The Birds of Linnaeus

It is no more than proper that a warbler, a thrush, a plover, a phalarope, a snipe, a tern, and a petrel all should bear the name of Swedish ornithologist Linnaeus. Still others are named for his contemporaries-for Audubon, who brought many other birds to light; for William Swainson, and for Dr. Bachman of Charleston; for the brother of Napoleon, birdman Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte, for whom the Bonaparte's gull is named. Birds of the East were fairly well known when, in the first half of the past century, the wilderness of the West beckoned to the birdmen.

When the Louisiana territory west of the Mississippi became part of the United States in 1803, both the government and the bird explorers wanted to know what was out there in the land Napoleon had sold them for $15,000,000. Some folks, however, complained of waste when $2,500 was allotted to outfit and sustain the two-year expedition led by Lewis and Clark into the unknown wilderness of the Northwest Territory. This was the first of the western expeditions that rapidly brought new birds to the list, for when Lewis and Clark followed the wild Missouri up through Indian country to the Rockies, they found new species all along the way.

They found the western meadowlark singing its throaty contralto song from the grasslands of Kansas and Missouri up into the fields of paintbrush and pentstemon in the mountains. They found strange, bold, long-tailed, black and white birds that visited the camp and carried off food from under the men's noses, robbed hunters before their game was skinned, and pecked the sores on horses' backs. These were the first magpies recorded by white men in the Rockies. Lewis and Clark found the new Lewis' woodpecker, and in the shadow of Mount Hood, in the Oregon Country, the bird that came chattering and unafraid into the camp was called Clark's crow, or Clark's nutcracker.

In the slim, dense spires of white spruces, up where the going was hard and the air thin, the Hopi-colors of the western tanager were first seen. Perhaps, between Indian attacks, was found the Franklin's grouse; they saw the first magnificent whistling swans flying on broad wings below the great narrows of the Columbia.

Explorations for birds went hand in hand with exploration of new country. In those days birding was not a gentle pastime. It was intensive, serious, dangerous, grueling, and at the same time it was too fascinating a game to give up for easier pursuits.