The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds
Page 22
One endangered resident is the scrub jay, which is in trouble because it requires large areas of land over which to roam—each jay family needs about twenty acres. They can’t mate within the family (as insects can), so there must be many other families around. Even though they’re long-lived birds, well adjusted to scrub, they have become a very small population. Thousands of other species ride in the media wake of the jays. Just as golden lion tamarins are the cute and cuddly poster animals of the Mata Atlantica rain forest in Brazil, the jays symbolize the plight of scrub habitat. People find them easier to identify with than insects, snakes, or trees. Northern crested blue jays are tough, hoodlum birds with bad tempers; they’re street-corner bullies. But scrub jays are smaller, gentler, more like the bluebird of cartoon and song. The unstated agenda of any “Save the Jays” campaign is to save the habitat of the jays and all their less-photogenic neighbors.
A flock of blue wheels low over the maze of dwarf oaks in which we stand. They look like falling shards of sky. For many years, Archbold researchers have been banding and studying these jay families, so the birds aren’t frightened of us. Dressed in Civil War colors, the scrub jay has a blue helmet and blue wing and tail feathers, but its chest, chin hairs, and eyebrows are gray. Acorns and insects are its favorite fare. Tom pulls a vial from one of his many pockets, removes a moth, and holds it in the air. A jay glides down and lands on his raised arm, hops to his wrist, tightens its grappling-hook feet, and turns an eye to the moth, perhaps smelling it. Then it flies away. We try the experiment again. Pulling a moth carefully from a vial, I hold it aloft. Three jays bicker as they approach. One lands at the base of my thumb, wrapping a claw tightly around it. When it leans over to inspect the moth, its soft belly brushes my skin. The feathers are so delicate they ignite nerve cells in only a tiny patch of skin, and yet my whole body responds to that rare touch. Its body does, too. The jay cocks its head sideways and stares at me, one eye like a rebus. Then it watches the moth as intently as I am watching the jay. Deciding that the moth is inedible, the jay flies off. Tom smiles. There is definitely a powerful drug in that moth. Spiders won’t eat it and birds won’t eat it. A bag of ornate moths will become part of the bio-treasure-chest he sends to Merck for analysis.
Soon the sun burns fiercely off the sand, so we head back to camp for shade and lunch. While the others go to their cottages, I climb the water tower’s spiral staircase. The wind surf grows louder as I climb away from all the cozy details of the human world, up 146 silver-coated steps. At the top, I find a platform swaying gently, red plastic streamers fluttering from a turret, and a wasp whose fiefdom I’ve breached. Below stands the main building with its chamois-colored stucco, red slate roof, and six rooflets running south like cresting waves. The noon sun cuts triangular sails under the eaves, and the long building seems to float on the vast ocean of scrub.
Tom is most likely in his cottage, working on an upcoming lecture. In a few weeks, he will testify before the U.S. Senate, asking it to reauthorize the Endangered Species Act. He has spent his life probing barely visible worlds, but it’s a far cry from explorer to counsel, from rapt devotee to public defender. He plans to recite a long list of medicines derived from plants and animals, and to point out that most species have never been investigated. Although our culture is embarrassed by goods that are “worn out,” there is no such thing as chemical obsolescence. So he’ll caution the senators that even if an insect has been carefully studied for chemical assets and has been found lacking, it shouldn’t be dismissed as of no interest and allowed to become extinct, because it may contain a wealth of chemicals that can be discovered by future techniques. He’ll stress that it’s no use raising insects in captivity for this purpose, because they’ve evolved to produce chemicals in response to trials they encounter in the wild. Therefore an endangered habitat like the Florida scrub must be saved, if only for the sake of the unique insects it supports. He will tell his tales of fireflies, ornate moths, and bombardier beetles—favorite stories that involve familiar, nonthreatening bugs. Since chemical prospecting is so lucrative, the senators stand to profit mightily while looking virtuous. Some will vote green for altruistic reasons, some may have other motives, but all will appear altruistic, and that’s fine with Tom. In politics, as in insect society, virtue is never its own reward.
Two humans stroll languidly toward the dining hall. I think they are male and female, but I can’t see their faces well enough to know if they’re clean-shaven or wearing makeup, how they style their hair, what they carry in their pockets. Astronauts returning from orbit have marveled at how little of human life can be seen from space—not the wars or political boundaries, not the cities or farms, not the subtleties of custom, adolescence, or love. Strolling farther away, the couple seem to shrink as they cross the veranda together. Suddenly, the male raises his chin and grins; his teeth flash in the sunlight. The female crosses her hands high on her chest, stoops briefly from the waist, and twists her face; her teeth flash, too. Then the male bows at an angle, swings his head up, and opens his mouth. I assume that he said something funny, to which she replied with something funny, and that led to this suite of laughing bows. Are they an item? Are they colleagues? Have they spent the morning working or making love? From this height, I can’t begin to understand their complex relationship, any more than humans peering down at insects can know how complicated their lives are. So much slips through the seams of our senses. Involved in a conversation older than words, the two humans enter the building to dine, out of hunger, like any lark or beetle.
Lake Placid lies in the distance, a puddle of mercury. The scrub looks stark, exhausted, and uninhabited: the environmental equivalent of an empty lot. And yet I know that millions of animals are going about their daily chores down there, caught up in acts of murder, marriage, feast, birth. Countless life-and-death dramas are playing themselves out. But much is lost to the naked eye. There are marauding bands of hunters; sculptors of leaf and bark; some of the first papermakers on earth; rustlers and ranchers with their own stockyards; gatherers of fruit and petal; architects working in clay; nurseries for the young; catacombs, lean-tos, and towers; weavers of silk and cotton; builders of cities; practitioners of order; many different tribes and societies. All these can tumble in the throes of a storm, or when giants walk among them. What a shame we seldom behold their wondrous cities. Looking out over the scrub, silently praising their hidden world, I remember with what conviction Walt Whitman once wrote, “The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place.”
BY DIANE ACKERMAN
“Wonderful … Ackerman’s poetic vision allows her to find mystery and meaning in the most personal and idiosyncratic places.”
—Boston Globe
A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SENSES
“Delightful … gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in.”
—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
In the course of this grand tour of the realm of the senses, Diane Ackerman tells us about the evolution of the kiss, the sadistic cuisine of eighteenth-century England, the chemistry of pain, and the melodies of the planet Earth with an evocativeness and charm that make the book itself a marvel of literate sensuality.
Nonfiction/0-679-73566-6
A NATURAL HISTORY OF LOVE
“Diane Ackerman and love were made for each other … The book swoops and swirls.… [It is] fascinating … extravagant … insightful.”
—Boston Globe
From aphrodisiacs in ancient Egypt to Sigmund Freud, from Abelard and Heloise to Blade Runner, poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman delivers an exuberant, scientific, anecdotal tour of the “great intangible”—love in its many forms.
Nonfiction/0-679-76183-7
THE MOON BY WHALE LIGHT
“Passionate.… Ackerman’s effervescent prose … conveys the rapture she feels when engaging with another creature’s being.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
Nonfiction/Nature/0-679-74226-3
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