The Essential Naturalist: Timeless Readings in Natural History

550 Pages·2011·2.266 MB·English

by  Michael H. Graham, Joan Parker, Paul K. Dayton (eds.)

The Essential Naturalist

The Essential Naturalist
Timeless Readings in Natural History
edited by
michael h. graham,
joan parker,
and
paul k. dayton
the university of chicago press
Chicago and London
Michael H. Graham is associate professor at the Moss Landing
Marine Laboratories at San Jose State University. Joan Parker is
the head librarian at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. Paul K.
Dayton is professor at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the
University of California, San Diego.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2011 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2011
Printed in the United States of America
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 30569- 1 (cloth)
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 30570- 7 (paper)
isbn- 10: 0- 226- 30569- 4 (cloth)
isbn- 10: 0- 226- 30570- 8 (paper)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The essential naturalist : timeless readings in natural history / edited
by Michael H. Graham, Joan Parker, and Paul K. Dayton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
isbn-13: 978-0-226-30569-1 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-30569-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-30570-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-226-30570-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Natural history. I. Graham, Michael H. (Michael Hall) II. Parker,
Joan, 1955– III. Dayton, Paul Kuykendall, 1941–
QH9.E87 2011
508—dc22
2011000183
o The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for Information
Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ansi z39.48- 1992.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
From the Editors xiii
a foundation built by giants Michael H. Graham 1
inspiration Robert T. Paine 7
The Great Horned Owl (1927) Edward H. Forbush 15
Just Tigers (1944) Jim Corbett 24
Looking Back (1944) Jim Corbett 26
Foreword to The salamanders of the Family Plethodontidae (1926)
Emmett R. Dunn 28
The Wisdom of Instinct (1918) Jean Henri Fabre 32
The Wolf Spiders (1954) John Crompton [pseudonym of
John Battersby Crompton Lamburn] 41
Contour Diving (1934) William Beebe 50
The Winter Journey (1930) Apsley Cherry- Garrard 54
Wombats (1963) Peter J. Nicholson 64
Journey to the Sea (1941) Rachel L. Carson 70
Notes on the Natural History of Some Marine Animals (1938)
George E. MacGinitie 79
exploration Gage H. Dayton, Paul K. Dayton, and Harry W. Greene 91
Inaccessible Island and Nightingale Island (1879) Henry N. Moseley 99
The Islands Galapagos (1697) William Dampier 113
The Sea Otter and the Sea Cow (1741–1742) Georg W. Steller 120
Chapters from the Life- Histories of Texas Reptiles and Amphibians
(1926) John Kern Strecker 129
Account of the Electrical Eels, and the Method of catching them in South
America by means of Wild Horses (1820) Alexander von Humboldt 138
Comments on the Cephalopods Found in the Stomach of a Sperm Whale
(1913 / 1 914) Prince Albert I of Monaco 144
On collecting at Cape Royds (1910) James Murray 148
A Submarine Gully in Wembury Bay, South Devon (1934)
John A. Kitching, T. T. Macan, and H. Cary Gilson 158
A Briefe and True Report of the Newfoundland of Virginia (1588)
Thomas Hariot 172
initiation Nancy Knowlton 184
Home range and mobility of brush rabbits in California chaparral
(1954) Joseph H. Connell 195
Food recognition and predation on opistobranchs by Navanax inermis
(1963) Robert T. Paine 213
Variation and adaptation in the imported fi re ant (1951)
Edward O. Wilson 226
Storm mortality in a Winter Starling roost (1939)
Eugene P. Odum and Frank A. Pitelka 242
The dispersal of insects to Spitsbergen (1925) Charles S. Elton 247
A tenderfoot explorer in New Guinea (1932) Ernst Mayr 256
On the occurrence of Trichocorixa kirkaldy (Corixidae,
Hemiptera- Heteroptera) in salt water and its zoo- geo- graphical
signifi cance (1931) G. Evelyn Hutchinson 268
Ecological compatibility of bird species on islands (1966)
Peter R. Grant 270
Bivalves: spatial and size- frequency distributions of two intertidal species
(1968) Jeremy B. C. Jackson 284
intuition Shahid Naeem 290
The Structure and Habits of Birds (1244–1250)
Frederick II of Hohenstaufen 307
Of the Spider (1800) Antony van Leeuwenhoek 316
Observations Relating to the History of Bees (1758)
Jan Swammerdam 324
History of a mussel bed: Observations on a phase of faunal disequilibrium
(1935) Edouard Fischer- Piette 333
On a provisional hypothesis of saltatory evolution (1877)
William H. Dall 351
On the Natural History of the Aru Islands (1857) Alfred Russel Wallace 353
Evolutionary criteria in Thallophytes: A radical alternative (1968)
Lynn Margulis 365
Observations and Experiments upon the Freshwater Polypus (1742)
Abraham Trembley 371
On the causes of zoning of brown seaweeds on the seashore (1909)
Sarah M. Baker 376
On the causes of zoning of brown seaweeds on the seashore. II. The effect
of periodic exposure on the expulsion of gametes and on the germination
of the oospore (1910) Sarah M. Baker 380
The chalk grasslands of Hampshire- Sussex border: The effects of rabbits
(1925) Alfred G. Tansley and Robert S. Adamson 393
The biosphere and the noösphere (1945) Vladimir J. Vernadsky 401
unification Peter R. Grant 413
The Natural History of Selborne (1813) Gilbert White 421
Maupertuis, Pioneer of Genetics and Evolution (1959) Bentley Glass 424
On the Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects
(1862) Charles Darwin 439
Lepidoptera: Heliconidae (1861) Henry W. Bates 457
Vertebrata: Aves: Drepanidae (1903) Robert C. L. Perkins 473
Geography and evolution in the pocket gopher (1927) Joseph Grinnell 486
Coevolution of mutualism between ants and acacias in Central America
(1966) Daniel H. Janzen 497
List of Contributors 533

Acknowledgments
There was a time, not too long ago, when MHG and PKD (student and
mentor) would spend hours discussing “natural history gems,” lost papers
penned by adventurous souls who spent their lives wandering, observing,
thinking, and writing, only to have their words fi led away out of the reach
of the casual natural history student . . . presumably their intended audi-
ence. It excited us when we came across a prescient paper that was clearly
in line with much of the current ecological thinking of our day, but was
overlooked because it was not written in English; had no statistics; ap-
peared in a memoir, symposium proceeding, or bulletin; was found only
through scouring the literature cited sections of other papers (what to
do for papers published before such sections became common!); or was
written by an unknown author. We became convinced that the resurrec-
tion of these papers would be of great value to contemporary ecologists
and evolutionary biologists. Therefore, MHG organized a symposium for
the Western Society of Naturalists (WSN) annual meeting in Monterey,
California, December 1999, when PKD was the WSN president. The
title of the symposium was “Paradigms in Ecology: Past, Present, and Fu-
ture.” The goal was to bring together leaders in ecology and evolutionary
biology to debate the greatest developments in their fi elds and to honor
the contributions of their natural history heroes. The symposium led to
the publication of a special feature on “Paradigms in Ecology” in the
journal Ecology in 2002. The success of that symposium and the genesis of
this project were due mostly to the enthusiasm and curiosity of the WSN
students and their mentors, to the invited speakers (Shahid Naeem, Car-
los Robles, Jeremy Jackson, Peter Grant, Mark Hixon, David Reznick,
and Bob Paine), and to the generous fi nancial support of the Hall Family
Foundation. This project would not have come together without their
contributions.
acknowledgments · ix