“it was sure to be carried off”: Ibid., p. 612.
the best method to preserve birds: Charles Waterton, Wanderings in South America (London: B. Fellowes, 1825), p. 295.
knock a wounded and aggressive Heron: James Boyd Davies, The Practical Naturalist’s Guide: Containing Instructions for Collecting, Preparing and Preserving Specimens in All Departments of Zoology, Intended for the Use of Students, Amateurs and Travellers (Edinburgh: MacLachlan & Stewart, 1858), p. 16.
To help with the quotidian tasks: Kees Rookmaaker and John van Wyhe, “In Alfred Russel Wallace’s Shadow: His Forgotten Assistant, Charles Allen (1839–1892),” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 85, pt. 2 (2012): 17–54.
“can now shoot pretty well”: Alfred Russel Wallace to Mary Ann Wallace, July 2, 1854, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/355/5901/S/details.html#S1.
“I could not be troubled with another”: Alfred Russel Wallace to Frances Sims, June 25, 1855, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/359/5905/S/details.html.
The Peninsular & Oriental’s “Overland” route: John van Wyhe and Gerrell M. Drawhorn, “‘I am Ali Wallace’: The Malay Assistant of Alfred Russel Wallace,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 88, no. 1 (2015): 3–31.
In December 1856: Wallace, Annotated Malay Archipelago, p. 544.
As the prau inched east: Ibid.
One hundred forty million years ago: Gavan Daws and Marty Fujita, Archipelago: The Islands of Indonesia: From the Nineteenth-Century Discoveries of Alfred Russel Wallace to the Fate of Forests and Reefs in the Twenty-first Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p. 84.
For eighty million years: Bird-of-Paradise Project, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, http://www.birdsofparadiseproject.org/content.php?page=113.
There were no civets or cats: Birds of the Gods, narrated by David Attenborough, PBS, January 22, 2011.
the river channels veining the islands: Wallace, Annotated Malay Archipelago, p. 579.
a room in a crude hut: Ibid., p. 584.
revenge, he joked: Slotten, Heretic in Darwin’s Court, p. 132.
“To be kept prisoner”: Wallace, Annotated Malay Archipelago, p. 607.
“intense cinnabar red”: Ibid., p. 586.
“I thought of the long ages of the past”: Ibid., p. 588.
“It seems sad”: Ibid.
thrumming “golden glory”: Ibid., p. 608.
Wallace became the first naturalist: Tim Laman, and Edwin Scholes, Birds of Paradise: Revealing the World’s Most Extraordinary Birds (National Geographic Books, 2012), p. 26.
He had set up a home base: Wallace, Annotated Malay Archipelago, p. 428.
Despite the 90-degree heat: Slotten, Heretic in Darwin’s Court, p. 144.
“Vaguely thinking over the enormous”: Wallace, My Life, p. 190.
“it suddenly flashed upon me”: Ibid.
“found the long-sought-for law of nature”: Ibid., p. 191.
Wallace waited anxiously: Ibid., p. 362.
“I wrote a letter”: Ibid., p. 363.
“interrupted by letter from AR Wallace”: Quoted in Slotten, Heretic in Darwin’s Court, p. 153.
“I never saw a more striking coincidence”: Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell, June 18, 1858, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2285.xml.
“So all my originality”: Ibid.
“These gentlemen, having, independently”: J. D. Hooker and Charles Lyell to the Linnean Society, June 30, 1858, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2299.xml.
“I have received letters from Mr. Darwin”: Wallace, My Life, p. 365.
Over an eight-year period, he had boxed up 310: Wallace, Annotated Malay Archipelago, p. 53.
By his own estimate: Ibid.
he would deposit the worried bird: Ibid., p. 687.
“endless trouble & great anxiety”: Alfred Russel Wallace to P. L. Sclater, March 31, 1862, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1723/1606/T/details.html.
forcing him to slip into the storeroom: Wallace, My Life, p. 383.
“I have great pleasure in announcing”: Alfred Russel Wallace to P. L. Sclater, March 31, 1862, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scien tific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1723 /1606/T/details.html.
“Once in a generation, a Wallace may be”: Thomas Henry Huxley, Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature (New York: D. Appleton, 1863), p. 36.
John Gould, England’s most renowned: Slotten, Heretic in Darwin’s Court, p. 136.
summoned a carpenter: Wallace, My Life, p. 386.
“as a token of personal esteem”: Wallace, Annotated Malay Archipelago, p. 46.
“what strikes me most about Mr. Wallace”: Charles Darwin to H. W. Bates, December 3, 1861, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3338.xml.
“the individual letters”: Alfred Russel Wallace, “On the Physical Geography of the Malay Archipelago,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 33 (1863): 217–34.
“If this is not done”: Ibid.
German Zeppelins drifting silently: Jasper Copping, “Rare Charts Show WW1 German Air Raids on Britain,” Telegraph, November 7, 2013.
The British Museum was hit: Karolyn Shindler, “Natural History Museum: A Natural Wartime Effort That Bugged Owners of Period Homes,” Telegraph, September 28, 2010.
To protect them from Hitler’s bombers: Ibid.
2. LORD ROTHSCHILD’S MUSEUM
the richest family in human history: Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild (New York: Viking, 1998), pp. xxiii, 2.
“Mama, Papa. I am going to make a Museum”: Miriam Rothschild, Walter Rothschild: The Man, the Museum and the Menagerie (London: Natural History Museum, 2008), p. 1.
By fourteen, he had: Ibid., p. 62.
He arrived at the University of Cambridge: Ibid., p. 73.
By twenty he’d accumulated: Richard Conniff, The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), p. 323.
The museum soon attracted: Rothschild, Walter Rothschild, p. 101.
“a grand piano on castors”: Michael A. Salmon, Peter Marren, and Basil Harley, The Aurelian Legacy: British Butterflies and Their Collectors (Berkeley: University of California Press, 240), p. 206.
For years, he carelessly: Conniff, Species Seekers, p. 322.
After two live bear cubs: Virginia Cowles, The Rothschilds: A Family of Fortune (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), Kindle loc. 3423.
“My father was absolutely right”: Rothschild, Walter Rothschild, p. 86.
In 1931 his collection of 280,000 skins: Ibid., p. 302.
“He was as jubilant over it”: Ibid., p. 303.
“Walter seemed to shrink visibly”: Ibid., p. 304.
“Ask of the beasts”: Jacob Mikanowski, “A Natural History of Walter Rothschild,” Awl, April 11, 2016.
Before it all came to ruin: “The Rothschild Collection,” Natural History Museum.
The collectors he employed: Conniff, Species Seekers, p. 334.
“the world with a severe attack”: Rothschild, Walter Rothschild, p. 155.
“I can’t agree with you in thinking”: Alfred Newton to Walter Rothschild, December 16, 1891, http://discovermagazine.com/2004/jun/reviews.
the Age of Extermination: Robin W. Doughty, Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation: A Study in Nature Protection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 156.
the greatest direct slaughter: Barbara Mearns and Richard Mearns, The Bird Collectors (San Diego: Aca
demic, 1998), p. 12.
3. THE FEATHER FEVER
In 1775 she took: Émile Langlade, Rose Bertin, the Creator of Fashion at the Court of Marie-Antoinette (London: J. Long, 1913), p. 48.
new rotary printing presses: Robin W. Doughty, Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation: A Study in Nature Protection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 14.
Within a century of Marie-Antoinette’s death: Ibid., p. 15.
“elegant assortment of Paris Millinery”: Vogue, December 17, 1892, p. vii.
“Stiff wings are in high vogue”: “Millinery,” Delineator LI.1 (January 1898): p. 70.
“A large fraction of our time”: Cynthia Asquith, quoted in Karen Bowman, Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era (New York: Skyhorse, 2015), p. 204.
entire bird skins were mounted: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 1.
He counted seven hundred ladies: Ibid., p. 16.
one merchant peddled a shawl: Michael Shrubb, Feasting, Fowling and Feathers: A History of the Exploitation of Wild Birds (London: T & AD Poyser, 2013), p. 201.
“plume merchants purchased stock”: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 73.
Only two hundred: Ibid., p. 74.
By 1862 there were 120: Edmond Lefèvre, Le commerce et l’industrie de la plume pour parure (Paris, 1914), pp. 226–28.
Union of Raw Feather Merchants: Ibid.
nearly one hundred million pounds: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 25.
155,000 Birds of Paradise: Ibid., p. 30.
part of a $2.8 billion industry: Shrubb, Feasting, Fowling and Feathers, p. 197.
One British dealer reported selling: Barbara Mearns and Richard Mearns, The Bird Collectors (San Diego: Academic, 1998), p. 11.
By 1900 eighty-three thousand: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 23.
A kilo of Egret feathers: Ibid., p. 74.
farmers blinded the birds: Ibid., p. 78–79.
when the Titanic went down: Thor Hanson, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle (New York: Basic Books, 2011), p. 176.
salmon ran in such great numbers: Charles F. Waterman, History of Angling (Tulsa, Okla.: Winchester, 1981), p. 26.
eclipsing horde of Passenger Pigeons: John J. Audubon, “Passenger Pigeon,” Plate 62 of The Birds of America (New York and London, 1827–38), Audubon.org.
The plains rumbled with bison herds: Jed Portman, The Great American Bison, PBS, 2011.
hurtling exponentially toward 1.6 billion: “Historical Estimates of World Population,” U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/worldpop/table_history.php.
“insensible to the wonders”: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve (London: Saunders and Otley, 1840), p. 3:152.
sixty million American bison: “Timeline of the American Bison,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, https://www.fws.gov/bisonrange/timeline.htm.
loaded their decks: Harriet Beecher Stowe, quoted in Jim Robison, “Hunters Turned Osceola Riverbanks into Bloody Killing Fields for Wildlife,” Orlando Sentinel, January 23, 1995.
“an orgy of noise”: Mark Derr, Some Kind of Paradise: A Chronicle of Man and the Land in Florida (New York: William Morrow, 1989).
The 1890 census: Jedediah Purdy, After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015), p. 31.
Between 1883 and 1898: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 82.
In 1914, Martha: Elizabeth Kolbert, “They Covered the Sky, and Then . . . ,” New York Review of Books, January 9, 2014.
Four years later: “The Last Carolina Parakeet,” John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove, http://johnjames.audubon.org/last-carolina-parakeet.
4. BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT
“would shrink from inflicting”: Mary Thatcher, “The Slaughter of the Innocents,” Harper’s Bazaar, May 22, 1875, p. 338.
“Our fashions as you all know”: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Our Girls,” Winter 1880, http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/stanton-our-girls-speech-text/.
In 1889 Emily Williamson: “Our History,” Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/about-the-rspb/about-us/our-history/.
In 1896 a Bostonian Brahmin: “History of Audubon and Science-based Bird Conservation,” Audubon, http://www.audubon.org/about/history-audubon-and-waterbird-conservation.
“The Badge of Cruelty!”: “Our History,” Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/about-the-rspb/about-us/our-history/.
“This beautiful bird”: “Urgent Plea for Birds,” New York Times, December 3, 1897.
A BIRD OF PREY: Linley Sambourne, “A Bird of Prey,” Punch, or the London Charivari 102 (May 14, 1892), p. 231.
“it really seems as though”: Robin W. Doughty, Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation: A Study in Nature Protection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 22.
“The next time you buy”: “What Women Are Heedlessly Doing,” Ladies’ Home Journal 25 (November 1908), p. 25.
“and will certainly do all”: Queen Alexandra to Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, in “The Use of Bird Plumage for Personal Adornment,” Victorian Naturalist 23 (1907): 54–55.
“faddists and sickly sentimental”: “The Audubon Society Against the Fancy Feather Trade,” Millinery Trade Review 31 (1906): 61.
“there is no alternative”: Ibid., p. 57.
Lobbyists representing groups: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 61.
“The feather men are fighting”: Ernest Ingersoll, “Specious Arguments Veil Feather Trade’s Real Purpose” (letter), New York Times, March 25, 1914.
The arrival of the automobile: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 155.
In 1905 poachers murdered: Stuart B. McIver, Death in the Everglades: The Murder of Guy Bradley, America’s First Martyr to Environmentalism (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2003).
dead Black-Footed Albatrosses: Jeffrey V. Wells, Birder’s Conservation Handbook: 100 North American Birds at Risk (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), p. 92.
In 1921 a passenger: “$100,000 Loot Seized in Smuggling Arrest: Drugs, Jewels, Feathers and Rum Found in Baggage,” New York Times, March 3, 1921.
“On one occasion”: “Fine Feathers No More: How New Law Bars Birds of Paradise and Other Plumage from Importation,” New York Times, April 2, 1922.
An Italian cook: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 146.
Two Frenchmen were busted: Ibid., p. 143.
An international Bird of Paradise smuggling ring: “Plume Smugglers in Organized Band,” New York Times, August 8, 1920.
Officials in Laredo: Doughty, Feather Fashions, p. 146.
high-speed boat chases: Daniel Mizzi, “Bird Smuggler Who Led Police, Army on Land and Sea Chase Jailed,” Malta Today, August 7, 2014.
to buy “parrot sausages”: John Nichol, Animal Smugglers (New York: Facts on File, 1987), p. 3.
Often described as the Magna Carta: Robert Boardman, International Organization and the Conservation of Nature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981).
5. THE VICTORIAN BROTHERHOOD OF FLY-TIERS
Inside, Dr. Eric Gardner: Andrew Herd, The Fly (Ellesmere, U.K.: Medlar Press, 2003), p. 51.
“welcome change in the diet”: Frederick Buller, “The Macedonian Fly,” American Fly Fisher 22, no. 4 (1996), p. 4.
“crimson red wool”: Ælianus quoted in Herd, Fly, p. 25.
“blackest drake” mallard: Juliana B. Berners and Wynkyn de Worde, A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle (1496; reprint London: Elliot Stock, 1880).
“the most stately fish”: Ibid.
“Rivers and the inhabitants”: Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler (London: John Lane, 1653), p. 43.
Working-class anglers: Herd, Fly, p. 168.<
br />
“very little water left”: Ibid.
“rapidly accumulated a burden”: Ibid., p. 247.
“egged on by local tackle”: Ibid., p. 155.
“They will be found most killing”: William Blacker, Blacker’s Art of Flymaking: Comprising Angling & Dyeing of Colours, with Engravings of Salmon & Trout Flies (1842; reprint London: George Nichols, 1855), p. 104.
Blacker was an expert: Herd, Fly, p. 208.
“Exactitude is needed”: George M. Kelson, The Salmon Fly: How to Dress It and How to Use It (London: Wyman & Sons, 1895), p. 4.
So exact was his craft: Herd, Fly, p. 265.
“so low down in the scale”: Kelson, Salmon Fly, p. 9.
Kelson admitted in his book: Ibid., p. 18.
“At times salmon will take anything”: Ibid., p. 24.
“mental and moral discipline”: Ibid., p. 10.
“We have here a well-bred hobby”: Ibid.
“The greatest find”: Ibid., p. 58.
“however well hackles may be dyed”: Ibid., p. 44.
as “narrow-minded enthusiasts”: George M. Kelson, Tips (London: Published by the author, 1901), p. 47.
“If Donald Trump continues having trouble”: Robert H. Boyle, “Flies That are Tied for Art, not Fish,” Sports Illustrated, December 17, 1990.
6. THE FUTURE OF FLY-TYING
In 1705, just outside: Richard Conniff, “Mammoths and Mastodons: All American Monsters,” Smithsonian, April 2010.
another hundred species: “What We’ve Lost: Species Extinction Time Line,” National Geographic, n.d., http://www.nationalgeographic.com/deextinction/selected-species-extinctions-since-1600/.
the mere sight of red ants: Edwin Rist, interview by author, May 26, 2015.
“Now that is what I want”: Curtis Rist, “Santa Barbara’s Splendid Beaches,” ABC News, June 3, 2017.
ten thousand colors of wool: Edwin Rist and Anton Rist to Ronn Lucas, Sr., http://www.ronnlucassr.com/rists.htm, accessed May 23, 2016, page no longer exists.
sixty-eight trout flies in an hour: “Danbury Show,” ClassicFlyTying.com, November 14, 2005, http://www.classicflytying.com/?showtopic=12531.
The man who’d created them: Edward Muzeroll, interview by author, April 6, 2017.
“Tying with exotic materials”: Morgan Lyle, “Tying with Exotic Materials: Avoiding the Long Arm of the Law,” Fly Tyer, Winter 2003, p. 6.
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