“The more usual range of the Belted Kingfisher . . . is confined to the rivers and creeks that abound throughout the United States; all of which, according to the seasons, are amply supplied with various fishes, on the fry of which this bird feeds.  It follows their course up to the very source of the small rivulets; and it is not unusual to hear the hard, rapid, rattling notes of our Kingfisher, even amongst the murmuring cascades of our higher mountains.  When the bird is found in such sequestered situations, well may the angler be assured that trout is abundant.  Mill-ponds are also favorite resorts of the Kingfisher, the usual calmness of the water in such places permitting it to discover its prey with ease.”

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 395 [excerpted].

“The common name given to this bird in the Eastern and Middle districts of our Union is that of Quail, but in Western and Southern states, the more appropriate appellation of Partridge is bestowed upon it.  It is abundantly met with in all parts of the United States, but more especially towards the interior.  In the states of Ohio and Kentucky, where they are very abundant, they are to be seen in the markets, both dead and alive, in large quantities.

This species performs occasional migrations from the north-west to the south-east, usually in the beginning of October, and somewhat in the manner of the Wild Turkey.  For a few weeks at this season, the northwestern shores of the Ohio are covered with flocks of Partridges.  They ramble through the woods along the margin of the stream, and generally fly across towards evening.  Like the Turkeys, many of the weaker Partridges often fall into the water, while thus attempting to cross, and generally perish; for although they swim surprisingly, they have not muscular power sufficient to keep up a protracted struggle, although, when they have fallen a few yards of the shore, they easily escape being drowned.”

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 388 [excerpted].

Yesterday afternoon we enjoyed the presentations of our 2012-13 cohort of Creative Fellows, two of whom (Georgia Summers ’15 and Laika Abdulali ’13) will be continuing to work through the summer.

Georgia read a tantalizing excerpt from her paranormal novel based in the Watkinson.  It promises to be a page-turner!

Laika described the fascination (and unexpected humor) she found in several of our travel narratives to the Far East, which she is using as a basis to write several short stories.  She also commented that the ability to browse the Watkinson and read freely among the rare books provided her with a great way to de-stress from writing her thesis (Political Science).

Julia Falkowski ’13 surprised the crowd by bringing in “chocolate jumbles,” which she made from an 1886 recipe book which was used to advertise the products of a food company.

Michael Benson ’13 treated us to two tracks of his mash-up of old-time jazz and modern rap and hip-hop.  And Anastasia Edwards ’13 stunned everyone with a beautiful dress she designed using our 19th-century Paris fashion material.

President Jones, the Trustees of the Watkinson, and the students, staff, and faculty who came to hear the presentations were delighted, and asked many questions.  We look forward to receiving applications (DUE MAY 31) from students who will constitute the 2013-14 cohort!

We acquired this fascinating piece of Connecticut-iana at the recent antiquarian book fair in New York City.  It is a 36-page scientific workbook by Robert Pierpont Cunningham (1782-1867), a mechanic and inventor from Pomfret, CT.  He was the son of Peter Cunningham, a retired sea captain, and Elizabeth Pierpont Cunningham, daughter of a wealthy Boston family.

The manuscript begins with notes on experimental theorems, chemistry, varnish, life boat design, mechanics, laws of motion, and optics, among others. Drawings and remarks on steam engines and calculations related to how ships see each other over the horizon are shown here.  Cunningham cites his sources (Isaac Newton and Erasmus Darwin are among them) and conducts his own experiments.  He seems to have been an active inventor, having patented at least four inventions between 1808 – 1945: a cider press machine, steering helm machine, and two different looms.

One of my favorite types of material are handbooks for working people.  At the recent New York Book Fair I picked up five of these from a New Jersey dealer with whom I have done business for years.  I was delighted that they were in excellent condition and rather inexpensive.  I will let the titles and Preface excerpts of three of them speak for themselves:

A New Conductor Generalis: Being a Summary of the Law Relative to the Duty and Office of Justices of the Peace, Sherriffs, Coroners, Constables, Jurymen, Overseers of the Poor, &c. (New York: Albany, 1803).  “Although it cannot be supposed that a complete system of criminal jurisprudence could be comprised in the following number of pages, yet it will be found that very few cases can arise, subject to an interference of the law, or any of its officers, for which the necessary instructions are not herein pointed out” (Preface).  A nice Early Republic edition of a classic legal manual (the first American edition was 1711, and English editions under the title A Guide for Constables go back to 1669).

A similar work is John B. Colvin’s A Magistrate’s Guide; and Citizen’s Counsellor: Being a Digested Abstract of those Laws of the State of Maryland [etc.] (Maryland: Frederick-Town, 1805).  This is the first printing of an early Maryland legal guide, written, says the author, for the average citizen, in part to protect him from “the impositions of the dishonest part of the bar.”

From the Introduction, “An occasional attendance upon our courts of justice, where I have often witnessed a lamentable want of legal information among that class of citizens who constitute the major part of the community, together with a strong recommendation of a friend, originally induced me to undertake the present composition.”

Departing from law and moving on to commerce, Joseph Blunt’s The Merchant’s and Shipmaster’s Assistant (New York, 1832) is a later edition of this guide, which contains information of every kind, from exchange rates to insurance, and from wreck laws to shipboard crime.

The Preface contains a highly articulate overview of the state of U.S. trade, stating that “its numerous and excellent harbours, and salubrity of climate, the freedom of its institutions, and the equality and justice of its laws, designate it as the natural depot and place of exchange of the manufactures of the old world for the productions of the new.  In that trade it will be enabled by its extensive and fertile territory, to take part as the rival of the South American states in the exchange with Europe; and the industry and the ingenuity of its citizens, the possession of raw materials, and its capabilities as a manufacturing nation, will enable it with equal ease to rival the European powers, in supplying the South American continent with manufactures.”

Recently acquired from a dealer in Philadelphia, almost 60 tracts related to a controversy that rocked the Scottish church in the 19th-century.  From about 1820 through 1843 the Church of Scotland was in turmoil over the question of lay patronage and its implications regarding civil authority over the church.  In 1843, after the “Ten Years’ Conflict” between the evangelical and moderate branches of the church, the issues were temporarily resolved by “the Disruption,” in which close to a third of the ministers of the Church of Scotland separated to form the Free Church of Scotland.  The upheaval prompted the publication of numerous pamphlets and treatises on the controversy, and its effects continued to be felt in Scotland for many years afterward.  This newly added collection contains works by many of the principal voices of the conflict.

We recently acquired just over 100 British and American plays dating from 1697 to 1880.  Aside from works by canonical authors like Shakespeare, Dryden, Congreve, Sheridan, and Voltaire, there are farces, comedies and tragedies by authors like Isaac Bickerstaff (“The Romp”, “The Adopted Child”, “Love in the City”), George Colman (“The Clandestine Marriage”, “Love Laughs at Locksmiths”, “The Mountaineers”), Hannah Cowley (“A Bold Stroke for a Husband”, “The Runaway”, “Which is the Man?”), Elizabeth Inchbald (“Everyone Has His Fault”, “I’ll Tell You What”, “The Wedding Day”), and Arthur Murphy (“The Apprentice”, “Desert Island”, “Know Your Own Mind”, The Orphan of China”).

After 3 years of looking, I have finally acquired a 4,000-year-old Sumerian cuneiform tablet!  This clay tablet was written in Mesopotamia (current-day Iraq), dates from 2230-2221 BCE, and is a receipt (as many of these documents are) for twenty bundles of sheepskin hides for garments, with a seal of the royal scribe and the date.  It originated from Umma at the city-state of Ur.

The period of the Third Dynasty of the city-state of Ur was one of the most brilliant periods of Mesopotamian history.  What we know of the workings of the government and the economy are derived from these documents.  Dated the sixth month of the eighth year of Bur Sin, King of Ur. With a fine seal impression which reads “on the authority of the Royal scribe, Ursulpe, son of Lugulsaga.”  The balance of the information on this tablet has not been translated.

PROVENANCE (history of ownership): Apparently one of the many artifacts excavated by Hormuzd Rassam (1826-1910), the famous discoverer of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and given in 1895  with a group of other tablets to Theophilus G. Pinches, LL.D. (1856-1934), an eminent Assyriologist at the British Museum.  Pinches described some of these tablets in The Amherst Tablets (1908).  The tablets passed to a student and colleague of Pinches named Chappelow in the 1920s, and after the latter’s death, went to Sotheby’s (London) for auction.  The Sotheby catalog was prepared by Dr. R. D. Barnett of the Dept. of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum and the tablets sold on July 28, 1958 to Dr. Herman Serota of Chicago.  In 1978 Dr. Serota sent the tablets to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago  where they were transliterated by Dr. Piotr Steinkeller (of Yale).  Dr. I. J. Gelb also examined the tablets and provided some translations. Serota died in 1981, whereupon the record ends–most likely the tablets entered the trade and were dispersed, possibly moving through private hands occasionally.  The Boston dealer from whom we purchased this tablet bought it from a California dealer in February–but we trust it has arrived at its final destination!

It is a tiny artifact, shown here with a penny for scale.  In terms of book and writing history, these tablets are so important to be able to show as one of the oldest extant examples of writing.

“This beautiful little hawk appears to be nearly allied to the European Hobby (Falco Subbuteo, Linn.) and is not inferior to that species in spirit and activity.  I procured the individual represented, in April 1812, near Flatland Ford in Pennsylvania, whilst in pursuit of a Dove, which it would doubtless have secured, had I not terminated its career.  When I first discovered this species, the individual was standing perched on an old fence-stake, in the position in which it is figured.  Never having met with another of its kind, I conclude that it is extremely rare in the United States.  Of its nest or young I am unable to say anything at present.

The name which I have given to this new and rare species was chosen at the time when Napoleon Le Grand was in the zenith of his glory.  Every body knows that his soldiers frequently designated him by the nickname of Le Petit Caporal, which I thought more suitable to our little Hawk, than the names Napoleon or Bonaparte, which I should have adopted, had I been so fortunate as to procure a new Eagle.

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 381 [excerpted].

[Curator’s note: this bird is actually a Merlin]