Word: naturalist
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Though the U. S. has been a fertile field of observation, Author Peattie lists few U. S. naturalists. John Bartram, Colonial farmer turned collector, roamed the whole Atlantic seaboard for his European customers. Alexander Wilson and Jean-Jacques Audubon were first-rate ornithologists. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, "most widely celebrated unknown man in science," was a brilliant Jack-of-all-sciences. Germany's Goethe was an amateur naturalist whose scientific theories were often ridiculous but almost always fruitful. Author Peattie's biggest hero is an Englishman. Charles Darwin, whose five seasick years aboard H. M. S. Beagle gave...
...readers like to read about science. Books-about-science by such popularizers as Eddington, Jeans, Russell, Sullivan and Wells are widely read, sometimes even become bestsellers. That books-about-scientists might also have a popular appeal was proved by Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters. Last week Author-Naturalist Donald Culross Peattie took a leaf from de Kruif's notebook, published a book on the Great Naturalists, from Aristotle to Fabre. Smart Publisher Schuster wrote the incoherently enthusiastic blurb himself, said he meant every word of it. Excerpt: "The sound of wings is in this book, the murmur...
Author Peattie has not been content merely to sketch the lives and achievements of his heroes; a consciously literary writer and a conscious naturalist, he plugs in many a purple passage, many a first-hand observation of Nature. Readers may be either awed, captivated or annoyed by his literary airs, but many a city-dweller who cannot tell the birds from the wild flowers will find his naturalistic enthusiasm contagious...
...years it was almost never out of his mind or off his tongue. The American Museum agreed to provide space if the exhibits were forthcoming. In 1925, hear ing that George Eastman was going to Africa to hunt, the naturalist went to the rich Kodakman and said: "Mr. Eastman, I've got to have $1,000,000." Eastman offered to pay all the expenses of an expedition, to give $100,000 besides for transportation and reconstruction of material. Carl Akeley's dream was beginning to come true. Next year he died of fever in Africa, was buried...
...four years before he saw England again. Besides his job as ship's doctor he had the un-naval post of naturalist, and intended to keep a weather eye out for Mollusca, Acalephae, Cirripedia, epizoa, Radiata and such. He rigged up a home-made tow-net to snare his specimens, soon ran afoul of the navigation officers, who complained that the net slowed the ship's way, took to dumping his catch overboard when his back was turned. As the long voyage wore on, Huxley found that such setbacks, like the difficulty of peering through his microscope...