Teaching the Article
Exercise 1: Pets or Pests?
In 1846, John James Audubon and John Bachman published the first volume of their Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, a successor to Audubon’s tremendously successful Birds of America. The book featured scientific descriptions of various North American mammals, which were meant to be read alongside colorful, detailed prints produced by Audubon and his sons. The book’s section on the “migratory squirrel,“ today known as the eastern gray squirrel, gives a sense of how Americans saw this species before it became a common feature of the urban environment.
Questions
- What kinds of interactions between squirrels and humans do Audubon and Bachman describe? What are the sources of conflict? In what ways are squirrels useful or pleasing to humans?
- If you had been an American farmer in the mid-nineteenth century, would you have supported or opposed a “war of extermination” against squirrels? If you had lived in a city, would you have wanted a squirrel for a pet?
Sources
- The section on “Habits” in the entry on Sciurus migratoris (Migratory Gray Squirrel/Northern Gray Squirrel) in John James Audubon and John Bachman, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (New York,, 1846), 265–73, available at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/viviparousquadru45audu
Local copy of article (PDF) - Illustration of Sciurus migratorius, Plate XXXV from Viviparous Quadrupeds: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=212764&imageID=400038&word=Audubon%2C%20John%20Woodhouse&s=3¬word=&d=&c=&f=4&k=4&lWord=&lField=&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&total=153&num=20&imgs=20&pNum=&pos=36
Local copy of img (JPG)