Vanishings
In the Aug. 24 Christian Science Monitor was a detailed and disturbing article by Nathaniel T. Wheelwright, who studies the behavioral ecology of birds and teaches biology at Bowdoin College.
A paragraph says, “The song of tens of millions of birds have been silenced. It feels as if the lights are dimming.”
He learned about birds 43 years ago while visiting his grandfather in rural Connecticut, going out on his first bird walk there, carrying the binoculars his grandfather gave him. He was sorry he would have to go back to his family’s farm in the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts, where, to the best of his knowledge then, there were no birds. With his grandfather he had seen a redstart hovering in midair, heard the sound of a wood thrush’s flute music and the swoosh of chimney swifts rushing in formation overhead.
But when he got back home, he did find those birds he had been introduced to in Connecticut, and many more, of every color – electric blue indigo buntings, blood-red scarlet tanagers, earth-toned veeries. If there were a song he couldn’t recognize, as he woke up and heard the birds singing in his back yard, he got dressed grabbed his binoculars and tracked the bird down, as he still does today.
His grandfather used to grumble in his later years that birds were becoming scarcer. His grandson thought that that gloom was the natural tendency of the elderly, or maybe an old man’s deteriorating hearing and eyesight. But the grandson no longer heard the whippoorwill at night in Connecticut when he visited there, and the woods and fields of the northeast felt emptier to him, too.
A recent National Audubon study now confirms what his grandfather feared and most of us know now. Birds that Wheelwright used to see routinely – evening grosbeaks, eastern meadowlarks, northern bobwhites – are now in freefall. Once common species his grandfather introduced him to have declined as much as 80 percent, due to loss of habitat, pesticides, introduced species and climate change.
Wheelwright wrote, “Of course, we’ll always have CDs of bird song and DVDs of bird behavior to fall back on – a digital memory, as it were – but will that be enough?”
In his final paragraph he said how wonderful it would be to be able to pass the gift which his grandfather gave him on to his own grandchildren.
It was an excellent article.
Changes
The Aug. 24 Christian Science Monitor had a brief article on the impacts of global warming, compiled by the National Wildlife Federation.
Temperature changes could mean that plants that once thrived in a particular area,eventually won’t any longer. Ohio’s official state tree, the buckeye, could be out of its element later in the century.
Also, if temperatures rise by 5 degrees F, both the state tree and flower might leave their historic neighborhoods.
These states, their tree and flower, were listed in the article as at risk of parting company:
Delaware: American holly/peach blossom.
Illinois: White oak/purple violet.
Kansas: Eastern cottonwood/sunflower.
Louisiana: Bald cypress/Southern magnolia.
Mississippi: Magnolia/magnolia.
Nebraska: Eastern cottonwood/goldenrod.
Pennsylvania: Eastern hemlock/mountain laurel.
Virginia: Flowering dogwood/flowering dogwood.
Quotes
In a paperback, “Vest Pocket book of familiar Quotations,” printed in 1955, and costing 49 cents then, are more than 2,500 best-known and most widely recognized quotations, listed under more than 500 topic headings, from Ability to Zeal.
One section is titled “Famous Lines from Famous Authors.” Included are lines which many readers learned, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
“Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink”
And
“He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small.”
But in what poem of Coleridge’s are they found? They were familiar lines to me. But that little book, from a small and undistinguished publisher, left much unanswered.
I then consulted a second book, Bartlett’s, the eighth edition, written in 1882, having 904 pages. I looked in the index for both “water” and “prayeth,” and found that they are from Coleridge’s famous poem, “The Ancient Mariner,” which we read and I think had to memorize some lines from in our English classes.
Next I checked in my Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations that I consult frequently. It is the Eleventh Edition, Revised and Enlarged, printed in 1942. In its 1,578 pages, it even gives us the author’s dates at the beginning of the several pages of lines from his poetry: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1772-1834).
Of course your public library can check on quotations for you, if you’ve forgotten the author, or the name of the poem. But having your own book of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and checking it out yourself is a pleasure. I’m glad I have my own copies!
Cookies
This recipe is from “Bake Shop, Prize-Winning Recipes,” from a booklet of the 1963 Pyrofax Gas Teen-Age Baking Contest. The girls in the contest entered by submitting an essay, “Why I Want to go to College,” and a copy of their recipe.
I have chosen one from Linda Orr of Stanford, Ill.
CHOCOLATE FLUFF COOKIES
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cream butter, sugar and egg yolks thoroughly. Add milk and vanilla; mix well. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and cocoa. Add to creamed mixture; mix well. Beat egg whites until very stiff. Fold into batter. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls on greased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Makes about 45 medium cookies.
It appears there were some errors in the Aug. 23 cookie recipe. Here is the correct version:
MARGUERITE BLAKE’S OATMEAL COOKIES
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
Blend these together. Then add:
1-1/4 cups of rolled oats
1 teaspoon milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
Mix together and add:
1 cup flour
1 cup baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
Drop by teaspoonfuls on baking sheet. Bake in moderate over (325 degrees), about 15 minutes.
This yields about 40 cookies. Delicious, too.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
