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REVIEWS
JOHN KIRK TOWNSEND: COLLECTOR OF AUDUBON'S WESTERN BIRDS AND MAMMALS
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by Barbara Mearns and Richard Mearns
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| Barbara and Richard Mearns, Scotland, 2007. Illustrations, maps, tables, bibliography, index. 400 pages. $110.00 cloth. |
| John Kirk Townsend was a minor nineteenth-century ornithologist, best known for his diary, Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains, to the Columbia River, and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chili, &c., with a Scientific Appendix (1939), which recounts his trip on Nathaniel Wyeth's expedition, the two years he spent in Oregon, and his return to Hawaii and Chile. Among historians of the life sciences, he is also famous as a collector of birds and mammals, many of which were used by John James Audubon in his Birds of America. Townsend's Narrative has been reprinted a number of times, notably in Reuben Gold Thwaites's Early Western Travels (volume 21) and, more recently, by the Oregon State University Press. |
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Barbara and Richard Mearns have taken Townsend's Narrative and expanded it with short chapters on his life and appendices on his collections. They have also extensively illustrated the travel account. This book is clearly a labor of love. The Mearnses are naturalists who have physically retraced Townsend's route and have taken photographs of wildlife and habitat along the way. They have done considerable archival research, including in the book images of manuscript letters, illustrations from Audubon's works, photos of museum specimens, tables, maps, and portraits. Their edition of the Narrative contains additions from other writers, mostly Audubon, as well as current names (always clearly indicated). They have also omitted text in places (sometimes of interesting social, but not of scientific, value). |
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It is difficult to know for whom the book is intended. It is not a critical edition, because the editors have deleted portions of text. Still, it is a scholarly edition. Readers are given figures showing the dispersal of Townsend's bird collection in the United States and in Europe, as well as the dispersal of his mammal and human skull collections. There are inserted boxes with technical discussions, such as "Did Townsend collect the Northwestern Crow?" (p. 234). Historians of nineteenth-century natural history will find many nuggets of information, and bird watchers can glean interesting bits on the distribution and early identification of various species. The production is beautiful: large format and high quality paper and printing. As a coffee table book, however, it is rather specialized, and as a historical work, it is narrowly focused. The emphasis is on the specimens observed, so historians will find little new about the period or about the science of the period, although there are details about Townsend's life that are little known. The Mearnses edition of the Narrative— with its photographs of specimens and habitat, Audubon's paintings, pictures of actual labeled specimens, maps, manuscripts, and portraits — enrich Townsend's lively diary. It stands in marked contrast to Townsend's original Narrative, which contained no illustrations. The lavishly produced edition by Barbara and Richard Mearns makes up for that lack, and it will be consulted by those who have an interest in the natural history dimension of this famous classic of Western travel. |
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| Paul Lawrence Farber
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| Oregon State University |
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