How did cranes come to symbolize matrimonial happiness? Why were magpies the only creatures that would not go inside Noah's Ark?
Birds and bird imagery are integral parts of our language and culture. With her remarkable ability to dig up curious and captivating facts, Diana Wells hatches a treat for active birders and armchair enthusiasts alike. Meet the intrepid adventurers and naturalists who risked their lives to describe and name new birds. Learn the mythical stories of the gods and goddess associated with bird names. Explore the avian emblems used by our greatest writers--from Coleridge's albatross in "The Ancient Mariner" to Poe's raven.
A sampling of the bird lore you'll find inside:
Benjamin Franklin didn't want the bald eagle on our National Seal because of its "bad moral character," (it steals from other birds); he lobbied for the turkey instead.
Chaffinches, whose Latin name means "unmarried," are called "bachelor birds" because they congregate in flocks of one gender.
Since mockingbirds mimic speech, some Native American tribes fed mockingbird hearts to their children, believing it helped them learn language.
A group of starlings is called a murmuration because they chatter so when they roost in the thousands.
Organized alphabetically, each of these bird tales is accompanied by a two-color line drawing. Dip into 100 Birds and you'll never look at a sparrow, an ostrich, or a wren in quite the same way. Diana Wells is the author of 100 Birds and How They Got Their Names and 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names, has written for Friends Journal, and is contributing editor of the journal Greenprints. Born in Jerusalem, she has lived in England and Italy and holds an honors degree in history from Oxford University. She now lives with her husband on a farm in Pennsylvania. Albatross
Albatrosses fly as if by magic, rarely flapping their long, narrow wings. At different heights above the ocean wind speeds vary dramatically. Albatrosses glide down swiftly to meet low-speed surface winds, which then thrust them up again, and they repeat this to soar almost indefinitely. To sailors long ago this seemed supernatural, and they thought the birds were incarnations of wandering souls. To kill an albatross, they believed, would bring bad luck to the ship and its crew.
"An albatross around one's neck" has been part of our language ever since Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote of the cursed seaman in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"; but in spite of his vivid description of the great bird circling the ship and perching on the rigging like "a Christian soul," it is unlikely that Coleridge saw a living albatross. The story probably originated from Captain George Shelvocke's account in 1759 in his Voyages, which described an albatross soaring around the ship, following it "as if he had lost himself" and making "our display with sail, reef and rudder" seem "clumsy and inept." His ship, the Speedwell, was battling to round Cape Horn in terrible weather, and one sailor had already been lost overboard in the icy sea. The second in command was Simon Hatley, who in a fit of "melancholy," shot the albatross in September 1719, and was blamed for the ship's continued bad luck. Hatley was taken prisoner by the Spaniards and punished for privateering by being "hanged until he was almost strangled and then cut down," a torture reminiscent of the heavy albatross around the Ancient Mariner's neck. Although sailors were in awe of these birds, they did sometimes kill and eat them, and even made purses out of their webbed feet. The albatross's common name has prosaic roots. It comes from the Arabic al-qudus, "bucket," describing seabirds that hold water in their bills (see Pelican). The Spanish altcatraz (which now means "gannet") may have been changed to "albatross" because the Latin alba means "white," and mature albatrosses of some species are largely white.
Albatrosses are in the ord
