In the days when colour printing was extremely expensive, the Avicultural Society had special appeals for funds to support the appearance in Avicultural Magazine of the occasional colour plate. A well-known bird artist was then commissioned. Although the whole run of the Society’s magazines can be found online, the plates rarely see the light of day. Therefore I decided to show one, now and again, on this site. This is the 19th in the series.
– – – – – – – – – –
The artist of this plate and author of the accompanying article was Karl Plath (1886-1970). Plath had trained and exhibited as an artist in Chicago before being asked to become Curator of Birds at what is now called Brookfield Zoo in 1935; he retired in 1961. He also had a large private collection of birds.
Plath describes how three Waved or Galapagos Albatrosses (Phoebastria irrorata) were kept at Brookfield Zoo ‘some years ago’. One died after seven months, another after ten. But one lived for 4 years and six months—not long in albatross terms but considered a success at the time. Unable to take off in the large flight cage (30 x 12 metres and 7 metres high) the bird, thought to be a male, walked around swinging its head from side to side.
Plath does not provide a date but I have found a press photograph for sale online which shows two of the birds and is dated 25 July 1935, i.e. shortly after Plath joined the zoo. Who collected the birds—and why?
This date of 1935 means there is more to this article than a simple description of events because the way in which the bird was fed at the time is of interest to those of us who have been involved in the physiology of marine birds and the history of a key discovery in this field in the 1950s. I will expand on this thread in a future article.
Avicultural Magazine 75, 1969
No comments:
Post a Comment