Between Art and Science

ABSTRACT W. H . HUDSON BETWEEN ART AND SCIENCE by Joshua Imhoff William Henry Hudson is known best as the author of romances set in South America, essays praising the English countryside, and as a devoted bird preservationist. Yet few realize that Hudson spent the first ten years of his adulthood as a bird collector and amateur scientist in the wilds of his homeland, Argentina. Using a biographical approach, this thesis focuses on Hudson’s early career as a naturalist. It will examine his role within the scientific community to contextualize the increased professionalization of science during the mid-nineteenth century, concentrating on the tension between observation- based naturalists and society-based professional scientists. W. H. Hudson: Between Art and Science A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts Department of History by Joshua L Imhoff Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2009 Advisor__________________________ Andrew Cayton Reader____________________________ Kimberly Hamlin Reader____________________________ Kevin Armitage Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Preparations 7 Chapter 3: Correspondence 16 Chapter 4: Hudson in London 31 Chapter 5: Conclusion 41 Bibliography 43 ii Chapter 1: Introduction In 1870, the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London published a letter by a young naturalist from Argentina, William Henry Hudson. The letter claimed that Charles Darwin, the most eminent naturalist of the age, misrepresented the habits of an Argentine woodpecker in his work The Origin of Species. Darwin wrote that the woodpecker never visited trees and had adapted to life on the treeless Pampas of Argentina. Hudson had contrary experiences with the bird; he had never observed it nest or forage on the ground, only in trees. Hudson stated either Darwin “had purposely wrested the truth” in order to prove his theory of evolution through natural selection, or, more likely in Hudson's mind, Darwin's misstatements on the woodpecker could “be attributed to carelessness.”1 Darwin rarely responded in print to criticisms of his theory but made an exception for the unknown critic from the Pampas in a letter of his own. He was “loath to think that there are many naturalists who, without any evidence, would accuse a fellow worker of telling a deliberate falsehood to prove his theory.” In the end, Hudson was rewarded with a brief footnote in the revised Origin of Species that noted Hudson’s own observations of the bird’s habit, but maintained that Darwin's statement nevertheless held and that the bird may have different habits in different regions.2 Today this encounter is largely unknown, even to those familiar with the history of nineteenth-century science. W. H. Hudson went on to gain literary recognition as the author of South American romances, most famously the novels The Purple Land (1885) and Green Mansions (1904). Late in his life, he wrote books on his rambles through the English countryside fostering the “back-to-nature” movement of the 1920s and 1930s and was a founding member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Most of his biographies rightly focus on these later achievements, but they ignore or gloss over his work as an amateur field naturalist working with professional scientific societies who felt able to challenge Darwin. This period of his life, roughly from 1866 to 1874, beginning 1 Hudson's original letter read, “...but as his “Researches”, written before the theory of Natural selection was concieved [sic]—abounds in similar misstatements, when treating of this country, it should rather, I think, be Attributed to carelessness.” The published letter was edited and toned down by the Secretary of the Zoological Society to read, “...and abounds in similar misstatements when treating of this country, the error must be attributed to other causes.” 2 Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Including an Autobiographical Chapter (New York: D. Appleton and Co, 1911), 135. 1 when Hudson was 25 and ending at the age of 33, is noteworthy not only because it gives a clearer picture of the author of British Birds. It offers a window into the world of science during a period of change, when natural history was fragmenting and the specific roles of ‘naturalist’ and ‘scientist’ were being defined. This thesis uses Hudson’s life to gain a better understanding of science during the tumultuous nineteenth century. Using Hudson as a guide, it examines the formation of the concepts of the ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ scientist and discusses how Hudson interacted with others within the broader scientific discourse. More importantly, recognizing this division sheds light into how these two groups understood the natural world. Unlike other nature writers in the late nineteenth century, such as the American John Burroughs, Hudson was an early participant in professionalized science. His early letters to the Zoological Society of London were full of romantic depictions of birds and stand in stark contrast to the formulaic descriptions found among his scientific peers. From his mid-teens Hudson desired to put his deep curiosity and admiration of the natural world to practical work by becoming a naturalist. Coming of age in Argentina in the middle of the nineteenth century, however, denied Hudson the formal education that would gain him entry into the elite club of European scientific establishment. He did not attend grammar school or university, had no scientific training, and his knowledge of written English was inhibited by growing up in a Spanish-language society. Nevertheless, he was able to carve out a niche for himself as an expert on the habits of Argentine birds. Yet Hudson desired more; he did not want to be solely an accumulator of tidbits of information to be exported back to London. He wanted to be a full-fledged naturalist who could simultaneously wax poetically on the stunning beauty of birdsong while theorizing on its natural and scientific origin. After working for eight years as a foreign correspondent for the Zoological Society, Hudson left his homeland of Argentina for London in a bid to become a professional scientist. He brought with him a notebook with over twenty year’s worth of his personal observations of nature, hoping to continue writing for the Zoological Society and others. Despite the contacts he had made, notably Phillip Lutely Sclater, the long- standing secretary of the Zoological Society and expert on neotropical ornithology, and 2 his election as a Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society shortly before his emigration, he was largely unsuccessful. That he would be removing himself from the wildlife of Argentina —and thus limiting his own utility—was not considered. In William Henry Hudson's time, the distinction between naturalist and scientist,3 and amateur and professional was not well-defined. Even today, these categories are somewhat indistinct and any definition that seeks to be too exact in its labeling is liable to become useless by its sheer specificity. The first dichotomy, that between naturalist and scientist, divides workers within the field as much by chronology as method. From the eighteenth century to the late nineteenth century, naturalists were generally in the majority, but after the mid-nineteenth century they found their role in the mainstream of science diminishing as the role of scientists increased. They were instrumental in gathering the raw data from the natural world and presenting it to the scientific community and the wider public. The other sort, those who became scientists, developed hypotheses and explanations using what would be standardized into the scientific method. They based their theories on either their own or other's work as a naturalist. Naturalists can be said to be employed in asking the question of what existed, while scientists were more concerned with why. These two groups were not wholly separate, either within scientific organizations or within the same person.4 Hudson belonged to the amateur and the naturalist sphere. Even late in life when his book Argentine Ornithology was accepted as the best work on the subject, he existed outside of the scientific establishment. His great talent was that of an observer; few could match him as a describer of nature. In his thirties, he bet everything on his ability to cross the boundaries between naturalist and scientist. His fellow workers chided him for presuming that he, an uneducated provincial, could have any real knowledge of birds, holding that his only contribution to the scientific enterprise was as a contributor of raw data. Marooned in London without the scientific support he thought he would find, 3 The term 'scientist' was coined by William Whewell in 1833 as a unifying term for all those who practice science. Prior to this, practitioners were known as 'men of science.' Whewell's neologism did not gain wide currency until the late nineteenth century. 4 David E. Allen, The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1976), 176- 178). 3 Hudson turned to literary and artistic devices to express himself. It was only late in life, after he became a successful novelist that he began again to write of birds and nature. In the eighty seven years since his death, a number of biographies of his life and analyses of his work have been published. Hudson was a private person, and in the last years of his life he burned many of his personal letters and destroyed the drafts of his books. He did not wish for any biographies to be written, preferring instead to let his work stand on its own. Two years after Hudson's death, Morley Roberts published W. H. Hudson, A Portrait.5 Roberts knew Hudson the longest of anyone, save Hudson's own wife.

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