the link. 
Audubon, John James. 1826. "Account of the habits of the Turkey Buzzard (Vultura aura), particularly with the view of exploding the opinion generally entertained of its extraordinary power of smelling." Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 2 (October-December): 172-184.

Sources: 
   Darwin Online is all that most of you will need and here is a press release about it from the National University of Singapore. 
   See also: "Researchers Reveal Lost Library of Charles Darwin For the First Time,"Ashley Strickland, CNN, Feb. 11, 2024 or "Contents of Charles Darwin's Entire Personal Library Revealed For First Time" by Mark Brown, The Guardian, Feb. 11, 2024.
   You can visit Darwin's home in Downe, Kent where there is soon to be a Halloween Celebration. 

Post Script: Private Libraries

  Since Mulcahy's Miscellany has no index, here are some of the other posts related to personal/private libraries, as opposed to, say libraries with people's names on them.

   You could start with "The Old Card Catalogue" which provides the catalogues of several private libraries.
Jefferson's Library

Stalin's Library

Mark Twain and Libraries
Oscar's Library
Library Furniture (the library at Althorp in Northamptonshire.)

Edward Gorey's Library
Professor Macksey's Library 
Professor Macksey's Library (Again)
The Talented Mr. Towles  (Amor Towle's Library)
Boys With Books (The libraries of Norman Mailer and Colin Wilson.)

BIRD ILLUSTRATORS

LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES

   I used to work in the Western Libraries back when there were more of them and the collections they held were impressive. As I have indicated in several posts, the area devoted to books and other resources has shrunk, while space for the students has grown. Many books are in storage, where they cannot be browsed and I think that is unfortunate. 

   It is the case, however, that the argument for keeping books and other scholarly resources has been lost. And, admittedly, the losing of that argument is not as unfortunate as one might think - unless you prefer printed books and journals.

   The material in storage is easily retrieved for you, if you know it is there. As well, much of it can be accessed electronically and from afar and at anytime. About the only rationale one can offer for keeping all those old books and journals around is an aesthetic one which does not hold much appeal for many. 

    That gets me to Fuertes, who produced books about birds and provided the illustrations for many others. Seeing such books and works like, The Double Elephant Folio: The Story of Audubon's Birds of America, is more appealing to me than viewing them electronically (that book is in storage.)

   A couple of years ago, I did a post about "Bird Art" and in it wrote about the works of John Gould and provided a list of his beautifully illustrated books that were held by the Western Libraries, but were in storage. There also are books by Fuertes in storage and I will provide just a couple of examples. If you want to see some of his images from afar you can visit the L.A. Fuertes Image Database at Cornell in Ithaca, where Fuertes was born. You will find 2500 and they are searchable by type (e.g. drawings, water colour, gouaches). You might argue that providing space for such things is no longer necessary, but I still disagree.

 

 Here are a few Fuerte's works in storage at the Western Libraries. He has been described as "the nation's most notable ornithological painter since Audubon."

A Natural History of American Birds of Eastern and Central America;

Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States;

The Bird Life of Texas;

To a Young Bird Artist: Selected Letters From Louis Agassiz Fuertes to George Miksch Sutton.

The Bonus:

   I am pleased that, at least for now, there are other bird-related items to be found in storage. If you want to listen to them for example, here are a few recordings:

Voices of African Birds; Songs and Calls of 42 Species Found in Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Tanganyika, Rhodesia, South Africa, the Congo, and Nigeria;

Mexican Bird Songs; The Voices of 74 of the Most Representative Birds of Mexico

   One can also hear the sounds made by other species:

The Songs of Insects; Calls of the Common Crickets, Grasshoppers, and Cicadas of the eastern United States;

Voices of the Night; The Calls of 34 Frogs and Toads of the United States and Canada.

   Apart from sound recordings there  are even some games to be found in storage. For example, Professor Noggin's Birds of North America Card Game is located there.

   It is likely that many of these items will ultimately end up in storage facility near Toronto for a variety of reasons, some of which are noted above. If items can be retrieved from storage, it doesn't matter much where the facility is located. 

   There is now another reason for withdrawing the books relating to birds, in that those books contain bird names which are no longer acceptable and were written by authors such as Audubon who have been 'cancelled'. This is yet another argument with which I do not agree and I would hope the dwindling collections in the Western Libraries are not further 'weeded' because they contain ideas and names now deemed unacceptable.

Post Script:

   Most of the books related to ornithology were held in the "sciences" library, which is now known as the "Allyn & Betty Taylor Library" (there also was once a separate "Engineering Library." and another one for Medicine.) There continues to be a reason for collecting ornithological research in that the campus now contains the Advanced Facility for Avian Research (see my post, "For The Birds." )

    Professor Noggin's card game would have been collected for aspiring teachers and housed in the Education Library, which also no longer exists and is now the "Wampum Learning Lodge." There is a sizeable collection of children's books in storage, many of them collected for fledgling librarians and held in the library of the Graduate School of Library Science, which also no longer exists (see my earlier posts, "Landmark Books" and "100 Years of Newbery Medals.")

   Perhaps at some point in the future someone writing a history of UWO and Western might be interested in knowing about the richness of the collections held in libraries that have since disappeared. 

    As for the "NAMES" problem, I touched upon it in a post, the title of which hints at my position on the subject - "No More Name Changing". The American Ornithological  Society does not agree. See the "English Bird Names Project" where you will learn that, among other things, "The AOS commits to changing all English-language names of birds within its geographic jurisdiction that are named directly after people (eponyms), along with other names deemed offensive and exclusionary, focusing first on those species that occur primarily within the U.S. or Canada."

   If you are just interested in birds, go back to Cornell and enjoy "All About Birds."

   If you are interested in eagles, such as the one above painted by Fuertes, see:

"Eagle Attacks Child", and "Eagle Update" or read about the Canadian "Eagle Man", Charles Broley. As well, the eagle and some insects are discussed more recently in, "Birds and Bugs." 

The Bonus:

  Someone, who perhaps knew my position regarding the re-naming of everything, sent me this 'bird-day card', which, I admit, weakens it a bit.

No More Name Changing

 Sticks & Stones

"Sticks and Stones" is an English-language children's rhyme. The rhyme is used as a defense against name-calling and verbal bullying, intended to increase resiliency, avoid physical retaliation and to remain calm and good-living."

   "Sticks and Stones" - Wikipedia

"A common childhood chant meaning hurtful words cannot cause any physical pain and thus will be ignored or disregarded."

   My suggestion for solving the problem of problematic names is that we simply relearn the rhyme mentioned above, rather than relearn all names. And, it is far easier than eliminating all eponyms. I stated my position on the matter of names in this post - Names on the Land - and it has not changed, nor am I now embarrassed about what I wrote, or how it is written. Even if I was someone defined by an acronym such as, BIPOC, I don't think I would be traumatized by seeing the signs for Dundas Street or Plantation Lane.

Birds & Bees

   Those of you who have somehow been able to avoid the debates over toponyms will surely be surprised that the arguments now extend to the naming of birds and even insects (there are other "nyms" by the way. For example, it is proposed by some that the name of "British Columbia" should be changed and I think that BC is an example of a choronym. Other choronyms will need to be examined for excision, as will astionyms such as "Vancouver." Those of you who want to be among the first to display your self-righteousness over an old name newly discovered, as well as those of you who are beginning to worry about the amount renaming to be done, can start here.") I have already done more work than I planned, so here are the basics about the Birds and the Bees.

Bird Names for Birds

Awful Anna

 

   

You will find all you need to know at the link above (Bird Names for Birds.) It contains a spreadsheet of: 1) bird names, 2) who the bird was named for and 3) who it was named by. Biographical profiles are provided and here is why Anna's Hummingbird is up for elimination:

"Anna’s Hummingbird was named by René Primevère Lesson, a French naturalist in the early 19th century.  This bird was named to honor Anne d’Essling, wife of François Victor Masséna, Second Duke of Rivoli, who also has a hummingbird named for him by Lesson.

I am personally very fond of this bird species.  This is a bird that used to visit my feeders almost every day all year long in Phoenix, AZ.  I feel very attached to these chunky little hummingbirds, their beauty, their feisty behavior, and their spectacular courtship dives.

My problem with naming this wonderful bird for Anne d’Essling is that she really has nothing to do with this bird other than her husband’s ornithological interests.  Anne probably never saw a live hummingbird and it is unknown if she was even interested in them.  Surely she appreciated their beauty, but that is not known for certain."

Audubon, by the way, was an awful fellow. 

The Better Common Names Project

   For bugs, see the link above . I will just say here that the entomologists have moved into the field of etymology. Among the derogatory names the Task Force is currently examining is Gypsy Moth which is offensive to some Romani people. The Crazy Ant is also under the etymological microscope. 

   Rather than worrying about the elimination of the names of some insects, we should be more worried about the extinction of them. For that see: Insect Elegy. 

Post Script:

   To complicate matters I will introduce you to Stigler's Law of Eponymy which "holds that scientific laws and discoveries are never given the names of their actual discoverers.” It is a good reminder of just how collaborative and complex the processes of scientific discovery really are - the point here isn't so much that the wrong person gets credit as it is that the very idea that a single individual can get credit for a discovery is, well...a bit ridiculous."

   The same could be said about naming generally which was usually "collaborative and complex." Names were applied to the land by people who were often scoundrels, to honour people who were even worse and sometimes to satirize them. Some were attached in seriousness, others as a joke and not a few were chosen by those who may have been inebriated.  If the names are eliminated so is the history. Read Names on the Land before you discard Dundas. 

Sources: 

   "This Moth’s Name Is a Slur. Scientists Won’t Use It Anymore:The Entomological Society of America Will No Longer Refer to Common Species of Insects as “Gypsy Moths” and “Gypsy Ants,” Because Their Names are Derogatory to the Romani People." Sabrina Imbler, The New York Times, July 9, 2021.

   "Scientists are Renaming the ‘Gypsy Moth’ as Part of Broader Push to Root Out Offensive Monikers," Caroline Anders,  Washington Post, July 11, 2021.

   For Stigler's Law see the very good: "Stigler's Law: Why Nothing in Science is Ever Named After Its Actual Discover," Alasdair Wilkins, Gizmodo. 7/13/11

[It's hard not to think of Sayre's Law in this context: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake."]

The Bonus:

   Country renaming has been continual over the centuries and some of the name changes are both reasonable and understandable. I was reminded of that fact by this recent headline and it is unlikely that you will recognize the name of the country: "Africa's Last Absolute Monarchy Convulsed by Mass Protests," John Eligon, NYT, July 2, 2021. The country is Eswatini, which was formerly known as "Swaziland." Other changes are noted in the article:

Nyasaland became Malawi on achieving independence in 1964. Months later, Northern Rhodesia achieved nationhood as the new republic of Zambia. In 1966, Bechuanaland was reborn as Botswana, and Basutoland changed its name to Lesotho. Rhodesia, following a 14-year period of white-minority rule that was not internationally recognized, became the new nation of Zimbabwe in 1980.

But several former British colonies in Africa — like Uganda, Kenya and Gambia — did not change their names upon gaining independence.

The Bonus Question: 

   Of all the country names on the planet, which one is in most need of reconsideration?
The United States.

Think about it. 

As soon, however, as the emergency of the war [ the American Revolutionary War] had grown less, the inadequacy of the name became apparent. United States of America was greatly lacking in that it applied no good adjective or term for the inhabitants of the country. It was unwieldy, inexact, and unoriginal. Although it rolled well from the tongue of an orator, not even the sincerest patriot could manage it in a poem or song."

Names on the Land, p.171.

Edwin Way Teale (1899 - 1980)

 Another Pandemic Reading Project

   For those running low on reading material, I last recommended books by George R. Stewart, who wrote about a variety of subjects and produced both works of fiction and non-fiction.  Edwin Way Teale, who, like Stewart, died over forty years ago, wrote mainly non-fiction and his subject was 'nature.' He was a popular author who worked at Popular Science Monthly and wrote articles for magazines like Colliers.  He was the friendly neighbourhood naturalist who often appeared on TV; a kind of Marlin Perkins for insects. At some point he became popular enough to be a freelancer and he and his wife Nellie, hit the road and wrote about everything they saw, including the road kill. 

   Even if you are not interested in nature, you will enjoy the books pictured above, particularly if you are a fan of road books or road trips. I wrote earlier about the American Trails Book Series and the series by Archer Butler Hulbert, Historic Highways of America. The travels of the Teale's are about The American Seasons, as those seasons existed on this continent between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. The last volume in the series, Wandering Through Winter, earned a Pulitzer Prize for Teale in 1966.

   The sub-titles of these books will indicate how unusual they are: North with the Spring: A Naturalist's Record of a 17,000-Mile Journey with the North American Spring (1951); Autumn across America: A Naturalist's Record of a 20,000-Mile Journey through the North American Autumn (1956); Journey into Summer: A Naturalist's Record of a 19,000-Mile Journey through the North American Summer (1960) and Wandering through Winter: A Naturalist's Record of a 20,000-Mile Journey through the North American Winter (1965.) 

   Even if you failed elementary geography or have forgotten how long a mile is, you probably are aware that it is much less than 17,000 miles from the Everglades to Mount Washington in New Hampshire or less than 20,000 from Monomy on Cape Cod to Point Reyes, California. These were routes not taken by typical 'snow birds' or as the crow flies. The Teales meandered and stayed within each season for the entirety of each trip. Spring travels north at a rate of about fifteen miles per day, as did the Teales who rambled east and west to remain always in the spring as they moved slowly north between February and June. 

   Unfortunately I cannot provide examples from the books to entice you to have a look at them. I borrowed them from the libraries up at Western University and returned them all a while back. Now they are in storage and because of the pandemic, it is not possible to retrieve them. I have already provided one example from North With the Spring. See my post about the "Eagle Man", Charles Broley from Gorrie, Ontario, who the Teales met in Florida. I do recall that they also wrote about Point Pelee and birder readers will appreciate their many observations about the winged wildlife they spot along the way.

   I did also discuss another of Teale's books in my post about Parks Along the Great Lakes. As a young boy, Teale loved to spend the summers at his grandparents who lived near Lake Michigan. From that experience he wrote, Dune Boy. I was able to get a copy of that from the London Public Library system, but it now appears to be missing. For more about his Indiana days, see the links provided below. 

   A while back, the Guardian asked some famous authors what books they would choose to give their younger selves. Here is part of Julian Barne's answer: Also, books about the true nature of Nature. I was a blind townee for half my life before slowly discovering the countryside. So I would instruct my younger self to learn about soil, wind and water; trees, animals, plants and birds. And bees. That’s another thing: I’d also give my younger self some truthful books about sex. (Dec. 2, 2017.)

   If you have children or grandchildren, Teale has a lot of books you could purchase for them. Western has a surprising number of them, because, up until quite recently, there was an Education Library which had a fine collection from which aspiring teachers could choose good "Kiddie Lit", as could the students at what used to be called the "School of Library Science."

Re-Tracing the Trips

   Given the detailed observations made by the Teales, I wondered what one would find now. Someone else thought the same thing. John Harris followed the Teale's springtime route and wrote: Returning North With the Spring. Unfortunately, a copy is not available locally. Here is a description from the University of Florida Press:

Retracing Teale's route, writer John Harris reveals a vastly changed natural world. In Returning North with the Spring, he stops at the very places where Teale once stood, paddling through Everglades National Park, the Okefenokee wildlife refuge, the Great Dismal Swamp, and trekking across the Great Smoky Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and Cape Cod. He is stunned to see how climate change, invasive species, and other factors have affected the landscapes and wildlife in the years since Teale saw them.

Yet Harris also discovers that many of the vulnerable sites Teale described have been newly "rewilded" or permanently protected by the government. He looks at current restoration projects, models of sustainable residential development, efforts to control invasive species, and environmental success stories such as the alligator, the bald eagle, and the black bear. Along the way, he meets an array of ecologists, naturalists, and beloved authors who join in his adventure by sharing their memories and experiences of the natural environment in Eastern North America.

   A birder also had the same idea. See this post from the website of the American Bird Conservancy. Bruce Beehler tracked migrant songbirds from their landfall on the Gulf of Mexico, north through the Mississippi Valley, and into the Great North Woods of Ontario, where many of the birds settle down to breed in those raw boreal forests with the ever-so-long days of the summer solstice.

   The Teale's donated their farm to the Audubon Society and additional information is found at the website of the Connecticut Audubon Society. See the links for "The Story of Trail Wood," and "The Teales's Legacy. Nellie Teale lived there until she died in 1993. 

   The state of Indiana also provides considerable material about Teale's time among the dunes of Lake Michigan. See: "Edwin Way Teale: Traveler in Little Realms" and this 28 page research summary. 

Teale Books:

Bolded titles are available in the libraries at Western University in 2021. For a proper list, check the catalogue or consult with a Western librarian.

The Book of Gliders (New York: Dutton, 1930).

Grassroot Jungles: A Book of Insects (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1937; London: Putnam, 1938; revised edition, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1944; London: Hale, 1944); republished as Exploring the Insect World (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1953).

The Boys' Book of Insects: Interesting Facts about the Lives and Habits of the Common Insects, Together with Simple Instructions for Collecting, Rearing, and Studying Them (New York: Dutton, 1939); republished as The Junior Book of Insects (New York: Dutton, 1953).

The Boys' Book of Photography (New York: Dutton, 1939).

The Golden Throng: A Book About Bees (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1940; London: Hale, 1942); republished as A Book About Bees (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1959).

Byways to Adventure: A Guide to Nature Hobbies (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1942).

Near Horizons: The Story of an Insect Garden (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1942; London: Hale, 1947).

Dune Boy: The Early Years of a Naturalist (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1943; London: Hale, 1949).

Insect Life (New York: Boy Scouts of America, 1944).

The Lost Woods: Adventures of a Naturalist (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1945; London: Hale, 1952).

Days without Time: Adventures of a Naturalist (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1948).

North with the Spring: A Naturalist's Record of a 17,000-Mile Journey with the North American Spring (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1951; London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1954).

Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist's Year (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1953).

Insect Friends (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1955).

Autumn across America: A Naturalist's Record of a 20,000-Mile Journey through the North American Autumn (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1956); republished as Autumn Journey: A Naturalist's Record of a 20,000-Mile Journey through the North American Autumn (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1957).

Journey into Summer: A Naturalist's Record of a 19,000-Mile Journey through the North American Summer (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1960).

The Lost Dog (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1961).

The Strange Lives of Familiar Insects (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1962).

Wandering through Winter: A Naturalist's Record of a 20,000-Mile Journey through the North American Winter (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1965).

Springtime in Britain: An 11,000 Mile Journey through the Natural History of Britain from Land's End to John O'Groats (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970); republished as Springtime in Britain: A Journey through the Land (London: Cassell, 1971).

Photographs of American Nature (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972).

A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1974).

A Walk through the Year (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978).

A Conscious Stillness: Two Naturalists on Thoreau's Rivers, by Teale and Ann Zwinger (New York: Harper & Row, 1982).

The Bonus:

In case you missed it, the Teales wandered in the spring in England all the way from Land's End to John O' Groats. (11,000 miles)

Teale also won the John Burrough's prize for Near Horizons: The Story of an Insect Garden.

Northshire Bookstore

   A couple of years ago, we visited Saratoga Springs. If you want to take a short road trip when the pandemic ends, it is a destination highly recommended. As is the Northshire Bookstore which has several books by and about Edwin Way Teale.