A Retrospective in Nature

     A week or so ago, I was contacted by Verda Cook, a first cousin of Miriam's to advise that she had some natural history pamphlets and magazines dating back to the nineteen-thirties and forties, inquiring whether I would like to have them.

Verda Cook

     An historical perspective into any subject is always illuminating, and when Verda listed exactly what she had, I knew I wanted them!

     When I picked the material up, I had an engaging chat with Verda and her husband, Stanley, (socially-distanced of course outside their apartment building) and they told me a good deal about the interest they had in nature as children, and how they received encouragement and stimulation at home and in school. It is an indication of the value Verda placed on the items she gave me, that over the course of several moves, she had never disposed of them. 

Nature Magazine 1936

     Four copies of this fine journal survived in very good condition, and were passed over to me.

     Eighty-four years on from their date of publication they are as relevant today as they were then.

     The quality of the articles written for the magazine, which covers a range of taxa and topics, is of the highest order, contributed by the leading authorities of the day, including luminaries such as Rosalie Barrow Edge, who would go on to acquire the land that is today's Hawk Mountain Sanctuary along the Kittatinny Ridge in Pennsylvania.

     It is no more than a couple of months ago that I was discussing the practice of snow roosting by birds with a friend, and an article in the September 1936 magazine tackles the same topic.

     Conservation is an important issue today, an urgent issue in fact, and it was no less vital in 1936. 

     It is depressing to realize that attitudes regarding wildlife, their preservation, their need for space and pristine habitat, have not advanced greatly since those days. We are still culling wolves in British Columbia, allegedly to preserve an endangered subspecies of caribou, but the decisions around such unreasonable carnage are mainly political and are not based on science. 

     Double-crested Cormorants were subjected to merciless, unreasonable and senseless persecution then, and the cruel slaughter of these birds continues to this day.

     Science never mattered a whole lot to a politician seeking a vote, and catering to the lowest common denominator has always been the easy way out. The advocacy of sports fishers and cottage owners trumps science every time. The demands of international forestry giants rode slipshod over the vital habitat requirements of spawning salmon, and we now have neither old growth forests nor salmon, to say nothing of habitat for Spotted Owls and vital nesting trees for Marbled Murrelets. The patrimony of old growth forests which belonged to us all has been lost forever.  And the fisherman who has over-fished his own resource finds the cormorant an easy scapegoat.

     "Shy and wary, these birds have been little known, despite their large size, and it has been unfortunate that they have been forced to suffer because of man's tendency to form hasty opinions. For man has known that the cormorants live almost entirely on fish and he has seen fit to assume, without a particle of evidence, that food fish and game fish form their livelihood."

     Find a fellow today, armed with a rifle, shooting cormorants without restriction, and with government sanction, and those same words ring true in 2020.

Junior Audubon Leaflets (1930s)

     A case could be made that the American artist, illustrator and naturalist, Roger Tory Peterson, had a greater influence on bird watching as a pastime, and subsequently on science and conservation, than any other figure of the 20th Century.

     As part of his prolific output, Peterson, created the Junior Audubon Society pamphlets which were decorated with his marginalia, in the 1930s, and were made available to Junior Audubon clubs formed in schools. Twenty-three of these leaflets would go on to form the basis for his second book, The Junior Book of Birds.

     While aimed at children and written in a lively style that appealed to a young reader, there was nothing childlike about the content, which enabled the reader to get to know the bird, and usually contained an ecological message.

     Permit me to introduce you to just two of these gems.

     Leaflet No. 39a covers the House Wren.

     For whatever reason, the principal artwork was not done by Peterson, but images by the leading bird illustrators of the day were included. Many pictures were the output of Bruce Horsefall and this depiction of a House Wren is a stunning example of his work. 

     Examine for yourself the exquisite detail.

     It is a measure of the serious nature of these leaflets aimed at children (the biologists and conservationists of the future) that acclaimed artists such as Horsefall contributed their paintings, and were willing - anxious perhaps - to have them used in the education of budding naturalists.

     I find it a heartwarming aspect of each issue of the Junior Audubon series that an outline picture of the principal image was included for the children to colour, having the artist's work to serve as a reference.

     Verda, to her credit, retained the pictures she coloured, and her House Wren is depicted below.

     At the end of each account little challenges are provided for the young reader. Here are the tasks assigned in the House Wren account

.

Build a Bird House

Make a bird house like the one on the other side of this page. Put it up five or ten feet from the ground. It should be put out in March or April.

How Now?

The wren in the margin drawing is trying hard to get a long stick into the hole. It is not having much luck. How can it get it in?

In a Bird Book

Look up the other kinds of wrens. How would you tell them apart?

     Let us now turn our attention to Leaflet No. 107a dealing with The Yellow-throat (Common Yellowthroat today).

          As always the text is artfully crafted to be easily understood by a child, but conveys all the information to be found in a book aimed at adults. 

     Consider the following:

"We find Yellow-throats in wet places, mostly. By a brook or the edge of a swamp. The bird scolds and fusses when we come near. If we make a squeaking noise it becomes very excited. It sits in the top of a bush where we can see its black face well. Only the male, the father bird, wears the mask. The female is much like him otherwise. Both have yellow throats."

     Perfect!

     As is the full colour portrait of male and female in typical habitat by Allan Brooks, another prominent artist of the day.

     I know that by now you are waiting anxiously to see Verda's rendition, so here it is.

      The challenges at the end of the species account are as follows.

Make a Bird Calendar

Make a list of birds this spring. Write down where you see each bird. Also the date.

Make a bird calendar for the classroom. When a new bird is seen, put it down with the name of the person who saw it.

With Crayons

Colour the little drawings on this leaflet with crayons. All the leaflets can be coloured. Save them in your bird notebook.

     With little effort I can cast myself back in time and imagine with what great anticipation I would have awaited the next leaflet. I know what would have been my favourite class in school! 

     Verda recounted how much she enjoyed her nature studies, and has vivid and pleasant recollections of visiting woodlots with her class to see spring ephemerals emerging on the woodland floor, all the while keeping an ear cocked for migrant birdsong.

     The influence has lasted all her life and she and Stanley still look forward to annual visits to Long Point to see the arrival of the Tundra Swans and Sandhill Cranes.

     It is a shame that education of this type is no longer provided in schools.

Canadian Nature 

     Previously unknown to me, I am mightily impressed with the scope and quality of this wonderful journal, covering every aspect of nature from the night skies to birds, mammals, crustaceans, molluscs, flowers, trees and everything else. The issues given to me by Verda were all produced in the 1940s.

     The contributors to these magazines represent a veritable pantheon of Canadian naturalists and artists - trailblazers in many ways - a sort of aristocracy if you wish.

     T. M. Shortt, by general consensus one of the finest nature illustrators Canada ever produced, spent his entire career at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, at the same time as the legendary James L. Baillie, Jr was curator of ornithology there.

     The joint contribution of these two giants is immeasurable.

     In addition to his mastery of art, always conveying his subjects in such lifelike fashion one expected them to leap (or fly) from the page, Terry Shortt was possessed of a formidable knowledge of his subjects too.

     

     Allan Brooks spent all of his formative years in Ontario, becoming a renowned bird illustrator on the international stage.

     John A. Crosby, by general consensus, had a consummate skill matched by few in his depictions of birds.

     Crosby would go on to illustrate the highly acclaimed The Birds of Canada by W. Earl Godfrey, the dean of Canadian ornithology, a work I refer to several times a week to this day, and a keystone publication in the distinguished history of Canadian ornithology.

     Birds always featured prominently in each edition of Canadian Nature, but never to the exclusion of other taxa.

          An account of Spotted Sandpiper was written by Roger Tory Peterson, proving that this modest Canadian publication had no difficulty attracting the contribution of renowned authorities, Canadian or otherwise.  Eric Hosking was another international luminary to write for Canadian Nature.

     Canadian birds were, of course, featured extensively throughout the issues.

     As has been pointed out, Junior Audubon Clubs played a vital role in the development of an interest in the natural world, and I found the coverage of some of the clubs heart-warming.

     The children pictured here are proudly displaying the nest boxes they have made and holding a banner depicting Canadian birds.

     Verda Cook is not in these pictures, but any one of those girls could have been her. The pride she had in her membership, the sense of accomplishment she derived from her participation, and the commitment to nature that has survived to this day, are the legacy of these clubs.

     I am indebted to Verda for introducing me to aspects of nature education in Ontario of which I knew little, and I offer her my profound thanks. Rest assured that this material will be treasured and referred to often. Thank goodness they did not end up in the shredder!

References

Anglin, Lise, Birder Extraordinaire, The Life and Legacy of James L. Baillie, Toronto Ornithological Club and Long Point Bird Observatory (1992)

Broun, Maurice, Hawks Aloft, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association (1949)

Godfrey, W. Earl, The Birds of Canada, National Museum of Canada (1966)

McNicholl, Martin K & John L. Cranmer-Byng, Ornithology in Ontario, Hawk Owl Publishing (1994)

Rosenthal, Elizabeth J., Birdwatcher - The Life of Roger Tory Peterson, The Globe Pequot Pres (2008)

Taverner, P. A., Birds of Canada, Revised Edition, The National Museum of Canada (1953)

Wires, Linda R., The Double-crested Cormorant, Yale University Press (2014)