We bid farewell to Erika Jenns, Indiana University ’13, who has spent an incredibly productive six weeks in the Watkinson creating a 40+ page annotated checklist of our collection relating to Lydia Sigourney, “the sweet singer of Hartford,” poetess and author published widely in the magazines, and a contemporary of Edgar Allen Poe and Mark Twain who enjoyed national fame during her lifetime–but is largely forgotten.  We are intending to illustrate and publish the checklist this year.

Erika also posted to our guest blog, “I Found it at the Watkinson,” from July 4th to August 3rd, and some of these will be excerpted in the publication.

Erika’s work will also provide the foundation for an exhibition at some point in the near future.  We wish her luck in her senior year at Indiana, and beyond!

“You are now presented,kind reader, with a species of Grouse, which, in my humble opinion, far surpasses as an article of food every other land bird which we have in the United States, except the Wild Turkey, when in good condition.  You must not be surprised that I thus express an opinion contradictory to that of our Eastern epicures, who greatly prefer the flesh of the Pinnated Grouse to that of the present species, for I have had abundant opportunity of knowing both . . .

The names of Pheasant and Partridge have been given to the present species by our forefathers, in the different districts where it is found.  To the west of the Alleghanies, and on these mountains, the first name is generally used.  The same appellation is employed in the Middle Districts, to the east of the mountains, and until you enter the State of Connecticut; after which that of Partridge prevails.”

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 211 [excerpted].

“This is one of the most lively, as well as one of the handsomest, of our Fly-catchers, and ornaments our woods during spring and summer, when it cannot fail to attract the attention of any person who may visit the interior of the shady forests. . . .

It keeps in perpetual motion, hunting along the branches sidewise, jumping to either side in search of insects and larvae, opening its beautiful tail at every movement which it makes, then closing it, and flirting it from side to side, just allowing the transparent beauty of the feathers to be seen for a moment . . .

I have looked for several minutes at a time on the ineffectual attacks which this bird makes on wasps while busily occupied about their own nests. The bird approaches and snaps at them, but in vain; for the wasp elevating its abdomen, protrudes its sting, which prevents its being seized.  The male bird is represented in the plate in this posture.”

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 202-203 [excerpted].

“Although this smart little bird breeds in the State of Louisiana and the adjacent districts, it is not there found in so great numbers as in the Middle States, and farther to the northward.  It generally prefers the depth of the forests during summer, after which it approaches the plantations, and even resorts to the granaries for corn.

. . . They move about in little companies formed of the parents and their young, eight or ten together, and escorted by the Nuthatch or the Downy Woodpecker . . .

. . . This species sometimes forms a nest by digging a hole for the purpose in the hardest wood, with great industry and perseverance, although it is more frequently contented with the hole of the Downy Woodpecker, or some other small bird of that genus.  It fills the hole with every kind of warm materials, after which the female deposits from six to eight eggs, of a pure white, with a few red spots at the larger end.

. . . The species of Pine, on a twig of which you see a pair of these birds, is the White Pine (Pinus Strobus), a tree of great beauty, of which individuals have been observed of the enormous height of 180 feet, with a diameter at the base of from six to eight feet.  The trunk is branchless for two-thirds of its height, and afford the most valuable wood perhaps of any tree in the United States.”

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 199-200 [excerpted].

“This beautiful species is the most common and abundant that visits the state of Louisiana and those situated on the borders of the Mississippi.  In Kentucky it is much less common, and in the state of Ohio, scarcer still.  It is an extremely active and lively bird.  It is found in all the low grounds and damp places near water-courses, and generally among the tall rank weeds and low bushes growing in rich alluvial soil.  Continually in motion, it is seen hopping in every direction from stalk to stalk, or from one twig to another, preying upon insects and larvae, or picking small berries, seldom, however, pursuing insects on wing . . .

It arrives in the southern states, from Mexico, about the middle of March, and remains with us until the middle of September, during which time it rears two broods . . .

The branch on which two of these birds are represented, is that of the tree commonly called the White Cucumber, a species of Magnolia.  It flowers as early in the season as the Dog-wood.  The flowers open before the leaves are expanded, and emit an odour resembling that of a lemon, but soon becoming disagreeable, as the blossom fades.  This tree seldom grows to a height of thirty feet, and is consequently disregarded as a timber-tree.”

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 196-197 [excerpted].

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are developing a new path of collecting at the Watkinson, in honor of Trinity’s amazing success over more than a decade of playing squash. We acquired this 33-item collection from a Vermonter with a deep love of the game and its traditions and lore.

It is our hope that some of the student athletes who play the sport will think of us the next time they have to do a paper, and learn a bit about the history of the sport in which they are participating, and to which they ultimately contribute.

In 1919 T. S. Eliot wrote the following in an essay on Tradition and the Individual Talent: “. . . if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, ‘tradition’ should be positively dismissed. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense […] and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.”

This concept of the labor involved, both physical and mental, in order to take part in a tradition, is essential to understand when you come to the Watkinson.  We have, after all, over 5 miles of shelves holding a portion of the concentrated traditions of five centuries of human endeavor.  Play the game so your mind and muscles may know it–come to the Watkinson to engage with these materials for a more sublime understanding of the game.

During “reunion week” (the second week of June) this year there were several opportunities to see Watkinson rarities.  On Wendesday the 6th about a dozen alumni attended a presentation entitled “John James Audubon: American Dreamer.”  Born in Haiti, educated in France, and sent to America to avoid the draft (i.e. Napoleon’s conscripted legions), Audubon is an early example of American self-fashioning.  Works by Audubon, as well as his contemporaries Alexander Wilson and Prideaux John Selby, and his fore-runner Mark Catesby, were out on display for folks to view.

On Friday a crowd of some 40-50 people (mostly Class of ’57) enjoyed a screening of David Elliott’s award-winning film The Curious Mr. Catesby (2007).  Mr. Elliott (’57) is the Executive Director of the Catesby Commemorative Trust.  I brought out the Watkinson’s copy of the first edition of Catesby’s Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1731-43) and showed it to an appreciative crowd.  Trinity was able to purchase this copy in 1883 through the generosity of a “rich uncle” of a Trinity alumnus (George Lewis Cooke, class of 1870).

The next day a steady stream of visitors were able to view the “bird of the week” from John James Audubon’s Birds of America set, which has been at Trinity for 112 years, as well as the newly acquired 2nd Folio of Shakespeare.  At 1:30, with the help of Watkinson Trustee Jack Enders (’92), I presented a selection of recent acquisitions of ornithology material for the Enders collection, given by his grandfather, Ostrom Enders in the 1980s.

The page-turning of the Audubon will subside — for a brief summer vacation — until after the 4th of July.

Conservator Jean Baldwin is working in the Watkinson over the next several weeks to address some issues we have with our copy of Audubon’s Birds of America.  The set has been at Trinity for 112 years, and in that time a few pages have been wrinkled, and the animal glue used in binding the book has hardened, and its brittle edges are essentially cutting into the first and last pages of each volume.  Jean is slowly removing the glue and replacing it with a more pliable and inert binder, as well as making spot repairs and ironing out wrinkles throughout the first two volumes (we will see to volumes II and IV in the summer of 2013).

Jean has been a paper conservator for over a decade, and before setting up under her own shingle she held positions in conservation and preservation at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (University of Texas at Austin), the Library of Congress, and the Yale University Library.

“It is generally agreeable to be in the company of individuals who are naturally animated and pleasant.  For this reason, nothing can be more gratifying than the society of Woodpeckers in the forests . . .

No sooner has spring called them to the pleasant duty of making love, as it is called, than their voice . . . is heard from the tops of high decayed trees, proclaiming with delight the opening of the welcome season.  Their note at this period is merriment itself, as it imitates a prolonged and jovial laugh, heard at a considerable distance.  Several males pursue a female, reach her, and, to prove the force and truth of their love, bow their heads, spread their tail[s], and move sideways, backwards and forwards, performing such antics, as might induce anyone witnessing them, if not of a most morose temper, to join his laugh to theirs.  The female flies to another tree, where she is closely followed by one, two, or even half a dozen of these gay suitors, and where again the same ceremonies are gone through.  No fightings occur, no jealousies seem to exist among these beaux, until a marked preference is shewn to some individual, when the rejected proceed in search of another female.  In this manner all Golden-winged Woodpeckers are soon happily mated.  Each pair immediately proceed to excavate the trunk of a tree, and finish a hole in it sufficient to contain themselves and their young.  They both work with great industry and apparent pleasure.  Should the male, for instance, be employed, the female is close to him, and congratulates him on the removal of every chip which his bill sends through the air.  While he rests, he appears to be speaking to her on the most tender subjects, and when fatigued, is at once assisted by her.  In this manner, by the alternate exertions of each, the hole is dug and finished.  They caress each other on the branches, chase all their cousins the Red-heads, defy the Purple Grackles to enter their nest, feed plentifully on ants, beetles and larvae, cackling at intervals, and ere two weeks have elapsed, the female lays either four or six eggs, the whiteness and transparency of which are doubtless the delight of her heart . . .

Racoons and Black Snakes are dangerous enemies to this bird.  The former frequently put one of their fore legs into the hole where it has nestled or retired to rest, and if the hole be not too deep, draw out the eggs and suck them, and frequently by the same means secure the bird itself.  The Black Snake contents itself with the eggs or young.  Several species of Hawk attack them on the wing, and as the Woodpeckers generally escape by making for a hole in the nearest tree, it is pleasing to see the disappointment of the Hawk, when, as it has just been on the point of seizing the terrified bird, the latter dives, as it were, into the hole.”

–J. J. Audubon, Ornithological Biography, I (1831), 191-194 [excerpted].