The Shy Naturalist Nuttall

Botanist Thomas Nuttall's reputation in the early 1800s was by now a fine one, and he had written many articles and several splendid botany books, the value of which we are apt to forget because his discoveries have now been incorporated into larger and more recent works. But the excellence of his botanical studies won him the position of curator of the botanical garden of Harvard University. The salary was poor and Nuttall was not very content there, nor did he ever make many friends, owing to his reticent habits. The gardener's house in the garden, where he lived, he altered to suit his needs; he had a ladder and trapdoor built from his study to his bedroom above. Also he cut a door from his study out into the garden, and he alone kept the key. In this way he could pass his days in utter seclusion.

In the narrow confines of the little Botanical Garden he made observations on bird life that another man might have traveled far and wide to equal. As one walks the paths of the old garden one may fancy at times that one can still see the shy figure of Nuttall following the course of some bird among the trees, except that in his day the garden was very different—dense with the undershrubbery that Nuttall loved because it invited the shy birds and hid the shy naturalist himself.

Nuttall's residence in Cambridge is notable for the production of a truly great book, his "Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada." This little work, for it is a very compact and modest one in appearance compared with the huge and costly volumes of Audubon and Wilson, is a model of accuracy, conciseness and fine literary style. Not that Nuttall made any errors in it; there were some due to the incomplete knowledge in those days of the full ranges of some birds, and the nesting habits of those that dwelt far away. Audubon's books, which began to appear just as Nuttall's was issued, are distinguished for their beautiful drawings and the poetic glamor of the birds' life histories and Audubon's personal experiences. Wilson's books, which were published twenty-five years earlier, are notable for the spirit of true science, which pervades them, their originality, and intimate knowledge of birds.

But Nuttall, too, knew birds at first hand, and he had explored many of the wildest parts of our country. Availing himself of all the information then accessible on American birds and adding his own observations, he was able to produce, nearly one hundred years ago, a book that in many ways is still unsurpassed. A recent edition, bringing Nuttall's work up to date, has been issued and is as useful to modern students as was the first edition to ornithologists of that day.

By: davidbunch

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