House Oversight — Estate records
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021094
globeandmail.com: Nature memoir is anything but a snooze
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globeandmail.com: Nature memoir is anything but a snooze file://localhost/Users/Lborth/Heinrich%20Book%20Review.html MEMOIR Nature memoir is anything but a snooze LINDSAY BORTHWICK JUNE 2, 2007 THE SNORING BIRD My Family's Journey Through A Century of Biology By Bernd Heinrich Ecco, 461 pages, $37.95 Print Edition - Section Front Enlarge Image More Arts Stories Crystal scatters no light Fiction-writing and other deceits 'I wanted danger and risk and colour' Al Gore gets angry - furious, in fact Direct, disturbing - and unapologetic Go to the Arts section Deep in the vaults of the American Museum of Natural History lies a bird with a reddish beak: skin number 6999 of the Heinrich Expedition 1931. In life, it was flightless, secretive and rare, living in the dense jungle thicket of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Its call was sonorous but strange - a kind of low rumble or hum, like a deep snore - the signature of Aramidopsis plateni, the Snoring Rail. The bird's hunter, 36-year-old Gerd Heinrich, had been searching Sulawesi for nearly two years, bagging insects, mammals and other birds, but holding out for the Snoring Rail. Its capture established his reputation as a collector, earned him his nickname, die Ralle, and would come to symbolize a life dedicated to discovery. It would also capture the imagination of his son Bernd, a distinguished biologist at the University of Vermont and best-selling author (Mind of a Raven, Bumblebee Economics). In The Snoring Bird, Bernd Heinrich leads us through his family's extraordinary history, which begins in Europe, ends in America and is shaped at every turn by the rise of the science of biology. With his usual warmth, grace and insight, Heinrich has created an unconventional memoir - equal parts father and son - that explores two radically different, often conflicting approaches to understanding the natural world. The journey begins at Heinrich's childhood home in rural Maine when, years after Gerd's death, he comes across a […]