[lit-ideas] Re: Will they darken the skies once more?
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 04:03:39 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 4/14/2013 5:15:22 A.M. UTC-02,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Might it now, as we approach the centenary of Popper's seminal deployment
of the white and black swan (2034), be the turn of the humble passenger
pigeon?
I'm not sure 'humble' is the word critics to Mr. Novak -- he of
de-exctincting the passenger pigeon -- and his project would agree with the
word
'humble' as applied to the thing.
From C. Bruce's link:
"The story of Ectopistes migratorius is a striking example of human
hubris."
-- where I'd rather use the spelling "hybris".
"When the Europeans arrived, the passenger pigeon was probably the most
common bird on the American continent."
"The birds travelled in giant flocks, sometimes several hundred kilometers
long."
""The air was literally filled with pigeons," naturalist John Audubon wrote
in 1831, after observing the spectacle."
Note the disimplicature of Audubon (he of French-West Indian extraction):
"The air was METAPHORICALLY filled with pigeons".
(_My_ implicature: "what use can 'literally' have there?")
"The light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse."
"During their long migrations, the pigeons devastated entire forests."
Yet McEvoy calls it a 'humble' creature.
"They descended upon their breeding grounds in eastern North America by the
millions."
"There are historical accounts, for example, of a breeding ground in
Wisconsin the size of Tokyo, where an estimated 136 million passenger pigeons
came to breed."
""The noise was literally deafening", Audubon remarked in his "Diary"".
Again, does this mean to disimplicate that the sound was never
METAPHORICALLY deafening?
"Living in a flock guaranteed the pigeons safety from predators."
Yet McEvoy calls them 'humble'.
"But the behaviour also sealed their fate."
"When hunters discovered passenger pigeons as game birds, they were able to
kill them with brutal efficiency, either by catching them in nets or
shooting them with birdshot."
"Humans also placed pots of burning sulfur under trees until the birds,
anesthetized by the vapors, dropped to the ground like overripe fruit."
""It was fun to do that," Jack Wharton, a descendant of one of the original
hunters, remarked in an interview with the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.
"In some breeding areas, hunters slaughtered up to 50,000 passenger pigeons
a day."
"The birds were shipped by the ton in freight cars and sold to be grilled
at a few cents a dozen."
---
Ectopistes migratorius
(Linnaeus, 1766)
"It occurred to me," Linnaeus observed in August 4, 1766, "that the bird
could aptly be called "Ectopistes migratorius". It was indeed my wife who
suggetsed, "Ectopistes", Latin for "moving about or wandering" -- in fact she
would funnily use the word to describe my own behaviour in the house -- and
"migratorius", as used by Cicero, means of course "migrating."
Note that 'ectopistes migratorius' is NOT redundant. As Linnaeus goes on to
observe: "Not all the moves about or wonders _migrates_; ceteris paribus,
even if _all_ that migrates must as per necessity move about -- or wander."
The phrase, "Ectopistes migratorius" "is to be preferred," Linnaeus says,
"to "passenger pigeon", which we dub _vulgar_."
"My scientific name for, if you excuse me the vulgarism, the passenger
pigeon, carries wit it the connotation [or implicature if you must -- Speranza]
of a bird that not only migrates in the spring and fall, but one that also
moves about from season to season to select the most favourable
environment for nesting and feeding" if not devastate forrests and stuff.
Cheers,
Speranza
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