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This chapter takes a look at Alexander's newest interest after the 1905 African safari, which was the collection of dead animal skulls. It studies skeleton preparation and the lengths Alexander went through to provide a proper display for her African trophies. The chapter then looks at the time Alexander spent with her nieces and nephews, before shifting to a discussion of the 1905 paleontological expedition to the Humboldt Range in northwest Nevada. The discussion reveals Alexander's wish to begin a hunting expedition in Alaska, which was prevented by the memory of her father's death. It then focuses on Merriam's cousin, C. Hart Merriam, who was one of the founding members of the American Ornithologists Union and who became a close professional friend of Alexander.

This introductory chapter discusses a history of the knowledge that people create around diverse and fascinating animals, such as birds. With the goal of a symmetrical analysis of all forms of bird knowledge, this book refers to all people who know birds as “birders,” a term which usually means “birdwatcher.” A small but visible group of birders are scientists, more specifically known as “ornithologists.” Meanwhile, the word “knowledge” acts as the generic term for what people know about birds. The chapter recognizes three types of bird knowledge—vernacular, ornithological, and recreational—and uses them to illustrate broader issues such as interactions between vernacular knowledge and science, relations among colonial subjects and imperial authorities, the operation of race and honor among people, and the decolonization of colonial culture and scientific practice.

This chapter describes biology, including ornithology, through the hierarchies of Carl Von Linne (Linnaeus), and in relation to African vernacular traditions. Linnaeus' classificatory science moved across the globe in the nineteenth century with explorers and empires; by the late nineteenth century, ornithology had become a specialized scientific field. It spread across Africa in the wake of European political and economic expansion. With the help of vernacular birders, ornithologists harvested the avifauna of Africa, and with the help of laborers skilled at preparing specimens, they launched facts about bird species into the network of science. Ornithologists distinguished themselves from others through formal specialist knowledge that was not applied to the challenges of daily life. Their work privileged the visual, and for a long time the specimens of dead birds were more important objects of study than were living birds.

This chapter demonstrates how ornithologists reconciled their racial awareness and their dependence on African vernacular birders. With the establishment of the European empire over Africa, the number of ornithologists who held day jobs as colonial officials expanded, and their presence spread throughout the continent. With the expansion of colonial society, recreational birdwatching, a leisure activity of urban bourgeois classes, entered the constellation of birding practices in Africa. Living with Africans, Europeans became “whites,” with all the benefits and anxieties that racial definition brought them. While working in Africa, they needed to lay boundaries to protect their status. The history of European birders in Africa shows that the politics of race were powerful, but also that they were a realm for individual negotiations.

This chapter presents the life of Jali Makawa, a celebrated collector whose grounding in the world of vernacular birding appears to have mitigated his experience of exclusion. He first met birds as a boy in rural Mozambique and Malawi, and as a young man demonstrated an exceptional interest and knowledge of them. His extraordinary expertise began in the well-established vernacular birding and hunting traditions of south central Africa, but he also developed ornithological skills. As C.W. Benson's collector, Makawa learned to prepare the skins for their afterlife as specimens. In working with Benson and other ornithologists, he became familiar with the species as defined by ornithologists. No one ever recorded him explaining what birds meant to him, but Makawa expressed that they held his attention.

This chapter focuses on Woolf's “familiarity with and appreciation” for the work of ornithologist W. H. Hudson (1841–1922). Despite differences in sex and socialization, age and reputation, Hudson and Woolf were kindred spirits. Both had distinctive childhood experiences of non-urban places that reverberate throughout their writing. Both were educated and enthusiastic common readers. Without university degrees or positions, both defined themselves as outsiders—Hudson among academic scientists in an adopted country and Woolf among academic, mostly male, biographers and critics. The chapter uses two of Hudson's books to create cultural contexts for Woolf's writing. When Woolf reviewed Hudson's memoir Far Away and Long Ago: A History of My Early Life in 1918, she linked his interest in birds with his flights of words. In her later fiction, she re-envisioned Hudson's attempt in his bird-filled 1904 novel Green Mansions to express oneness with nature.

This chapter describes how an ordinary ‘little gray bird’ became extraordinary because of its appeal to bird watchers and its fascination for scientists interested in how species form and how they time their migrations and other events of the annual cycle. The chapter introduces researchers who studied the junco in earlier times and shows how their contributions paved the way for the junco’s current role as a model for study in evolutionary and organismal biology

This chapter explores how Henry established himself into natural history society in London. It explores his participation in the fortnightly meetings of the Zoological Society of London and attendance at natural history auctions in London. It also explores the importance of correspondence networks among ornithologists. The British Ornithologists’ Union, the leading grouping of ornithologists in Britain, is explored in terms of its establishment, aims and its key members. Dresser was elected as a Member of the British Ornithologists’ Union in 1865. Dresser’s early publications are explored, notably his article on the birds of Southern Texas, based on his experiences there in 1863–64. Dresser became involved in the early bird conservation movement, and played a leading role in a committee to establish a close season for British seabirds.

This chapter illustrates how the author became thoroughly obsessed with the imperial woodpecker after dreaming about it. The author spent years searching for its closest relative, the ivory-billed woodpecker, and actually had a sighting canoeing through an Arkansas bayou in 2004. A year or so later, the author was photographing woodpecker specimens at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology when an assistant curator brought out a tray containing more than a dozen imperial woodpeckers. For millennia, the imperial's pounding drumbeat echoed like the blows of a wild axman through the old-growth forests of the Sierra Madre as it bored into the massive, grub-infested pines, hammering on them powerfully for weeks at a time until they groaned, shuddered, and finally toppled with an impact that shook the ground. Victorian ornithologist John Gould dubbed it the imperial woodpecker. But it had already been named long before. To the Aztecs, it was cuauhtotomi; to the Tarahumaras, cumecocari; to the Tepehuans, uagam; and to the Mexican Mestizos, the pitoreal.

This chapter describes Thomas Sadler Roberts’ career after his time at University of Minnesota. During this time he was both a writer for magazines and as land examiner. The fall of 1879 provided Roberts an opportunity to freely pursue natural history by writing for magazines such as the Forest and Stream and The Country, both of which became helpful in situating him as the unofficial expert on Minnesota birds. Roberts would also soon be acquainted with prominent early ornithologists such as William Brewster and J. A. Allen, both co-founders of the American Ornithologists’ Union. The following spring, his health improved enough to secure a job as land examiner at St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway Co., reporting under Nathan Butler. Thomas’ surveying coursework at the University proved useful and he was instrumental by marking a map with all physical features and man-made structures of a land that they were inspecting.

This chapter examines Thomas Sadler Roberts’ medical education at the University of Pennsylvania in 1882, believing that natural history was not a gentlemanly vocation. Staying in Germantown where his Aunt Cornelia Roberts’s family lived, Roberts was presented with an opportunity to put down a few roots in his father’s hometown by spending some time with his Quaker relatives. During his stay, Roberts showed his skill in memory. One noteworthy display of this skill was when he quoted a textbook verbatim on an oral exam. The rigors of medical school, however, led to Roberts neglecting his bird studies. His journals omitted anything about avian presence in Philadelphia. But his interest did not vanish entirely as during his second year, he accepted an invitation to become a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union. The chapter concludes by describing his residency at the Philadelphia General Hospital.