Used Books

To Neltje Blanchan, birds were not merely natural history specimens to be measured and classified and ticketed with Latin names, although she was familiar with all the scientific facts about our feathered neighbors and her descriptions were authoritative. Her interest in birds lay in their character, their beauty, and their economic relation to the balance of nature. She knew and has described the friendships and the feuds between bird families. To Neltje Blanchan, in short, each bird, whether of thicket, field, swamp, forest, or the heights of mountain peaks, was a thing of life and individuality. In one of her notes we find this description of a crow: With a heart as black as his feathers, common as sin itself. This pung…