The Thrill of Discovery

Men whose names are now part of the bird list went along as naturalists, and avidly explored a land where Indian attacks still were not only possible but also imminently probable. A number of army officers, located on isolated posts, turned birders. Lieutenant Couch found Couch's kingbird; Williamson's sapsucker was named for Lieutenant Williamson; Captain McCown found the vermilion flycatcher in Texas in 1850-McCown's Longspur is named for him-and Abert's towhee was named for young Lieutenant Abert of John Fremont's mapping expedition over the Oregon trail. Some of the birdmen of the government surveys were Gambel and John Cassin, J. G. Cooper, S.F. Baird, Robert Ridgway, Kennedy of the 35th parallel survey, Elliott Coues, George B. Grinnell, and others, whose names remain as enduring witness to the birds they found.

Kennedv discovered the Gila woodpecker in the scorching lands along the mad Colorado. J. G. Bell found the white-headed woodpecker near Sutter's Mill in California, where, along the American River, gold was found. Grinnell's water thrush, Gambel's quail, Cooper's hawk, Cassin's finch, Lawrence's goldfinch, Baird's sandpiper, Bell's sparrow memorialize early naturalists. Dr. Coues named Grace's warbler, which flits and sings in the pines above Grand Canyon, for his sister Grace; MacGillivray's warbler was named for William MacGillivray, an associate of Audubon. Those were exciting days for the birdmen as each canyon and each mountain peak offered the chance of a bird unknown to science.

The years passed. Highways were built into the West. The railroads found a foothold around mesa and through mountain range, all the way to the Pacific. One by one the birds of America were discovered and formulated into the American Onthological Union's checklist, which, year by year, had to be revised, by its capable chairmen and board because of additional discoveries and new knowledge of range of species.

Even though the chance of finding a new bird is now admittedly remote the thrill of discovery remains constantly with us. Each spring eager birders, armed with binoculars and bird guides, go afield. They find new songs and pursue birds that, to them, are excitingly new. Inquiring Mark Catesby and earnest John Audubon may have known the incomparable sensation of actual discovery, but this sensation is not dead. It lives on in each birder and in each new bird seen. Back of them, benevolently stand the birdmen whose names and whose efforts in a once dangerous land comprise the American bird list today. In simple, uncommunicative names lie high drama, personal accomplishment, the love of birds, and vivid chapters in the story of America.