Early American Naturalists

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 12 AUG 2002

Moring (Men with Sand), a professor of zoology at the University of Maine, examines the lives of several explorers who documented American flora and fauna during the 19th century. He begins with the work of Lewis and Clark, who were charged not only with opening up new territories, but also collecting samples and drawings of the unfamiliar North American wildlife. Moring details the efforts of later naturalists, including Englishman Thomas Nutall (who studied the lives of birds and was so badly bitten by mosquitoes during his explorations of the Delaware coast that people assumed he had smallpox); Charles Wilkes, a navy officer who explored the Pacific coast; and the legendary painter of birds, John Audubon. Moring discusses naturalists' increasing reliance on photography (rather than drawings), the development of natural history museums (before which wildlife specimens were kept in laboratories and universities for scientific study only) and the evolution of naturalism itself over the course of the century. Instead of scrutinizing discreet specimens, the "New Naturalists," exemplified by conservationist John Muir, became interested in ecology as a living whole. "Instead of merely collecting a plant or animal for later study, naturalists of the late nineteenth century would sit for hours watching a bird construct a nest." These biographical sketches make for an absorbing and accessible if somewhat narrowly focused survey that should please those with a bent for natural history.