. The Canadian field-naturalist. 2004 Brunton: The Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club 15 A National Role ( 1940s) Percy Taverner (1875-1947) didn't think much of Ottawa or Ottawa naturahsts when he arrived in 1911 as the National Museum's first ornithologist (Cranmer- Byng 1996). Shortly after arriving he complained to a Detroit friend, "we have a club here, the Ottawa Nat- uralists, who are much on a par with the Detroit bunch. They have nice picnics every week but they are no place for you and me. The worst of it is that they have all kinds of direction with good men. Fletcher, M
. The Canadian field-naturalist. 2004 Brunton: The Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club 15 A National Role ( 1940s) Percy Taverner (1875-1947) didn't think much of Ottawa or Ottawa naturahsts when he arrived in 1911 as the National Museum's first ornithologist (Cranmer- Byng 1996). Shortly after arriving he complained to a Detroit friend, "we have a club here, the Ottawa Nat- uralists, who are much on a par with the Detroit bunch. They have nice picnics every week but they are no place for you and me. The worst of it is that they have all kinds of direction with good men. Fletcher, Macoun, Gibson and the whole Geological Survey and that of the Experimental Farm, but they haven't evolved a single naturalist in their twenty-five years of existence. The only thing they have got is a publication that has a government grant and appears regularly and in which we can get publication any time. If not for that, the real students here would have let the whole organiza- tion die a natural death long ago". (LAC Taverner Col- lection, 29 April 1912). Tavemer's criticism was brutal and a bit unfair - but not by much. And to both his eternal credit and the benefit of Canadian natural sciences, he set about working with other like-minded rebels to shake the old outfit up and to make it - or at least, its publication - better serve the needs and opportunities of the contem- porary naturalist and public communities. Fletcher, Martin, Henry B. Small, Whyte, and Harrington would have been proud. Like Fletcher before him, Taverner maintained an extensive network of correspondents across Canada and the United States. Although allied on the OFNC Council with the likes of botanist James Macoun, long- time editor of The Ottawa Naturalist, entomologist Arthur Gibson (1875-1959), and herpetologist Clyde Patch (1887-1952), Taverner was inspired by his field- naturalist colleagues across the country to broaden the reach of the Club's publication. Early in 1918 he argued to the Co
Size: 2291px × 1091px
Photo credit: © Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorottawafi, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1919
