Henry Davis Minot

This 1880 essay is an early and creative piece of conservationist literature by ornithologist Henry Davis Minot, mostly from the perspective of a black-throated green warbler (with footnotes by Minot as the "translator"). The warbler narrator's diary covers a season of migration, nest-building and brood-rearing, as well as a meeting of the birds (convened by the eagles) on "The Destruction and Extermination of Birds: how caused and how to be prevented."

The diary includes the bird's concerns about various topics still very much on the minds of birders today: habitat destruction, "collecting" and over-hunting of certain species, the dangers of bright lights and tall buildings to migrating birds, the dangers of prowling cats, and more. Minot as translator augments the narrative with a collection of statistics and facts about the number of birds killed each year and calling for protective measures to be taken (many of which have since been implemented).

Minot also slips in a bit of satire directed at the scientific community for their constant bickering over scientific names: "The object of all this ... was that each of us might be known by all men by only one name; but the great difficulty is that these names are quarreled over and changed all the time, not to speak of their not being understood or properly pronounced by half of those who use them. All that I can say is that a Robin is always a Robin, and that if a man doesn't know him as such, then he knows him in a very superficial way. Who really knows a fellow-being, if he has never heard him speak or sing, has never seen him act or move, has never studied his character and habits, but knows only his outward appearance?"… (mer)