Darwin as Ornithological Biographer

Darwin’s bird writings, despite containing a large number of references to Audubon’s, are an entirely different animal from that latter author’s. If, when we open up the Ornithological Biography, we encounter a long list of species, our first impression of Darwin’s bird writings is a long list characteristics and behaviors, seemingly arbitrarily divided into three chapters. While Audubon is telling stories about specific species and, within that, individual birds, with a personal spin, Darwin’s protagonists are not the birds themselves but rather their evolved characteristics. The time frame is enlarged, and the search for a cause drives the plot. Human characters (data sources) proliferate until they are almost as numerous as the birds, while the birds function as examples—supporting details but not the main concern. Similar to the Ornithological Biography, I found myself inclined to read by picking whatever story appealed to me at the moment—reading straight through didn’t seem like the obvious strategy.

I’m a bit surprised to say that, in some ways at least, Darwin’s bird stories made for a more exciting read. In our class discussions of Audubon, we tended to focus quite a bit on the more straightforwardly story-like sections in which Audubon frequently figures as a character, trekking out into the swamps, locking captured puffins into his ship cabin, spending an unhealthy amount of time in a cave inhabited by pee-wee flycatchers, etc. Birds emerge as individuals at the same time that they serve as representatives of their species. Death is momentous enough to deserve description, in many cases. What was less compelling (for me at less) were the descriptions of plumage, bird cries, and flight patterns, which to me read like self-contained data sets: the goal was to provide accurate information. (It’s possible that I’m exaggerating the flatness of these Audubon sections in order to make my point.) Particularly where size and color were concerned, the engravings were the more satisfying source of information.

Darwin, on the other hand, manages to generate suspense around questions of plumage and molting patterns. Returning to the idea of the naturalist detective, Darwin presents us with a kind of whodunit story, reshuffling, like a deck of cards, the findings of every reputable ornithologist of the time in order to reveal larger patterns. The colorful plumage of male birds becomes an occasion for inquiring into animal aesthetics. In what seems to me a typically Darwinian attack on a generalized skeptic, Darwin writes: “He who thinks that he can safely gauge the discrimination and taste of the lower animals may deny that the female Argus pheasant can appreciate such refined beauty; but he will then be compelled to admit that the extraordinary attitudes assumed by the male during the act of courtship, by which the wonderful beauty of his plumage is fully displayed, are purposeless; and this is a conclusion which I for one will never admit” (449-450). True, this passage on an “almost human degree of taste” is a mini-narrative unto itself, focused on the actions of a single species, but it also a climactic moment in the narrative of the male bird’s plumage, in which the elaborate display-behavior of the male prompt a human response—appreciation of aesthetic details—which necessitates acknowledgement of a parallel appreciation by the female bird and, abracadabra, the solution to the puzzle. This is also another delightful case in which Darwin sets up his imaginary detractor’s responses to provide the evidence which proves his point. A “purposeless” trait would be anathema to Darwin’s entire method—already widely accepted at this point, I understand—though a creationist might also have difficulty (with a different reasoning process) subscribing to this kind of explanation.

By the way, there are several other places in the text where excessive behavior on the part of animals leads to conclusions which link bird-consciousness to human-consciousness, either directly or indirectly. One that I found particularly interesting was the explanation of extended singing. In the course of explaining this, Darwin writes that “nothing is more common than for animals to take pleasure in practicing whatever instinct they follow at other times for some real good” (419). This seems to suggest the practice of play (leisure activity as play) as an adaptive trait—a fascinating idea that I think is also a hot topic in child psychology right now, and probably something that Darwin brings up in other passages.