of literature and art. These will break up some of the generic names into the probable species which the poets unconsciously had in hand. Professor W. Warde Fowler has shown us the method with his observations on the crows, ravens and doves. And more recently, Boraston's article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 31, on the Birds of Homer, has made clear the possibilities of this manner of approach. It must be done, preferably by a native, on the ground; and it may well be the task of some future Italian Thoreau or Burroughs. Most American village boys know at least the common local birds. But this living contact has been ignored in the rather colorless treatment of the Roman birds in our annotated editions. Possibly, therefore, the reader will be interested in the literary parallels from our American poets. For this particular phase of our study it would have been sufficient for the purpose in view to have taken only the greater poets of the last century, with such minor writers as are included in the later Anthologies of, let us say, Stedman and Sladen. But as the work grew I became more and more interested in our older poets; so that, as a matter of fact, I have gone through the dusty pages of some hundreds of our all but forgotten earlier writers, and have included also the host of minor poets saved for us in the early anthologies of Kettell, Griswold, Duyckinck and many others. For the literary ornithologist in the earlier periods of our literature, from William Morrell and Jacob Steendam down to Philip Freneau and a generation beyond, there are many peculiar little antiquarian problems. Our birds were then as yet largely unnamed. Alexander Wilson in 1814 listed only two hundred and eighty-three species of North American birds; with Dr. Coues in 1882 the number has grown to nearly nine hundred. Throughout these earlier periods English influence is very strong, and one must be ever watchful for skylarks, mavises, rooks, throstles and nightingales. For the last mentioned, Anne Bradstreet, our first poetess, had a special pen chant. Naturally, in bringing together American and Roman birds, I have attempted no close scientific paralleling of species; I have tried rather to group the birds which have aroused similar reactions in the feelings of their poetic observers. Hence Roman nightingales have suggested American mocking-birds and even whippoorwills, while larks have been answered by bobolinks, and starlings by meadowlarks. This hunt through our own poets was undertaken first, in order to find out just how much of the ornithological tradition of the classics had percolated, as it were, through time and distance to our own shores. It turns out that there is far more of direct imitation, translation and traditional reminiscence than we should have expected, and a surprising coherence in related observation. In checking over this material I have felt in quite a new way the truism that all literature is one, and that no particular literature can be fully understood alone. And I have felt with new force that Greek and Latin literature can never be divorced from English and American literature. In thus prowling through the literary underbrush of our own past, one comes to have a warm affection for our early bards, and to feel an admiration for the old classical training which everywhere shows its abiding influence. And finally, after counting the birds, one comes to believe with Burroughs, "that the birds are all the birds of the poets and of no one else." Save that nightingales, larks, and the classic traditions of the halcyon and swan can never be quite forgotten, our poets are in the main content with our own native species. There is, of course, little or nothing from heraldic associations. The younger poets even have favorites to pit against classic Philomel; thus Stedman vouches for the cat-bird, Lanier for the mocking-bird, and Van Dyke, after hearing the nightingale on the banks of the Arno, "longed to hear a simpler strain-the wood notes of the veery." In upper Austria, in 1845, Bayard Taylor, surrounded by the bird prima donnas of Europe, could still dream of our own meadowlark, oriole and mocking-bird. But General Albert Pike, it seems to me, was a bit overly American, in his youth, when he grouped mock-birds (sic) and humming-birds with Latona in a "rich and lustrous Delian paradise." Yet having noted this trifle, the classical teacher will pause with pleasure over his Hymns to the Gods-Neptune, Apollo, Venus, Diana and the rest "written," as Griswold tells us, "at an early age, principally while he was surrounded by his pupils in the school-room." They are documents of a lost point of view. It is only fair to this very distinguished southern poet and scholar to add that the above offending passage was fully emended in a later edition of his works. A complete study of the birds in our American poets is something yet to be done, but, in passing, we may note that they record over one hundred different species. Bryant has twenty-eight species; Emerson, Holmes and Lowell over thirty each; while Longfellow lists over fifty, and Whittier something beyond seventy. Their bird lore is nearly always exact and satisfying, and of very wide range and observation. Whittier still had an interest in the old hibernation fallacy of the swallow. Longfellow knew, for example, the recondite myth of the swallow-stone (Plin. XI, 79; XXXVII, 27), and utilized it with great beauty in his Evangeline. Dr. Lebour (vid. The Zoologist, 1866, p. 523; Hartung, Birds of Shakespeare, p. 283) found this myth still a living tradition in Brittany; hence its reappearance in Acadia, where no doubt Longfellow came upon it. In conclusion, I must thank a long list of teachers and friends for influences and suggestions leading toward a combination of interests, which have been in subsequent years an unfailing source of pleasure. From the earlier academic years I would mention Professor J. R. Kennan. To him the capture or observation of a rare migrant warbler or sparrow was just as important as the capture of an elusive ablative or optative. To Professor Charles E. Bates I owe more than I can ever repay. He was truly one of our great college teachers of Latin. He proudly belonged to the older school-to those who knew their Latin grammar by heart and by paragraph number, and who needed no text in presenting Horace. I owe a similar debt of gratitude to Professor Edward W. Claypole, whose Latin marginalia inscribed upon our notebooks in biology and the like, would now, I suppose, seem to be relics of an order of things that is no more. Pliny and ‘il maestro di color che sanno,' were to him still doubly real. Natural science with him was invested with an atmosphere never quite forgotten by his scholars. It was my very good fortune to be under him for four years, in the preparation of a very considerable collection of American birds. From later years, to Professors F. F. Abbott, E. M. Pease, A. T. Murray and H. R. Fairclough, I would pay a student's grateful homage for years of kindly guidance and inspiration. Finally, I am greatly indebted to Professor J. E. Church, Jr., my colleague for two years at the University of Nevada, for unfailing kindness and patience in helping to prepare this rather long paper for publication. Stanford University, California, E. W. M. The Birds of the Latin Poets ACALANTHIS (ACANTHIS). Ακαλανθίς (ἀκανθίς). Goldfinch, thistle-finch. Carduelis elegans. Vid. Fowler, A Year with the Birds, p. 243. Note IV, RUSCINIA. American literary parallels: Wild canary, summer yellow-bird, thistle-bird. Celia Thaxter: Yellow-bird. Roswell Park: To a Goldfinch. Send up your full notes like worshipful prayers; Let the tiny yellow birds Still repeat their shining words, While across our senses steal Hints of things no words reveal.-CARMAN-HOVEY. A summer evening scene with attendant background of bird-song: Tum tenuis dare rursus aquas, et pascere rursus Litoraque alcyonem resonant, acalanthida dumi. -VERG., Geor. III, 335. Cf. Serv. in loc.: Alii lusciniam esse volunt, alii vero carduelem, quae spinis et carduis pascitur. Vid. Note IV, RUSCINIA. The thistle-birds have changed their dun, For yellow coats, to match the sun.-HENRY VAN DYKE. The yellow-hammer by the way-side picks Mutely the thistle's seed.-WILCOX. The acanthis, with the nightingale, is represented (by implication) as endowed with great powers of song: Nyctilon ut cantu rudis exsuperaverit Alcon? Astyle, credibile est, si vincat acanthida cornix, Vocalem superet si dirus aedona bubo. -CALP. VI, 6. |