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TRANSACTIONS
OF THE
WISCONSIN ACADEMY
OF
SCIENCES, ARTS AND LETTERS
VOL. XXVIII
NATURAE SPECIES RATIOQUE
r 294304
* JON 23 ^
MADISON, WISCONSIN
1933
'
TRANSACTIONS
OF THE
WISCONSIN ACADEMY
OF
SCIENCES, ARTS AND LETTERS
VOL. XXVIII
NATURAE SPECIES RATIOQUE
MADISON, WISCONSIN
OFFICERS OF THE WISCONSIN ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES, ARTS AND LETTERS
President
Charles E. Allen, University of Wisconsin
Vice-Presidents
In Science: Rufus M. Bagg, Lawrence College
In the Arts: Otto L. Kowalke, University of Wisconsin
In Letters: William E. Alderman, Beloit College
Secretary-Treasurer
Lowell E. Noland, University of Wisconsin
Librarian
Walter M. Smith, University of Wisconsin
Curator
Charles E. Brown, State Historical Museum
Council
The president, ex officio
The vice-presidents, ex officio
The secretary-treasurer, ex officio
The librarian, ex officio
E. A. Birge, past president
Charles S. Slichter, past president
John J. Davis, past president
Louis Kahlenberg, past president
L. J. Cole, past president
S. A. Barrett, past president
Committee on Publication
The president, ex officio
The secretary, ex officio
Arthur Beatty, University of Wisconsin
Committee on Library
The librarian, ex officio
Howard Greene, Milwaukee
Mrs. Angie K. Main, Fort Atkinson
Rollin C. Mullenix, Lawrence College
George Van Biesbroeck, Yerkes Observatory
Committee on Membership
The secretary, ex officio
E. F. Bean, State Geological Survey
Ralph N. Buckstaff, Oshkosh
Anselm M. Keefe, St. Norbert College
William N. Steil, Marquette University
Correspondence relating to publication in the Transactions or to other Academy-
business should be directed to the secretary, Lowell E. Noland, Biology Building,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. Publications intended for the Library
of the Academy should be sent directly to the Librarian, Walter M. Smith, Uni¬
versity of Wisconsin Library, Madison, Wis.
^3 d £, 73
i (Jh tk/^7
CONTENTS
Page
The Wintering of the Wisconsin Bob white. (3 text figures.) Paul L.
Errington _ 1
Preliminary List of the Hydracarina of Wisconsin. Part III. (Plates
I to VI.) Ruth Marshall _ _ _ _ _ 37
Revision of the Syrphus Flies of America North of Mexico (Diptera,
Syrphidae, Syrphus s. L). Part I. (Plates VII to IX.) C. L.
Fluke, Jr. _ _ _ 63
Beloit, Wisconsin: a Study in Urban Geography. (Plate X and 1 text
figure.) Lynn Harvey Halverson _ 129
Strike Slip Faulting in the Acadian Appalachians. (4 text figures.)
H. D. Squires _ _ _ _ _ 157
Preliminary Reports on the Flora of Wisconsin. XXI. Geraniales.
(30 text figures.) Norman C. Fassett _ _ _ _ _ _ 171
Preliminary Reports on the Flora of Wisconsin. XXII. Cornaceae —
Dogwood Family. (8 text figures.) A. A. Drescher _ 187
Preliminary Reports on the Flora of Wisconsin. XXIII. Urticaceae.
(12 text figures.) David F. Costello _ _ _ 191
The Quercus ellipsoidalis-Quercus coccinea Complex. (1 text figure.)
S. C. Wadmond _ _ I _ _ 197
The Transparency, the Color and the Specific Conductance of the Lake
Waters of Northeastern Wisconsin. (12 text figures.) C. Juday
and E. A. Birge _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 205
On the Stoppage of Sewer Laterals by Roots of Trees. (2 charts.)
0. L. Kowalke _ _ _ 261
Daily Variations in the Freezing Point of Milk. H. A. Schuette and
E. 0. Heubner _ _ ... _ _ 267
The Osmotic Permeability of Living Plant Membranes. Louis Kahl-
enberg and Ralph N. Traxler _ _ _ 275
The Determination of Calcium in Lake Water and Lake Water Resi¬
dues. V. W. Meloche and T. Setterquist _ . _ 291
Shaftesbury and the Doctrine of Optimism in the Eighteenth Century.
William E. Alderman _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 297
Thomas Paine’s Theories of Rhetoric. Harry Hayden Clark _ 307
The Idea of Progress in Locksley Hall. Robert K. Richardson _ 341
Shakespeare’s Use of English and Foreign Elements in the Setting of
Much Ado About Nothing . Julia Grace Wales _ _ _ , _ 363
Proceedings of the Academy - - - - 399
IV
Contents.
Errata for Vol. 27
By an unfortunate oversight the illustrations in Prof. Eric R. Miller’s
paper on “Cloudiness in Wisconsin”, published in the last issue of these
Transactions, were interchanged. The following corrections should be
made :
Page 61, for “Fig. 2” read “Fig. 5”, and for “March-April” read “Sep-
tember-October”.
Page 63, for “Fig. 3” read “Fig. 6”, and for “May-June” read November-
December”.
Page 64, for “Fig. 4” read “Fig. 2”, and for “July-August” read “March-
April”.
Page 65, for “Fig. 5” read “Fig. 3”, and for “September-October” read
“May-June”.
Page 66, for “Fig. 6” read “Fig. 4”, and for “November-December” read
“July- August”.
THE WINTERING OF THE WISCONSIN BOBWHITE
Paul L. Errington
The results presented in this paper were obtained from three
seasons’ field research (1929 to 1932), the purpose of which
was to ascertain just how bobwhite coveys normally winter.
The work was done in connection with the Wisconsin Quail In¬
vestigation, established at the University by the Sporting Arms
and Ammunition Manufacturer’s Institute and the U. S. Bio¬
logical Survey.
Quail selected for observation were in coveys or groups of
coveys for the most part within 50 miles of Madison, Wiscon¬
sin, in Dane, Sauk, and Columbia counties. While these coun¬
ties perhaps do not constitute a representative portion of the
bobwhite’s northern range, they include almost all of the en¬
vironmental types which might be called representative of
southwestern Wisconsin farming communities, wild lands, and
suburban properties.
The quail were studied from the standpoint of food habits,
cover preferences and requirements, behavior, and mortality.
To insure a minimum of interference with the natural order of
events, the observational coveys were not banded, baited, fed,
assisted, or disturbed in any way except when visited and
flushed or when circumstances necessitated the collection of
specimens. Specimens were usually taken from coveys not un¬
der regular observation but similarly situated to those that
were. Banding and retrapping operations (for the Quail In¬
vestigation and the Zoology Department, cooperatively), con¬
ducted by Mr. H. G. Anderson and others on the University
Marsh Farm area, Madison, Wisconsin, checked the reliability
of the field census methods.
Food habits of the bobwhite were studied mainly through the
“reading of sign” in the snow, by direct observation, and by
crop and gizzard examination of specimens. The crop and
gizzard analyses were run by the U. S. Biological Survey. In
addition, continuous experimenting — concerned chiefly with
values of emergency foods (Errington, 1931b) — was done with
captives to clear up sundry points not fully adapted to study
JUN 2 4 VW
2 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
by field methods. The cover studies were mostly observational,
supplemented by some experimentation, as can be said of the
work on behavior (Errington, 1931c). Figures pertaining to
quail mortality were compiled from successive counts of the
number of birds in each covey under observation in the wild,
and from the reading of “sign” pertaining to mortality causes.
Covey groups were visited about once every week or two
when everything was going well with them, oftener when de¬
velopments demanded more rigid surveillance. Sometimes
coveys were visited every day for the duration of periods of
crisis.
Observational covey groups were chosen from those separat¬
ed from other quail, either by distance or by more or less effec¬
tive natural barriers. It was taken for granted that the more
widely separated were the coveys, the less would be the error
due to birds wandering to and from neighboring coveys. The
heavier the quail population the more difficult it was to obtain
satisfactory censuses. Indeed, some important coveys were
dropped from observation simply because their chaotic censuses
were not to be straightened out. Birds well within the boun¬
daries of an observational area were also chosen for the more
intensive study, to reduce further the possibilities of inter¬
change of birds with unknown outside coveys.
During snow periods the various covey territories could be
rather definitely traced. The cruising radii for coveys living
under good cover and food conditions were short, and the birds
could usually be flushed within a quarter mile of the same place
at each visit. Coveys were wont to develop habits which, if
safe, they clung to indefinitely. Certain strips of fencerow
brush, certain hill slopes, etc., were preferred for resting, cer¬
tain other places for dusting or replenishing gizzard grit.
There were certain bushes under which some birds liked to
scratch for fallen fruits. Others entered corn fields from a
particular end or displayed similar idiosyncrasies. I found that
it did not take long as a rule to learn about where to look for
given coveys, though once I followed the trail of 11 undisturbed
birds 1.2 miles out of their regular territory. They had for
no apparent reason left an ideally balanced environment to
range elsewhere, but they returned later to remain, to the best
of my knowledge, practically stationary all winter.
Errington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite 3
Cruising radii grew longer where the coveys were compelled
to forage widely for food. If the food failure was sudden and
complete, as was often the case where deep snow covered and
kept covered the staple weed seeds on the ground, hungry quail,
driven by desperation, were known to leave their old territories
entirely. If the food failure was gradual, the birds sometimes
left, sometimes remained. Remaining, they merely spent more
time foraging or starved slowly and passively. I have tracked
a starving covey in a circle a mile and three-quarters in cir¬
cumference, the birds roosting in the evening a short distance
from where they had begun their journey in the morning. Un¬
interrupted journeys of a half mile are common for moderately
hungry coveys, usually within their regular territory.
Apart from the “fall shuffle” (Leopold, 1931), which appears
but the abandonment of food-and-cover-impoverished summer
territories and the re-orientation of coveys in more promising
winter quarters, there is likely to be shifting on a considerable
scale as a response to necessity. Shooting, attacks by much-
feared predators such as Cooper’s hawks (Errington, 1931c)
may be responsible for pronounced modifications in covey hab¬
its, but seldom drive the quail out of their territories alto¬
gether; the quail are more likely to station themselves in the
side of the woodlot opposite from that in which they had un¬
pleasant experiences, or in another brush patch, or in some
other place where they feel themselves in less danger. Hunger
is the great force behind winter covey movements. But
although birds finding a new source of food may not return to
their former haunts — as when hard-pressed coveys locate near
grain-rich farm yards — even a superior and available supply of
food, of the whereabouts of which they are aware, is often
insufficient to draw them out of their habitual territory. When
living conditions are tolerable, the quail are prone to stay where
they are.
A covey’s attachment for a territory may perhaps be ex¬
plainable in terms of habit, but I suspect that the proximity of
other coveys in the neighborhood governs cruising radii more
than I am able at present to prove. Quail in sparsely populated
areas seem to exhibit a greater freedom in their peregrinations
than birds of more populous surroundings. Some of this wan¬
dering may be due to necessity on account of the poor quality
of the environment, but this explanation does not fit all cases.
4 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
While there may be only a single covey in a half township of
country as a whole wretched for quail, yet the environment may
be locally excellent where those few birds happen to be.
The bobwhite appears intolerant of its own species past a
certain density level. My observational birds, gregarious
enough to combine as coveys, have often displayed antipathies
toward higher concentrations. Frequently they have gone to
the extreme of exposing themselves to the perils associated
with poorer environmental types to avoid too intimate contact
with better situated adjoining coveys (see group XXXII).
Coveys radiating away from good environment to poor are espe¬
cially subject to winter mortality, but, despite this, are loth
to return to more congested, though safer, habitats. Is this
voluntary (?) — and possibly lethal — exodus from good terri¬
tory to poor the mechanism maintaining the bobwhite’s “satura¬
tion point” for a given area? I have no reason to believe that
antipathies, should they exist, are violent, for coveys are occa¬
sionally seen together in amity ; the tendency is for them to sep¬
arate sooner or later and to drift in different directions.
That the bobwhite’s intolerance of concentrations is not alone
intraspecific is suggested by a few recent observations on the
co-occupancy by quail and ringnecked pheasants of the Univer¬
sity Hill Farm experimental area at Madison. In all three win¬
ters of the investigation, the favorite resort for gallinaceous
game has been a long woodlot of about 5 acres convenient to an
excellent food supply.
The winter of 1929-30, 12 to 18 quail and about a dozen
pheasants frequented the woodlot. In 1930-31 about 25 pheas¬
ants and an average of 25 quail used the woodlot. In 1931-32
the pheasants came in from the environs until about 40 were
concentrated in the woodlot and vicinity ; the quail, after using
the woodlot in late fall, left the pheasants in possession and
established themselves elsewhere on the farm. Food and cover
were so well distributed over the area that the quail had ample
choice as to where they could station themselves.
The evidence is that the bobwhite’s withdrawal from the
woodlot in 1931-32 was not due primarily to antipathy toward
the pheasant as a species. I have from concealment witnessed
small numbers of pheasants feeding in the very midst of quail
coveys with no friction whatever. The antipathy seems to be
Erring ton — Wintering qf Wisconsin Bobwhite
o
toward too many pheasants. As I see it, the situation is
analogous to those in which quail spread out from areas over-
populated with their own species.
Available data prove that much quail behavior appearing
instinctive at first glance has its inception in experience. Indi¬
vidual birds must learn, for example, to open corn husks and
various seed pods. They learn, where often night-flushed, to
roost in the open, not in dense brush upon which they might
injure themselves flying in the dark. The indications are also
that coveys feeding during the winter about farmers’ corn cribs
when natural food becomes difficult to procure, are first led into
the yards each season by old birds which have been there
before.1
The bobwhite covey, which as Stoddard (1931) mentions is
but a unit of convenience and of no fixed number or composi¬
tion, nevertheless has shown with some exceptions a distinct
winter constancy in my Wisconsin observational areas. Cer¬
tain birds may consistently bunch up in the same covey for
resting or roosting ; others combine more or less promiscuously,
within limits. Several hundreds of personal covey counts in the
field, plus Anderson’s banding data, give me the basis for a
statement that a winter covey in lightly to moderately popu¬
lated areas is usually made up of the same individual birds for
weeks at a time.
The degree to which coveys preserve their identity is par¬
tially dependent upon the nearness of other coveys with which
they come in frequent contact. Less interchange is apt to take
place between coveys having cruising radii that overlap only
occasionally than among coveys living under conditions more
conducive to intimacy. Some coveys even under crowded con¬
ditions keep their identity in a remarkable manner. As an
extreme, one covey of 4 was noted to keep strictly to itself for
some weeks, though it shared a territory with another covey of
12. Commonly, small groups like this are soon absorbed by
larger units. Coveys of 6 to 8 are often found separate, how¬
ever, where they have plenty of opportunity to combine with
other birds. One would hardly expect these small coveys of
1 One of my 1930-31 observational coveys at Prairie du Sac was pressed for
food on account of a March snow. Two of the birds went readily into a farm yard
(where quail have fed nearly every year) to feed with the chickens, the balance
of the covey hanging back.
6 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
distinctive sizes and exhibiting distinctive behavior for pro¬
tracted periods to be composed of any save the same birds.
It is a common occurrence, too, for small coveys to unite with
larger ones (such as one of 8 with another of 12 to form a
covey of 20). A recently combined covey is usually weakest
at about its point of junction; the above would probably split
now and then into its component parts (8 + 12), but not in¬
variably (it may split as 7 + 13 or 9 -f 11). Sometimes more
than two coveys combine, as in a fairly well isolated area at
Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, in 1930-31, where coveys of 9, 15,
and 24 coalesced — 2 birds lost, 1 gained — to give at different
times 30 + 17, 29 + 18, 28 + 19, 27 + 20 ; the converse may
be likewise illustrated by another Prairie du Sac area in which
coveys of 15, 16, and 31 split up and recombined as 10 + 12 +
16 + 24 and in other ways. In these latter instances the exact
composition of the coveys could not have been determined ex¬
cept by banding or marking, but the total of associated covey
groups was remote enough from those of bordering areas to
reduce the chance of interchange with outside birds.
Splitting and recombining is almost inevitable when a rem¬
nant of a decimated covey joins with one already becoming top
heavy numerically. If, let us say, a little group of 5 joins a
covey of 30, thereby raising the total to 35 which the quail
seem to sense as a dangerous or unwieldy concentration, the
35 may split into more desirable units of 15 4- 20, 16 + 19, etc.
Coveys of more than 30 birds are rare in my experience, despite
prevalent reports among the populace of coveys mounting in
numbers up to 100 or so. The largest permanent covey of
which I have personal record is 33, but I have encountered ephe¬
meral associations slightly in excess of this figure.
My censuses are made by flush counts, track counts, counts of
running birds, and, under unusually favorable conditions, by
counting fresh impressions of roosting birds in snow or grass.
A flush count is quite reliable for use with small coveys (5 to
10) and with those of moderate size (up to 20) where the quail
fly well spread out and are not continually shifting places. A
covey leaving a patch of thick cover such as a mat of creeping
juniper in a steady succession of singles, twos, and threes can
often be readily counted. Where a large flock bursts into flight
as a compact mass, it is virtually impossible to obtain an
Errington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
7
accurate count, although an investigator, through increasing
familiarity with coveys, learns to estimate size within a bird
or two by general appearance in the air.
Flush counts are of scant utility if the birds have been dis¬
turbed and scattered a short time previous. Premature attempts
to reflush for count a covey previously flushed and marked
down are also unprofitable. Immediate reflushes are invaluable,
however, in detecting weak individuals in the covey, for under-
par birds may have the strength for a vigorous first flight but
little more.
Censuses of an area were planned in such a way that flushed
coveys were encouraged to alight in territory already covered,
so as to obviate the chances of their being counted twice or con¬
fused with other birds. In actuality, things do not work out as
smoothly as planned, but the quail, through the proper ap¬
proach of their favorite rendezvous, may often be guided into
flying about where desired.
Track counts are of the greatest usefulness, especially if
checked by flush counts. Usually they are to be obtained from
snow, but under exceptional circumstances from sand or mud.
On the whole, the efficacy of the method in Wisconsin is condi¬
tioned by the distribution and the state of the snow. It is obvi¬
ous that a crusted or a drifting snow or one bespattered by fall¬
ing icicles and water drops may not be the best for tracking
purposes. The difficulty of obtaining track counts may be fur¬
ther increased by absence of snow at strategic places or by daily
accumulation of tracks in an indecipherable maze.
Erratic behavior of the quail themselves may add to the diffi¬
culties ; not infrequently well-fed coveys lay up without moving
the first day of a fresh snow, or do not venture forth until late.
Deep fluffy snows cause the quail to fly instead of run from one
place to another, or leave a trail that is a bewildering series of
short flights and shorter runs. The tendency of coveys to run
along in single file is also a very common source of trouble.
Broadly speaking, the best track counts can be made at points
intermediate between a covey’s roosting or resting spot and its
feeding grounds. At some point enroute, the covey trail usually
widens out to permit separation and tally of the individual
trails. Where the covey trail is partially massed and partially
open, judicious search sometimes makes possible accurate
counts of a portion of the covey at one place and of the remain-
8 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
der at another. It is imperative to watch the trail carefully, for
a lagging or an impatient bird may take wing and so leave no
tracks over some of the route. Repeated counts along the covey
trail are a necessity to minimize error.
I have found chances best for making good track counts on
the margins of roadsides, on frozen creeks and sloughs, at the
edges of fields, etc., where birds cross smooth stretches of snow
in spreadout formation. Counts on feeding grounds are suitable
if the coveys progress in some particular direction without too
much back tracking or zigzagging.
Running counts may or may not be reliable, according to
whether all the birds pass directly in the investigator’s vision.
I am not overly trustful of the method, for one may not notice
the covey until some birds have disappeared from view. Then
again, two or three more may dash past abreast, run back and
forth, or similarly confuse the count.
The fourth method, i. e., counts of body impressions on roosts,
is least dependable. It should be used sparingly and only under
conditions most adapted to it and where even an undependable
method is better than none at all. It has been most useful to me
in the checking up of coveys of approximately known size when
track counts were impossible and the birds could not be found.
When a covey flushes from a roost after having been partly
snowed over during the night, clear imprints of individual quail
breasts may sometimes be made out. The same may also be true
where quail roost frosty nights in soft, thick grass. The great
drawback to the method, aside from the indistinctness of body
outlines, lies in the possibility of roosting covey groups rear¬
ranging themselves in the night. Relative quantities of drop¬
pings corresponding to imprints may give a clue as to whether
rearrangement has taken place. I have never been able to use
the quantity of droppings on a roost as an index to the number
of birds.
It has been found a good policy to locate the coveys of a
prospective observational area quite early in the fall, in order
that the fullest advantage can be taken of the first snows.
Roosting and resting spots, scattered droppings on feeding
grounds, dust baths, feathers, and quail “talking” may betray
the whereabouts of coveys long before censuses can be made.
Specially trained bird dogs (Wight, 1931) are said to have
Arrington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobivhite 9
much utility in upland game census work, but I cannot speak on
this topic from experience.
It is plain that the more nearly absolute a census, the greater
will be its value in determining whether coveys are suffering
losses. If an isolated covey, regularly visited without discovery
of mortality evidence, shows no numerical fluctuations (when
the birds are assembled ) and finishes the winter with the same
number with which it started, the investigator is entitled to con¬
clude that it came through without loss. If a bird is missing, the
watcher has grounds to suspect that something has happened.
His next move is to search the territory for explanatory “sign.”
In perhaps half of the instances in which birds were known
to drop from observational coveys, I have been able to piece
together fairly good evidence as to the cause of mortality,
though my fortunes in this respect have vacillated from one ex¬
treme to the other. Practically all birds missing from some
coveys have been accounted for, whereas in others the majority
of disappearances could not be solved.
A prompt discovery of a dead bird, before scavengers or
weather have blotted out the “sign,” is a substantial step toward
diagnosis of the mortality cause. Profitable places to inspect
upon disappearances of birds are recent roost sites, fencerows,
the borders of brushy cover, and the likeliest retreats of pre¬
dator species under suspicion. Starving bobwhites found dead
on roosts in cold weather leave a story that can be read, as do
also fresh predator kills. If a predator kill is not distinctive
enough, it may conceivably be checked up by means other than
“sign reading,” especially where remains may be retrieved later,
as from raptor nests or pellets (Errington, 1932). The normal
shedding of feathers on roosts and rests should not be mistaken
for mortality evidence. Flight feathers and small feathers at¬
tached to particles of skin signify much more.
While evidence of mortality usually can be unearthed —
though the “sign” may be so poor as to do nothing but confirm
the loss of a bird — a notable exception must be taken into ac¬
count where human poachers have been active. Often there is
little to point to shooting except the vanishing of birds, or
maybe a cripple or a kill overlooked by the hunters. A few
times I have found just where quail had been shot, but the work
of the human predator is exceedingly hard to trace down. Two
10 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
or three or a half dozen birds are suddenly gone from a covey ;
maybe the covey split and part are living somewhere else;
maybe they aren’t ; months later, perhaps, somebody may talk.
It may assist in illustrating how the technique of winter quail
study works out by submitting as examples some observational
area data condensed from general notes to bare outlines, but
presented in more detail than as reviewed later on in this paper.
Group XIX. Area Two Miles east of Pine Bluff, Wis. Hilly, partly
wooded farming country; cover excellent; food poor; predator population
on the whole light.
Jan. 23, 1930 — Track counts unobtainable but 17 birds were flushed, of
which 2 weak ones (starving) were caught by hand for specimens. An¬
other weak one escaped by hiding. One starved bird dead on last night’s
roost.
Jan. 25, 1930 — The 15 survivors of the above covey were flushed, also 7
within 150 yards of them.
Feb. 3, 1930 — Fresh evidence of only 13 birds (track count), of which
about 6 had ranged a short distance by themselves. There were 5 starved
birds dead on roosts (1 with carcass intact; 4 partly eaten by scavengers).
Remains of another bird scattered by predators or scavengers. This leaves
3 of the last tally of 22 unaccounted for.
Feb. 11, 1930 — Only 11 birds tracked and flushed today and they do not
appear strong. No dead ones found.
Mar. 3, 1930 — Birds gone from area, but it is more likely that they
moved rather than all died. No evidence of recent mortality.
Group II. Wingra Wild Life Refuge, Madison, Wis. Mostly unculti¬
vated with considerable open, natural woods and jungle-like marshy
growths; woods cover poor; marsh cover good; food good; predator popula¬
tion heavy; 3 distinct quail coveys, A, B, and C.
Nov. 24, 1930 — Coveys A, B, and C located through poor tracking snow,
but no counts possible.
Dec. 14, 1930 — Track count of 29 for covey A; flush and track count of
15 for B. No data on covey C.
Dec. 20, 1930 — Flush count of about the same number (29) in A. Flush
and track count of 16 for B. Covey C attended and scattered by a
Cooper’s Hawk which had made one kill today and another yesterday. An
unsatisfactory track count of 17 previous to the raptor attack was ob¬
tained. The birds were also seen but not counted.
Dec. 21, 1930 — Covey C situation kept under observation today by Dr. A.
W. Schorger. Birds in hiding.
Dec. 24, 1930 — Cooper’s hawk had killed a bird out of A, and there are
26 left (tracked and flushed). Others may have been shot as there has
been much illegal hunting oh the refuge the past few days. Very careful
search disclosed no additional loss to C since Dec. 20, and as there are
today 22 birds (good flush count) in the fully assembled covey, this figure
Erring ton — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
11
may be taken as the number surviving the Cooper's hawk. December 20
may then be accepted as the earliest date for a complete census of the
area's quail population. Track and flush count of 16 for B.
Jan. 1, 1931 — Covey C, 20 birds (track count) ; B, 16 (track count). Un¬
satisfactory track count of 23 for A, but all 26 may have been there.
Jan, 6, 1931— Covey B, 16 birds (track and flush count) .
Jan. 7, 1931 — Covey C, 20 birds (track count) ; B, 16 (track count) ; A,
26 (track and flush count).
Jan. 22, 1931 — Covey A, about 26 (flushed) ; B, about 15 (unsatisfac¬
tory track count) . A cripple from C, caught by hand, had a partly healed
shot-shattered humerus. This may hint the fate of the two birds which
disappeared without trace from the covey in late December.
Note: Subsequent evidence divulged that a horned owl had got one
from B about this time.
Feb. 7, 1931— Covey B, 15 (tracked and flushed).
Feb. 8, 1931 — -Covey A, 26 (tracked and flushed).
Feb. 14, 1931- — Covey B, 15 (track count) ; C, at least 19 (track count).
Feb. 26, 1931— Covey B, 15 (flush count).
Mar. 8, 1931— Unsatisfactory track count of 25 for A.
Mar. 14, 1931— Govey C, 19 (good flush count).
Mar. 17, 1931— Covey B, (track count) ; only part of A found.
Mar. 29, 1931 — Covey A, 26; C, 18; and B, 14. All track counts. To¬
day's was the last good census of the season. Covey A lost a bird possibly
from impalement on a sharp twig, so there must have been 27 some time
before. This extra bird might be the one recently missing from C, as the
cruising radii of the two coveys have been overlapping of late. The bird
missing from B was likely taken by a horned owl, as this covey has ranged
all winter in the exact heart of a horned owl's favorite territory. Quail
tracks at almost every visit were found under the very roost trees of the
owl. With such habits it would not be surprising if the covey happened to
lose two of their number in the course of three and a half months.
My field observational methods are not represented as being
beyond criticism. They are weak in that they do not demon¬
strate with unquestionable certainty the identities of covey
groups. This error, however, I think is negligible where sparse
and isolated populations are worked with. Moreover, all major
assumptions made as to covey composition and cruising radii
are substantiated, so far as they have gone, by contemporaneous
banding data. The important advantage claimed for the track-
and-flush-count technique is that it approaches the optimum
combination of accuracy and practicality for purposes of the
winter field work.
Approximately 2650 quail in 155 coveys were located for
study during the three winters of the research. Of these birds
about 1600 were kept under regular observation, roughly: 400
12 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
from October 1929 to March 1930 ; 500 from December 1930 to
March 1931 ; 700 from December 1931 to March 1932. Particu¬
lar attention was paid to the influence of food, cover, and pre¬
dators upon winter mortality. Miscellaneous factors bearing
upon the problem were given the consideration warranted by
their apparent importance.
The first winter was of ordinary southern Wisconsin severity,
with occasional heavy snows and cold snaps ; the second was ex¬
ceptionally mild and open; the third was likewise mild and
open except for a belated period of snow and cold weather in
March. From the biotic standpoint the winters differed con¬
siderably. In 1929-1930 the quail populations were quite low,
as their numbers had been depleted by the hard winter of
1928-1929. Quail food was plentiful but much was rendered un¬
available by snow or eaten by competing forms, such as seed¬
eating boreal birds and the meadow mice which were so abun¬
dant as to constitute nearly a plague. Strong but not excessive
predator populations were noted in many areas. In 1930-31
the quail were conspicuously more numerous than the year be¬
fore. Food resources were excellent. Cooper’s hawks stayed
over, and gray foxes were strongly on the increase. In 1931-32
the quail were said to be the most numerous that they had ever
been within the memory of most of the farmers and sportsmen
with whom I talked. Food resources were intrinsically wretched
— due largely to the summer’s drought — but the openness of the
winter held off the crisis until March. Grey foxes showed a
pronounced ascendency.
With the salient characteristics of each winter in mind, let us
examine the data. The data pertaining to covey groups will be
evaluated as to accuracy: excellent, good, fair, or poor. Covey
group data are evaluated upon the basis of degree of isolation
and the resultant probability of covey gains or losses through
straying birds, the liability to confused censuses attendant upon
extraordinary covey shifting, and the frequency and estimated
adequacy of the visits. Track and flush counts were both made
in a single census, wherever possible. The examples which fol¬
low are not in any way hand-picked ; they deal with most of the
coveys upon which data reliable enough for publication were
secured.
j Erring ton— Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
13
Area A — Wingra Wild Life Refuge, Madison
Most of the studies were conducted on an uncultivated tract of around
200 acres in area. Three environmental types were prominent: (1)
marshy lowlands grown up to willows, alders, dog-woods, sedges, etc.; (2)
unpastured open oak woods, and (3) hazel-brush pasture and fallow re¬
verting to the wild. Adjoining the observational area were a golf course, a
lake, a real estate development, and a number of truck farms.
19 29-19 SO
Group I — Data excellent. Two coveys aggregating 37 birds lived under
what might be compared to nearly primal conditions. That part of the
area frequented by the quail had not been pastured for years, and as a re¬
sult the forest floor was covered by a stand of tick trefoil ( Desmodium
grandiflorum ) , a splendid game food plant but one unable to tolerate graz¬
ing. The birds had no access to cultivated grain and relied almost entirely
upon the trefoil seeds for subsistence. The woods cover was quite inade¬
quate save for some briar patches, and the coveys ordinarily sought refuge
in the marsh.
These coveys lost but one bird from the first of December to the middle
of February, though one could always see fresh mink and weasel sign in
their feeding and roosting territory. Dogs, an alleged grey fox, a horned
owl, and redtailed hawks were seen or reported from time to time hunting
in the area. Abundant buffer species were meadow-mice and cottontail
rabbits. As long as the food held out the quail lived lives of security,
despite cold and predators.
However, in the early spring when the trefoil became scarce, due in part
to the foraging of ring-necked pheasants, the quail of the combined coveys
dropped in numbers from 36 to 23 in a couple of weeks (March 3). As
this date, long after the severest weather was over, pronounced weakness
was detected in the flushed birds. The surviving 23 then left the refuge,
found food and welcome in an adjoining farmyard, and had suffered no
additional loss at the final spring census on March 28th.
1980-31
Group 11 — Data excellent. First complete census of 67 birds (3 coveys
numbering 29, 22, and 16) on December 20. The covey of 29 had grape¬
vine, plum, and hazelbrush covers, and fed to a limited extent about a
farmer’s corn crib. The other two subsisted upon tick trefoil beans in the
oak woods, also upon some squirrel-opened acorns and the seeds of hog
peanut ( Amphicarpa monoica ) and jewelweed (Impatiens biflora).
Minks and weasels were more numerous than in any other locality stud¬
ied in southern Wisconsin; their tracks as well as those of dogs were in¬
variably to be found throughout the area under observation. A great
horned owl headquartered in the heart of the quail territory (and, inci¬
dentally, did something to the weasels) ; redtailed hawks, marsh hawks,
and Cooper’s hawks were occasional visitors; infrequent house cat and
badger sign was noted. The sanctity of the refuge was commonly violated
by human poachers, most of whom centered their attention upon the
abundant rabbits.
14 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
March 29, 1931, the final census showed 58 quail (26 + 18 + 14), a loss
of 9 in 99 days. One was killed by a Cooper’s hawk, one by the homed
owl, another probably by the horned owl, one very likely by impalement in
flight upon a sharp twig (crows had messed up the sign so that absolute
diagnosis could not be made), and one was winged by a pot-hunter. Four
left no discovered trace, but their disappearance is not necessarily to be
attributed wholly to horned owls or Cooper’s hawks — not considering the
quail with the shot-broken wing.
1931-32
Predators resident: a pair of horned owls, a grey fox, a mink, a few
weasels and housecats. Redtails and marsh hawks were seen now and then.
In general, the mustelines were below ordinary numbers for the area,
probably as a joint result of illegal trapping and the horned owl pressure.
Cottontails as usual were very abundant, as were fox squirrels. Hunters
continued to disregard refuge boundaries throughout the rabbit season
(Nov. 1 to Jan. 1) and were not particular as to what they shot. Indeed,
on my first census attempt, Dec. 9, I found where a pheasant had been shot
on the fresh snow and some of the quail coveys so badly scattered that a
count was impossible.
Group III — Data fair. First passable census of 37 (9 + 18 + 10) on
Dec. 9; gain of 3 (9 + 20 + 11) by Jan. 3, probably from a covey known
to be on the edge of the area but not kept under regular observation; about
37 again (8 + 18? + 11) Jan. 27; 37 (8 + 19 + 10) Feb. 3; same
(6 + 20 + 11) Mar. 1. From here on the history of this group is baffling in
the extreme.
On the eve of the cold wave, Mar. 5, the coveys were visited about
4:30 P. M. and found partially scattered. Thirty-three birds (16 +3 + 1+
13) were searched out and flushed, to scatter still more, most of them
alighting in plum thicket and fencerow brush. The snow was drifting a
couple of feet deep in places. The birds were apparently strong, having
been feeding on sweet corn all winter.
This group was not revisited until March 16, when only about 25 living
birds were found, but quail remains were everywhere in the brush. There
were feather piles corresponding to at least 7 dead birds. The evidence did
not indicate death by violence; neither did it indicate death by either cold
or starvation (these birds were all well fed and two had died with crops
full of sweet corn). Did these birds, scattered shortly before dark, become
individually drifted over to smother? It is not known whether the mor¬
tality had occurred all at once or had been dragged out over several days.
The last censuses (Mar. 19 and 22) showed but 17 birds, in the most ex¬
cellent condition.
Group IV — Data good. Good census Jan. 4 of 33 birds (11 + 13 + 9).
These were the birds corresponding in location to those that relied upon
trefoil in 1929-30 and 1930-31. This season, however, the pheasants made
short work of a rather scanty trefoil crop, and the quail soon deserted the
woods in favor of the marsh, except for occasional forays after hog peanut
and squirrel-opened acorns. Smartweed and jewel weed in the marsh
Erring ton — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
15
seemed the staple quail foods for the main part of the winter. By Mar. 5,
the count was 31 (23 + 8) ; on Mar. 11 when the cold had moderated there
were 29 (21 + 8). Mortality traced: one bird retrieved from a horned owl
pellet.
Area B — University Hill Farm, Madison
This was a food and cover experimental area. The studies were re¬
stricted to about a quarter section of land mostly under cultivation or in
pasture, with the exception of three medium-sized woodlots and a couple
of patches of brushy waste ground. In general, the cover was of fairly
good quality and well distributed with respect to food sources.
1929- 30
Group V — Data poor. The quail population on this area vacillated a
great deal from October to March, due to constant ingress and egress of
outside coveys. Only one covey (12 birds on most visits) could be termed
truly resident all winter, but temporary concentrations up to 50 were
noted, undoubtedly attracted from the edges of the area by the excellent
supply of corn, wheat, and sorghum always available. Regardless of dis¬
appointing censuses and the confusing activities of most of the coveys, it
is thought that the mortality was negligible except in one instance. Six
birds of a covey of 7 were flushed one cold morning (18 below zero F.)
from their warm roost on a steaming manure pile ; the seventh, in the fin¬
est of flesh, was picked up frozen to death, the insulating value of its
feathers ruined by moisture. This is the sole record I have of a well-
conditioned bobwhite freezing. The six flushed birds disappeared at this
time from their regular territory, presumably to chill and succumb also.
Important predators commonly on the area included several weasels,
dogs, and housecats, a large mink, and a redtailed hawk. Meadow mice
were very abundant, cottontails fairly so.
1930- 31
Group VI — Data excellent. There were 47 quail in 2 coveys (22 + 25)
on January 6; likewise 47 (19 + 28) on March 17, a perfect survival over
a period of 70 days. The birds chose to feed regularly upon ragweed in
the small grain stubble, but with promptness headed for the corn shocks
(erected as feeding stations) whenever snow accumulated to any appre¬
ciable depth.
Short-eared owls and a redtailed hawk stayed in the midst of the experi¬
mental area all winter, the redtail sometimes perching a hundred yards or
less from the quail. Roughlegged hawks and marsh hawks went through
from time to time. The area was incessantly overrun with dogs, which,
while they did no discernible damage, kept wild life in a state bordering
upon turmoil. Some evidence of badger, housecat, weasel, and barn rat
(in the corn shocks) in early winter. No buffer species were present in
unusual abundance.
16 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
1931-82
Group VII — Data excellent. There was in early December an estimated
population of between 35 and 40 quail in a woodlot on the experimental
area, but a heavy influx of pheasants apparently caused them to leave
their territory and establish themselves elsewhere. The Hill Farm was also
shot over by hunters not especially law-abiding as the discovery (accord¬
ing to Mr. Zerbel, the foreman) of 4 pheasants killed or wounded by them
betrayed; it is very probable that the quail were not spared either.
First satisfactory census Jan. 9, of 26 quail (16+5+5). The larger
covey lived on corn picked out of a huge manure pile ; the two smaller ones
upon pigeon grass seed and locust beans. No change in numbers up to
Jan. 26, but shortly afterwards one of the small coveys left the area. When
the March snow cut off its usual food (locust beans), the resident covey of
5 was forced to corn shocks placed as feeding stations 3 months before, but
the pheasants had exhausted the corn available from the outside of the
bundles. Thus the 5 found themselves in serious straits. On Mar. 10 one
bird was dead on the roost and the remaining 4 were plainly weak. The
cold snap broke, and the snow began to melt just in time to save the
others. The 16 feeding on corn from the manure pile retained their splen¬
did condition. The corn-fed covey was still 16 and the other 4 on the last
census, March 19.
Predators: one and sometimes two redtailed hawks almost always on
the area ; weasel, skunk, dog, and housecat sign common ; mink sign
frequent.
Area C — North of MacFarland
This area was about two square miles of low, flat farming country, in
which the quail seem to be kept down more by pot-shooting rabbit hunters
in the fall than by environmental deficiencies. The cover was of marsh,
fencerow brush, and part-pastured woodlot types, not particularly well dis¬
tributed. Corn shocks were commonly left out, though not always where
they would be of much utility to bobwhites.
1929- 30
Group VIII — Data fair. Thirty-two quail in 3 coveys (5 + 10 + 17) on
Dec. 7; 23 (9 + 14) on Feb. 4. The covey of 5, attempting to live upon a
failing source of ragweed seed, apparently died of hunger (remains of one
bird found). The others sooner or later established themselves in a field
of standing corn and thus averted starvation losses, though 3 were known
to have been killed in a two day snow storm by a wintering marsh hawk.
There was some evidence that the marsh hawk may have gotten 2 or 3
more birds in the spring, but the late censuses were too unreliable to count
for much. Predators in the area besides the marsh hawk included a pair
of long-eared owls, and numerous short-eared owls, redtailed hawks, and
weasels.
1930- 31
Group IX — Data good. Twenty-one quail on Dec. 27; 20 on Feb. 19.
Food was seeds of ragweed and smartweed. The birds almost ignored a
Erring ton — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobivhite
17
field of standing corn, easily available to them. The predator population
was quite low except for redtails, dogs, and cats, with infrequent weasel
and horned owl sign to be seen.
Area D — West of Pine Bluff
Save for a roughly outlined square mile where the studies were carried
on, the general environs were almost quail-less. In this area, which typi¬
fies much of the non-glaciated south-west quarter of the state, a scarcity
of winter food may be considered an ordinary environmental phenomenon.
The cover was of highest quality, i. e., grapevine, haw, and plumbrush and
tangled masses of vegetation, both in woodlots and along fencerows.
1929-30
Group X — Data good. Two neighboring coveys of 18 each (A and B)
living about three-quarters of a mile apart were located in late January.
Their earlier history is unknown. These, to the best of my knowledge, were
the only bobwhites in the area.
The first covey (A) managed to glean enough grain from manure,
hauled into the fields from a barn, to come through. The second (B) at¬
tempted to live on black locust beans and dried wild grapes. The grapes
did not last long, and soon the birds had nothing to eat except, locust. On
a virtually straight — and scanty — locust diet the covey (B) dropped from
18 (January 25) to 11 (February 3), then to 7 (February 12). These 7
birds were so plainly weak that their ultimate demise was considered just
a question of days. The cover available to both coveys was convenient and
of good quality.
On March 3, 23 quail, in the rough proportion of 20 strong to 3 weak,
were counted and flushed at the locusts. It so happened that the first-men¬
tioned covey of 18 (A) disappeared from its former habitat coincident
with the sudden heavy influx of birds into the locust territory. Inasmuch
as no other birds had ever been seen in proximity to the two coveys, the
inference is that the strong birds represented the first covey (A) and that
the weak ones represented the remnant of the locust-eating covey of the
same original number (B). At the last census, March 27, 22 quail, none
of which were weak, still were found in the vicinity of the locusts, all get¬
ting along nicely on foods made available by the melting of the snow.
Snowfalls at inopportune times made it hard to determine the exact fate
of the birds lost from the locust covey. Crow-picked remains of two were
found in roosts, while one wa,s taken by a horned owl. A weasel jumped
on a roosting covey, but apparently succeeded in getting nothing save
feathers. Other predators, the sign and presence of which were noted in
the territory, were grey and red foxes, screech and saw-whet owls, and
red-tailed hawks.
The favorite perching tree of a red-tail was situated in the open and
about 200 yards from the very spot where the good-conditioned covey of
18 had been in the habit of picking grain out of spread manure.
18 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
1930- 31
This winter the mammalian predator population was one of the heaviest
yet noted — weasels, foxes (mostly grey, a few reds), and hunting house-
cats. The foxes were noticeably reduced through hunting and trapping by
February. There was much skunk sign in warm weather. Of birds of
prey, there were three distinct redtails at least partially resident, a pair of
horned owls, which nested, rarely a marsh hawk or a Cooper’s hawk, one
or more barred owls, and an undetermined but fairly large original number
of long-eared owls. Many of the latter were eaten by the horned owls in
the course of the winter. Buffer species were not especially abundant.
Growp XI — Data excellent. Twenty-one birds December 20, 1930; no
loss up to last census, February 8, despite habitual hunting of a horned
owl in their favorite territory. These quail lived upon acorns and hickory
nuts opened by squirrels, supplementing this diet from what ragweed
growth they were able to find. They came through strong for the princi¬
pal reason that the few snows sufficiently heavy to cover the acorns and
weed seeds on the ground did not last long — but there were hungry birds
two or three times! There was an exceedingly short crop of locust beans.
Group XII — Da,ta excellent. Eleven birds Dec. 20; 10 on March 16. The
covey subsisted on ragweed but had easy access to ear corn in the field.
1931- 32
The predator population was quite heavy. A pair of horned owls nested,
and redtailed hawks were commonly seen. Grey foxes were numerous;
housecats and weasels fairly so. A mink came in now and then. There had
been some shooting of quail in this area during November.
Group XIII — Data excellent. Eighteen birds (11 + 7) on Jan. 27 feed¬
ing on squirrel-opened acorns, hazelnuts and other foods they were able to
pick off the bare ground. Mar. 2, after a snowfall, although no losses had
occurred (10 + 8), the birds were weakening from hunger and turning to
rose hips, poison ivy, sumac and bittersweet berries. More snow, and then
the cold. Two birds of the covey of 10 died on their roosts the night of
Mar. 5th. By Mar. 22 this covey had dwindled to 4, the birds continuing
to starve despite the melting of the snow. The covey of 8, forced by des¬
peration into a farmyard, managed to survive with a loss of only 2.
Group XIV — Data good. First census on Jan. 5th gave 45 birds (17 +
10 + 8 + 10) feeding mostly on ragweed. Jan. 27th showed a gain of 3
(17 + 21 + 10), with the food habits of the coveys remaining about the
same except that the covey of 17 was turning to grain-bearing manure and
the 21 to locust beans. Feb. 3rd the count was again 45 (16 + 19 + 10). A
specimen collected from the locust-feeding covey of 19 (the 10 also feeding
on locusts now) was in splendid shape.
By Mar. 2nd there had been a further loss of 3 (14 + 27); Mar. 4th
another was missing (14 + 26), and one bird with a crippled leg was col¬
lected for examination. Mar. 15, after the cold snap had passed, there
were 31 (12 + 19). This later mortality is not due entirely to hunger and
cold, for the coveys on the whole remained in good condition. A horned owl
was known to get four birds.
Errington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
19
Area E— West of Prairie du Sac
An area of about 1V2 square miles on the Honey Creek bottomlands
west of Prairie du Sac was selected for study. The cover as a whole was
adequate, of dogwood and alder type, with much natural debris and brush
from cordwood cutting piled here and there. The scarcity of utilizable
quail food remaining above the snow was probably the greatest factor in
limiting the bobwhite population.
1929-30
Group XV — Data fair. Counts of about 17 and 20 were obtained sep¬
arately on two coveys early in the winter, which censuses were not in¬
dubitably confirmed until Jan. 4th. These coveys were chosen for obser¬
vation because it was apparent from the beginning that they would starve
on the meagre ragweed and smartwood available. On Dec. 24 the tracks
of the larger covey revealed that the birds had travelled that day in an ir¬
regular circle one and three-quarters miles in circumference, bunching up
to roost within 80 yards of their starting place. Along their route they
had pecked at every conceivable object that might yield them nourishment.
Practically all the food they had procured was ragweed seed from a stub¬
ble field, but the ragweed growth was wretched and the virtual end of that
source of supply in sight. Two specimens collected were down to 177 and
135 grams, the latter dangerously light.
February 1, of the two coveys, 12 birds were seen to be taking advantage
of a farmer’s corn crib, while only 4 remained of those trying to live inde¬
pendently. Of the latter 4, a redtail ate 2 in the course of the morning.
The first was picked up while shelling out the sweet clover seed of a road¬
side — and sweet clover seed appears never to be eaten in quantities except
as a last resort, starvation food (Errington, 1931b). The second had made
the stubble field and was wandering amid the barren ragweed stalks when
the redtail arrived. The quail flew only 30 to 35 yards before dropping
exhausted to flutter along in the snow toward a brush pile.
By February 16, no birds were left except the 12 feeding around the
corn crib. These 12 had suffered no loss, nor did they during the rest of
the winter, despite the fact that they were compelled to journey 300 yards
in the open from their brushy cover to the corn crib and likewise compelled
to dodge a yardful of dogs and cats after they got there. But neither the
dogs nor the cat caught any, nor did the red-tail, to the attacks of which
they were exposed as well as the other quail had been. The birds had
alertness, tone, and the ability to fly swiftly and far when they needed to.
They had food.
1930-31
A mink, some weasels, skunks, barred owls, and short-eared owls repre¬
sented the permanent winter predators; red foxes, housecats, horned owls,
redtails, and Cooper’s hawks came in from elsewhere now and then. As a
whole the predator population was diffuse and transient despite the semi¬
wildness of the Bottoms.
20 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
Group XVI — Data questionable because of suspected presence of quail
other than those under observation. Two coveys totalling 23 birds (14 + 9)
on Nov. 25; by Jan. 8 the covey of 14 had been reduced to 10, thus leaving
19 altogether. Feb. 9th there were still 19 birds, though one apparently
had changed coveys. Regarding the 4 presumably missing, circumstantial
evidence was found that one had been caught by a horned owl and that
another had been pot-shot. Food— ragweed and smartweed.
Group XVII — Data excellent. Twenty-five birds Dec. 24; 24 on Jan. 20;
still 24 on Mar. 15. Ragweed, waste rye, and grain from manure com¬
prised the food of this covey.
1931-32
Group XVIII — Data fair. Combined figures from separate covey counts
gave 71 birds (16 + 20 + 35) for early December, with one small covey
located but not censused. A farmer reported the finding of a,n intact bird
dead in a field, likely shot, in view of later evidence. By Jan. 11th a census
of 78 (16+20 + 21 + 14 + 1 + 6) was obtained, probably correct within a
bird or two. A track and flush census of 77 (16 + 21 + 17 + 19 + 4)
birds was made Mar. 3, and one kill by an unknown predator was discov¬
ered. At the last census only 35 birds (13 + 18 + 4) could be located, but
it is certain that the late cold and snow mortality was not nearly as heavy
as this indicates. The 13 were ralher plainly the survivors of the former
16 (remains of a dead one found) ; the 18 occupied a part of the area com¬
monly held by 17; and the 4 were obviously the covey mentioned before.
This leaves two large coveys unaccounted for, which, after suffering a
limited mortality, apparently left the area. Three jay-picked quail skele¬
tons were found on the night roost of a covey of about twenty, and feath¬
ers of another bird were some distance away. The likelihood of these being
weak individuals, killed by the cold snap, is hinted by a (shot?) broken
and healed tarso-meta, tarsus among the remains.
These quail were well fed, at least up to March. They had access to a
small field of standing corn (which was rarely used by more than one
covey at a time), a limited acreage of soybeans (more or less exhausted
toward spring by a flock of about 40 prairie chickens), grain spread in
manure, three stubble fields with fair ragweed growth, and smartweed
seeds and rodent-opened hazelnuts in the bottomlands. The predator pop¬
ulation for the area was quite high. Redtailed hawks were often to be
seen and one had only to enter the creek bottom Woods to flush barred
and sometimes horned owls. Mammalian predators were housecats, grey
foxes, minks, weasels, skunks, and an otter.
Area F— East of Pine Bluff
Area of about a square mile in partially wooded dairy community in
which not all woodlots were heavily grazed. The cover can be adjudged
good, being distributed generally on hillsides as briar patches, oak suckers,
and slash.
Errington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
21
1929- 30
Group XIX — Data fair. Two neighboring coveys (25 in all) were first
noted, Jan. 23, feeding in a clean-picked field of standing corn. Some of
the birds, presumably fortunate enough to find missed nubbins with some
regularity, retained sufficient vigor to make strong sustained flights. Oth¬
ers did not fare so well.
Weak birds were to be seen, two of which were caught by hand for
specimens. From Jan. 23 to February 3, 7 quail were found dead on their
roosts, which quail were in poor flesh, their crops and gizzards containing
little of nutritive value. On February 12 only 11 birds could be counted,
but this figure perhaps does not show the exact mortality. There was a
possibility here that some of the missing birds might have joined one of
the outside coveys not kept under close observation. Considerable drifting
of coveys was noted about this time, which may be ascribed to the wide¬
spread increasing scarcity of natural food (ragweed seed). At any rate,
whatever the likelihood of inaccuracies, 7 underweight birds dead on sep¬
arate roosts and 2 more captured in a semi-helpless condition by hand,
gives one something of a mortality index.
Important predators were a redtail, a mink, weasels, gray foxes, and
housecats.
1930- 31
Predators were gray and red foxes (much persecuted by hunters),
weasels, a mink, a huge feral house cat, a horned owl, a redtail, and per¬
haps a Cooper’s hawk (latter not seen — sign only).
Group XX — Data fair. Thirteen birds December 20; same on January
22; 11 on February 12. Two missing in 54 days, one of which was almost
certainly killed by the horned owl. This covey lived on ragweed.
Group XXI — Data fair. About 25 birds (exact census not obtained) on
December 20; 23 on March 16. Of the 2 (?) missing, one was apparently
picked up by the horned owl. The covey was usually to be found in a field
of standing corn, exhibiting, however, a preference for ragweed.
1931- 32
Predator sign most evident was that of mink, grey foxes, weasels, and
housecats. A redtail was usually to be seen, and marsh hawks passed
through occasionally.
Group XXII — Data fair. Fifty-four birds (17 + 12 + 5 + 20) on Jan.
4, of which the first three coveys were feeding in two fields of unpicked
corn and the fourth mainly upon ragweed and buckwheat. One month later
only 45 (17 + 15 + 13) were to be found. The covey of 20 in particular
seemed to have suffered heavy mortality, being reduced to 13, one of which
was a cripple. The latter, collected, proved to have a wing possibly broken
by a shot; this provides one explanation as to how 7 birds could suddenly
disappear from a covey without leaving conspicuous evidence. The coveys
(17 + 15 + 12) lost 2 birds (16 + 14 + 12) by Mar. 4, a,t which time
they were all feeding upon corn. Three more birds were lost (22 + 17)
up to Mar. 22, during the severe spring cold and snow. There was reason
to believe one of the missing quail to be in poor shape from injuries.
22 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
Area G — East of Prairie du Sac
This tract might be described as ordinary south central Wisconsin farm¬
ing country. The Wisconsin River and timbered ranges of hills enclosed an
area of about 5 square miles. The river and hills served more or less effi¬
ciently as barriers to prevent resident coveys from mingling with those
outside. In 1929-30 the bulk of the work was done in the central 3 square
miles of the area, of which the quail actually occupied about 5 quarter sec¬
tions; in 1930-31 and 1931-32 the entire area was covered. With regard
to the area as a whole, cover was deficient, good in places. Some woodlots,
badly overgrazed, were of value to the quail only on account of random
patches of creeping juniper or a few brushpiles. Cover along fencerows
was of great utility.
1929- 30
The winter predators regularly active in the central area, as nearly as
could be determined, were one or two horned owls, at least one barred owl,
several screech owls, 3 redtails, and a rather sparse population of grey
foxes and weasels. Dogs and cats occasionally left farm yards to hunt in
the woods and fields. Buffer species were not especially abundant except
for the meadowmice, the latter of which enjoyed the protection of 6 to 18
inches of snow during part of the winter.
Group XXIII — Data excellent. Seven coveys totalling 106 birds
(22 + 8 + 26 + 14 + 17 + 11 + 8) occupied the area at the beginning
of the winter (about Dec. 1) ; 101 (22 + 8 + 24 + 15 + 10 + 22) had
come through up to about Feb. 15. One of the missing birds was picked
up by a horned owl. Of the 7 coveys, one wintered on ragweed seed and
shocked corn; one on ragweed and cribbed corn; three on ragweed, soy¬
beans and cribbed corn; and the seventh (a small one of 8) lost its identity
as a covey by joining up with the others.
The splendid survival of these coveys, all of which had ample food, is a
significant contrast to the mortality suffered by less favorably situated
coveys contemporaneously studied. Like the 12 birds of the Honey Creek
Bottoms (XV) which escaped in an intact group the complete disaster that
overtook two-thirds of their original number, the wintering of 101 out of
106 Prairie du Sac birds illustrates the role of food in maintaining the fit¬
ness requisite for survival. Theirs was the vitality to stand cold, to take
punishment. Theirs was the elusive quickness and the stamina that en¬
abled them to move when and where they had to.
1930- 31
Resident in the central 3 square miles of the quail country were 10 gray
foxes (calculated on the basis of track and den studies), about 6 weasels,
some feral house cats. There was a high representation of skunks and
raccoons active on warm nights; once in a while a venturesome red fox
from outside. Avian predators were 2 pairs of redtails, 2 pairs of horned
owls (nesters), a pair of barred owls, screech owls, long and short-eared
owls, Cooper’s hawks, and passing roughlegs. These predators were sub¬
jected to slight molestation by man, and their number appeared to dimin-
Erring ton — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
23
ish little during the observational period except for the small owls preyed
upon by the horned owls, and two foxes (red and gray), a housecat, and
3 or 4 skunks taken by trappers.
Group XXIV — Data excellent. Seventeen birds December 22; same on
March 15. Redtail lookout trees 30 to 150 yards from the favorite range of
the covey. Food — ragweed and waste wheat.
Group XXV — Data excellent. Twenty birds December 22; same on
March 30. Covey observed to be attended and scattered by Cooper’s hawk.
Food — ragweed, smartweed, and ear corn.
Group XXVI — Data excellent. Sixteen birds Dec. 23; 13 on Feb. 28.
One killed by Cooper’s Hawk (?), one collected for specimen, and one
missing. This covey lived upon ragweed, but had to feed much in the open.
Group XXVII — Data good. Forty-eight birds (9 + 15 + 24) on Decem¬
ber 21; 47 (28 + 19) on March 14. One killed by Cooper’s hawk and one
collected in 83 days. Influx of one, and possibly two, from XXVIII. The
three original coveys soon coalesced to form two; the larger (varying be¬
tween 27 and 30) feeding upon sweet corn, ragweed, and smartweed; the
smaller upon ragweed and some sweet clover seed. Sweet clover seed has
been shown experimentally to be of exceedingly poor quality as a food
(Errington, 1931b). The coveys in this group were persistently harried
by Cooper’s hawks, but thoroughly “hawk- wise”; in spite of careful
searches only the one kill was ever found.
Group XXVIII — Data fair. Twenty-three birds December 21; same on
January 25; six missing by February 9, of which one and perhaps two
joined XXVII. One was evidently killed by a Cooper’s hawk, one was pot¬
shot, and two or three were unaccounted for, not improbably pot-shot also.
From February 9 to March 15 this group retained approximate numbers
(no good census after February 9). Birds had access to corn in shock but
elected to feed upon ragweed.
Group XXIX — Data good. Ten birds December 21 to February 9, then
a gain of one bird from somewhere. Covey observed to be attended and
scattered by Cooper’s hawk with no loss. Food— soybeans and ragweed.
Group XXX — Data, good. Twenty-four birds December 22; 20 on Feb¬
ruary 1. Loss of 4 in 41 days of which one was evidently killed by a
horned owl, one by a Cooper’s hawk, and two were unaccounted for. No
additional losses apparent up to March 15, although the concluding cen¬
suses were too inferior to justify definite statements. Food— squirrel-
opened acorns in woods, some ragweed, smartweed, and soybeans.
Group XXXI — Data good. Sixty-two birds (16 + 15 + 31) on December
21; same (10 + 24+16 + 12) on February 1. This shows no loss for 42
days, but it must be said that ephemeral snows and a continual splitting
and recombining and erratic behavior of coveys caused the dropping of
census work too prematurely to ascertain a later mortality. The coveys
were confined to an area of about a quarter section between and adjacent
to a couple of horned owl nests containing hungry owlets. Consequently, 4
of these convenient quail were known to feed young horned owls during the
month of March.
24 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
The quail of this group depended upon ragweed and soybeans, for which
they were compelled to forage much in clean corn stubble. There were no
indications of Cooper’s hawks becoming troublesome, but likely because of
their chance failure to run across the unduly exposed quail rather than
because of any intrinsic security in the latter’s position.
1931-32
The census work in this area for 1931-32 was done by Mr. Albert J.
Gastrow, of Prairie du Sac, a veteran outdoorsman who not only had been
an intimate field associate of Stoddard’s but has been of the greatest per¬
sonal assistance to me in my own studies the two years previously. As my
usual companion on field trips about Prairie du Sac throughout the in¬
vestigation, he, of course, was familiar with my methods long before he
was engaged for the season’s work. His familiarity with the area in which
he was reared and in which he has hunted and trapped all his life was
of incalculable advantage. I am then quite ready to vouch for his work as
being accurate within reasonable expectations. I also spent enough time at
Prairie du Sac the past winter to keep in touch with current developments.
The data from this area are of special interest as the quail population
was seen at the start to be top-heavy for the carrying capacity of the land.
Coveys stationed themselves in territories lacking food, cover, or both, for
no apparent reason other than to relieve the congested condition of better
quarters. These unfavorably situated birds were exactly the ones for
which severe mortality was predicted — and the predictions were amply ful¬
filled (see XXXII and XLII). In general the food supply was short, not¬
ably the ragweed, but the food, whatever there was, remained available
until covered up by the March snow. This statement refers to the birds
living independently; those that fed in farmyards all winter didn’t feel
much of a hunger pinch.
To make the situation of greater significance, in addition to possessing
an over-population of bobwhites faced with a food shortage, the area had
an unusually high representation of predators, particularly grey foxes.
The best calculations gave 21 of the latter for early winter, of which at
least 4 were later killed by hunters. No red foxes were resident but 2 were
noted to have gone through. There were about 10 weasels, one mink, and
a great many skunks, Housecats, too, were numerous and active. Cooper’s
hawks were seen a few times but they didn’t seem to do much to quail.
Marsh hawks were recorded quite often, as were short-eared owls. Raptors
apparently resident were 2 pairs of redtailed hawks, 3 pairs of horned
owls, some barred and screech owls.
Inclusive of 3 coveys (18 + 15 + 19) on the border of the area concern¬
ing which data were not thought to be sufficiently reliable to discuss (on
account of mingling with uncensused outside birds), the best calculations
to be made from early censuses give exactly 400 birds as the area’s bob-
white population for about Dec. 1. Of these, 348 birds were in the regu¬
larly censused coveys. These 348 dropped to 261, a loss of 87 or 25% in
the space of about 4 months.
Errington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
25
Group XXXII — Data excellent after Jan. 10; prior to this date, fair.
This was one of the coveys that seemed to have no place to go. Its move¬
ments were rather satisfactorily traced in gradual stages for nearly a
mile and a half from the place where it was first noticed, Oct. 30, to the
place where it established itself permanently about New Year. The final
territory of the covey was far out in the open, very deficient in cover ex¬
cept for a little brush along a couple of fence rows. Soybeans in corn stub¬
ble constituted a good food resource, doubtless the primary reason for the
the covey’s ^electing such a hazardous location. I cannot explain, however,
why these birds left far better balanced territories that they passed
through, save on the grounds that the others were already quail-occupied.
The best early count was about 26 on Dec. 18. On Jan. 10 the number
was 23; Jan. 16, 22; Feb. 3, 16; Feb. 10, 13; Feb. 25, 8; Mar. 3, 7; Mar. 12,
4; Mar 23, 2. This shrinkage represents mortality, not departure from the
area, as evidence of kills was scattered all over the place. Most of the
depredations were traced definitely to horned owls, though some may have
been due to a Cooper’s hawk seen here or possibly to 3 grey foxes which
ranged the covey’s roosting territory by night. There is evidence that
night flushes (likely by the foxes) were instrumental in exposing the
birds to the horned owls, at least during January. I don’t know if the
owls eventually learned to hunt for the roosting quail or not — probably not.
The story told by the snow and contemporaneous owl pellets was that the
horned owls were sitting on fence posts looking for mice, and incidentally
picked up quail that happened to draw their attention by movements in
the night.
Group XXXIII — Data excellent. Two coveys were feeding about the
corn cribs of two neighboring sets of farm buildings. A count of 18 was
obtained on one covey Dec. 18; one of 14 on the other, Dec. 22. These
numbers held constant despite frequent coalescences until Feb. 10 when
the arrangement was 15 + 17. The last census on Mar 23 gave 9 + 23.
Regardless of fluctuations in numbers of the two coveys it was to be in¬
ferred that the group came through the entire winter without loss, a point
of some significance, for the group headquartered on the same wooded
bluff occupied by the horned owls that wrought such havoc upon Group
XXXII.
Why did the horned owls virtually annihilate group XXXII located a
half mile away, yet do no damage to XXXIII, the birds of which fre¬
quently worked within 100 yards of the owl nest? I have some theories but
I don’t know. The difference in vulnerability may be linked with differ¬
ences in cover, as group XXXIII had access to splendid brush piles (but
night roosts in the open are commonly safer than those in the brush) ; or
the difference may have to do with the absence of disturbing grey foxes so
near the farm buildings (but there were dogs and cats). Anyway the
birds with the correct food and cover balance were the ones that survived.
Group XXXIV — Data fair. Count of 19 on Nov. 1; 14 on Dec. 9 when 5
birds apparently joined XXXV. In January the covey dropped to 11, co¬
incident with a gain of XXXVI. Ten birds Feb. 17; 9 on Feb. 27; still 9 on
26 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Mar. 16. The latter missing birds probably represent horned owl mor¬
tality. Food — soybeans, with some ragweed, smartweed, and lambsquarter.
Group XXXV — Data poor. Uneensused covey of more than a dozen
birds Nov. 10. Twenty birds Dec. 18, a decided gain at about the time that
the neighboring covey XXXIV lost 5. Seventeen on Feb. 9; 16 on Mar. 17.
A horned owl nearby was known to get one and possibly more quail, pre¬
sumably from this covey. Food — ragweed and cribbed corn.
Group XXXVI — Data fair. Twenty birds from Oct. 24 to Dec. 21. By
Jan. 7 the covey had gained 4 birds, apparently some from XXXIV, though
not inconceivably one or two from XXVII. From this date to Feb. 3 the
record is very sketchy. The covey dropped to 18, evidently due to the dep¬
redations of horned owls; one of the missing, however, was killed by
traffic, another flew into a telephone wire to suffer unknown injuries, and
on another occasion somebody was seen to shoot beside the road just where
this covey was. Track and flush counts of 18 were obtained from Feb. 3 to
the last census Mar. 17, though the presence in the territory of a bird with
a broken wing is unexplained. Food — soybeans and seeds of a mallow
( Hibiscus trionum).
Group XXXVII — Data good. About 26 on Dec. 17. On Dec. 21 there was
a strong evidence that poachers had found this covey and had reduced it
to 22, the count obtained Jan. 4. This number held, with minor fluctua¬
tions until Mar. 2, when 21 were counted. There were 19 at the last census
Mar. 15. The latest mortality may have been due to the March cold elim¬
inating a couple of birds weakened from some cause, as appeared true for
other coveys. Food — wild hemp seed ( Cannabis ) and squirrel-opened
acorns in the fall, acorns during early winter, ragweed and smartweed in
mid-winter, corn from farm yards in February and March.
Group XXXVIII — Data good. About 35 birds in 2 coveys (15 + 20)
Nov. 25. The covey of 20 was inclined to break up into 12-8 and 13-7. On
Feb. 4 the count was the same though one had died of steel trap injuries.
The indications were that one bird had joined from XXXIX and another
from XL. By mid-March the count was 30 (11-5-14), the rather sudden
drop of about 5 birds in early March possibly being explainable in terms of
under-par birds caught by the cold, as in the next group. Food — pigeon
grass seed, acorns, ear-corn on the ground.
Group XXXIX — Data excellent. Total of 23 in two coveys (16-7) on
Nov. 3; repeated censuses showed the same number until Jan. 28, when the
count was 21. One of the missing two had been collected by myself; the
other may have joined XXXVIII. By Feb. 3, however, another was gone
and the count remained 20 or 10-10 up to Mar. 10. About this time the
covey, which had kept in good condition on a poor food supply by incessant
foraging, began to feel the pinch. The last census on Mar. 21 gave 19
somewhat weak birds, and one was found starved and frozen.
Group XL — Data fair. Covey of 17 first censused on Jan. 8, though its
presence had been known for some weeks. One bird was caught in a steel
trap Nov. 15. Feb. 4 the count was 16, but one bird was thought to have
joined XXXVIII. By Mar. 4 the covey was down to 14; to 13 by Mar. 18.
Errington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
27
A redtail was much interested in this covey in early March, but no con¬
crete evidence was unearthed that he got any. Birds fed mostly upon rag¬
weed and smartweed, occasionally in a farmyard with XLI.
Group XLI— Data good. Eleven quail (10 young and an adult male) on
Oct. 24 were feeding habitually in a farmyard. Feb. 4, 9 birds; Mar. 4, 8;
Mar. 21, 7. Fate of the 4 missing birds unknown.
Group XLI I— Data good. Uncensused covey of between 20 and 25 on
Nov. 12. Good count of 24 on Jan. 11. The food situation had grown in¬
creasingly critical by February, the quail living mainly upon smartweed,
acorns, and dried insects. The covey too seemed quite inadaptive. On
Feb. 4, 18 were to be counted, and remains of a, dead one were discovered
under a brushpile. Thirteen very weak birds on Mar. 11. Eleven on
Mar. 14, of which the strongest of 3 birds I was able to make fly was col¬
lected (wt. 139 grams).2 Scattered remains of a dead one also found, and
the intact carcass of a bird that had died (wt. 85 grams). The 10 sur¬
vivors had dwindled to 8 (remains of another found) by Mar. 21.
Group XLIII— Data fair. Count of 20 Nov. 7; 25 on Jan. 10. It seems
reasonable that the influx came from XLIV which was reduced by a half
dozen birds some time previously. The covey gradually went down to 21
by Mar. 19. A Cooper’s hawk was working in here and probably got some
of them. The birds were corn fed but they ranged far out in the open.
Group XLIV— Data fair. Good count of 24 Nov. 16; 18 on Jan. 16. In
the fore-part of January the nearest covey (XLIII) gained 5 birds, prob¬
ably those missing from this group. The 18 kept their numbers until
March, despite known visitations to their territory by Cooper’s hawks.
The cover was excellent (dense mats of creeping juniper) but rather far
(200 yards) from the corn shocks in which the quail fed. The birds usu¬
ally flew this distance. Everything went well until the corn shocks were
hauled in and the March snow covered up the feed on the ground. By
Mar. 22 the covey had dropped to 13 and these showed weakness. Twelve
birds April 6.
Group XL V— -Data fair. Between 20 and 25 birds, Nov. 12; 23 from
Jan. 3 to Feb. 18; 21, Mar. 11. Food — popcorn, ragweed, and pigeon grass,
mainly the former.
Group XLVI— Data excellent. Thirty-three birds in two coveys
(21 -f 12) feeding with chickens in a farmyard from middle of December
on. Same number (19 + 14) on last census Mar. 23.
Area H— Wisconsin River Bottoms, North of Mazomanie
This observational area was in the form of a narrow strip of land
(about 400 acres) between the Wisconsin River and the marshy haylands of
the Bottoms. The tract was partially under cultivation, partially grown
to open oak woods. Dense tangles of vegetation occurred here and there,
particularly along dry water courses. Thickets of prickly ash
2 The norma! winter weight of a Wisconsin bobwhite is around 200 grams (see
Errington, 1931b).
28 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
(Xanthoxylum) , plum, willow, and dog-wood and scattered brush piles
furnished good quail cover generally, though not always near the best food
sources.
1931-32
Predators: an ever-present wintering marsh hawk, occasionally a red-
tail and a bald eagle, an unknown representation of horned and barred
owls, numerous housecats, dogs, and skunks.
Group XLVII — Data good. The best censuses I was able to get from
Jan. 7 to 11 totaled 90 birds in six coveys (21 + 13 + 11 + 18 + 20 + 7).
Unsatisfactory counts Feb. 5 indicated a population of between 83 and 87.
Three birds were known to be missing — one collected for specimen, two
killed on fresh snow by unknown raptor, likely by the marsh hawk which
wa,s displaying an interest in some of the covey territories. The specimen
was in excellent condition. Altogether, the coveys were getting along well,
feeding upon climbing buckwheat along the water-courses, ragweed in a
fallow field, and squirrel-opened acorns and hazelnuts in the brush. Up to
the last of February there had been no heavy snows to cut off the food
supply.
However, the March snow brought famine; the famine and the cold
brought death. By Mar. 14 the population for the area had dropped to 22
feeble-flying survivors in three desperate coveys (7 + 7 + 8); by Mar. 20
the 22 were down to 15 (1 + 6 + 8). Fifteen dead birds were located in a
hasty survey of the area. Thirteen of these had died on roosts and rests
(2 carcasses were intact and told unmistakably the story of starvation) ;
the other two (one of which, too weak to fly at all, had fluttered along on
top of the snow for 14 paces in an effort to gain cover) had been caught
by the marsh hawk.
Group XLVIII — Data fair. Covey of 17 Jan. 9; same number Mar. 20.
Food — smartweed and grain about farmyard.
From the data it is to be perceived that quail losses may show
all gradations from slow leaks to comparatively sudden anni¬
hilations. Groups XV and XLVII illustrate how the latter may
come about. Starvation is one type of mortality that sweeps
away populations built up in unusually favorable years past the
true carrying capacity of the land, the “irruptions” of Leopold
(1931) ; as a mechanism it is obvious.
Far from satisfactory evaluation yet is the role of drifting
snow as a mortality factor. The fixed opinion of the public
seems to be that quail are almost wiped out over large areas by
imprisonment under drifts. Doubtless coveys do die under
drifts, though I have never encountered certain evidence of this
personally. Do imprisoned coveys smother or starve? How
hard or how deep must a snow drift be to prevent strong bob-
Errington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
29
RELATION OF FOOD, COLD AND SNOW TO WINTER QUAIL LOSSES
Southern Wisconsin, Winter of 1929-30 _
NOV.
DEC.
JAN.
Fig, 1.
FEB.
MAR.
SO Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
whites from breaking through? What is the role of sleet, apart
from covering up the food supply?
The role of disease and parasites? Stoddard (1931) found
the wild bobwhite a very healthy bird. Green (1929) has re¬
ported a natural case of tularemia for the species. Two of my
specimens (of about 150 collected in the wild) had cecal pouches
that looked tubercular, but the nodules could not be positively
diagnosed. Four more wild birds had Dispharynx but only one
case could have been at all pathological. Four also had varying
numbers of roundworm larvae ( Habronema ?) encysted in the
pectorals. The Heterakis occurring throughout my specimens
and the occasional Capillaria and tapeworms are hardly to be
looked upon as being of unusual import. Indeed, I would judge,
on the basis of what little evidence I have, that the probable role
of parasitic flora and fauna in determining northern bobwhite
populations under present conditions is negligible. Granted that
now and then an individual bird might become run down suffi¬
ciently through an infectious ailment to be eliminated, I see no
reason why we should, at this stage of our knowledge, lay par¬
ticular emphasis on the possibility of epidemics being responsi¬
ble for wholesale quail mortalities.
Shooting may at times bring about decimation of quail pop¬
ulations that could be described as cataclysmic, especially where
massed birds are “pot shot” on the ground (and this is done!),
where scattered birds are flushed singly and systematically for
shooting by means of a dog, and where the environment is so
poor that the quail have difficulty hanging on anyway. Through¬
out most of my observational areas the shooting of quail (illegal
in Wisconsin) seems a lesser mortality factor, though in some
localities (south and east of Madison) farmers complain that
their attempts to encourage quail almost inevitably come to
naught on account of the depredations of hunters.
Known mortality from predators has rarely taken any form
in my observational areas other than a gradual leakage of birds
over a period of months. By far the most exceptional directly
predacious losses recorded for any covey were those outlined in
XXXII, according to which 21 quail out of 23 were lost from
Jan. 10 to Mar. 23, largely through horned owls. Although I
have records of more kills of quail by horned owls than by all
other predators together, such does not necessarily mean that
horned owls get more than all other predators; it so happens
175
170
165
160
155
150
145
140
(35
130
125
120
=fH5
3ll0
>
°IOO
oc 95
5 90
3 85
z 80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Errington — - Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite 81
COMPARISON OF I929’)0 AND 19)0-51 WINTER QUAIL
LOSSES IN IDENTICAL AREAS, SOUTHERN WISCONSIN
32 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
that the food habits of the horned owl are easy to check up on ;
hence the depredations of this species can be expressed numer¬
ically while the toll taken by species difficult to study must re¬
main more conjectural.
Second in recorded number only to the quail kills by horned
owls are those made by Cooper's hawks. The large, soaring red¬
tailed hawk is a prominent feature of the winter landscape but
he gets few quail except birds already doomed from various
causes. Quail so poor in condition that they could be picked up
by this slow, clumsy raptor, built to prey upon rodents, almost
certainly would perish anyhow in the next cold snap. A similar
remark might apply with somewhat less force to the marsh
hawk, for I have known the latter to capture some strong bob-
whites (by surprise) along with the weak. I have few save neg¬
ative data from which to calculate the preying of mammals
such as foxes and cats upon quail.
I am coming more and more to believe that mechanical acci¬
dent is a mortality cause much under-estimated by wild life stu¬
dents, except for traffic accidents the effect of which is prob¬
ably over-estimated. Of 168 quail banded by the University up
to the fall of 1931 (according to Professor Wagner’s files) 8
were reported dead through accident (4 in steel traps, 3
squashed by auto traffic, 1 with disjointed wing caught by cat)
within an average of less than 8 months after banding. I have
notes and reports of quail flying into telephone wires, fences,
buildings, and other objects ; now and then are collected bruised
birds, some with torn ligaments or with toes held on only by
twisted tendons. What is the story told by this multiplicity of
minor injuries — or are they minor? In the aggregate perhaps
they constitute a factor as lethal as any in the life equation of
the quail.
To recapitulate, the most significant point brought out in
the wintering studies was that, in the main, quail having a suffi¬
ciency of good food and fair cover within easy flight distance
came through without serious loss. The distinction should be
made clear that quail winter mortality is not so much a ques¬
tion of freezing as it is one of starvation. Quail freeze even in
fairly mild weather if their vitality is lowered as by hunger, but
they can withstand the severest cold southern Wisconsin is
likely to have if they are strong and well fed.
Erring ton — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
33
RELATION Of POOD, COLD, AND SNOW TO WINTER QUAIL L055E5
Southern Wisconsin .Winter of 1931 - 31
CO
o O
c c
<0
*Heavy snowfall in ihe first port of March serioasiy lessened the availability of food for about two weeks
NOV.
DEC.
JAN.
FEB.
MAR.
Although A coveys (65 birds) wintered without loss, area 'G'was populated past
its normal quail carrying capacity .hence the population was subject to a higher
/eek-by-week mortality rate than those living under conditions not so congested.
isn»
Most of this steady leakage
was traced to horned owls, but
pot-shooting omd accidents had o part
1 I ' ^
Mainly starvation losses suffered by a few
of the more precariously situated coveys. - •
Starving birds of TT
saved by worm weather-
The terrific mortality of H was practically all due to starvation .The One
well-fed covey in the area (I7b>rds) came through intact, whereas the others
lost around 807o of their number over a period of about two weeks.----..
I Starvation and
horned owl loss
to “DV
..Well-fed until March. \
Five birds left area-
NOV.
DEC.
JAN.
FEB.
MAR.
Fig. 3,
34 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and. Letters .
Likewise on a reduced physical reserve the species is unable
to escape enemies as it should when up to par. This does not
ordinarily necessitate campaigning against the usual native
enemies, which I regard in reasonable numbers integral to the
racial welfare of the bobwhite and other wild life. The best
way to protect the bobwhite from predators is to provide cover
in which the birds can seek their own safety and to provide food
which enables them to reach that cover when they have to.
Plump, fit, danger-tempered bob whites should be equal to look¬
ing out for themselves if given an even chance.
Much can be accomplished in quail management merely by
the manipulation of the food factor. Beyond doubt the most
important quail food for winter pinch periods in Wisconsin is
corn. Its importance is such that one can nearly estimate a
given Wisconsin covey’s prospects for wintering on the basis of
whether or not it has unmolested access to corn. Other impor¬
tant foods as ragweed and smartweed seeds, soybeans, small
grains, etc., have been discussed elsewhere (Errington 1931b).
The most effective feeding station yet observed is the corn
shock, in which the corn is always available (unless eaten or
filched by pheasants, rabbits, squirrels, rats, or legions of mice)
when the birds need it, whether they use it at other times or not.
A properly constructed corn shock tied around the top to pre¬
vent collapse and with bundles spread at the bottom to give
roominess inside and to allow the quail free movement in and
out — all directions — is functional for weeks at a stretch,
throughout any sleet and snow-storms within probability.
Shocks so constructed afford emergency refuge as well as food.
The shocks should be erected and placed near quail-frequented
cover in the fall, in order that the birds may become accustomed
to them and begin to learn what ear corn is for, if they don’t
already know. Experiments have demonstrated that quail
without previous experience did not know how to open tight-
husked ears, but learned either from the example of quail that
did know or from increasing familiarity with loose-husked ears
having corn kernels in sight at the tips. This education of birds
with respect to corn husking under experimental conditions,
required in the majority of cases no more than two weeks, or¬
dinarily not that long.
Errington — Wintering of Wisconsin Bobwhite
35
References
Errington, Paul L.
1930. Corn on Cob Saves Wintering Quail. American Game, November-
December, pp. 9-12.
1931a. Second winter. American Game, July-August, pp. 56, 60-61.
1931b. The bobwhite’s winter food. American Game, September-
October, pp. 75-78.
1931c. The bobwhite’s winter cover. American Game, November-
December, pp. 90-93. »
1932. Technique of raptor food habits study. The Condor, Vol. XXXIV,
March-April, pp. 75-86.
Green, R. G.
1929. A natural infection of quail by B. tularense. Proc. Soc. for
Exper. Biol, and Medicine. Paper 4429, Vol. 26, pp. 626-627.
Leopold, Aldo.
1931. A report on a game survey of the north central states. American
Game Association.
Stoddard, H. L.
1931. The bobwhite quail.
Wight, H. M.
1931. Quantitative methods in upland game bird investigation. The
Auk, Vol. XLVIII, No. 4, October.
PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE HYDRACARINA OF
WISCONSIN
Part III
Ruth Marshall
Parts I and II of the Preliminary List of the Hydracarina of
Wisconsin (Marshall, 1931, 1932) recorded thirty-one species
belonging to sixteen genera. The present paper adds twenty-
two species belonging to the two large and closely related
genera, Unionicola and Neumania, of the family Hygrohatidae.
Of these, one species is new. Distribution data are given as far
as known, and some of the outstanding features of each species,
together with one or more drawings. Complete characteriza¬
tions of the species will be found in the titles listed in the
bibliography.
The two genera under consideration have the characters of
the super-family Hygrobatae, as given in Part II. These water
mites are of medium size, usually about one millimeter in
length ; the integument is soft and often brightly colored, with
a tendency to develop chitin in the case of the Neumanias. The
first two pairs of legs are especially stout and they bear dagger¬
like spines. The fourth epimera are large, approximately rect¬
angular in shape and nearly or quite separated from the third
pair. The genital areas are close to the posterior end of the
body and the plates on either side bear numerous acetabula. The
Unionicolas are of special interest since most of the species are
parasitic throughout life in the gills or mantle chambers of the
fresh water clams. The earlier work of the author on the
Neumanias has been revised and corrected.
For most of the material from Green Lake and the lakes of
Vilas County the author is indebted to the Wisconsin Natural
History Survey; the Unionicolas from Waukesha and Jefferson
counties are from the collections of Mr. A. R. Cahn and those
from the Madison lakes were sent to the author by Mr. J. P. E.
Morrison.
88 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Unionicola crassipes (Mull)
PL I, fig. 1-4.
Most of the Unionicolas are parasitic in adult life as well as
in the larval stages; U. crassipes, however, is free and active
and found only rarely in fresh water mussels. Largest speci¬
mens may be one millimeter or more in length. Individuals are
recognized by the two nipple-like lateral protuberances which,
with the genital plates, are found on the extreme end of the
body. The genital acetabula are in four groups of three each;
these are borne on two lunate plates in the male, while in the
female there are four somewhat triangular plates adjacent to
the genital opening. Palpi are large and slim and the fourth
segment bears three long papillae. The legs are very long.
European hydracarinologists have recognized forms of this
species in which the individuals are smaller than normal with
relatively smaller palpi. In the Wisconsin material (all from
lakes) such individuals were common.
This species has been reported from all continents. In North
America it has been found in Alaska, British Columbia and
Ontario ; in Washington, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa,
Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York and Maine. Over three
hundred individuals have been examined from Wisconsin ; they
have been compared with identified specimens kindly supplied
by Dr. Viets and with these they appear to conform. They have
been found in lakes Winnebago, Mason, Wingra and Spooner ; in
ponds and lakes near Portage, Wisconsin Dells, Oxford, Wau¬
paca, Green Bay, Elkhorn, Milton, Delavan, Twin Lakes,
Powers Lake and in seventeen bodies of water in Oneida and
Vilas counties. They have been collected from near the sur¬
face to a depth of over seven meters. At Three Lakes large
numbers were found in beds of fresh water sponge ; Mr. M. C.
Olds has found them in similar places in Michigan, as likewise
they have been reported by European collectors.
Unionicola pectinata (Wol.)
PI. I, fig. 12-14.
This species is rare, free swimming in the adult stage. It
closely resembles U . crassipes in the genital region ; it differs
from it in having stouter palpi, without conspicuous papillae, as
well as in having weaker legs, the first pair of which have un-
Marshall — Hydraoarina of Wisconsin
39
usual pectinate claws. It was described by Wolcott from a few
individuals found in Michigan, not well preserved. In the Wis¬
consin collections but two individuals were found, both females :
one in Lake Bragonia, Vilas County, and one in Lake Como.
The latter had a fourth small acetabulum on each of the two
posterior genital plates.
Unionicola aculeata (Koen.)
PI. I, fig. 5-8.
A species closely resembling U. crassipes, but somewhat
smaller, it is chiefly distinguished by the presence of ten rather
than twelve large acetabula on the genital plates. In the female
each anterior plate on its inner margin is produced into a con¬
spicuous curved process which is tipped with a spine. Piersig
(1901) erected a new variety, U. sayi, for the North American
forms, chiefly on the basis of small differences in the palpi as
shown in Wolcott’s drawings from Michigan collections. The
author believes that this separation is unjustified, since similar
variation is found in European reports of the species. Com¬
parison with an identified female from the collection of the late
Dr. Koenike confirms this belief.
The species is widely distributed over Europe. In the adult
stage it is both free and parasitic in fresh water mussels. In
Wisconsin a few individuals were found with other species in
clams from lakes Jordan, Wild Cat (Vilas Co.) and La Belle
(Waukesha Co.), and free in Green Lake.
Dr. E. C. Faust’s account1 of the species is in error, since his
material was evidently U. abnormipes.
Unionicola figuralis (Koch)
PI. I, fig. 9-11.
This species resembles U. crassipes and like it is usually
found free living in the adult stage. It is distinguished from it
by the absence of the large posterior papillae and by the charac¬
ter of the genital area. The genital plates are placed a little
more ventrally and they bear but ten acetabula. In the female
the inner corners of the plates bear six stout curved bristles ; in
the male the lunate plates are slightly constricted between the
groups of acetabula. The material has been compared with an
1 Additions to our Knowledge of Unionicola aculeata (Koen.). Trans. A. M. S.,
v. 37 : 125, fig. 1-6. 1918.
40 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
identified female from the collection of Dr. Koenike with which
it appears to conform.
The species is widely distributed over Europe and it has been
reported also from east Africa and Chili. This is the first rec¬
ord from North America. Eleven individuals were found in
lakes of Vilas County; one of these, a female, had but one ace¬
tabulum on the anterior genital plate. In an examination of
some fifty clams (unidentified) from Jordan Lake, only five of
which were found infected, seven adults of this species were
found.
Unionicola abnormipes (Wol.)
PI. II, fig. 24-27.
This is a small species, males measuring 0.57 mm., females,
0.70 mm. The body shows brown patches with a pink or yellow
dorsal mark. The distinguishing feature is the unusual devel¬
opment of heavy spines on the fourth and fifth segments of the
last leg of the male. The palpus is slender and ends in two large
curved claws. The genital areas lie close to the posterior end of
the body and bear ten acetabula; in the female there are four
wing-shaped plates, similar to those of V. aculeata.
Individuals have been found parasitic in several species of
clams in New York, Michigan, Illinois and Iowa. In Wisconsin
they have been found in lakes Winnebago, La Belle and the
Madison lakes and in the Oconomowoc River.
Unionicola intermedia var. wolcotti (Piers.)
PI. II, fig. 21-23.
This small mite has been found parasitic in several species of
clams. The body measures 0.50 mm. in the male and 0.75 mm. in
the female. The dorsal surface shows brown patches with a yel¬
low dorsal Y-mark. The legs are long and end in large bifid
claws. The genital areas are a little removed from the posterior
end and resemble those of U. abnormipes, with ten acetabula;
the four plates in the female are somewhat four sided, with the
inner margins produced into outward turned processes bearing
spines. In the male the fourth segment of the last leg is some¬
what curved.
Piersig (1900) considered the North American forms
described by Wolcott a variety of the European species
U. intermedia (Koen.), chiefly on account of differences in the
Marshall — Hydraoarina of Wisconsin
41
palpi, the process on the distal end of the fourth segment being
large, blunt and flat, rather than small and slim. This difference
appears to the author to be constant and important ; in addition,
in the specimens examined, the genital plates of the female are
more angular and the second acetabula of the anterior plates
are uniformly smaller than the others.
The species has been reported from Michigan, Nebraska and
Iowa. In Wisconsin it has been found in collections from Jeffer¬
son and Waukesha counties.
Unionicola serrata (Wol.)
PI. II, fig. 28, 29.
Specimens of this parasite are found only occasionally, some¬
times with other species, in several species of clams. Females
are about one millimeter in length ; males are smaller. The geni¬
tal plates are distinctive. In the male there are two lunate
plates which bear a variable number of small acetabula ; in the
female there are four, with small acetabula, the anterior and
smaller plates each produced medially into a curved spine¬
bearing process. The palpi are large and stout; the fifth seg¬
ment has two spines on the end. The legs are stout ; their spines
are often serrate.
Specimens have been found in New York, Michigan and Iowa.
In Wisconsin they have been found in Green Lake, the Madison
lakes and waters of Waukesha County.
Unionicola ypsilophora (Bonz)
PL II, fig. 15-18.
This species is one of the largest and commonest of the para¬
sites of mussels, especially the Anodontas. The body is elon¬
gated, very dark, with a yellow dorsal T-shaped mark ; females
may attain a length of 1.50 mm. The genital area, close to the
posterior end, is broad and has in both sexes two plates, each of
which bears about twenty acetabula, the plates in the female
produced outward into two wide lips bearing bristles. The
palpi are stout, with three claws on the fifth segment. The legs
end in flat and broadened segments with bifid claws.
Piersig (1900) maintained that the North American forms of
this cosmopolitan species represented a distinct variety, which
he designated as Z7. haldemani, basing this assumption on cer¬
tain small differences in the legs, palpi and genital plates, as
42 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
shown by Wolcott (1899). The author, after examining some
two hundred individuals in the present collection, does not think
that this separation is necessary, as the differences pointed
out are well within the limits of variation in so large a group.
Koenike (1895) reported the species from Canada; he had only
fragments of specimens, but he identified these as U. ypsilo-
phora. The author has also examined this material, as well as a
slide from the collection of Dr. Koenike from Germany and
believes that all of the individuals belong to the same species.
The species has been found in New York, Connecticut, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.
In Wisconsin it has been found in Mirror and Green lakes, in
four lakes of Vilas County and in large numbers in several col¬
lections from Waukesha and Jefferson counties and the Madison
region.
Unionicola arcuata (Wol.)
PI. II, fig. 19, 20; PI. Ill, fig. 83, 34.
A species similar to U . ypsilophora, but not so common, it has
been found parasitic in several species of clams. Individuals
measure a little more than one millimeter. They are distin¬
guished from the related species most readily by the character
of the legs; these are long and slender, especially in the fifth
segment, while the last segment is curved and ends in a rounded
projecting tip and short bifid claws. The posterior epimeral
group is unusually short. The genital plates are broad, much
alike in the two sexes, with a large and variable number of
acetabula, two of which on each plate are larger than the others.
This species has been found in Michigan and Pennsylvania
and in Waukesha County in Wisconsin.
Unionicola fossulata (Koen.)
PI. Ill, fig. 35-38.
A parasite throughout life, this species is common in several
mussels. Individuals measure a little over one millimeter. They
may be recognized by the genital plates which are placed a
little forward of the posterior end and bear on each side five
large acetabula, of which the last two lie side by side; in the
male these are borne on two lunate plates, while in the female
the plate of each side is divided. The legs bear large claws, di-
Marshall — Hydraoarina of Wisconsin
43
vided near the tips, and the last segment in each case is nar¬
rowed at the end. The epimera resemble those of U. stricta.
Dr. Koenike (1895) described the species from Canadian
material; this the author has examined. It has been reported
also from Michigan, Illinois, New York and Iowa. In Wisconsin
it has been found in Green and Trout lakes and in collections
from Oshkosh and Waukesha and Jefferson counties.
Unionicola stricta (Wol.)
PI. Ill, fig. 30-32.
A species closely resembling U. fossulata , and like it a para¬
site in fresh water clams, U . stricta is smaller and rarer, and is
distinguished chiefly by differences in the genital plates. Here
the five acetabula of each side are placed in a curved line on
either side of the cleft. The legs are slender, bear simple claws,
and the distal end of each is somewhat dilated at the end.
Individuals have been found in several species of clams in
Michigan, Illinois and Nebraska. In Wisconsin a few were
found in collections from Waukesha and Jefferson counties.
Neumania semicircular is Mar.
PI. IV, fig. 44-46.
The species is a large one, females attaining a length of
1.40 mm. Plates and legs are blue tinged. The epimera are rel¬
atively small and the groups are well separated; the genital
plates are somewhat removed from these and from the posterior
end of the body and the body papillae near them are not
conspicuous.
The male is now recognized; while the females are common,
the male has been found but rarely. The genital plates bear a
large number of small acetabula as in the female. The epimera
show a fine reticulation and the body surface is covered with
very fine denticles.
Specimens have been found in Iowa and Illinois. In Wiscon¬
sin they have been collected in Mirror, Mendota, Buffalo,
Spooner, Lauderdale, Beulah and Green lakes; in pools near
Fontana and Wisconsin Dells and in four lakes in Vilas County.
In Green and Big lakes they have been found at depths from the
surface to ten meters.
44 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Neumania armata Mar.
PL III, fig. 39, 40.
These mites have heavy plates, blue tinged; males measure
0.90 mm., females 0.95 mm. The fourth epimera are very long
and the inner posterior corner of each is somewhat projecting.
The genital areas are very broad and lie close to the posterior
end of the body. The palpi are moderately large.
They have been found in Iowa and Illinois. In Wisconsin col¬
lections have been made in Mirror, Lauderdale and the Madison
lakes, in two lakes of Vilas County, in pools near Wisconsin
Dells and in Green Lake at depths to 15 meters.
Neumania tenuipalpis Mar.
PI. V, fig. 49, 50.
Males measure 1.00 mm., females 1.30 mm. or more. The
species resembles N. armata but the plates are not so heavy nor
are the genital areas as broad. The palpi are unusually small.
The author's former identification of the female (1926) was in
error; the specimen described is now seen to be N. punctata.
Fig. 49 of this paper shows the true female of this species, with
its close resemblance to the male. The species name muttkowski
introduced by the author (1922) is now invalid; two of the
three males described are found on re-examination to be N. ten¬
uipalpis and the other N . armata.
Specimens have been recorded for Iowa and Louisiana. In
Wisconsin they have been found in Green Lake, the Madison
lakes and lakes in Vilas County and in ponds at Whitewater and
in Adams County.
Neumania extendens Mar.
PL IV, fig. 47, 48.
These are mites of moderate size, males measuring 0.90 mm.,
females about 1.00 mm. The epimera are large and the groups
rather close together. Specimens may be recognized by the
broad genital plates which are close to the posterior end of the
body and in both sexes show a concavity on the anterior lateral
border, while the body papilla of either side near this is small.
Acetabula are small and numerous. The female is now recog¬
nized. It was earlier erroneously described as the female of
N. punctata (Marshall, 1922; fig. 29 is an immature female).
Marshall — Hydracarina of Wisconsin
45
Individuals have been found in Spooner, Green and Trout
lakes, in the Madison lakes and in ponds in Adams County.
Neumania papillator Mar.
PI. V, fig. 53, 54.
This species closely resembles N. extendens but is smaller,
males ^being about 0.60 mm. in length and females 0.78 mm.
The body is semitransparent. The genital areas at the posterior
end of the body have fewer acetabula than in the related species
and the body papilla near the outer border on either side is
very large. The broad genital plates of the male show a con¬
cavity adjacent to the papilla.
The species is probably wide spread, since specimens have
been found as far south as Louisiana. In Wisconsin they have
been found in the Madison and Lauderdale lakes and in Twin,
Storr and Green lakes, in the last to a depth of five meters.
Neumania punctata Mar.
PI. VI, fig. 58, 59.
The great development of the epimera in the male character¬
izes this species, as well as the conspicuous papillae which join
the genital plates on their lateral borders. Males measure 0.75
mm., females 0.90 mm. or more. The color is blue or occasion¬
ally red. The body surface and legs show tiny rounded patches
of chitin. The author’s original drawing of the female (1922,
fig. 29) is now seen to be a young N. extendens; fig. 59 of this
paper corrects this error. The genital plates are somewhat
rounded and lie close to the cleft ; they are heavy, as in the male,
with the adjacent papillae well developed.
In Wisconsin the species has been collected in Green, Dela-
van, Mirror, Beulah, Drake, Monona and Nashota lakes and in
lakes in Vilas and Adams counties.
Neumania fragilis Mar.
PI. V, fig. 51, 52.
First descriptions of this species (1922), made from a study
of prepared slides, contained some inaccuracies; a more com¬
plete and accurate characterization, including the recognition of
the male, is now possible. Living specimens of this small and
delicate mite are recognized by the magenta tinge of the plates
and legs ; there is a red Y-shaped dorsal mark and the eyes are
46 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
large and red. Males measure 0.75 mm. and females 0.8B mm.
The surface is covered with very fine denticles. The epimera
show a fine reticulation; the underlying processes of the an¬
terior groups are large. The genital plates are placed close to
the end of the body; they are broad and in both sexes bear a
small number of large acetabula. A large papilla is found close
to the outer border of each plate. The fourth legs in the male
are one and one half times as long as the body; the fifth seg¬
ments bear a row of pectinate spines and a few swimming hairs.
Specimens have been found in Michigan and Illinois. In Wis¬
consin they have been found in lakes Jordan, Green and
Nashota and in the Madison and Waupaca lakes.
Neumania hickmani nov. spec.
PI. IV, fig. 41-43.
One of the smallest species of the genus, males measure 0.42
mm. and females 0.55 mm. The color is reddish brown ; the sur¬
face is beset with small denticles. The plates occupy a large
part of the ventral side. The first and second pairs of epimera
are very long; the fourth is unusually narrow on the inner pos¬
terior border, with a marked concavity on the posterior side in
the female. The genital areas are close to the posterior end ; they
bear prominent heavy acetabula which are slightly elevated.
Just back of the genital plates are three large body papillae.
The palpi are moderately large. Legs in the male are all longer
than the body; those of the female are relatively shorter and
weaker. In the last pair the fifth segment bears a row of pec¬
tinate spines and a few swimming hairs, while the sixth seg¬
ment has two pectinate spines ; in the third pair of legs the fifth
segment has a few pectinate spines and swimming hairs. There
are heavy spines on all legs.
About fifty individuals, mostly females, were found in three
lakes of Vilas County in collections made by Dr. J. R. Hickman.
One female was found in Green Lake at a depth of ten meters.
Neumania pubescens Mar.
PL VI, fig. 55, 56.
When alive, specimens are transparent with plates and legs
tinged blue, purple or even red; the dorsal side has brown
patches with a central orange dagger-shaped area. Males are
0.675 mm. in length, females 0.80 to 1.00 mm. Hairs on the
Marshall — Hydracarina of Wisconsin
47
genital plates are conspicuously long and abundant. The curved
bar over the genital cleft in the female is very large.
Specimens have been found in Iowa and Indiana. In Wis¬
consin they have been collected in Lake Mills, Powers Lake,
Goose Pond (Adams County) and in Green Lake (depths to
six meters).
Neumania ovata Mar.
PI. VI, fig. 57.
Females only are known; these measure 1.20 mm. The
epimeral groups are widely separated and the underlying proc¬
esses from the first pair are unusually short. The genital plates
are somewhat oval in form and body papillae are only moder¬
ately developed.
A few individuals have been found in Iowa, and in Wiscon¬
sin in Twin Lakes, and the Madison lakes.
Neumania distincta Mar.
PI. VI, fig. 60, 61.
Individuals of this large species are recognized by the un¬
usual form of the genital plates: these are very broad, and in
the male, the plate of each side is partly divided by a median
constriction, while in the female the separation is complete, re¬
sulting in the formation of a smaller detached anterior plate.
A similar condition is found in the South American species
N. curvipes Lund. Dr. Lundblad2 has erected a subgenus,
Tetraneumania , for the two species. N. distincta is also charac¬
terized by the shortness of the underlying processes of the an¬
terior epimeral group. N. okobojica Mar. (1926) is now recog¬
nized as the female of this species, while N. brevibrachiata
Mar. (1922) is found to be a young and poorly preserved male.
In consequence these two names become invalid.
Specimens have been collected in Iowa. In Wisconsin they
have been found in Mirror, Green, Lauderdale and Briggsville
lakes.
Rockford College,
September 1, 1932.
2 Sudamerikanische Hydracarinen. Zoolog. Bid. Uppsala. Bd. 13 : 32-36.
48 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
Bibliography
Titles are limited to papers containing authors’ descriptions of the
species cited and to general papers describing cosmopolitan species.
Koenike, F. 1895. Nordamerkanische Hydrachniden. Abh. Naturwiss.
Bremen 13 (2) : 167-226.
Marshall, R. 1922. The American water mites of the genus Neumania.
Trans. Wis. Acad. 20 : 205-213, pi. II-IV.
1926. Water mites of the Okoboji region. Univ. Iowa Studies Nat. Hist.
21 (9), pi. I-III.
1929. The water mites of Lake Wawasee. Proc. Indiana Acad. Sci.
38 : 315-320.
1931. Preliminary list of the Hydracarina of Wisconsin, I. Trans. Wis.
Acad. 26 : 311-319, pi. VII-VIII.
1932. Preliminary list of the Hydracarina of Wisconsin, II. Trans.
Wis. Acad. 27 : 339-358, pi. VII-X.
Piersig, R. 1897. Deutschlands Hydrachniden. Biblio. Zool. XXII.
Stuttgart.
1900. Hydrachnologische Bemerkungen. Zool. Anz. 23 : 209-213.
1901. Hydrachnidae und Halacaridae. Das Tierreich, XIII. Berlin.
Soar and Williamson. 1927. British Hydracarina. Vol. II. The Ray
Society, No. 112. London.
Wolcott, R. W. 1899. On the American species of the genus Atax (Fabr.)
Bruz. [Unionicola]. Trans. Am. Micr. Soc. 20 : 193-259, pi. 28-32.
1905. A review of the genera of the water mites. Trans. Am. Micr. Soc.
26 : 161-243, pi. 18-27.
50
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
Plate I
1. Unionicola crassipes, right palpus, female, outer side.
2. Unionicola crassipes, basal segments of leg I, right.
3. Unionicola crassipes, ventral view, female.
4. Unionicola crassipes, genital area, male.
5. Unionicola aculeata, end of leg I, male (one claw omitted).
6. Unionicola aculeata, right palpus, male, outer side.
7. Unionicola aculeata, genital plates, male.
8. Unionicola aculeata. genital area, female.
9. Unionicola figuralis, left palpus, male, outer side.
10. Unionicola figuralis, genital area, female (turned).
11. Unionicola figuralis, ventral view, male.
12. Unionicola pectinata, genital area, female.
13. Unionicola pectinata, left palpus, female, outer side.
14. Unionicola pectinata, end of leg I, left (one claw omitted).
TRANS. WIS. ACAD., VOL. 28
PLATE I
52
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Plate II
15. Unionicola ypsilophora, right palpus, female, outer side.
16. Unionicola ypsiloiphora, ventral view, female.
17. Unionicola ypsilophora, genital plates, male.
18. Unionicola ypsilophora, end of leg I, male, left (one claw omitted)
19. Unionicola arcuata , epimera III, IV, left, female.
20. Unionicola arcuata, end of leg I, right (one claw omitted).
21. Unionicola intermedia var. wolcotti, left palpus, female, outer side.
22. Unionicola intermedia var. wolcotti, genital plates, female.
23. Unionicola intermedia var. wolcotti , end of leg I (one claw omitted)
24. Unionicola abnormipes, genital plates, male.
25. Unionicola abnormipes, right palpus, inner side.
26. Unionicola abnormipes, genital plates, female.
27. Unionicola abnormipes, leg IV, left, segments 4, 5, male.
28. Unionicola serrata, left palpus, outer side.
29. Unionicola serrata, ventral surface and leg I, female.
TRANS. WIS. ACAD., VOL. 28
PLATE II
29
54
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
Plate III
30. Unionicola stricta, ventral view, female.
31. Unionzcola stricta, genital plates, nymph.
32. Unionicola stricta , right palpus, outer side.
33. Unionicola arcuata , genital plates, female.
34. Unionicola arcuata, left palpus, female, outer side.
35. Unionicola fossulata, genital plates, male (after Wolcott).
36. Unionicola fossulata, genital plates, female.
37. Unionicola fossulata , right palpus, female, inner side.
38. Unionicola fossulata , end of leg IV.
39. Neumania armata, ventral view, male.
40. Neumania armata, genital area, female.
TRANS. WIS. ACAD., VOL. 28
PLATE III
56 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Plate IV
41. Neumania hickmani, genital plates, male.
42. Neumania hickmani , ventral surface, female.
43. Neumania hickmani , left palpus, female, outer side.
44. Neumania semicircularis, genital area, female.
45. Neumania semicircularis , ventral surface, male.
46. Neumania semicircularis, right palpus, female.
47. Neumania extendens, ventral view, female.
48. Neumania extendens, genital area, male.
TRANS. WIS. ACAD., VOL. 28
PLATE IV
58 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
Plate V
49. Neumania tenuipalpis, ventral view, female.
50. Neumania tenuipalpis , genital area, male.
51. Neumania fragilis , genital area, male.
52. Neumania fragilis, ventral surface, female.
53. Neumania papillator, ventral surface, female.
54. Neumania papillator, genital area, male.
TRANS. WTS. ACAD., VOL. 28
PLATE V
60 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
Plate VI
55. Neumania pubescens, ventral surface, male.
56. Neumania pubescens, genital area, female.
57. Neumania ovata, genital area, female.
58. Neumania punctata, ventral surface, male.
59. Neumania punctata, genital area, female.
60. Neumania distincta , genital area and last epimera, female.
61. Neumania distincta, genital area, male.
TRANS. WIS. ACAD., VOL. 28
PLATE Yl
REVISION OF THE SYRPHUS FLIES OF AMERICA
NORTH OF MEXICO (DIPTERA, SYRPHIDAE,
SYRPHUS S. L.) *
PART I
C. L. Fluke, Jr.
University of Wisconsin
The genus Syrphus is a beneficial group of flies, as the larvae
of all that are known feed upon soft bodied insects such as
plant lice. Too little is known regarding the biology of these
flies; the metamorphosis of less than half of them has been
described. Before a comprehensive study of the life phases is
undertaken the taxonomic status of the adults should be better
understood.
The original plans for this revision called for a complete
description of all species, giving all synonymical references,
and drawings, but the limitations of publication have necessi¬
tated a somewhat abbreviated plan. An attempt has been made
here to describe in detail the more common members of each
distinctive group and then to show how the more recent or in
some cases the more rare forms differ. Only the most impor¬
tant references have been given but in each case the original
citation has been stated. A number of drawings have been
omitted, some through lack of material, some because the spe¬
cies in question could be readily identified without the draw¬
ings, and in a few instances because recently published arti¬
cles are still available. Mr. T. M. Bobrovsky inked most of the
drawings after they had been prepared by the author with the
aid of a camera lucida. They are not drawn to the same scale,
since it was not always possible to use the same microscope.
Only about half of the paper appears here ; the remainder will
be published in later issues of these Transactions.
The amateur, who is working up his collection of the genus
Syrphus s . L would do well to secure confirmation of his deter¬
minations, especially of the more common forms, before draW-
Supported in large part by a research grant from Sigma Xi.
64 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
ing conclusions as to the possession of the rarer forms. Con¬
siderable difficulty will arise in the wiedemanni-meadii group
until the novice is familiar with the gradations of the undulate
bands. The drawings should aid in this understanding.
The use of the character of the metasternum, which is lo¬
cated just in front of the hind coxae, whether hairy or bare,
has helped materially in grouping the flies, but cannot be used
entirely for generic limitations since the type of the genus
Epistrophe, E. grossulariae, is the only species of that genus,
so far as I know, which has a hairy metasternum.
There have been many students in the syrphid field but few
have worked with the Genus Syrphus . The most important pa¬
pers have been written by J. S. Hine, R. C. Shannon, C. L.
Metcalf and C. H. Curran. Of these Dr. Curran has accom¬
plished most. His descriptions are models and his keys always
understandable. I have utilized his works considerably, espe¬
cially his diagnostic keys, but take full responsibility for all
new synonymy and any errors that may have occurred.
Nearly all of the types that exist in this country have been
examined personally by the author, including Williston’s at
Washington; Osten Sacken’s at Cambridge; Snow’s at Law¬
rence, Kansas; Jones’ at Fort Collins, Colo.; Curran’s at New
York and Ottawa; Shannon’s at Washington; Hine’s at Co¬
lumbus ; and Osburn’s at Columbus. The types of Metasyrphus
pauxillus (Will.), M. fumipennis (Thom.) and M. aenea
(Jones) are lost. I have not seen the type of M. pacifica (Lov.)
but received through the kindness of the Oregon Agricultural
College several of the specimens used in the original descrip¬
tion. I was unable to examine Curran’s species M. rufipunctatus
but have seen a specimen from near the type locality, which is,
I believe, identical. The type of M. aberr antis was also not
seen but paratypes have been examined. In addition I have ex¬
amined the majority of the species of this group which occur in
Europe.
For the opportunity to examine the types and for help in
various ways I wish to express my appreciation to the fol¬
lowing :
To Sigma Xi for a research grant which has made it possible
to make this study.
To the Curators at the various Museums for the kind consid¬
erations and help which were accorded wherever I went and to
Fluke— -Syr phus Flies of America
65
many others who have assisted me with specimens and litera¬
ture; but especially do I wish to thank Dr. R. C. Osburn, Mrs.
J. S. Hine, Mr. E. S. Thomas, Dr. J. M. Aldrich, Dr. E. T.
Cresson, Dr. C. H. Curran, Dr. C. W. Johnson, Dr. Nathan
Banks, Dr. J. McDunnough, Mr. J. W. Brown, Dr. C. L. Met¬
calf, Dr. R. H. Baemer, Dr. C. R. Jones and Dr. J. S. Collin.
To the various members of the Department of Economic En¬
tomology, and especially “R. J. Bushnell for help in the writing
of descriptions and checking of keys and Prof. H. F. Wilson,
chief of the department, for every encouragement and facility
to carry on the studies. I have also received many specimens
from various collectors but wish to mention particularly Dr.
R. C. Osburn, Dr. C. L. Metcalf, Prof. J. Wilcox and Mr. R.
Latta. Through the courtesy of Mrs. J. S. Hine and Mr. E. S.
Thomas of the Ohio State Museum I have had the privilege of
studying the collection of the late J. S. Hine.
KEY TO THE GENERA OF SYRPHUS S. L.
1. Lower lobe of squamae hairy above, metasternum bare, abdomen
emarginate . Syrphus L.
Lower lobe of squamae bare above . 2
2. Abdomen emarginate, usually oval; metasternum hairy or bare .
. Metasyrphus Mat. & Ada.
Abdomen not emarginate, the edges rolled, often slender; metaster¬
num usually bare, if hairy the abdomen distinctly non-emarginate 3
3. Eyes pilose; abdomen long and slender, the base with a pair of large,
yellow, anteriorly contiguous spots . Ischyrosyrphus Big.
Eyes bare or pilose; if pilose without the large basal yellow spots .
. . . Epistrophe Wk.
The rolled edges of the abdomen are not always a reliable
character to observe and the student should follow the other
genera if there is some doubt. The metasternum character is
also sometimes difficult to observe and considerable care should
be used in examination, so as not to mistake the coxal hairs for
those of the metasternum.
Syrphus s. s.
Syrphus Fabricius 1775, Syst. Ent. 772.
Lower lobe of the squamae hairy above, metasternum bare,
abdomen emarginate and oval in shape.
66 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
Face usually yellow, more rarely with a brown stripe; eyes
bare or pilose, holoptic on the male ; antennae of moderate size
with a dorsal arista; thorax black or aeneous, usually dull, oc¬
casionally shining ; scutellum usually yellow ; legs simple ; wings
simple, third vein only gently curved ; abdomen with prominent
yellow crossbands or spots, the first nearly always separated
into spots. Type of genus : Syrphus ribesii L.
The genus Syrphus as limited in this* paper contains barely a
dozen species in North America, all of which, however, form a
natural group. They are generally the largest of the old genus.
Of the four genera recognized in this paper this one is the easi¬
est to characterize and no difficulty should arise in placing the
species belonging to it.
KEY TO THE SPECIES OF SYRPHUS s. s.
1. Eyes pilose . torvus 0. S.
Eyes bare . 2
2. Emarginate edges of abdomen continuously yellow, 2nd and 3rd ab¬
dominal bands continuous . hinei n. sp.
Emarginate edges entirely black or alternately black and yellow, if
entirely yellow the abdominal bands are interrupted . 3
3. Second and third abdominal bands entire and do not reach the side
margins . . opinator 0. S.
These bands reach the side margins, if not they are separated into
spots . 4
4. First segment of middle tarsi with only yellow spicules beneath, sides
of mesonotum distinctly yellow pollinose . knabi Shan.
First segment of middle tarsi with black spicules beneath, sides of
mesonotum indistinctly yellow pollinose . 5
5. Abdominal bands interrupted or greatly excised . 6
2nd and 3rd abdominal bands not interrupted . 7
6. Abdominal bands narrow occupying much less than one-half the width
of each segment . similis Jones
Abdominal bands broad occupying nearly one-half the width of each
segment . . . attenuatus Hine
7. Antennae mostly reddish, third segment narrowly brownish above;
femora of female entirely pale . bigelowi Cur.
Antennae mostly blackish . 8
8.
Face with a median blackish or brown vitta . . ribesii vittafrons Shan.
Face entirely yellow . 9
i
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
67
9. Males (eyes holoptic) . 10
Females (eyes dichoptic) . 13
10. Pile of face nearly all black, hind femora black on basal two-thirds . .
. transversalis Cur.
Pile of face black on the sides only near the antennae, hind femora
black on the basal four-fifths . 11
11. The yellow band on the second segment reaches the lateral margins in
only about one-fourth its greatest width . 12
The yellow band extends over the side margins in half its greatest
width . rectus 0. S.
12. Venter unicolorous; tiny black hairs on end of posterior femora sparse
. vitripennis Mg.
Venter usually with transverse blackish markings; tiny black hairs on
posterior femora very numerous and extending over the apical
third . . . ribesii L.
13. Abdomen with sides strongly reflexed downward, the apical segments
all visible from above . transversalis Cur.
The abdomen of normal shape . 14
14. Bases of the hind femora black . vitripennis Mg.
Bases of hind femora yellow . . . . 15
15. Lower one-third of front pure yellow — femora entirely yellow — females
only . opinator var.
Lower one-third of front of female not entirely yellow . 16
16. The yellow band on the second abdominal segment reaches the side
margins in almost its full width; posterior femora with a broad,
brown preapical band . . . rectus 0. S.
The yellow band reaches the side margin in not more than half its
greatest width; posterior femora rarely brown preapically .
. ribesii L.
1. Syrphus ribesii L. (Fig. 1.)
Syrphus ribesii Linn. 1758, Sys. Nat. Ed. 10 : 593 (Musca) ; Williston
1886, Synopsis, 77; Verrall 1901, Brit. Syrph., 366; Curran 1921, Can.
Ent. 53 : 154.
Face and cheeks yellow, pile of face all pale ; antennae largely
brownish ; spots on the first segment of the abdomen reach the
side margins in less than half their width ; hind femora of fe¬
male entirely yellowish except the extreme base, of the male all
black except the apical one-fifth or sixth. Length 10 to 12 mm.
Male — Face and cheeks entirely yellow, at most only slightly
reddish on the upper mouth edge, pile all pale except near the
68 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
antennae, frontal triangle largely black with dense golden
pollen on the upper half and continued more lightly down across
the face, the tubercle, however, shiny; pile of front black, a
large crescent-shaped black shining area just above the roots of
the antennae with a rather indefinite yellowish spot in front;
occiput heavily coated with gray pollen and whitish pile except
near the vertex where it becomes paler and there are a few
black hairs overhanging the eyes; vertical triangle black with
black pile. Antennae largely reddish to brownish, lighter on the
first two segments and beneath the third segment, arista red¬
dish, darker toward the tip.
Thorax dull, olivaceous to almost brassy in some specimens,
with three narrow faint darker stripes in front; pile is light
golden, slightly darker on the side margins. Scutellum yellow
with black pile and only a few yellow hairs near the base,
metasternum bare. Legs yellow with the following black areas :
coxae, trochanters, one-third to one-half of the base of the fore
front femora, all but the apical sixth of the hind femora, more
than the apical half of the hind tibia, and the upper side of the
hind tarsi. Pile varies but is rather heavy and black on the
hind tibiae, at the tip of the hind femora mostly black ; on the
front femora, there are a few black hairs mixed with the yellow
ones toward the tip. Spicules under middle basitarsi black.
Wings hyaline, stigma light brownish ; squamae yellowish with
light brown fringe, the disc hairy; halteres yellowish.
Abdomen black, very little shining, first segment yellow on
the extreme corners, second segment with two large yellow
spots separated by a little more than half their greatest width
and attenuated so that they reach the side margins in only
about one-fourth to one-half their greatest width; spots ex¬
pand after reaching the sides to the base of the segment; seg¬
ments three and four with two continuous bands, the first one
narrowly separated from the base of the segment and the sec¬
ond almost touching, especially near the middle, the rear mar¬
gins oblique and slightly convex but greatly attenuated near
the sides going over the edges in half their greatest width, they
also reach the bases of the segments at the sides ; posterior mar¬
gin of the fourth and fifth segments and the anterior corners
of the fifth yellow. Venter yellow with definite oval or irregu¬
lar black spots on sternites one, two and three, pile rather long
Fluke— Syrphus Flies of America
69
and all yellow. The genitalia yellow at the base and blacker at
the tip, black and yellow pile.
Female similar; front black with a very broad narrowly in¬
terrupted golden pollinose band, yellow immediately above the
antennae, pile all black. Antennae usually more reddish. The
femora and tibia are entirely pale and only the tarsi reddish to
dark brown above. Abdominal bands narrower and reach the
side margins about one-half to two-thirds of their width.
Described from specimens from France, England, Wisconsin
and British Columbia.
Syrphus ribesii is not a common species in this country, if
limited as described, as the varietal forms are met with more
frequently. It is more common in the northern sections, espe¬
cially in Alaska where it almost grades into attenuatus and
hinei. The complete bands distinguish it from attenuatus, the
black and yellow emarginate edges from hinei, the bare eyes
from torvus, the blacker hind femora from vitripennis, the
spotted venter from rectus, the darker antennae and legs from
bigelowi, and the pale pile of the face from the male of trans-
versalis.
2. Syrphus ribessii var. vittafrons Shan.
Syrphus ribesii vittafrons Shannon 1916, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash.
29 : 202; Curran 1921, Can. Ent. 53 : 154.
This variety differs from typical ribesii principally in the
presence of a brown median stripe on the face, and there is a
post median brown area on the hind femora of the female.
Otherwise they are practically indistinguishable. It is a very
common form throughout the eastern states.
3. Syrphus ribesii var. similis Jones (Fig. 2.)
Syrphus similis Jones 1917, Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer. 10 : 224; Colo. Agr.
Expt. Sta. Bui. 269 : 72 (fig.).
Differs from typical ribesii as follows : the abdominal bands
are narrower, either entirely interrupted or greatly excised,
and reach the side margins very narrowly or not at all. I have
figured the extreme variation and if it were not for intermedi¬
ate forms it would be sufficiently distinct to form a separate
species. Length about 11 mm.
The description given by Jones is slightly misleading, as the
femora are black on only the extreme basal edges and thus
would pass readily as yellow femora.
70 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
I have seen females from British Columbia, Ontario, and
Wisconsin but no males have appeared which typically belong
to this form. I therefore consider it only a variety of ribesii.
4. Syrphus vitripennis Mg.
Syrphus vitripennis Meigen 1882, Syst. Besh. Ill : 308; Verrall 1901,
Brit. Syrph., 370; Curran 1921, Can. Ent. 53 : 156.
Very similar to ribesii L. and considered by some writers as
only a variety. The female of vitripennis is easily distinguished
as the basal two-thirds of the hind femora are black. In the
male the most reliable character is the one given in the key;
that is, the tiny hairs on the end of the posterior femora are
mostly yellowish while they are all black in ribesii . Other char¬
acters that will help to separate them are: in vitripennis the
antennae are more rounded, the spots on the second segment
reach the side margins in greater width, and the thorax ap¬
pears darker. Also as a general rule the venter is unicolorous
but as often happens in dried specimens this character is un¬
reliable. Curran mentions a dark spot below the eyes but in all
the specimens I have examined this spot is absent.
Specimens were examined from England, France, Ontario,
British Columbia, Maine, Ohio, and New York.
5. Syrphus rectus 0. S. (Fig. 3.)
Syrphus rectus Osten Sacken 1875, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 18 : 140;
Shannon 1916, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 29 : 201; Curran 1921, Can. Ent.
53 : 155; Fluke 1929, Wis. Expt. Sta. Res. Bui. 93 : 19.
One of the most common species of the group, yet until one
is well acquainted with it one will have difficulty in determin¬
ing all variations. Typical specimens are about 9 mm. long and
are easily distinguished by the careful summary of characters
given by Curran. Those with pale unicolorous venters and
rather broad yellow sides on the 2nd abdominal segment are
readily placed. The males never have black pile on the face ex¬
cept on the sides near the antennae and also do not have a
dark spot below the eyes, and the hind femora are black on
better than the basal three-fourths. These characters separate
the males from transversalis Cur. The females of rectus are
quite distinct with the rather wide abdominal bands which
reach the sides in practically their entire width with very little
attenuation. The hind femora bear a definite blackish post
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
71
median band which is quite a bit paler in typical specimens of
ribesii .
6. Syrphus torvus 0. S. (Fig. 4.)
Syrphus torvus Osten Sacken 1875, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 18 : 139.
Readily recognized in this group by its hairy eyes. It is
somewhat darker than typical ribesii , especially the female
which has the hind femora black at the base. The face is always
yellow without any median stripe. The hairy eyes will also
readily distinguish it from vitripennis, its closest relative.
Length about 12 mm.
It is a very common species throughout the northern sections
of North America, and often occurs in countless numbers.
7. Syrphus bigelowi Cur.
Syrphus bigelowi Curran 1924, Can. Ent. 56 : 288.
Similar to ribesii L. but the femora are practically wholly
pale in the female and broadly pale to reddish apically in the
male with very few tiny black hairs ; the antennae are reddish
yellow and only lightly brownish above on the third segment.
The lower part of the front of the female is quite characteristic
being slightly swollen and more strikingly yellow than ribesii .
Length about 10 mm.
The male is quite similar to vitripennis Mg. but may be told
from that species by the reddish antennae. The females are
easily separable by the pale hind femora of bigelowi.
The venter is usually unicolorous and there are often black
hairs on the face near the central knob. Specimens from On¬
tario, Alaska, British Columbia, and Wisconsin compared with
the type at Ottawa. I have also seen several specimens from
Maine.
8. Syrphus transversalis Cur. (Fig. 5.)
Syrphus transversalis Curran 1921, Can. Ent. 53 : 155-156; 1924, Occ.
Pap. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 5 : 81.
Abdomen beyond the second segment in the female reflexed
downwards, apex truncate with all of the segments visible from
above. Three principal bands of the abdomen obscure yellow,
only the first interrupted. Eyes bare, face, oral margin, and
cheeks yellow. Squamae pilose. Male similar to rectus 0. S.
Length 8 to 10 mm.
72 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Female. Face, oral margin, and cheeks yellow, with only a
slight indication of brown on the upper mouth edge ; pile yellow,
sides of face lightly dusted with yellow pollen; facial tubercle
jnoderately large ; front black, heavily clothed with yellow pol¬
len on the sides leaving in some cases a large shining black
triangle, the black connected by a distinct line with the entirely
black ocellar area; sometimes the pollen partly obscures this
black line, reducing the triangle to a spot just above the W ; a
small black spot immediately above each antenna ; pile of front
black; pile of occiput white, becoming yellowish and with a
few black hairs near the ocelli. Antennae yellow, tips of the
first two segments and the upper half of the third segment
brown to black, arista yellowish to brown.
Thorax greenish to black with 3 or 4 very faint coppery
longitudinal lines; the dorsum is very lightly covered with
pollen, heavier on the sides, which gives the thorax a sub-shin¬
ing appearance; pile all yellow, being heavier and longer on
sides ; the pleura with yellow pollen and pile. Scutellum yellow
with black pile, a few yellow hairs near the base.
The front two pair of legs are entirely yellow except the
coxae and trochanters, and light infuscations on the tarsi ; hind
femora and tibiae yellow with a broad preapical dark ring on
each segment, tarsi piceous. The pile of the legs is sparse and
all yellowish to whitish except black on the outer side of the
apical half of the hind femora, the outer side of the hind tibiae,
and the upper side of the hind tarsi.
W ings hyaline, the stigma yellow; squamae yellow, fringes
brown ; disc hairy ; plumule yellowish ; halteres yellow.
Abdomen opaque black, the first crossband bright yellow, the
others obscurely yellow, often almost of a hoary appearance.
First segment narrowly yellow on the sides; second segment
with a broad interrupted band, more than one-third the length
of the segment, inner ends rounded, outer ends reach the sides
and extend forward to the base of the segment ; third segment
with a nearly straight basal band which reaches the side mar¬
gins in its full width, in the middle there is a small projection
on the anterior margin; fourth segment with a slightly nar¬
rower but similar band; a rather broad apical band on the
fourth and fifth segments. The tips of the remaining segments
are also yellow, being readily seen from above due to the up¬
ward curling of the fifth segment. First two sternites yellow,
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America 73
the others obscurely brownish; pile of the sternites all yellow
and there are no short oppressed black hairs although there
are a few yellow ones on the fourth sternite. Pile of the tergites
yellow toward the base, black and mostly oppressed posteriorly.
Male— not at all like the female; abdomen of normal shape
and very closely related to rectus 0. S. It differs from this
species as follows: abdominal bands slightly narrower; sides
of the checks with a black area ; pile of scutellum mostly yellow
in front, with black hairs behind ; pile of face nearly all black ;
and the hind femora black on only the basal two-thirds. S. rec¬
tus has all yellow face and cheeks, black pile on the face only
near the antennae, nearly all black pile on the scutellum, and
the hind legs all black on all but the apical one-fifth, or at most
one-fourth. Otherwise the males of these two species are in¬
distinguishable.
Described from five females, compared with the type, col¬
lected at Madison, Wis., May to September; one female from
Fort Lee, N. J. (R. C. Osburn) ; and five males, four from
Madison, April and May, and one from Orillia, Ont. (C. H.
Curran) collected in May. I have also seen specimens from
Colorado and Maine.
9. Syrphus hinei n. sp. (Fig. 6.)
Emarginate edges of the abdomen continuously yellow; 2nd
and 3rd abdominal bands not interrupted; femora entirely
yellow on the female, nearly so on the male; face and cheeks
yellow; antennae mostly reddish. Length 11 to 12 mm.
Female — Face and cheeks yellow, lightly pollinose, heavier
on the sides and continued as a broad uninterrupted band
across the front; pile of face and cheeks mostly yellow, a few
short black hairs on the face near the tubercle; front black
above, yellow on the bare area above the antennae, vertex
black ; pile of front black ; occiput black with golden to whitish
pollen and pile. Antennae reddish, narrowly black on the upper
side of the third segment, arista brown. Eyes practically bare.
Thorax dull olivaceous with three faint, narrow brownish
stripes anteriorly; pile golden, darker along the sides, yellow
pollinose on the sides; scutellum yellow with black pile, a few
yellow hairs along the base. Metasternum bare.
Legs entirely yellow except the coxae, trochanters, and the
upper side of the hind tarsi; pile yellow, some black hairs on
74 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
the apical part of the femora and most of the hind tibiae and
tarsi ; spicules under the middle metatarsus black.
Wings hyaline; stigma dilutely yellowish; squamae hairy,
golden in color, halteres yellow.
Abdomen semi-opaque black with the emarginate edges yel¬
low, pile black along the edges except on the base. First seg¬
ment black with extreme sides yellow; second segment with a
pair of narrow yellow spots which are pointed on their inner
ends and reach the sides by a little more than half their greatest
width; third segment with a continuous yellow band which
occupies the basal half of the segment, attenuated on the sides,
reaching both the yellow side margins and the base of the
segment, emarginate in the middle and with a small projection
in front which nearly reaches the base of the segment; fourth
segment similar but the band is nearer the base and the mid¬
projection reaches the base of the segment; apical margin of
segment four rather broadly yellow ; fifth segment yellow with
a broad black triangle. Venter usually yellow with occasionally
black on the third and fourth sternites.
Male quite similar; front with a black arc above the an¬
tennae, sides heavily pollinose ; femora narrowly black on their
bases; spots on the second segment of the abdomen much
larger ; bands broader and scarcely reach the bases of the seg¬
ments; venter usually darker, not distinctly marked; emargi¬
nate edges not as distinctly yellow and there are yellow hairs
where the bands reach the sides.
Holotype female-— Savanoski, Naknek Lake, Alaska, July
1919, J. S. Hine, Coll. Allotype male — Same place Aug. 1919,
J. S. Hine, Coll. Paratypes as follows: four females and two
males same data as types; one male Ottawa, Can., marked
“28-6”; two females Madison, Wis.; May 13, 1919; C. L. Fluke,
Coll., and 2 females Katmai, Alaska, July 1917, J. S. Hine, Coll.
Types in the James S. Hine collection, Ohio State Museum.
Paratypes in the Hine collection, the American Museum of
Natural History and the collection of the author. It is with
considerable pleasure that I name this species in honor of the
late J. S. Hine.
This species is closely related to ribesii L. and attenuatus
Hine. All the bands of attenuatus are interrupted and the bases
of the femora in the male are typically more broadly black.
The occasional yellow emarginate edges of attenuatus suggests
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
75
that hinei may be only a variation, but the bands easily separate
the two. There is no indication of the yellow emarginate edges
in rebesii, and the males of that species have the hind femora
largely black.
I have another male caught by Hine at Katmai in 1917 that
may belong here but the second band is much wider and deeply
cut into posteriorly, and the femora are almost all pale.
10. Syrphus attenuatus Hine (Fig. 7).
Syrphus attenuatus Hine 1922, Ohio Jour. Sci. 22 : 144.
Abdomen with three pairs of large yellow spots which are
strongly convex posteriorly, emarginate edges often yellow,
face yellow, antennae reddish. Length 11 to 13 mm.
Male- — Face and cheeks yellow, in some specimens there is a
black spot below the eyes ; pile of the cheeks yellow, yellow and
black mixed on the face, becoming all black along the sides of
the antennae; front yellow but in some specimens a small
amount of black which is usually covered with yellow pollen,
pile black ; occiput black with yellow pollen and pile, a few black
hairs overhang the eyes as far down as one-third the distance
from the vertex to the cheeks ; vertical triangle black with black
pile. Antennae reddish, slightly dark above on the third seg¬
ment, the arista reddish, darker at the tip. Eyes bare.
Thorax dull olivaceous to blue, pile all yellow, rather heavy,
but darker along the sides ; scutellum all yellow with black pile,
sometimes the front half with yellow pile. Hine’s description
is misleading, giving the impression that the scutellar pile as
well as thorax is all yellow. Metasternum bare.
Legs yellow with about one-fourth of the four front femora
and one-third to one-half the hind femora black; occasionally
the hind femora are nearly all pale; the hind tarsi infuscated
and there are a few specimens with a slight infuscation on the
hind tibiae ; coxae and trochanters black ; pile of legs all pale,
including coxae, except the usual black oppressed pile on the
hind tibiae and tarsi.
Wings hyaline to very dilutely infuscated, stigma light
brown ; squamae light brown, hairy ; halteres yellow.
Abdomen opaque black with three pairs of large yellow spots
which are only slightly concave in front but decidedly convex
posteriorly and reach the sides obscurely in some specimens
and more broadly in others ; the spots occupy at least one-half
76 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , cmd Letters .
of the width of the segments and are greatly attenuated so as to
reach the bases of their respective segments; side margins of
segment one yellow. Posterior margin of the fourth segment
and all of the fifth yellow. Venter practically unicolorous and
the pile is all pale, with no short oppressed black hairs; there
is a small round dark spot on sternite one and a small elongate
spot on the second sternite. One specimen from British Colum¬
bia (Osburn) has a large triangular spot on each of sternites
two and three.
Female — front black on upper two-thirds and the edge of the
black in front forms an inverted V shape, sides of the black
heavily dusted with pollen, slightly less in the middle. Cheeks
all yellow, pile of face more yellow, abdominal bands narrower;
legs all pale except coxae, trochanters, and the infuscated hind
tibiae.
Described from four males; two from Savonoski, and one
from Katmai, Alaska (Hine) ; and one from Banff, Alberta;
six females, one from Savonoski (Hine), two from British
Columbia (Osburn), two from Orono, Me., (Metcalf), and one
from Colorado at 9000 feet elevation.
Types in the James S. Hine Collection at the Ohio State Mu¬
seum. Type locality, Alaska.
11. Syrphus opinator 0. S. (Fig. 8).
Syrphus opinator Osten Sacken 1877, Bui. U. S. Geol. and Geog. Sur.
of Ter. 3 : 327; Williston 1886, Synopsis 83; Curran 1921, Can. Ent.
53 : 157; Fluke 1929, Wis. Expt. Sta. Res. Bui. 93 : 19.
Face lemon yellow in color ; femora of female entirely yellow ;
first abdominal spots reach the side margins, bands on second
and third segments entire and usually separated from the lat¬
eral margins. Length, 9-12 mm.
A very easily recognized species by its lemon yellow face,
characteristically shaped second and third abdominal bands
which normally do not reach the side margins ; in a few females
they extend weakly over the sides but the females have all
yellow legs except the coxae and trochanters.
It is a common form occurring from the Rocky Mountains
to the Pacific Coast.
12. Syrphus knabi Shan. (Fig. 9).
Syrphus knabi Shannon 1916, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 29 : 200; Metcalf
1917, Me. Agr. Expt. Sta. Bui. 263 : 172; Curran 1921, Can. Ent. 53 : 154.
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
77
Face yellow, antennae pointed, sides of thorax distinctly yel¬
lowish pollinose, legs mostly yellow, abdominal bands extend
over the side margins in practically their full width, middle
metatarsi with yellow spicules below. Length 11 to 13 mm.
An easily recognized species and there should be no difficulty
in placing it. Specimens from Mississippi, Ohio, Ontario and
Wisconsin were examined.
Metasyrphus Matsumura and Adachi
The Entomological Magazine (Japan) 2 : 147, 1917.
Lower lobe of the squamae bare, metasternum hairy or bare,
abdomen emarginate, usually oval.
Face yellow, with or without a black shining stripe; eyes
usually bare, occasionally pilose, holoptic in the male ; antennae
moderate in size, frequently the third segment more than twice
as long as the first two together ; thorax usually shining, some¬
times dull, without conspicuous longitudinal vittae ; legs simple ;
wings simple, the third vein rarely conspicuously curved into
the first posterior cell ; abdomen oval, emarginate, and usually
with prominent yellow crossbands. Type of genus: Syrphus
corollae Fab.
This is rather a heterogeneous group but one easily separated
from true Syrphus by the bare squamae and from Epistrophe
by the emarginate abdomen. A few species in the emarginatus
group have the edges of the abdomen only weakly ridged but
these species are readily grouped by the yellow stripes on the
sides of the thorax. M . nitidicollis might be the easiest to
confuse.
If it were desirable to further split up this genus there would
be four quite natural groups which may be separated by the
following key :
1. Metasternum hairy . Metasyrphus s. s.
Metasternum bare . 2
2. Eyes hairy . amalopis group
Eyes bare . 3
3. Third longitudinal vein nearly straight, sides of mesonotum usually
yellow in ground color . emarginatus group
Third longitudinal vein distinctly curved into the first posterior cell,
sides of mesonotum not yellow in ground color . . lapponicus group
78 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
Matsumura has not been consistent in the characterization of
the genus as he states that the third longitudinal vein is dis¬
tinctly curved into the first posterior cell and the lateral mar¬
gins of the abdomen are not distinctly ridged, and yet he names
S. corollae F. the type. While the third vein of this species does
have considerable curvature it is only moderate when compared
to laxus or lapponicus . The sides of the abdomen, however, are
very plainly ridged. I have spent many hours trying to asso¬
ciate the North American species with Matsumura’s genera but
it is an impossible task unless the genotypes can be examined.
Shiraki (Syrphidae of Japan) has straightened out many of
Matsumura’s species but since he does not recognize any splits
in the genus Syrphus many of the genera proposed by Mat¬
sumura will long remain a puzzle.
It might be desirable to utilize some of Matsumura’s genera
to apply to the groups named above as subgenera of the genus
Metasyrphus or as coordinate genera, but with the material at
hand I am unable to make these associations. If this were done
Metasyrphus should be restricted to those species with a hairy
metasternum; Dideopsis might be used for the lapponicus
group, although the type species belongs to the genus Asarkina,
Conosyrphus for the amalopis group, and possibly Episyrphus
for the emarginatus group. Dideoides appears to embrace such
forms as M. laxus 0. S. although this species has hairy metas¬
terna. In view of the many synonyms created by Matsumura,
as determined by Shiraki, it appears justifiable to ignore most
of the characters he used to form generic groups.
I do not think Olbiosyrphus Mik. can be considered for any of
these groups although it is an older name. It is apparently
closely related to Xanth o gramma but the eyes are hairy and
the abdomen is probably semi-spatulate. It might possibly be
used for the emarginatus group, which will be considered in a
later paper.
For these reasons I prefer to consider these four groups all
under one genus, Metasyrphus . I firmly believe, however, that
in time it will be split up into distinct genera but until someone
is able to associate the proper genera for these groups, they
will remain as one genus.
KEY TO THE SPECIES OF METASYRPHUS
1. Metasternum hairy . 2
Metasternum bare . 43
Fluke— Syrphus Flies of America
79
Metasyrphus s. s.
2. Face entirely yellow — no median black vitta . . . 5
Face with a median black vitta, at least black on the tubercle ..... 3
3. Eyes pilose ............ . . . . . . . 4
Eyes bare . . . . . . . . . 13
4. Abdominal bands excised or interrupted, antennae black, coxal hairs
black, larger species . . . . . laxus (0. S.)
Bands undulate, antennae reddish below, coxal hairs pale, smaller
species . . . . pingreensis (FI.)
5. Abdominal bands blood red in color . . montivagus (Sn.)
Abdominal bands yellow in color . . . . . . 6
6. Fourth tergite reddish yellow . . . . . snowi (Wehr)
Fourth tergite black fasciate . . . . 7
7. Abdominal bands interrupted or greatly excised . . . 8
2nd and 3rd abdominal bands not interrupted . . . .11
8. Fifth tergite black with yellow spots on the basal corners . .
. . . . . depressus n. sp.
Fifth tergite reddish yellow . . . . . . 9
9. Abdominal spots separated from the side margins ....... talus n. sp.
Abdominal spots reach the side margins . . . . . . . 10
10. Pile of scutellum yellow . . . . . flukei (Jones)
Pile of scutellum black . . . . palliventris (Cur.)
11. Sides of the abdomen continuously yellow, antennae yellow . .
. . . . . . ochrostomus (Zett.)
Sides of the abdomen alternately black and yellow . . . . . 12
12. Third antennal segment almost twice as long as wide . .
. . . . . . . . . lebanoensis (FI.)
Third antennal segment not more than one and one-half times longer
than wide . . . . . latifasciatus (Mq.)
13. Abdominal bands interrupted . . . . . 35
Second and third bands entire or no bands present . . . 14
14. Abdomen entirely black . . . . nigroventris n. sp.
Abdomen with yellow bands . . . 15
15. Abdominal bands blood red in color .............. montivagus (Sn.)
Abdominal bands yellow in color . . . . . 16
16. Males — those with holoptic eyes . . . . . 17
Females — -those with dichoptic eyes . . . 27
80
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
Abdominal bands usually decidedly undulate . 18
Abdominal bands nearly straight or only weakly undulate . 22
First two abdominal bands separated into spots, the third greatly
excised . depressus n. sp.
Second and third bands entire . 19
Wings distinctly infuscated reddish brown . fumipennis (Thom.)
Wings hyaline . . . . . 20
Face seldom with a black vitta, abdominal band on second segment
usually reaches the sides, front yellow . latifasciatus (Mq.)
Face with a black vitta, spots on the second segment either separated
from or reach the sides, front yellow or with a black arc . 21
Pile of face mostly black, abdominal bands greatly undulate and
nearly always touching the side margins . venablesi (Cur.)
Pile of face white, abdominal bands well separated from the side mar¬
gins . meadii (Jones)
Front yellow . latifasciatus (Mq.)
Front with black spots or an arc above the antennae . 23
Scutellum white haired, black of cheeks continuous with the facial
vitta . canadensis (Curran)
Scutellum mostly black haired . 24
Abdominal bands reach the side margins . medius (Jones)
Abdominal bands separated from the sides . 25
Smaller species (7 to 8 mm.) . pomus (Cur.)
Larger species (9 to 10 mm.) . 26
Black of cheeks connected to facial stripe by a black stripe along oral
margin, genital styles small, oval . vinelandi (Cur.)
Black of cheeks separated from facial stripe by a yellow area, styles
long, irregular in outline . wiedemanni (John.)
Hind femora black at base . 28
Hind femora yellow at base . 32
Abdominal bands strongly undulate or excised . 29
Abdominal bands straight or weakly undulate . 31
Pile of scutellum white . canadensis (Cur.)
Pile of scutellum black . 30
Lower third of front pure yellow . depressus n. sp.
Two black spots above antennae . meadii (Jones)
Smaller species (7 to 8 mm.) spots on 2nd segment usually united at
middle . pomus (Cur.)
Larger species (9 to 10 mm.) . vinelandi (Cur.)
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
81
32. Hind femora entirely yellow . . . 33
Hind femora at least with a dark ring apically . . . . 34
33. Lower third of front pure yellow, without pollen. . latifasciatus (Mq.)
Lower third of front usually with black markings, pollinose .
. . . . . . venablesi (Cur.)
34. Bands on third and fourth tergites reach the side margins . . .
. . . . . medius (Jones)
These bands separated from the side margins ..... . wiedemanni John
35. Dorsum of 4th and 5th abdominal segments reddish yellow . .
. . . . snowi (Wehr)
4th segment with distinct black markings . . 36
36. Face and antennae yellow . . . . . . . 37
Face with at least the central knob darkened, antennae darker. . . .38
37. Venter of female yellow; of male with black bars. . palliventris (Cur.)
Venter of female with black bars . . . palliventris var.
38. 3rd pair of abdominal spots narrowly connected, lower part of front
of female pure yellow . . . depressus n. sp.
3rd abdominal spots distinctly separated . . . .39
39. Pile of thorax pure white, two black dots above the antennae . . .
. . perplexus (Osb.)
Pile of thorax yellow to brownish . . . . 40
40. Pile of the face and seutellum pale . . . .41
Pile of the seutellum black, of the face usually black ............ 42
41. Abdominal spots narrow and straight, lower one-sixth of front of
female yellow . . rufipunctatus (Cur.)
Abdominal spots broad and arcuate . montanus (Cur.)
42. Abdominal spots of male almost as broad as long, facial pile of female
mostly black, moderately small narrow species (8 to 9 mm.) ....
. . curtus ( Hine)
Abdominal spots of male not so broad; facial pile of female yellow,
rather large broad oval species (10 to 12 mm.) . .
. . neoperplexus (Cur.)
43. Eyes hairy . . . . . . . . 44
Eyes bare . . . . . . 57
Amalopis Group
44. The bands on the third and fourth abdominal segments entire, at
most only notched in the middle . . . 45
Abdominal bands interrupted in the middle . . 47
82
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , Letters.
45. Abdominal bands reach the side margins in their full width, 2nd and
third bands semi-interrupted . reflectipennis (Cur.)
Abdominal bands well separated from the side margins . 46
46. Abdominal bands bilaterally oblique, their posterior edges nearly
straight . . . lotus (Will.)
Bands decidedly concave anteriorly and convex posteriorly .
. creper (Snow)
47. Abdominal spots narrow, (sometimes absent) either transverse or
oblique, never greatly excised, their inner ends very little club-
shaped . 48
Abdominal spots club-shaped and arcuate or greatly excised, often cut
in two . 53
48. First pair of spots small and elongate oval, thoracic pile brown to
black, antennae black . 49
First pair of spots larger, longer; thoracic pile white or black . 50
49. Second and third pair of spots present . limatus (Hine)
Second and third pair of spots absent . limatus var.
50. Abdominal spots almost transverse, and reach the side margins, pile
of scutellum pale, basal joints of antennae yellow (10 to 12 mm.)
. venustus (Mg.)
Abdominal spots oblique and separated from the side margins ....51
51. Basal antennal segments mostly black; front femora of female black
at base, pile of thorax of male black; epistoma produced below..
. pauxillus (Will.)
Basal antennal segments mostly reddish yellow, epistoma very little
produced . 52
52. Front femora, of female yellow, pile of mesonotum of female and
male pale . laticaudus (Cur.)
Front femora of female black at base, pile of mesonotum of male
black . pacifica (Lovett)
53. Second and third pair of spots do not reach the side margins . 54
Second and third pair of spots reach the side margins . . . 55
54. Second and third pair of spots excised so that there are 4 spots on
each of segments three and four . amalopis (0. S.)
Second and third pair of spots not excised . creper (Sn.)
55. Abdomen very broad and flat, the spots concave posteriorly and reach¬
ing the bases of the 3rd and 4th segments laterally; abdomen
shining; length 12 mm . laticaudatus (Cur.)
Abdomen not unusually broad, the spots scarcely concave posteriorly,
or if so, the abdomen not shining . 56
Fluke— Syrphus Flies of America
83
56. Antennae mostly black, especially first two segments; pile of seutelium
black . . . amalopis (0. S.)
Antennae yellowish,, pile of seutelium mostly white . . . osburni (Cur.)
57. Third longitudinal vein nearly straight, sides of mesonotum usually
yellow in ground color . . . . . 61
Third longitudinal vein distinctly curved into the first posterior cell,
sides of mesonotum not yellow in ground color . . . 58
Lapponicus group
58. Abdominal bands interrupted . . . . . . . . 59
Second and third bands entire . . . ab err antis (Cur.)
59. Facial stripe reddish brown and abbreviated, pile black, length 18 mm.
. . . . . . . marginatus (Jones)
Facial stripe black, more extensive, pile mostly pale, length seldom
over 12 mm. . . . . . . . . 60
60. Three pairs of abdominal spots present . . . lapponicus (Zett.)
Only one pair of spots present . . . lapponicus var.
Emarginatus group
61. Abdominal bands isolated into spots . . . . . 62
At least one band entire . . . . . 63
62. Bases of front femora black, face between eyes and mouth opening
dark . . . . . . . . . divisus (Will.)2
Front legs entirely yellow, face usually all yellow, anterior corners of
third and fourth abdominal segments yellow - - weborgi (FI.)2
63. Band on second abdominal segment does not reach side margins ... 64
Band on second segment reaches side margins .................. 65
64. First and third bands interrupted, the second entire. . invigorus (Cur.)3
Second and third bands entire . . . metcalfi n. sp.
65. Antennae entirely yellowish . . . . . . .66
Antennae brown to black above, yellowish below . . 67
66. Seutelium entirely yellow haired, cheeks yellow, abdominal bands
broad, the side margins continuously yellow. . ochrost&mus (Zett.)
Seutelium black haired, cheeks partly black, abdominal bands nar¬
rower, side margins alternately black and yellow . .
. . . . . . . nitidicollis (Mg.)3
67. Wings infuscated, antennae larger and mostly black ( infuscatus
Fluke) ........................................ felix (0. S.)a
Wings hyaline, antennae smaller and at least reddish below ...... 68
2 To b© discussed In a later paper.
84 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters.
68. Anterior corners of the third and fourth abdominal segments yellow
. emarginatus (Say)2
Anterior corners of the abdominal segments black .... aenea (Jones)2
13. Metasyrphus wiedemanni (John.) (Figs. 10, 36).
Syrphus americanus Wied. 1830, Ausser. Sweif. Ins. 2 : 192; Osten
Sacken 1875, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 18 : 145; Williston 1886, Synop¬
sis, 82; Metcalf 1912, Ohio Nat. 12 : 477.
Syrphus wiedemanni Johnson 1919, Can. Ent. 51 : 32.
Face with a median black vitta; front rather heavily polli-
nose with two small brown to black dots just above the anten¬
nae ; hind femora of female yellow at the base and narrowly at
the tip; abdominal bands broad, almost straight, and separate
from the side margins ; first abdominal band frequently entire.
Length 10 to 12 mm.
Male — Face yellow with yellow pile, a narrow black vitta
which does not reach the antennae and which extends narrowly
only a short distance down the sides of the mouth ; cheek shin¬
ing black with white pile and partly covered with white pollen,
rather broadly yellow below the mouth opening; frontal tri¬
angle yellow with two small brownish dots just above the an¬
tennae, broadly yellow pollinose along the orbits, pile black;
occiput heavily greyish pollinose, pile white below, yellow
above; frontal triangle black with black pile, yellow pollinose
behind the ocelli. Antennae rather large, the third segment one
and one-half times as long as the first two combined, black, with
yellow on the lower third of the last segment; arista reddish,
darker at the tip.
Thorax shining aeneous to bronze, pile all pale, slightly yel¬
lowish along the sides ; scutellum yellow, pile rather fine, some¬
what kinky and yellow and black intermixed but the light col¬
ored pile predominates. Metasternum hairy.
Legs yellow; one-fourth to one-third of the four front fe¬
mora, three-fourths to four-fifths of the hind femora, and a
broad median band on the hind tibiae black. Wings hyaline,
stigma brownish ; squamae white with light yellow fringe, hal-
teres yellow.
Abdomen black with three principal yellow bands, all sepa¬
rated from the sides and from the basal margins of the seg¬
ments; bands are broad, occupying one-half or more of the
width of the segments, their fore-margins nearly straight and
2 To be discussed in a later paper.
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
85
their rear margins only very little concave; posterior margins
of the fourth and fifth tergites broadly yellow and the basal
corners of the fifth also yellow. Venter yellow with rather
broad black bars on sternites two, three and four ; fifth sternite
entirely yellow; genital cerci long, slender, and yellowish red
in color. Pile on the first two sternites long, white, and kinky ;
on the third partly white and partly short black; all black on
the fourth and fifth, and mostly depressed.
Female — front with a broad pollinose band which is dis¬
tinctly interrupted to form an inverted black Y, with two
prominent black spots above the antennae. Antennae larger
and blacker than in the male. Legs more yellow, only the basal
one-fifth of the four front femora, a broad median ring on the
hind femora, and a narrow ring on the hind tibiae black. First
abdominal band frequently not interrupted; fifth sternite with
a black bar.
A very common species throughout the eastern and southern
United States and Canada. It does not occur west of the Rocky
Mountains. The Western species are referable to meadii
(Jones), medius (Jones), or venablesi (Cur.). Osten Sacken’s
description of this species is very distinct and does not include
any of the above related forms.
14. Metasyrphus vinelandi (Cur.) (Figs. 11, 37).
Syrphus americanus var. vinelandi Curran 1921, Can. Ent. 53 : 172;
Metcalf 1913, Ohio Biol. Sur. 1 : 55 (S. sp.) ; Fluke 1929, Wis. Agr.
Expt. Sta. Bui. 93 : 18. (var.)
This is a distinct species, although closely related to wiede-
manni; typical specimens are readily told by the black on the
base of the hind femora of the female, and by the small black
genital styles (much longer in wiedemanni) of the males. Be¬
cause of the decided differences in the genitalia I consider these
two distinct.
In addition, the antennae are slightly larger, the abdominal
bands are narrower and the posterior margins of the second
and third decidedly emarginate, the black of the cheeks of the
male is usually connected to the black stripe of the face, and the
fifth tergite of the female is usually blacker. The larvae are
quite easily told as they are decidedly greenish. Found through¬
out the range of wiedemanni and sometimes more common.
86 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
The genital styles of this species are similar to those of pin-
greensis except they are blacker and slightly smaller. The pile
of the face of vinelandi is usually predominently pale while it
is all black in pingreensis.
15. Metasyrphus pomus (Cur.) (Fig. 12).
Syrphus americanus var. pomus Curran 1921, Can. Ent. 53 : 172.
Quite like wiedemanni (John.) and considered by Curran as
only a variety. They are usually readily told by their smaller
size, 7 to 8 mm., narrower abdominal bands, darker legs, darker
oral margin, and in general an entirely darker appearance.
Certain specimens might be confused with canadensis (Cur.)
but in that species the abdominal bands are very narrow and
distinctly sinuate and the pile of the scutellum is white.
16. Metasyrphus canadensis (Cur.) (Fig. 13).
Syrphus canadensis Curran 1926, Can. Ent. 58 : 172.
A very distinct species with unusually narrow undulated
abdominal fasciae, and the scutellar pile is normally all pale.
It is closely related to pomus (Cur.) but the undulated bands,
blacker oral margin, and pale haired scutellum should readily
distinguish it. The males will be more difficult to separate than
the females as the bands are broader in the male than in the
female. Length 7 to 10 mm.
Male — Face yellow with a distinctive black vitta which tapers
above and connects with that of the oral margin and cheeks,
which are broadly black; pile all pale except the black hairs
near the antennae which are continued on to the front. Frontal
triangle yellow with two black shining spots which are almost
in the shape of an arc, pile black. First two segments of the
antennae black, the third reddish brown, only briefly lighter
beneath.
Thorax blue shining with all white hairs ; scutellum obscurely
yellow, pile practically all white, only occasionally a black hair.
Legs yellow with the basal third of the four front femora, all
but the tip of the hind femora, and an obscure ring on the hind
tibiae black ; the apical segments of the tarsi are dark above.
Abdomen — First segment shining blue, remaining segments
semi-opaque black with three yellow crossbands, all separated
from the sides; the first band interrupted, the inner ends
pointed, the outer ends truncate, their corners rounded ; second
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
87
and third bands well removed from the basal margins of the
segments, their fore margins almost straight, their rear mar¬
gins emarginate ; there is a median anterior projection on each
band; posterior margins of the fourth and fifth tergites nar¬
rowly yellow. Venter yellow with broad median black crossbars
on sternites two, three, four and five. Genital cerci short, about
one-half as long as those on pomus (Cur.).
The female is very distinctive because of the narrow undulate
bands, otherwise much like the male.
Described from two males and seven females from Ontario,
Idaho (J. M. Aldrich), and Wisconsin. I have followed the
entire metamorphosis of this species in Wisconsin. The larvae
look remarkably like bird droppings and feed upon Chaito-
phorus populicola on Populus spp. Metcalf has sent me nine
specimens from Maine, mostly reared material.
17. M ctasyr phiis medius (Jones)
Syrphus medius Jones 1917, Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer. 10 : 224; 1922, Colo.
Agr. Expt. Sta, Bui. 269 : 29, fig.
Face with a narrow median vitta, legs mostly yellow with a
preapical dark ring on the hind femora (female) ; the abdomi¬
nal bands are all entire, reach the side margins in about half
their width, and are almost straight.
The nearest relative of medius is venablesi (Cur.), but the
two may be separated by the entire first abdominal band, shape
of the bands, and dark ring on the hind femora of medius.
From wiedemanni it is distinguished principally on the bands
attaining the lateral margins.
It is not a common species but is distributed over most of the
United States and Canada. I have examined specimens from
Wisconsin, Michigan, Louisiana and California.
18. Metasyrphus meadii (Jones) (Figs. 14, 88).
Syrphus meadii Jones 1917, Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer. 10 : 223.
Syrphus nitens authors in part.1
Eyes bare, black facial stripe usually separated from the
black cheeks by a brown or yellow area, face with whitish pile,
front with two black spots just above the antennae, hind femora
1 The genuine Metasyrphus nitens (Zett.) has not yet been reported from this
country, but inasmuch as many European species have been introduced there is a
possibility that it may be found here at some later time. For this reason a figure
of this species has been included in this paper (PL VIII, fig. 15).
88 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
of both sexes black at the base, pile of scutellum black, abdomi¬
nal bands undulate and well separated from the side margins.
Only through considerable experience and knowledge of re¬
lated forms can one definitely determine this species. Speci¬
mens with weakly undulate bands are told with difficulty, often
being confused with wiedemanni and vinelandi. The black
areas on the hind femora of the female will help to distinguish
them from wiedemanni and the antennae are usually smaller
than those of vinelandi. Those with strongly undulate bands
may be confused occasionally with pingreensis if the hair of the
eyes is rubbed off of the latter; in such a case the pile of the
face is a good character, and the first pair of spots of the female
are always well separated from the side margins in meadii.
There might be some difficulty in separating the males from
those of venablesi (Cur.) but the latter species usually has less
extensive black on the facial tubercle and the pile is black, the
front is usually mostly yellow, the hind femora are black only
on a little more than the basal half, and the second and third
abdominal bands almost reach the side margins. The yellow
hind femora readily separates the females.
S. meadii is typically a western form although specimens
have been taken more rarely in Ontario, Wisconsin, and other
eastern sections.
t
19. Metasyrphus fumipennis (Thom.) (Fig. 16).
Syrphus fumipennis Thomson 1868, Kong. Svenska Freg. Eng. Resa
Omkring Jorden 1 : 499; Williston 1886, Synopsis 293.
Very closely related to meadii (Jones) and venablesi (Cur.)
but the wings are decidedly infuscated with reddish brown.
Eyes bare, facial pile black, front with two black dots, mesono-
tum with reddish pile, hind femora black on the basal four-
fifths, and the abdominal bands undulate and well separated
from the side margins. Length 11 mm.
Male — Face yellow; cheeks and upper mouth edge black,
which is extended over the prominent tubercle but ends at the
deepest part of the concavity of the face, the black stripe is
diffused on the sides by reddish brown; yellow just below the
mouth opening ; pile of cheeks white, of face mostly black ; front
yellow with two brownish dots just above the antennae, pile
black, pollinose next to the eyes ; vertex black with black pile ;
occiput heavily greyish pollinose and covered with short white
Fluke— Syrphus Flies of America
89
to yellowish pile, with a few black hairs over-hanging the eyes
above. Antennae brown, yellow beneath the third segment.
Thorax shining aeneous with light brown pile which is red¬
dish brown along the sides; scutellum yellow with black pile.
Legs yellowish red, one-third of the four front femora black at
their bases and all but the tip of the hind femora ; hind tibiae
reddish. Metasternum hairy.
Wings infuscated reddish brown, paler posteriorly ; squamae
yellow with brownish edge and fringes ; halteres yellow.
Abdomen black with three yellow undulate crossbands, the
first interrupted, and all well separated from the side margins ;
apical margins of the fourth and fifth tergites and the basal
corners of the fifth reddish yellow ; bands are rather broad but
well removed from the basal margins of the segments. Venter
black, incisures yellow; styles of genitalia long, slender, and
reddish in color.
This description is made from a single male collected at Pasa¬
dena, Calif., by F. Grinnell Jr. and is located in the National
Museum at Washington. It is entirely like meadii except for
the infuscated wings, black pile of the face, and brownish pile
of the thorax.
This may not be Thomson’s species but it appears close
enough to consider it as such rather than leaving the species as
well as the single male specimen unknown.
20. Metasyrphus venablesi (Cur.) (Figs. 17, 39.).
Syrphus venablesi Curran 1929, Can. Ent. 61 : 45.
Syrphus nitens Mete, (not Zett.) 1916, Me. Agr. Expt. Sta. Bui.
253 : 242, figs.
Face with a narrow median vitta, eyes bare, front of female
heavily pollinose, pile of scutellum black, hind femora of female
yellow, abdominal bands undulate and usually all reaching the
side margins narrowly. Length 10.5 to 12 mm.
Mate— Face yellow; cheeks, upper oral margin, and a median
vitta on the face black; pile of cheeks white, of face black;
frontal triangle yellow with two brownish dots just above the
antennae (these spots are practically absent on the allotype),
pile black. The black of the cheeks is connected with that of the
upper mouth edge by a reddish brown area. Antennae black,
considerably yellowish below.
90 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Thorax aeneous, shining; pile yellowish to golden along the
sides, whitish on the pleura; scutellum yellow, corners darker,
pile black.
Legs yellowish red, basal one-third of the four front femora
and the basal one-half of the hind femora black.
Abdomen with three pairs of undulated yellow bands which
meet the sides very narrowly by their anterior corners; first
band interrupted ; all separated from bases of segments except
on sides where the harrow angulations reach forward to the
bases of the segments ; apices of fourth and fifth, and the basal
corners of the fifth tergites yellow. Venter black, incisures
broadly yellow, genital styles comparatively short and yellow.
Female — Front broadly pollinose on the lower two-thirds but
usually with two black dots above the antennae (absent in the
type but generally occur), occasionally the pollinose band is
sub-interrupted ; facial stripe narrow ; pile of face yellow.
Legs are all reddish yellow except very narrowly black on the
four front femora. Abdominal bands narrower than on male,
and frequently do not attain the lateral margin.
Described from four males, one from LaFayette, Ind., J. M.
Aldrich, collector, three from Calif., and more than 50 females
from Alberta, British Columbia, Oregon, Idaho, New York,
Montana, Ontario, and California. Apparently it is a common
species in the Vera Cruz Valley, California. The male, from
* Indiana compared favorably with the type, the only difference
was the presence of the brown spots above the antennae.
The female is readily told from meadii (Jones) by the yellow
femora but the male will probably be recognized with difficulty.
The undulate bands will separate it from medius (Jones),
otherwise, however, the two species are remarkably similar.
Since the above was written I have seen Metcalf’s specimens
and they seem to be the same. This extends the range of this
species across the continent. The remarkable spiracles of the
larvae of Metcalf’s specimens suggests a distinct species but I
can find no structural differences between the adults.
21. Metasyrphus laxus (0. S.)
Didea laxa Osten Sacken 1875, Bui. Buff. Sci. Nat. Sci. p. 56; 1878, 2nd
edition Catalog. 245.
The largest species of the genus and easily recognized by the
hairy eyes, black stripe of the face, black antennae, abdominal
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
91
bands which reach the side margins and are often interrupted,
and by the anteriorly pointed black fasciae on the sternites.
The metasternum is hairy. A few specimens lack the black
stripe of the face and the legs are often nearly all pale. It is a
common species in the West but occurs more rarely over the
eastern part of North America.
22. Metasyrphus pingreensis (Fluke) (Fig. 40).
Syrphus pingreensis Fluke 1930, Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer. 23 : 137.
Eyes with very short white pile, faintly so in the male ; face
with a median black stripe ; abdominal bands entire except 1st,
sub-interrupted in some cases, only the 1st band on the females
reaches the margins. Length 9 to 11.5 mm.
Female — Eyes short white pilose, face yellow with a con¬
spicuous brown to blackish line which does not reach the base
of the antennae, broadens out gradually to the oral opening and
passes down the sides of the mouth only a short distance;
cheeks black, but separated from the facial line and also sepa¬
rated below the mouth; pile of the face is mostly black but is
paler below and along the eye margins, heavier and blacker
along the sides of the antennae ; pile on the cheeks and below
the oral opening white, continued white along the occiput, but
yellow above on the vertex, pile of front all black. Front rather
broad, dark shining, with a broad wide Y-shaped marking
above the antennae ; this is distinctly separated by a yellow area
from the two distinct black dots which are immediately above
the base of the antennae; these spots are shining and devoid
of pile. Antennae rather large, oval and dark, with light areas
beneath each segment, arista rather thickened.
Thorax shining with bronze reflections, pile rather heavy and
all tawny, scutellum yellowish with long tawny pile, but with a
few black hairs intermixed.
Legs yellow with the following black areas; coxae, trochant¬
ers, a little more than the basal third of front femora, a little
less than a third of the middle femora, all but the tip of the
hind femora, and the upper sides of the outer four segments of
the hind tarsi. The hind tibiae and the tip of the hind basitarsi
dusky; the front and middle tarsi, except basitarsi brownish.
Pile of legs mostly black, rather heavy on outer sides, bent for¬
ward at the tips of the hairs.
92 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Wings hyaline ; squamae pale, but the rather long pile on the
edges is tawny, disc lightly pilose.
Abdomen broadly oval, black, partly shining, with three
yellow undulate moderately broad cross-bands. First band in¬
terrupted by a distance less than the width of the band, reach¬
ing the side margins by the extreme anterior corners, broader
than the two following ones. Band on third segment undulated,
distinctly separated from the side margins and does not touch
segment in front ; in some specimens sub-interrupted, with the
rear margin cut in rather deeply. Next band similar, nearer
basal margin of segment, yet distinctly separated the entire dis¬
tance. Posterior margins of segments four and five, and the
anterior corners of five yellow. Venter with distinct black
bands on sternites two and three, indefinite on the others.
Male — Similar; the specimens I have examined are slightly
smaller than the females. The pile of the face darker and a
little longer. The black of the cheeks more brownish and con¬
nected to the oral margins. The pilosity of the eyes is sparse.
Abdomen darker, the first band seldom reaches the side mar¬
gins, all the sternites with black bands. Legs much darker, the
black of the femora more extensive and the yellow areas almost
brownish. Pile on the sternites long and mostly blackish be¬
yond the second segment.
The pile of the eyes although very sparse in some specimens
amply distinguishes this species. It is in general appearance
very much like venablesi (Cur.), but the color of the legs will
readily separate them if the pile of the eyes is not apparent.
The black pile of the face will separate it from meadii (Jones).
Described from numerous specimens taken in Colorado, Brit¬
ish Columbia, Oregon, Wisconsin, Manitoba, and Maryland.
23. Metasyrphus latifasciatus (Mq.) (Fig. 18).
Syrphus latifasciatus Macquart 1827, Lille Mem. Sco. Sci. 242.
Scaeva abbreviata Zetterstedt 1849, Dipt. Scand. VIII, 3136.
Syrphus abbreviatus Williston 1886, Synopsis, 81.
Syrphus latifasciatus Verrall 1901, British Flies, Syrph. 371.
Syrphus pallifrons Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. XV : 172.
A very variable species recognized by its yellow face ; yellow
front; broad abdominal bands which are sometimes straight,
sometimes undulated, and which may or may not reach the side
margins ; fasciate venter ; and rather reddish antennae. Length
between 9-10 mm.
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
98
Male— Face and frontal triangle yellow with black pile ex¬
cept near the facial tubercle where it is sparse and white;
cheeks black or brown with white pile ; antennae nearly all yel¬
lowish or reddish, although in some specimens the third seg¬
ment is darkened above.
Thorax shining aeneous black with all golden or yellowish
red pile, scutellum yellow with mostly pale pile but usually some
black hairs intermixed, and the pile may all be black.
Legs yellow except the basal one-fourth of the four front
femora and the basal one-half of the hind femora ; the hind tarsi
are infuscated above.
Abdomen with broad yellow crossbands ; the one on the sec¬
ond tergite separated into two large triangular spots which
reach the sides by their upper corners and are often sub-united
in the middle; next two bands occupy about two-thirds the
width of the segments, notched posteriorly, and usually reach
the side margins; apical margin of the fourth yellow; fifth
yellow with an oval black spot in the middle. Venter yellow
with definite black fascia on sternites two, three and four.
Female — similar; lower one-half of the front pure yellow
which almost reaches the frontal depression, rest of front black,
all shining; facial pile lighter, abdominal bands usually nar¬
rower, occasionally quite undulate, and often do not reach the
side margins; legs paler with often the extreme bases of the
femora black, other times same as males, venter similar.
The description is made from numerous specimens from
“Prussia,” British Columbia, New York, New Jersey, Massa¬
chusetts, Indiana, and Wisconsin; including two paratypes of
Syrphus pallifrons Cur. I have been unable to separate Curran's
species from the many variations which occur in this species.
Verrall has listed several forms and pallifrons probably comes
the nearest to his variety “d”. The characters pointed out by
Curran do not seem to warrant a separation of the species.
24. Metasyrphus lebanoensis (Fluke)
Syrphus lebanoensis Fluke 1930, Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer. 23 : 139.
Face and upper mouth edge yellow; frontal triangle yellow;
front in both sexes pollinose; abdomen with three bands, the
first separated into spots which reach the sides, the next two
well separated from the sides. Third joint of antennae on fe¬
male exceptionally large . Length 11-12 mm.
94 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
This species belongs to the latifasciatus group although some
females have black Y markings on the lower part of the front.
Its nearest relative is latifasciatus but the front in both sexes is
pollinose, the antennae are larger and much darker, the legs of
the females are all yellow, and the 2nd and third abdominal
bands are straighter and well separated from the sides.
It is a western form occurring from New Mexico on the south
and British Columbia on the north.
25. Metasyrphus snowi (Wehr)
Syrphus ruficauda Snow (not Bigot) 1892, Kans. IJniv. Quar. 1 : 36. fig.
Syrphus snowi Wehr 1922, Univ. Studies (Nebr.) 22 : 19 (change cred¬
ited to Curran but this is the first published record)
Easily recognized by the reddish fourth and fifth tergites,
the black cheeks and oral margin, and the yellow face and front.
The only species it could possibly be confused with is palli -
ventris (Cur.), but the color of the fourth tergite, the more
black oral margin, and the black on the bases of the front fe¬
mora of the female readily characterizes snowi . Occasionally
specimens occur on which the second and third bands are not
interrupted. It is not a common species and occurs only in the
mountains of the West.
26. Metasyrphus flukei (Jones) (Fig. 25).
Syrphus flukei Jones 1917, Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer. 10 : 22. (male).
Face yellow, cheeks black, scutellum yellow-haired, abdomen
with three pairs of yellow spots which attain the lateral margin.
Female— Face, lower one-half of front, and third segment of
antennae yellow, no stripe on the face ; cheeks aeneous, shining ;
oral edge narrowly but not definitely outlined brownish; pile
all pale except on front where it is short and black ; front mostly
shining with small side dust spots.
Thorax shining aeneous; scutellum yellow, pile all yellow,
slightly brownish on dorsum of thorax. Legs yellow, tarsi in-
fuscated above.
Abdominal spots reach the sides after attenuating and ex¬
tending forward, inner ends of the third pair touch the base of
the segment. Sternites two and three with black fasciae.
M. palliventris (Cur.) is a close relative, differing only in the
black hairs on the scutellum, the narrower abdominal bands,
and the unicolorous venter. Described from a female taken in
Colorado, contained in the C. V. Riley collection.
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
95
27. Metasyrphus talus n. sp. (Fig. 41).
Face yellow, eyes bare, metasternum hairy, abdomen with
three pairs of broad yellow spots, fifth segment reddish, genital
styles remarkably long and slender. Length 12 mm.
Male — -Face and frontal triangle almost entirely yellow; the
upper mouth edge light brown, and in certain lights an indica¬
tion of a light brown cast to the tubercle; face slightly puffed
out, pile white ; face and front lightly white pollinose ; two very
pale light brown spots above the antennae, pile black on front ;
cheeks shining black with black pile; vertical triangle black
with black pile but there are no black hairs overhanging the
eyes. Antennae black, yellow below on each segment. Eyes
practically bare.
Thorax shining, with a bluish cast, pile all pale yellow,
slightly brownish along the sides. Scutellum yellow when
viewed from the side, bluish opalescent from above, the pile
yellowish white except about a dozen intermixed black hairs on
the disc. Legs reddish yellow, basal one-third of the femora
black, tarsi infuscated above. Wings hyaline, stigma brown;
squamae pale brownish, halteres yellow.
Abdomen velvety black, shining along the segmental junc¬
tures, with three pairs of broad isolated yellow spots ; first pair
semi-triangular, outer ends broader than the rounded inner
ends ; second and third pairs arcuated, their inner ends nearer
the base of the segment than their outer ends; apical margin
of fourth and all of fifth reddish. Venter reddish yellow, black
fascia on sternites two and three, pile mostly pale on the first
three, black on the remaining sternites. Genital styles are ex¬
tremely long and narrow, slightly broader at their bases and
less so at the tips ; about five or six times longer than broad.
Type male Mt. Hood, Ore., 7-18-31, J. Nottingham, collector ;
deposited in the University of Kansas Museum. Two paratype
males, collected same place and date, one by Nottingham in the
author’s collection, the other by R. H. Reamer in the Kansas
collection.
A very striking species with its reddish abdominal tip, iso¬
lated spots, yellow face, and extremely long genital styles. Its
nearest relative appears to be M. palliventris (Cur.) but the
abdominal spots are well separated from the sides and the scu¬
tellum is practically yellow haired. The reddish fifth segment
and the long styles separate it from M. neoperplexus (Cur.).
96 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
28. Metasyrphus palliventris (Cur.) (Fig. 19).
Syrphus palliventris Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 173.
Eyes bare, face yellow, metasternum hairy, abdomen with
arcuated yellow spots, fifth tergite yellowish red.
It is related to snowi but differs from that species in the fol¬
lowing characters: fourth tergite black, with yellow fascia;
oral margin yellow ; usually a few black hairs on the scutellum ;
abdominal spots broader, more arcuate, and usually reach the
side margins. In addition the 4th sternite of the male is yellow
with a black crossbar while that of snowi is all yellow. The
yellow on the front of the female of palliventris is more exten¬
sive ; in snowi it ends rather sharply at the frontal depression.
There is a distinct difference in the “facies” which is rather
difficult to describe but easily noted after examining the two
species.
The following description of the male is taken from a speci¬
men collected at Priest Lake, 4-mile Camp, Idaho, Aug. 1920
(A. L. Melander). The type female was taken in Alberta and I
have examined, in addition to the type, two females, one from
Alberta (0. Bryant), and the other from Park Co., Mont., (A.
A. Nichol) ; and one male from Bull Frog Lake, Fresno County,
Calif., 10,000 feet elevation, collected by E. C. VanDyke. I feel
confident that these specimens are the male of palliventris.
Male — Length 11 mm. Face and frontal triangle entirely
yellow, only narrowly light brownish on the oral margin;
cheeks black with light pile ; pile of face yellow, of front black ;
antennae yellowish red, third segment darker above.
Thorax shining greenish black, pile all yellow, more golden
along the sides ; scutellum yellow opalescent, the corners black,
pile mostly yellow but with a few black hairs on the disc. Legs
yellow with the basal one-third of the four front femora and the
basal one-half of the hind femora black. The black of the
femora turns to a reddish brown at the extreme bases, which
would suggest that there might occur at times specimens which
have paler legs.
Abdomen black with three pairs of unusually broad spots, the
second and third pair very narrowly connected in the middle.
The first pair of spots occupies more than half the width of the
segment, triangular in shape and reach the side margins very
obscurely. The second and third pair are arcuated, as broad as
the first pair, attenuate and reach the sides, extending forward
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
97
narrowly to the bases of the segments as in the female. The
venter is yellow with definite spots on sternites two, three and
four. The long pile on the first three sternites is pale, on the
fourth black.
The California specimen shows no particular differences ex¬
cept the face is broader and the antennae more yellowish. This
species resembles flukei (Jones) which has a pale-haired scu-
tellum and black faciae on the sternites; otherwise they are
closely related.
29. Metasyrphus nigroventris n. sp. (Fig. 20).
Face yellow with a prominent black tubercle, abdomen shin¬
ing black, without spots or bands. Length 11 mm.
Female— Face yellow ; prominent tubercle, broad mouth edge,
and cheeks shining black; pile of face pale, of cheeks white;
upper two-thirds of front shining black, lower one-third shining
yellow, pile black and continued down the sides of the face be¬
low the antennae; eyes bare; antennae reddish brown; arista
brown.
Thorax shining aeneous, pile nearly white, very pale yellow
along the sides ; scutellum yellow, pile white except for a few
scattering black hairs near the apex. Metasternum hairy. Legs
black, tips of femora, basal thirds of the four front tibiae yel¬
lowish to brownish. Wings hyaline, squamae white, halteres
yellow, stalks brown.
Abdomen shining black, slight indication of yellow borders
on the fourth and fifth tergites. The incisures of the sternites
narrowly pale. Pile of the tergites is black except white patches
where yellow bands might be expected.
Even if the abdomen were spotted or banded the peculiar face
and front sets this species apart from any known to me. It
should be readily recognized by the sharp tubercle, color of
front, and the shining abdomen. Apparently its nearest rela¬
tive is latifasciatus .
Described from a single female, the type, with the following
data: “Patoot, 6-8 : 8; Gronland Nordskj. Exp. 88. Greenland
Acc. No. 71429.,, Type in the National Museum at Washington.
30. Metasyrphus depressus n. sp. (Fig. 21).
Related to latifasciatus and palliventris but the first two ab¬
dominal bands are isolated into spots and the third one nearly
98 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
so, the facial tubercle has a brownish vitta, and the fifth tergite
is black with only the anterior corners and the posterior margin
yellow. All the spots are well away from the side margins.
Length : 8 to 9.5 mm.
Female — Face yellow ; cheeks, the oral margin, and an abbre¬
viated median vitta on the face black or brown; front black
shining on the upper two thirds, yellow shining below; pile of
face and cheeks pale, on the front black and rather short ; pile
of occiput white below becoming pale yellowish above. Anten¬
nae small, brownish, yellow underneath the third segment;
arista short, brown. Eyes bare.
Thorax shining aeneous black with sparse pale pile which is
lightly golden along the sides but almost white on the pleura;
scutellum yellow with black pile except along the base.
Legs yellow, the basal one-fourth to one-third of the femora
black, on the hind femora rather indefinitely black on the base,
tarsi infuscated above; pile mostly short black and depressed.
Wings hyaline, the stigma dilutely yellow; squamae yellow, bare
above; halteres yellow. Metasternum hairy.
Abdomen semi-opaque black with three pairs of isolated
spots, the third pair narrowly connected in the middle ; the first
pair is slightly narrower than the other two; the second and
third pairs gently concave in front and convex behind, inner
ends almost pointed, outer ends squared and all well separated
from the lateral margins; apical margins of the fourth and
fifth tergites and the basal corners of the fifth yellow. Venter
black ; the incisures, sides, and fifth sternite yellow ; pile of first
and second sternites pale and erect, on the third and following
sternites short, mostly black, and depressed.
Male — Frontal triangle all yellow with black pile, practically
no pollen; antennae smaller and unicolorously reddish brown,
arista short, brown. Legs blacker than the female, the basal
half of the front femora and the basal three-fourths to four-
fifths of the hind femora black, tarsi dark brown from above.
Abdominal spots similar to female except the first pair are more
triangular.
Holotype female — Healy, Alaska, VI-27-21, J. M. Aldrich,
Coll, in the U. S. National Museum. Allotype male— Nantucket,
Mass. V-31-25, C. W. Johnson, Coll, in the Cambridge Museum.
The male is a slightly imperfect specimen. Paratype female —
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
99
Low Bush, Ont. Lake Abitibi, VI-23-1925, N. K. Bigelow, Coll,
in the Canadian National Museum at Ottawa.
The shape of the abdominal spots suggests Metasyrphus cur -
tus (Hine) but the yellow front in both sexes separates it from
that species.
31. Metasyrphus rufipunctatus (Cur.)
Syrphus rufipunctatus Curran 1924, Kansas Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 180, fig.
The peculiar facies of this species relates it to snowi and pal -
liventris but the abdomen with its three pairs of narrow iso¬
lated spots, relates it to perplexus . The face is yellow with a
prominent black tubercle, and pale pile ; cheeks and oral margin
broadly, shining black; front characteristically pure yellow on
the lower one-fifth or sixth just above the black antennae ; eyes
bare ; thorax shining with pale yellowish to whitish pile ; scutel-
lum with pale pile ; metasternum hairy ; femora broadly black,
narrowly yellow at the tip on hind legs, and about one-third on
the tips of the four front femora. Length 10 to 12 mm.
The type female was collected in British Columbia and I have
seen a female from Washington, taken at an elevation of 6 to
8,000 feet on Mount Rainier. This specimen is in the Metcalf
collection.
32. Metasyrphus montivagus (Snow)
Syrphus montivagus Snow 1893, Kans. Univ. Quart. 3 : 236 (male) ;
Fluke 1930, Ann. Ent. Soe. Amer. 23 : 141, (female), fig.
This species is easily recognized by the broad dark blood-red
crossbands which are somewhat narrower in the female.
The dorsum of the fifth and following segments are red in
both sexes. The pile of the thorax is tawny and this character
along with the color of the crossbands will readily separate it
from palliventris (Cur.) its nearest relative. The facial vitta
and black cheeks is also quite characteristic but there are occa¬
sionally specimens in which only the tubercle of the face is
brownish. It is an high altitude species taken at 10,000 to
11,000 feet elevation.
33. Metasyrphus perplexus (Osb.) (Fig. 42).
Syrphus perplexus Osburn 1910, Jour. N. Y. Ent. Soc. 18 : 55.
Syrphus arcuatus authors in part.
Metasternum hairy; eyes bare, face with a black stripe;
front with two large black spots just above the antennae; pile
100 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
of thorax white; third longitudinal vein only gently curved;
abdomen with three pairs of spots, all separated from the side
margins. Length 10 to 11 mm.
Male — -Face yellow with a black shining stripe which ends in
a diffuse point well before reaching the base of the antennae,
cheeks also black, occasionally brownish, and there is a shiny
brownish connection between the stripe and cheeks, in some
specimens it is almost yellow, in others black ; beneath the oral
opening there is always a very narrow yellow area; frontal
triangle yellow, shining, with two prominent black spots just
above the antennae; vertical triangle black, shining. Pile of
head black; yellow on the cheeks, occiput, except a few over¬
hanging hairs near the vertex, and sparsely on each side of the
facial stripe; the black hairs occur along the eye margins and
there is an indefinite band crossing the face to the tubercle,
quite definite in some specimens. Antennae dark brown, lighter
below ; arista reddish.
Thorax steely blue shining with rather heavy white pile,
longer and thicker on the pleura, scutellum yellowish to
opalescent, darker at the basal corners, the pile mostly black,
metasternum hairy.
Legs yellow ; coxae, trochanters, basal third of front femora,
basal half indefinitely of middle femora and all but the tip of
the hind femora black; the hind tibiae and all the tarsi, par¬
ticularly the rear tarsi infuscated to black above. Pile of the
legs is mostly black, on the outer and posterior sides of the
femora and tibiae the hairs are rather long, those of the front
two legs bent outward toward their tips ; on the coxae and tro¬
chanters white except a few stiff hairs which are black on the
front edge of the coxae ; most of the hairs on the front tibia and
tarsi and the under-sides of the hind metatarsi are yellow,
short, and appressed.
Wings hyaline, stigma dilutely yellowish. Squamae white
with white to yellowish fringe ; plumule white ; halteres yellow,
the stalk brown.
Abdomen sub-shining, more shining on the edges of the seg¬
ments; with three pairs of spots or lunules, always well sepa¬
rated and not reaching the side margins ; first pair a little better
than twice as long as wide, pointed on their inner ends, rounded
on their outer ends; second pair usually broad, reaching for¬
ward and rounded on their inner ends, truncate on their outer
Fluke— Syrphus Flies of America
101
ends; third pair similar, smaller, slightly oblique, and situated
almost on the basal half of the segment ; apical margins of the
fourth and fifth segments narrowly yellow, but not reaching
side margins. Pile mostly white basally, blacker apically. Ven¬
ter variable, usually black shining with narrow yellow cross¬
bands at the junctures of the segments, more yellow basally,
sometimes the yellow is as broad as the intervening black areas.
Pile of venter long and white, becoming black on the fourth
sternite ; a few short semi-appressed black hairs on the 3rd and
4th sternites. Genitalia black with black pile although there is
a small patch of white hairs at the tipe of the exposed area.
Styles of the genitalia long but evenly oval.
Female — similar; front black, shining, with a pair of trian¬
gular pollinose side spots which diffuse below into the yellow of
the face, the spots above the antennae large, often connected
and usually joined to the black of the upper part of the front,
sometimes there is a separation which gives the front a black
inverted Y, cheeks often yellowish; antennae larger, pile of
face almost all yellow; pile of scutellum frequently nearly all
yellow ; spots of abdomen longer, narrower, and usually
straighter.
Described from specimens from Wisconsin, Colorado, New
Jersey, British Columbia and Oregon.
Strange as it may seem this species is a close relative of the
wiedemanni group. It is only a short step through meadii
(Jones), through pingreensis (Fluke), to wiedemanni (John.).
The larval characters also show this close relationship as ex¬
plained by the author (Wis. Res. Bui. 93, p. 17.)
34. M etcisyr phns neoperplexus (Cur.) (Fig. 43).
Syrphus neoperplexus Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 93.
Metasternum hairy ; face with an abbreviated diffused
brownish to black stripe; thoracal pile yellowish; third longi¬
tudinal vein only gently curved. Length 12 mm.
The type of this species a male, has only a brownish opal¬
escent diffused stripe on the facial tubercle but I believe that it
is slightly teneral as other specimens which agree in nearly all
other respects have a more definite black stripe, even though
quite abbreviated. I have examined a rather long series from
Low Bush, Ont. (N. K. Bigelow) and believe they all belong to
this species. The pile of the face is mostly black on the males
102 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
and the hind femora are black on the basal three-fourths, there
is also a black ring on the hind tibiae. The genital styles are
of medium length, not more than twice as long as their greatest
width which is at their extreme bases.
The female is very similar with the exception of the ab¬
dominal bands which are much narrower and the outer ends
are obtuse, pointing slightly forward and the second and third
spots almost reach the sides. The upper two-thirds of the front
is shining aeneous, and there are two large black spots above
the antennae, pile black.
The principal differences between this species and perplexus
(Osb.) is the yellow pile of the thorax, and diffused, abbreviated
stripe of the face. It is entirely different than lapponicus
(Zett.) as that species has no hair on the metasternum and the
third vein is rather strongly curved downward.
This species might possibly be confused with luniger (Mg.)
an European species but the inner ends of the spots of luniger
are closer to the basal margins of the segments than the outer
ends and the legs are much paler.
If the true arcuatus (Fall.) has a hairy metasternum, and I
strongly suspect it has, then this species will prove to be a very
close relative. We have no proof, however, that Lundbeck cor¬
rectly identified arcuatus. This particular tangle will not be
entirely unravelled until European writers clear up the status
of arcuatus. The presence or absence of hair on the metaster¬
num helps considerably to straighten out these species but the
last word will not be written until someone makes an exhaustive
study of the genitalia of all species after careful comparisons
with the types.
In addition to the Ontario specimens I have examples of neo -
perplexus from Wisconsin, Oregon and Colorado.
35. Metasyrphus curtus (Hine) (Fig. 22).
Syrphus curtus Hine 1922, Ohio Jour. Sci. 22 : 145.
Abdomen with three pairs of isolated spots, very broad in the
male, face with a black stripe, frontal triangle usually yellow,
basal segments of antennae black. Length 8 to 9.6 mm.
Male — Face and frontal triangle yellow; cheeks, oral margin
and a facial stripe shining black; cheeks somewhat reddish just
below the mouth; pile of cheeks pale, of face and frontal tri¬
angle black. Antennae small, the basal segments usually black,
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
103
third reddish brown, yellow below at the base, arista short,
reddish.
Thorax shining aeneous with golden pile, there are occasion¬
ally a few black hairs intermixed on the disc. Scutellum yellow
with mostly black pile.
Legs reddish yellow, basal one-half of the four front femora
and the basal three-fourths of the hind femora black; hind
tibiae and tarsi considerably infuscated.
Wings hyaline, stigma dilutely yellowish; squamae light
brownish, halteres yellow.
Abdomen black with three pairs of broad yellow spots ; first
pair sub-triangular, their inner ends pointed, outer edge
straight; second and third pairs almost as broad as long, occu¬
pying more than one-half of the width of the segments, fore¬
margins moderately concave, posterior margins broadly and
evenly convex; inner ends nearer the basal margins; apical
margins of fourth and fifth segments yellow; two yellow spots
at the basal corners of fifth segment. Venter yellow, a large
black spot on sternites two to four, pile of first three long and
all yellow except a few shorter black hairs on three, shorter and
black on remaining sternites.
Female— Front black, shining on the upper two-thirds, with
rather inconspicuous side dust spots; two brown spots above
the antennae; abdominal spots much narrower than those of
the male, but similarly shaped.
Described from two paratypes from Alaska through the
courtesy of the Ohio State Museum.
The male will be recognized readily by the large kidney¬
shaped spots but the female will be told with more difficulty.
There may occasionally be some confusion with neoperplexus
(Cur.) and montanus (Cur.), but the former has pale pile on
the face, and the latter has yellow hairs on the face and scutel¬
lum. The size and narrow abdomen of curtus will help to sepa¬
rate it from neoperplexus.
38. Metasyrphus montanus (Cur.)
Syrphus montanus Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 174, fig.
Very closely related to curtus (Hine) and the only differences
to be noted are the yellow hairs of the face and scutellum. It is
doubtful if these differences are enough to warrant specific
separation. Hine’s description of curtus is a little misleading,
104 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
particularly as to the color of the legs and of the hairs of the
face and scutellum. The type of montanus, a male, is to my
knowledge the only known representative.
37. Metasyrphus lapponicus (Zett.) (Figs. 23, 44).
Scaeva lapponica Zetterstedt 1838, Insecta Lap. 598.
Synphus arcuatus authors in part.
Syrphus lapponicus Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 175, (notes
that arcuatus does not occur in this country).
Eyes bare. Face with a median black stripe, thorax yellowish
pilose, scutellum black haired; abdomen with three pairs of
isolated spots, the last two pair arcuated; third longitudinal
vein decidedly looped. Length 8 to 13 mm., average 11 mm.
Male — Face yellow with a median black stripe which comes
to a point before reaching the antennae, and which continues
around the mouth edge and connected to the cheeks which are
all black; facial tubercle narrow but rather sharply pointed;
frontal triangle yellow with narrow connected arcs above the
antennae; vertical triangle black. Pile of cheeks white to yel¬
lowish, of the face and frontal triangle mostly black although
in some specimens there are pale hairs below and near the tu¬
bercle ; pile of vertical triangle black ; on the occiput white, with
a few of the overhanging hairs near the vertex black. Frontal
triangle and face on the sides lightly dusted with yellow pollen.
Antennae reddish to dark, usually lighter on the underside;
usually smaller than other species of this group, arista about as
long as the antennae, reddish.
Thorax shining with a slightly greenish tint as contrasted
with the bluish shine of per plexus; pile almost white with a de¬
cided yellowish tinge on the pleura, more whitish on the venter.
Scutellum obscurely yellowish on the disk, darker in the cor¬
ners, the pile all black except the short white hairs extending
below the edge. Metasternum bare.
Legs yellow, the coxae, trochanters, basal half of front and
middle femora, all but the tip of the hind femora, the front and
middle tibiae, the hind tibiae except a broad black mid-ring, and
the outer segments of the tarsi, especially from above, black or
dark brown. Pile of the legs black except on the front four
tibiae and tarsi and the bases of the femora. The hairs on the
outer sides of the femora and hind tibiae are rather heavy, with
a mixture of short and a few longer hairs on the hind femora.
Fluke— Syrphus Flies of America
105
Wings hyaline, stigma brown, third vein bent into first pos¬
terior cell. Squamae yellowish with light brown fringes, plu¬
mule white, halteres yellow.
Abdomen sub-shining black with three pairs of isolated yel¬
low spots, the second and third pairs arcuated; none of them
reach the side margins and they are well separated in the mid¬
dle. The first pair are broad and both ends are rounded ; second
and third pair progressively more basal, distinctly arcuated,
inner ends rounded, outer ends straight with the upper corners
coming to a point, almost reaching the side margins in a few
cases, normally well separated. Apical margins of 4th and 5th
segments and basal corners of 5th segment yellow. Venter yel¬
low with 3 or 4 broad black crossbars. Pile of the abdomen
black with yellow hairs basally, short on the tergites, long and
white on the first three sternites, black with more appressed
than erect hairs on the 4th and remaining sternites.
Female— Very little different, the abdominal bands are
slightly narrower but there is not the difference as noted be¬
tween the two sexes in M. perplexus (Osb.) ; the legs are not so
black, less than half the femora and the hind tibiae are reddish.
The front is black with black pile and the sides are yellow pol-
linose, leaving a black shining stripe down the middle connect¬
ing the vertex with the black arc just above the antennae.
Described from numerous specimens from Oregon, Colorado
and Wisconsin.
The eastern specimens are all larger but aside from the size
I can see no differences. As Lundbeck has already pointed out
our species cannot be the European arcuatus (Fall.) as the first
spots reach the side margins. In the American forms these
spots are distinctly separated although those on the 3rd and 4th
segments may reach the margins by their extreme upper cor¬
ners. The only closely allied species are perplexus (Osb.) and
neoperplexus (Cur.) but in both these species the metasternum
is hairy and the third vein is only gently curved. M . aberrantis
(Cur.) has a curved vein but the bands on the 3rd and 4th seg¬
ments are not interrupted.
There occurs in Labrador and in high altitudes of the West a
variety which lacks the abdominal spots except a small pair on
the second segment. I have before me a male and female from
Michel, B. C., C. Garrett, collector; and four females from
Hopedale, Labr., W. W. Perrett, collector.
106 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters,
This variety may be Gerschner’s arcuatus, var. bipunctatus,
but I am unable to decide the question.
38. Metasyrphus marginatus (Jones)
Syrphus marginatus Jones 1917, Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer. 10 : 222.
Belongs to the lapponicus group but the facial stripe is re¬
duced to a narrow indefinite dash on the tubercle; facial pile
black; thoracal pile pallid on the dorsum, light yellow on the
sides; third longitudinal vein distinctly curved. Length 13 mm.
Male — Face yellow, with a prominent tubercle, stripe reddish
brown, narrow and confined to the tubercle, connected to the
narrowly brownish upper mouth edge obscurely, pile all black;
cheeks black with white pile; frontal triangle yellow, lightly
dusted with white pollen, except just above the antennae where
there is a narrow black double arc, pile black. Antennae brown,
yellow on the first two and below on the third segment. Eyes
bare.
Thorax shining aeneous black, pile pallid, light yellow along
the sides. Scutellum yellow, pile black, yellow on the basal cor¬
ners. Legs yellow, front four femora black on the basal one-
fourth to one-third, hind femora on the basal two-thirds to
three-fourths, tarsi infuscated. Wings hyaline, third vein
dipped. Metasternum bare.
Abdomen semi-opaque black with three pairs of spots, first
pair straight, three times as long as wide, inner ends narrowly
rounded, outer ends reaching forward obscurely to the edges;
second and third pairs isolated and arcuated, outer basal cor¬
ners reaching forward almost to the basal corners of the seg¬
ment, posterior margins almost straight. Posterior margins of
fourth and fifth and the anterior corners of the fifth yellow.
Venter black with yellow incisures. Genital styles broad at the
base, evenly curved, yellow in color.
This species is certainly closely related to lapponicus (Zett.)
but its large size, almost entirely yellow face with black pile,
and somewhat different abdominal spots distinguishes it.
Described from two males from Bear Wallow St. Catalina
Mts., Arizona, 8000 ft. elevation. They were compared with the
type in the Jones’ collection at Fort Collins, Colorado.
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
107
39. Metasyrphus aberr antis (Cur.)
Syrphus afo err antis Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 90, fig.
A very easily recognized species with its bare metasternum,
curved third longitudinal vein, and entire crossbands on the
third and fourth segments. Occasionally the bands are quite
undulated and may be almost divided at the middle. It is a
common species in the far West, particularly Washington, Ore¬
gon, and British Columbia.
40. Metasyrphus creper (Snow) (Fig. 26).
Syrphus creper Snow 1895, Kans. Univ. Quart. 3 : 234; Curran 1924,
Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 180, places as a variety of lotus (Will.)
Eyes hairy, face with a median black stripe, cheeks yellow,
abdominal bands separated from the side margins. Length 8.5
to 11 mm.
Male — Face and cheeks yellow, face with a sharply outlined
black stripe which reaches almost to the base of the antennae
and continues around the mouth edge only half way thence
across the lower face to the eyes ; frontal triangle black shining,
lightly dusted with white pollen, the pile black which extends
down on the sides of the face only a short distance, rest of the
pile of face and cheeks sparse and pale; sides of face very
lightly dusted with white pollen; vertical triangle black with
black pile, occiput black with white pile becoming intermixed
with a few black hairs which overhang the eyes near the vertex.
Antennae blackish brown, slightly yellow beneath the first two
segments and at the base below the third ; arista reddish brown,
not quite as long as the antennae.
Thorax metallic bluish black or sometimes slightly greenish
black, in the one male specimen before me there is no indication
of olivaceous stripes although they are readily evident in the
female ; pile moderate, light yellow in color, more yellowish on
the sides but more whitish on the pleura. Scutellum dull yellow
with the anterior corners black, pile black except the short hairs
on the extreme front margin and the under edge of the pos¬
terior margin which are pale.
Legs yellow with the following parts black; basal third of
the front and middle femora, all but the apical fifth of the hind
femora, a mid-ring on the hind tibiae, the apical segments of the
hind tarsi, and all the coxae and trochanters except the apex of
108 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters „
the front coxae. Pile of the legs mostly pale except the short
hairs on the outer edge of the hind tibiae and tarsi.
Wings hyaline, the stigma brownish. Squamae white with
pale yellow fringe, plumule white, halteres yellow, the stalks
darker.
Abdomen black, sub-shining, more opaque basally, with three
oddly shaped yellow bands, none of which reach the sides. Sec¬
ond segment with a pair of slightly arcuate median spots,
rounded to pointed on their inner ends, truncate on their outer
ends; the spots on the third segment almost touching in the
middle, the spots oblique, the front margin greatly concave, the
rear margin gradually convex. The concavity is due mostly to
the widening out of the spots both on the inner ends and the
outer ends, the inner ends curving forward, spreading out and
all but touching the basal margin of the segment but leaving a
median basal black spot triangular in outline. The spots on the
next segment are similar except they unite at the base of the
segment, the ends reaching the base of the segment. Narrow
apices of the 4th and 5th segments yellow. In some specimens
the spots are united in the middle. Venter yellow with three
broad black transverse bars. Pile of abdomen black above, white
toward the base; white on the venter with a depressed short
black hairs on the fourth and fifth sternites.
Female quite similar; the pile of the face is almost all black
especially along the sides ; the front is black with a broad trans¬
verse pollinose band ; three very faint stripes are noticeable on
the thorax ; and there is a pair of spots at the basal corners of
the fifth segment. Occasionally the bands on the 3rd and 4th
segments are divided in the middle but usually they are entire.
Type locality Arizona.
Described from seven specimens from Colorado and Oregon,
7,000 to 9,000 ft. elevation. Occurs generally in high altitudes
of the West. It belongs to the amalopis group but the bands are
narrowly if at all separated and do not reach the side margins.
41. Metasyrphus lotus (Will.) (Fig. 24).
Syrphus lotus Williston 1886, Synopsis 75.
Known only by the type, a female from Arizona ; thus all of
the published records of lotus probably refer to creper (Snow).
The abdominal bands are bilaterally oblique with nearly straight
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
109
posterior edges and lack the peculiar “hook” on the anterior
inner margin so characteristic of creper .
Face and cheeks pure yellow with a brownish median stripe
on the face which does not quite reach the antennae; tubercle
prominent; pile of cheeks white, yellow on the face, becoming
black on the sides and near the antennae ; front black but with
a very broad pollinose band which is not interrupted, pile dark
brown to black.
Thorax shining black but with two median pollinose stripes
anteriorly; pile tawny, a few black hairs intermixed; humeri
strongly pollinose, pleural pile longer and brownish. Scutellum
entirely yellow with long black pile, a few yellow hairs in front.
Legs yellow except basal one-third of four front femora and
basal half of hind femora, hind tibiae missing. Wings hyaline,
stigma dark brown.
Abdomen black with three yellow crossbands, the first nar¬
rowly interrupted and all separated from the lateral margins ;
the second and third bands are bilaterally oblique, their fore¬
margins only slightly concave and touching the bases of the
segments, their posterior margins almost straight; apical mar¬
gins of the fourth and fifth, and the basal corners of the fifth
yellow. Venter black with incisures broadly yellow.
Most of the specimens identified as lotus agree with Willis-
ton’s amended description of a female from New Mexico. While
the type specimen may be teneral, and this would account for
the yellow cheeks and mouth edge and perhaps for the more
yellow legs, yet it would not explain the very decidedly different
crossbands.
Since the above was written, I have seen a male from Walnut
Creek, California, which is essentially like the female except
the band on the third tergite is quite distinctly interrupted. It
is undoubtedly closely related to albostriatus (Fin.) of Europe.
42. Metasyrphus reflectipennis (Cur.)
Syrphus reflectipennis Curran 1921, Can. Ent. 58 : 157.
Eyes pilose, face with an indefinite broad black stripe, head
of the appearance of M. creper and abdomen of S. torvus.
Length 11.5 mm.
The head of this species readily places it in the amalopis
group and it is easily characterized by the torvus-like abdomi¬
nal bands which reach the side-margins in their full width;
110 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
the first band is broadly interrupted and the second and third
semi-interrupted. The venter is black with narrow yellow
transverse bars. Male unknown.
Its nearest relative is probably creper (Sn.) but is readily
told by the abdominal bands, their shape and because they
reach the side-margins.
43. Metasyrphus amalopis (0. S.) (Fig. 27).
Syrphus amalopis Osten Sacken 1875, Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist.
18 : 148; Williston 1886, Synopsis 69; Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui.
15 : 179. Syrphus intrudens Osten Sacken 1877, Bui. U. S. Geol. and Geog.
Surv. Ter. 3 : 326. Syrphus disgregus Snow 1895, Kans. Univ. Quart.
3 : 233.1
Abdomen with three pairs of spots, the second and third
pairs arcuated, their inner ends club-shaped, their outer ends
reaching the sides ; spots often cut in two ; antennae dark, pile
of scutellum black. Length 9 to 11 mm.
Male — Face yellow with a broad black stripe which occupies
less than a third the width of the face, tubercle rather flat with
only a gentle concavity between it and the antennae, pile usually
black although there are often some white hairs near the
mouth; cheeks and oral margin broadly shining black but may
be reddish brown in some specimens below the mouth ; pile yel¬
lowish, a few black hairs near the eye margins ; frontal triangle
black with black pile, yellow pollinose along the eyes; vertical
triangle black with black pile; occiput very narrow above,
broader below, covered with grey pollen and heavy white pile,
with brownish to black hairs above overhanging the eyes. An¬
tennae black on first two segments, more reddish on third
segment.
Thorax shining aeneous with yellow or sometimes black pile
which is darker along the sides; scutellum opalescent yellow,
the corners black, pile black, with a few white hairs basally.
Metasternum bare.
Legs yellow to reddish ; basal one-half to three-fourths of the
four front femora, basal five sixths of the hind femora, a
median ring on the hind tibiae, and the dorsal sides of the hind
1 Since the above was written I have seen a series of specimens from New Mex¬
ico and have concluded that disgregus Sn. is a distinct species ; recognized by the
spots on the second segment which are less than two times as long as broad and
by the narrower facial stripe. It is also a smaller species, 8 to 9 mm. long.
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
111
tarsi black. The color varies considerably, and the hind legs are
almost entirely black in the more northern specimens.
Wings dilutely yellowish, the stigma brown ; squamae yellow,
fringes brownish ; halteres yellow.
Abdomen semi-opaque black with three pairs of yellow spots,
the first pair isolated from the sides, the second and third pairs
greatly arcuated and occasionally separated into four spots,
but usually reaching the side margins. The inner ends of these
spots are club-shaped, giving the posterior margin an even
convex curve and the anterior margin deeply concave, almost
to the shape of a wide U. Alaskan specimens and others occa¬
sionally are deeply excised or completely severed into separate
spots; under such conditions the side spots are usually sepa¬
rated from the lateral margins. Apical margins of fourth and
fifth segments, and the sides and corners of the fifth, yellow.
Venter yellow with three complete crossbands, crossing over
the thin side membranes, posteriorly located on sternites two,
three and four. Sternite two with a median, anterior, round
black spot; sternite one black; narrow apical margins of all
sternites yellow. Pile of venter long, yellow basally, black apic-
ally, with seldom any short appressed black hairs.
Female very similar. The front shining black with two prom¬
inent pollinose side spots which often coalesce into a crossband.
Cheeks sometimes reddish.
A very variable species and there are no constant differences
which would separate intrudens from amalopis . Many western
specimens will match perfectly the type of amalopis and the re¬
verse is also true. The three specimens mentioned by Williston
undoubtedly belonged to osburni (Cur.).
44. Metasyrphus laticaudatus (Cur.)
Syrphus laticaudatus Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 176, fig.
A very close relative of amalopis (0. S.) differing only in
its large size, broad abdomen which is shining, and the pe¬
culiarly shaped abdominal spots which are concave posteriorly.
Otherwise I can see no differences of specific value. A longer
series of specimens from British Columbia may show it to be
only a large variety of amalopis , which is undoubtely a variable
species.
The pile on the lower part of the cheeks is pale, but the
ground color is black even below the mouth opening. Only
112 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters.
about the basal one-third of the anterior four femora black.
Two large broad specimens, a male and female from Oregon,
approach this species but the abdomen is only semi-shining, and
the spots are straight posteriorly.
45. Metasyrphus osburni (Cur.) (Fig. 28).
Syrphus osburni Curran 1924, Kansas. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 177, fig.
Very similar to amalopis (0. S.). The facial tubercle is very
little prominent and the epistoma is not produced below. The
first pair of spots reach the sides by a narrow semi-distinct
streak. The antennae are always yellow and the pile of the
scutelJum is all pale. The vitta on the face is narrower than on
amalopis. Length about 9 mm. I have two males from Quebec
(C. H. Curran) and one female from Ontario (G. S. Walley).
The males agree perfectly with the type.
46. Metasyrphus venustus (Mg.) (Fig. 29).
Syrphus venustus Meigen 1822, Syst. Beschr. 3 : 299; Curran 1922, Can.
Ent. 54 : 117.
Eyes hairy; face usually with a comparatively narrow black
stripe; antennae reddish, and the abdomen black with three
pairs of narrow, transverse spots, all of which extend over the
side margins. Length 10 to 12 mm.
Male — Face shining yellow with a black shining stripe which
narrows to a point near the base of the antennae and connected
very narrowly along the oral margin with the black of the
cheeks; frontal triangle black, shining, lightly dusted with
white pollen near the eyes ; pile of the vertical triangle, frontal
triangle, sides of face, and upper part of cheeks black, yellow
elsewhere, although there are a few black hairs intermixed
along the sides of the facial stripe, lower cheeks, and in some
specimens among the overhanging hairs on the upper part of
the occiput. Antennae yellow to reddish brown, arista brown
to black; eyes with pale pubescence.
Thorax shining aeneous black with rather long yellow pile;
scutellum yellow becoming dark at the corners, pile long and
yellow, rarely are any black hairs present. Metasternum bare.
Legs yellow with black as follows: the coxae, trochanters,
basal half of front and middle femora, basal two-thirds of hind
femora, and the upper sides of the terminal three or four seg¬
ments of the tarsi brownish to blackish, darkest on the hind
Fluke ■ — Syrphus Flies of America
113
tarsi; there is also a light brownish area on the hind tibiae.
Pile of legs mostly yellow, with some black pubescence on top
of the hind tibiae and tarsi and occasionally the hind femora.
Most of the pile is short and appressed except in the femora,
particularly toward their bases, where it is long and weak.
Wings nearly hyaline, stigma brown. Squamae light with
light brown fringes, plumule white ; halteres yellow.
Abdomen shining black, a little duller anteriorly, with three
pairs of briefly lunate spots which extend well over the side
margins. First pair well separated, rounded and narrower
toward their inner ends, outer ends slightly attenuated before
reaching side margins, the spots are mid-way between fore and
rear margins; second pair sub-basal and narrower, concave in
front, slightly convex behind, separated by less than their width,
but reach the sides in their full width, somewhat extending for¬
ward; third pair similar to second, more basal, inner ends
almost reaching the base of the segment; fourth and fifth seg¬
ments with their apical margins narrowly yellow, corners of
fifth also yellow. Pile of the first segment yellow, on the follow¬
ing segments the same as the ground color, although there are
some yellow hairs on the black of the base of the second seg¬
ment. Venter yellow basally with an indefinite brown spot on
the second sternite, black beyond with a yellow band crossing
the base of the fourth segment. Pile of venter yellow basally,
black apically ; there are no short appressed black hairs on the
male specimens which I have examined.
Female— quite similar ; front black with black pile and a pair
of large spots, covered with white pollen, which almost meet in
the middle ; the pollen extends along the eyes to the yellow of
the face. Pile of the eyes and thorax sparse, on the scutellum of
one female from Wisconsin all black. Basal third only of an¬
terior femora black. The abdominal bands are narrower and
almost straight.
Described from numerous specimens, from France, (Bazin
and Hambleton collectors), Bexley, England; and Wisconsin.
Type located in Paris museum.
Related to limatus ( Bine) but easily separated as the facial
stripe is much narrower; the pile of the thorax and scutellum
is usually all pale; the antennae are yellowish to reddish; the
legs more extensively yellow; the hind tibiae has only a dark
apical ring, and the tarsi are pale except the apical segments of
114 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
the hind legs. The first pair of abdominal spots nearly always
reach the side margins and are separated much less than those
of limatus.
There is a variety hilaris (Zett.) occurring in Europe, in
which the facial stripe is absent but I have not seen this form
in North America among more than fifty specimens.
47. Metasyrphus limatus (Hine)
Syrphus limatus Hine 1922, Ohio Jour. Sci. 22 : 146; Curran 1924,
Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 178, fig.
Eyes hairy ; face with a broad black stripe ; pile of thorax
black ; abdominal spots rather narrow, nearly transverse, and
the second and third pairs reach the side margins. Length 11
to 12 mm.
Male — Face yellow with a prominent very broad black stripe,
pile practically all black ; cheeks and broad oral margin shining
black with black pile except some yellow hairs along the lower
or under edge ; frontal triangle shining black with rather heavy
black pile; grey pollen occurs only narrowly next to the eyes
on the frontal triangle and extends down to the cheeks and
around below the eyes where it broadens out on the occiput
which has white hairs with strong black pile overhanging the
eyes, only a few from the cheeks to about one-half the way to
vertex where they are longer and more numerous. Antennae
reddish to black, the two basal segments, measured on the mesal
side nearly equal in length to the third segment ; arista black,
thick at the base and tapering rapidly beyond the basal third.
Thorax aeneous to dark blue shining with black to dark
brown pile, lighter on the pleura, scutellum opalescent yellow,
black on the basal corners, pile mostly black.
Legs mostly black, yellowish to brownish on the apical half
of the four front femora and all of the tibiae, the knees of the
hind legs, and slightly lighter in color on the fore-tarsi ; pile of
femora long, usually black.
Wings hyaline, stigma brown ; squamae white with light
brown fringe, halteres yellowish, base brown.
Abdomen black with three pairs of narrow transverse spots,
first pair wider, oval, and do not reach the sides as do the
others ; the spots are nearly basal with the inner end broader
and rounded ; basal corners of the fifth and apical margins of
the fourth and fifth tergites narrowly yellow. Venter black,
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
115
shining, with the incisures broadly yellow anteriorly, more
narrowly posteriorly, the genitalia black.
Female — Very similar to the male ; the abdominal bands are
usually narrower, and there are more pale hairs on the cheeks
and thorax. Front black, all shining except the triangular side
dust spots which are definitely separated. The facial stripe is
frequently broader, occupying more than one-third of the width
of the face.
The species does not vary very much except occasionally a
melanic form in which the abdominal spots are obsolete or
nearly so.
Described from paratypes from the James S. Hine Collection,
one female from British Columbia (Osburn), and one male
from Healy, Alaska (Aldrich). The types are in the Ohio State
Museum at Columbus.
48. Metasyrphus pauxillus (Will.) (Fig. 81).
Syrphus pauxillus Williston 1886, Synopsis 74.
Face with a black stripe, epistoma produced below, basal
segments of the antennae black, pile of thorax mostly black,
abdominal spots narrow, oblique and well separated from the
side margins. Length 8 to 8.5 mm.
Closely related to limatus but readily told by the characters
given above. It is somewhat smaller than limatus and the third
segment of the antennae is usually more reddish. The hairs on
the pleura and coxae are nearly all pale ; the legs are almost all
yellow in the female except the basal one-third of the four front
and two-thirds of the hind femora. In the male the femora are
more extensively black and there is a broad black area on the
hind tibiae.
This species occurs at high altitudes in the southwest section
of the United States ; two males and one female from Colorado
and one female from California have been examined. I have
been unable to locate the type.
S. pacifioa (Lov.) is close but the produced epistoma and
black antennal segments of pauxillus easily separate it. The
pale pile of the thorax, the yellow basal segments of the an¬
tennae, and the less produced epistoma of laticaudus (Cur.)
separates this species from pauxillus .
116 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
49. Metasyrphus pacifica (Lov.). (Figs. BO, 32).
Syrphus pacifica Lovett 1919, Calif. Acad. Sci. 9 : 245.
An unique species, easily recognized by the three pairs of
narrow oblique bands, the second and third pair concave an¬
teriorly, but not decidedly arcuate. Abdomen convex both
transversely and longitudinally. Eyes short white pilose, face
yellow with a black stripe, cheeks broadly shining black. Length
7.5 to 9.5 mm.
Male — Face yellow with a distinct black shining stripe which
does not quite reach the base of the antennae, and narrows
slightly before reaching the oral margin. Face in profile is al¬
most devoid of a tubercle, gently rounded and receding gradu¬
ally to the mouth opening. Cheeks and frontal triangle shining
black ; black of cheeks reaches a little higher than the front pro¬
jection of the epistoma ; pile black on the face, black and longer
on the frontal triangle, black on the cheeks, becoming yellow
below. Ocellar triangle black with black pile; occiput entirely
bluish black except very narrowly below the mouth, pile of
occiput black above, tawny below. Antennae brownish to black,
slightly lighter on the under sides of the third segment. Arista
brown.
Thorax black, sub-shining, a faint indication of two median
pollinose stripes anteriorly. Pile of the dorsum of the thorax is
light brown to black, rather long, longer and black on the
pleura ; scutellum opalescent to dark, pile all black, long.
Legs mostly yellow, the front two pair of femora black on
the basal third, basal three-fourths of the hind femora black,
coxae and trochanters entirely black, hind tibiae infuscated
about the middle, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th tarsal joints brownish
above ; pile of the legs mostly black.
Wings infuscated, marginal cell and stigma light brown.
Squamae dusky, the fringes brown. Halteres yellow, stalks
brown.
Abdomen slightly oval, decidedly convex transversely, less
so longitudinally, with three pairs of narrow, slightly arcuate,
oblique, yellow crossbands, all separated in the middle and from
the side margins. First segment entirely black with black pile.
Second segment subopaque, with a pair of elongate slightly
oblique yellow spots, which are well separated from each other ;
their distance apart is almost twice their width. Third and
fourth segments with similar elongate spots which are arcuate
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
117
and oblique; the inner ends are about their width apart and
from the margin of the preceding segment; the outer ends of
the spots situated about mid-way on the segments ; the ground
color is mostly subopaque and the pile nearly all black, a few
light colored hairs on the yellow spots. Fifth and sixth segments
each narrowly yellow posteriorly, not reaching side margins;
genitalia black. Venter black with yellow along the sutures,
pile sparse, light colored and longer on the first two sternites ;
black and shorter on the other sternites.
Female — Similar except the abdomen is more shining; the
legs darker, four front femora black on almost the basal half
and the hind femora all but the tip ; pile of the thorax especially
of the pleura lighter ; pile of cheeks pale. Front is broad, black,
and shining with a pruinose band, pile short and black. Yellow
areas of the sternites broader.
Described from twenty-one specimens, from Oregon, Idaho,
Alberta, and British Columbia, through the courtesy of Prof. J.
Wilcox, the Oregon Agricultural College, and Dr. R. C. Osburn.
A distinctive species easily recognized by the convex abdo¬
men, oblique crossbands, and stripe of the face.
50. Metasyrphus laticaudus (Cur.) (Fig. 83)
Syrphus laticaudus Curran 1924, Kans. Univ. Sci. Bui. 15 : 175, fig.
Face with a broad black stripe, cheeks broadly black, basal
antennal segments yellow, pile of thorax normally pale, ab¬
dominal spots oblique and normally separated from the sides
although the first pair often reach the margins obscurely on the
female. Length 8 to 9 mm.
Male — Cheeks broadly, upper mouth edge narrowly, and a
facial stripe broadly, above the tubercle, more narrowly below,
and the frontal triangle shining black ; pile of the cheeks mostly
pale, of the face, frontal triangle and vertical triangle black;
frontal triangle very narrowly next to the eyes grey pollinose,
very lightly pollinose on the cheeks, heavier on the occiput ; pile
of occiput nearly all white. Antennae yellow on the basal seg¬
ments, darker on the third segment but yellow below, arista
brown at the base, blacker at the tip.
Thorax shining aeneous, practically devoid of pollen, pile
mostly pale, a few black hairs along the sides ; scutellum opal¬
escent yellow, broadly black on the corners, pile yellow with
118 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , cmd Letters .
black hairs along the edge. Pile of the pleura white, sparse,
with the tips kinky.
Legs yellow, the basal one-third of the four front and two-
thirds of the hind femora black, an indefinite broad reddish
brown preapical ring on the hind tibiae and the apical segments
of the tarsi are infuscated.
Wings hyaline, stigma dilutely yellowish; squamae white,
fringes light brown ; halteres yellow, the stalks and base brown.
Abdomen semi-opaque anteriorly, more shining posteriorly,
convex, with three pairs of oblique elongated yellow spots; the
spots are slightly arcuated, their inner ends rounded, their
outer ends truncate with tendency to a sharp point on the an¬
terior corners; apical margins of the fourth and fifth tergites
narrowly yellow. Venter black with broad yellow incisures.
Pile of the first and second sternites long and mostly pale, on
the other sternites shorter and black.
Female — Very similar; front shining black with triangular
side dust spots; scutellar pile nearly all pale, abdominal spots
sometimes reach the side margins, especially those on the sec¬
ond tergite, a pair of spots on the basal corners of the fifth ter-
gite; legs nearly all pale except a brownish area on the hind
femora and the usual infuscation of the apical segments of the
tarsi.
Closely related to pauxillus (Will.) and pacifica (Lov.). The
differences are dealt with under those two species.
Described from a pair collected at Jaffrey, New Hampshire,
and compared with the types at Ottawa.
Emarginatus group
The species occurring in this group have been included in the
key but the descriptions will be discussed in a later paper. Af.
ochrostomus (Zett.) is apparently closely related to M. nitidi-
collis (Mg.) but the former has a hairy metasternum, and for
this reason the description is given at this time.
51. Metasyrphus ochrostomus (Zett.) (Fig. 34).
Scaeva ochrostoma Zetterstedt 1849, Dipt. Scand. 8 : 3183.
Face, cheeks, oral margin, and antennae entirely yellow; lat¬
eral edges of the abdomen continuously yellow, the bands broad.
Length 10 to 12 mm.
Fluke — Syrphus Flies of America
119
Male — Face, oral margin, cheeks, frontal triangle, and an¬
tennae yellow, with only a small indefinite brown spot in the
middle of the frontal triangle ; pile all sparse and pale except on
the front where it is black ; arista reddish brown ; eyes bare.
Thorax shining aeneous with two grayish median stripes,
pile yellowish, more golden on the sides, which are also lightly
yellow pollinose; scutellum yellow with yellow pile. Legs en¬
tirely reddish yellow, only the middle coxae brown; a single
European specimen before me has the bases of the femora in-
fuscated. Metasternum sparsely hairy. Wings hyaline, stigma
luteous, halteres yellow.
Abdomen largely yellow, the sides continuously yellow and
the crossbands broader than the black intervals. First segment
black at the base, second black on the anterior and posterior
margins, connected in the middle by a broad black stripe which
widens anteriorly, obliquely to the sides ; third and fourth seg¬
ments with a conspicuous black posterior border which has a
median projection on the anterior margin; posterior edge of
the fourth segment yellow. Near the sides on the anterior
edges of segment three there is a very narrow black line. Ven¬
ter yellow, the dorsal black bands show through in places.
Female — quite similar, the abdomen is more oval and the
edges inconspicuously emarginate; yellow less extensive, the
spots on the second segment basal, large, occupying two-thirds
the width of the segment ; black bands on three and four equal
in width to the yellow bands ; the edges less extensively yellow ;
the fifty segment with a median black cross band.
Described from three specimens, a male from Europe and a
male and female from Ithaca, N. Y., June 9 and 10, 1916.
A very easily recognized species by the extensive yellow
bands on the abdomen, yellow face, cheeks, and antennae. Su¬
perficially it resembles Epistrophe xanthostomus but is a true
Metasyrphus even though the female might alone fall into the
other genus.
52. Metasyrphus metcalfi n. sp. (Fig. 35).
Face and cheeks yellow, metasternum bare, abdomen emar¬
ginate with three yellow crossbands which do not reach the side
margins. Length 13 mm.
Face and cheeks yellow with pale pile, upper mouth edge very
narrowly brownish; face covered with whitish pollen which
120 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , cmd Letters .
extends along the eyes onto the front as large side dust spots;
front black with short black to brown pile; antennae brown,
lighter underneath the third segment which is extremely large,
more than two times the length of the first two combined ; occi¬
put heavily coated with grey pollen and white pile ; eyes bare.
Thorax shining aeneous, the sides indistinctly yellowish, the
pile whitish on the dorsum, more yellowish on the sides; scu-
tellum opalescent yellow with white pile; metasternum bare.
Wings hyaline, stigma luteous; third longitudinal vein straight;
halteres yellow. Legs yellow, only a broad brown ring on the
hind femora and tibiae. Erect pile of legs all pale.
Abdomen mostly shining black with three yellow cross bands,
all separated from the side margins. The first band narrowly
separated into spots, the inner ends obtuse and separated by
only a narrow black line, outer ends broader ; second and third
bands situated near the bases of the segments, their anterior
margins gently convex, their posterior margins evenly and more
concave, outer ends obtuse and well away from the sides. Sides
of first segment, anterior corners of second segment briefly and
the anterior corners of the fifth segment broadly, yellow. Venter
yellow with characteristic arcuated posterior to each segment,
except first, black cross bands; third sternite obscured with
black ; a median longitudinal black stripe shows on the first and
second sternites.
Type female, Swannanoa, N. C., April 17, 1913, C. L. Metcalf,
collector. Deposited in the collection of Dr. C. L. Metcalf. It
gives me considerable pleasure to name this species in honor of
Dr. Metcalf.
The abdominal bands suggest wiedemanni, but because of the
bare metasternum the species does not belong to that group.
It is more nearly related to the emarginatus group and probably
closest to felix but the shape of the abdominal bands, and the
size of the antennae should readily distinguish it.
122
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 7.
Fig. 8.
Fig. 9.
Fig. 10.
Fig. 11.
Fig. 12.
Plate VII
Syrphus rihesii L., abdomen of male.
Syrphus ribesii var. similis Jones, abdomen of female.
Syrphus rectus 0. S., abdomen of female.
Syrphus torvus 0. S., abdomen of male.
Syrphus transversalis Cur., abdomen of female.
Syrphus hinei n. sp., abdomen of female.
Syrphus attenuatus Hine, abdomen of male.
Syrphus opinator O. S., abdomen of male.
Syrphus knabi Shan., abdomen of male.
Metasyrphus wiedemanni (John.) , abdomen of female.
Metasyrphus vinelandii (Cur.) , abdomen of male.
Metasyrphus pomus (Cur.) , abdomen of female.
TRANS. WIS. ACAD., VOL. 28
PLATE VII
124 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
Fig. 13.
Fig. 14.
Fig. 15.
Fig. 16.
Fig. 17.
Fig. 18.
Fig. 19.
Fig. 20.
Fig. 21.
Fig. 22.
Fig. 23.
Fig. 24.
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Plate VIII
canadensis (Cur.), abdomen of female.
meadii (Jones), abdomen of male.
nitens (Zett.), abdomen of male.
fumipennis (Thom.), abdomen of male.
venahlesi (Cur.), abdomen of female.
latifasciatus (Mq.), abdomen of male.
palliventris (Cur.), abdomen of female,
nigroventris n. sp., head of female,
depressus n. sp., head of female.
curtus (Hine), abdomen of male.
lapponicus (Zett.), abdomen of female.
lotus (Will.), abdomen of female.
TRANS. WIS. ACAD., VOL.
te-fumipennfe
PLATE VIII
126
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
Fig. 25.
Fig. 26.
Fig. 27.
Fig. 28.
Fig. 29.
Fig. 30.
Fig. 31.
Fig. 32.
Fig. 33.
Fig. 34.
Fig. 35.
Fig. 36.
Fig. 37.
Fig. 38.
Fig. 39.
Fig. 40.
Fig. 41.
Fig. 42.
Fig. 43.
Fig. 44.
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Metasyrphus
Plate IX
flukei (Jones), abdomen of male.
creper (Sn.), abdomen of female.
amalopis (0. S.), abdomen of male.
osburni (Cur.), abdomen of male.
verms tus (Mg*.), abdomen of female.
pacifica (Lov.), abdomen of male.
pauxillus (Will.), head of female.
pacifica (Lov.), head of female.
laticaudus (Cur.), abdomen of male.
ochrostomus (Zett.), abdomen of male,
metcalfi n. sp., abdomen of female.
wiedemanni (John.), genital style.
vinelandii (Cur.), genital style.
meadii (Jones), genital style.
venablesi (Cur.), genital style.
pingreensis (FL), genital style,
talus n. sp., genital style.
perplexus (Osb.), genital style.
neoperplexus (Cur.), genital style.
lapponicus (Zett.), genital style.
TRANS. WIS. ACAD., VOL. 28
ZS-mkrni
2&~ct*eper
29-ve/7usfys
33-/af/cQUc/cis
32-pacJfica _
o o>
36-w/edemami ___ ^ _
f-v. o o>
\^> 40 -pingreensis ™-**9*W*»*
37 -vine/andi
3%-meadii
41- fa/as
44-fappomcus
PLATE IX
BELOIT, WISCONSIN: A STUDY IN URBAN GEOGRAPHY
Lynn Harvey Halverson
The City Pattern
Astride the Rock River as it approaches and crosses the
southern boundary of Wisconsin lies the Beloit urban develop¬
ment, made up of two municipalities, Beloit, Wisconsin, and
South Beloit, Illinois. Though separated politically by the State
Line and their own municipal limits, the division is artificial,
and in most of the activities of the district the two political
units function as one, to the advantage of each. Originating as
a small village on the valley bottoms of the Rock River and
Turtle Creek, the specific site being the point of land between
these streams just above their confluence, the community has
spread in all directions (Plate X).
During the period of city growth there have been many ad¬
justments to Rock River, to Turtle Creek, and to the land form
conditions resulting from the erosive work of these streams.
The major departures of the city pattern from the common
rectangular forms are related to these natural elements in the
landscape. For example, the rectangular street pattern is de¬
ranged at the approaches of the bridges crossing the Rock
River, and since a bridge is impracticable when each street
abuts on the river, a large proportion of east-west streets end at
or near the stream.
Turtle Creek, the only permanent tributary of Rock River in
the vicinity of Beloit, flows in a generally westerly direction,
part of the course being in Beloit, though its junction with the
Rock River is south of the State Line. As Pleasant Street fol¬
lows the base of the bluff along the Rock River, so East Grand
Avenue marks the base of the valley side of Turtle Creek from
Prospect Street to Wisconsin Avenue. On the west side of the
river, the failure to plat the area north of Olympian Boulevard,
and south and west of Ridgeland Avenue, is obviously due to the
valley of an intermittent stream, known as Lenigan Creek. This
stream floods its bottom land with a fair degree of regularity,
definitely curtailing the desirability of that land for residential
130 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
use. The utilization of this land as a municipal golf course is a
happy adjustment to the natural conditions.
Angling streets, with resulting odd-shaped blocks, odd-shaped
lots, and five corners, are particularly common on the older,
east side of the city, though they are found as well on the west
side and in South Beloit. The most extensive area of angling
streets is found adjacent to Prairie Avenue on the east side.
Prairie Avenue is the longest of these streets, and apparently
the key to an explanation of the angling pattern. The original
rectangular plat ended on the north with Woodward Avenue.
Beyond this section the land was not platted, and since the main
road to Janesville followed the upland or “prairie” along the
section line which is now the eastern limit of the city, it was
natural that travelers should follow a straight line between the
platted section of the city, and the section line road. In the
platting of the district north of Woodward Avenue the angling
road was perpetuated, together with certain streets parallel¬
ing it.
Another factor of fundamental significance to the city pat¬
tern of Beloit is the fact that the site is generally underlain by
gravels which permitted roads to be located wherever the early
settlers willed, except on the lowest bottom lands, and the steep
valley sides. As one historian put it, “they [the early settlers]
knew the . . . value of having gravel under their feet.”1 That
most of the area is more or less deeply covered with surficial
deposits of gravel and sand, carried by glacial streams from
the Wisconsin ice front, is important in several other connec¬
tions also. The exploitation of these deposits is continuously
carried on.
;
The City as a Star-Shaped Developing Organism. Cities as
they develop tend to become roughly star-shaped,2 as a result of
what has been called axial growth.3 In the case of Beloit the
land form conditions have tended to concentrate the urban de¬
velopment along the long axis of the Rock River valley. The
1 Whitney, Henry M. Wisconsin Historical Society Proc. 1898, p. 135.
2 When one considers the general shape of an urban development, it is necessary
to consider the pattern irrespective of political boundaries. The scale of the
accompanying map, and the arbitrary limiting of this detailed study to the cor¬
porate limits of Beloit and South Beloit, cuts off certain of the star-point
extensions.
3 Dorau, H. B. and Hinman, A. C. Urban Land Economics , Macmillan 1928,
pp. 62-64.
WIS. ACAD., VOL. 28 PLATE X
EDUCATIONAL
SOCIAL
PHILANTHROPIC
BELOIT, WISCONSIN
SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL FORMS
OF LAND UTILIZATION
SCALE in feet"
Halverson — Geography of Beloit , Wisconsin.
131
metropolitan area (urbanized area irrespective of political
boundaries) has as a result a greatly elongated star-point to the
north along both sides of the Rock River, though more exten¬
sively developed on its eastern bank. Possibly this northward
extending point is related to the interurban electric rail line to
Janesville which earlier followed the east side of the river north
of the city, as well as to the more favorable sites available there
for summer residence locations. The summer residences were
followed by year-around /residences in many instances. At pres¬
ent the concrete road and the cheap automobile give accessibility
to this section. The other greatly elongated star-point is found
in South Beloit east of the river, extending somewhat over a
mile south of the State Line. This southward extension occupies
in the main a valley bottom site, made up in part of the Turtle
Creek bottoms and in part of the Rock River bottoms.
On the east and west sides of the metropolitan area the rela¬
tively uniform extension of urban population is related to the
general uniformity of the upland surface. Peripheral irregulari¬
ties here are insignificant, and are commonly related to the ear¬
lier improvement of the more important highways. The rather
abrupt termination of urban development on the southeast mar¬
gin of the city is related to the wet valley bottoms of Turtle
Creek, which serve as a definite barrier to urban utilization.
It is apparent that while the outline of the Beloit metropolitan
district conforms somewhat, though very crudely, to the star¬
shaped development, its features are related to the physio¬
graphic conditions of its site, particularly to its north-south
trending Rock River valley.
The Industrial City
Industries serving the local community and a small tributary
area developed in Beloit with the earliest settlement. Turtle
Creek offered power for the sawing of logs for house building,
and for the grinding of wheat for flour. It is safe to assume
that the presence of Turtle Creek, small and easy to harness,
but providing sufficient power for the tasks at hand, was one
of the very potent factors in the selection of the particular site
upon which the early settlement was located. While there is
some conflict of opinion over the actual dates, one record states
that the first boards were sawed in the first mill, commonly
132 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
known as Goodhue’s, on April 15, 1837.4 A grist mill was built
the year following the completion of the saw mill. The site near
the mouth of Turtle Creek favored the utilization of water from
the stream, for from Beloit Junction to the mouth of the creek
at the Rock River the fall is 27 feet.5 In 1884 Turtle Creek was
utilized by another mill upstream from the first, with a head of
water of sixteen feet.
But Turtle Creek furnished only enough power to run small
semi-subsistence industries, while the larger Rock River offered
greater possibilities. The legislative act authorizing a dam was
dated April 1, 1843, and the construction was begun in the
month of August, 1844. 6 The head of water at the dam was
6 feet, and the total flow for power development was figured at
13,3334 inches, to be divided among the users of power. The
Beloit Waterpower Company was not organized until 1871, but
was at that time, and is still, made up of owners of inches of
waterpower. The first use of the power was in an extensive saw
mill, capable of cutting 4,000 feet of hardwood in 24 hours.7
At the dam the river was near the eastern valley side, the
more extensive valley bottom land being west of the river, and
as a result the raceway was led off on the west side. The im¬
portance of this raceway and the associated natural conditions
can hardly be overestimated in explaining the early direction of
growth taken by the city and its accompanying manufactural
development. The early establishment of the west side indus¬
trial district may be definitely related to the favorable condi¬
tions there for the development of the waterpower, as well as
to the favorable site locations for factories on the flattish,
though wet, valley bottoms. With equally direct dependence
upon the natural set-up of conditions, the power-using indus¬
tries of the east side were using Turtle Creek, and were, there¬
fore, situated on the Turtle Creek bottoms. The raw materials,
with the exception of iron, were mainly of local origin, wagoned
to the settlement from the surrounding countryside. Any pow¬
er-using industry in the early period had to be located within
the distance traversible by a power shaft motivated by the
4 Brown, William Fiske. Rock County, Wisconsin, A History of its Cities,
villages, Etc., from the Earliest Time Up to Date. 2 Vols. Vol. 1, p. 132.
8 Wheeler, W. H. In an interview, Nov. 1, 1929.
6 The History of Rock County, Wisconsin. Western Historical Company, Chicago
1879, pp. 617, 641.
7 Ibid., pp. 617, 641.
Halverson — Geography of Beloit , Wisconsin.
133
waterwheels turned by the waters of the Rock River or Turtle
Creek. The present congestion in the west-side valley bottom
industrial district of Beloit, adjacent to the raceway, is a direct
heritage from the early days when, before the coming of coal
by rail into the community, the wheels of industry were turned
by direct waterpower. Even when coal became available, and
steam power was in use, industries capable of making some use
of the waterpower located beside it.
Industries from the Opening of the Railroad Period
to the Present .
With the coming of the railroads during the decade following
1850, and later, Beloit manufacturers were able to reach outside
the local area both for raw materials and markets. Many new
industries were organized, and older industries reorganized, in
the years between 1860 and 1914. It was during these years
that most of the present industries began or expanded rapidly.
The period of the World War saw a few years of exceedingly
great activity, for Beloit, a city with a large number of metal
working establishments, was particularly well equipped to take
advantage of the needs of the war years.
The industries of Beloit group themselves by the nature of
their activities and products into a few general types, as fol¬
lows: metal working, shoe making, public utilities, gravel and
its products, knitting and sewing of wearing apparel, process¬
ing foodstuffs, and miscellaneous minor industries. Of these
industries, the metal working group is by far the most im¬
portant, including not only the single establishment employing
the largest number of men but also employing a large propor¬
tion of all the wage earners of the city. In the winter of 1929-
30, 8 four of the largest metal-working establishments together
employed a few more persons than the total number of wage-
earners reported for the city in 1927.9
The Metal Working Group. Uniformity of type of manu-
factural processes among the industries of Beloit is a fact that
must impress any close observer of the present-day industries
8 During the course of this study (September, 1929 to June, 1930) the industries
were in a normal, healthy condition, with rather an upward trend during 1929.
9 Data for 1929-30 based upon interviews.
Data for 1927 : Market Data Handbook of the United States, Domestic Com¬
merce Series No. 30, p. 215.
134 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts , and Letters .
of the city. Regardless of what the name of the plant may im¬
ply as to the processes carried on, upon investigation one will
find the business to involve, in the great majority of cases, the
secondary processing and machining of metals. This type of
industry has been important since the early industrial develop¬
ment of the city and has resulted in a large group of workers
trained and experienced in the operation of machines used in
the various processes. The industrial establishments of this
group occur on three types of sites ; first, on the valley bottoms
of Rock River and Turtle Creek, second, on the upland surface
adjacent to the valley side, and third, on the upland in the
northeastern corner of the city, adjacent to the tracks of the
Janesville branch of the “Milwaukee” railroad. The valley bot¬
tom site is the most favored from the standpoint of the number
of industries so located. The bottoms of Turtle Creek are used
as industrial sites only in South Beloit, since they are most
largely within its area. In Beloit proper the greatest concentra¬
tion of industrial establishments is west of the river on the val¬
ley bottoms adjacent to the waterpower, thereby reflecting the
early dependence of the industries upon that power. This sec¬
tion is at present congested, and the industries have little or no
room for expansion. At least one of the larger establishments
owns land in South Beloit on which it might erect a new plant,
but the cost of moving would probably be excessive. It should
not be thought that the valley bottom of the west side is com¬
pletely utilized by industries, for that portion above or north
of waterpower is largely occupied by mediocre to poor resi¬
dences. It is apparent that this upstream portion of the bottom
lands in the period of direct waterpower could not be utilized as
industrial sites, and as a result was built up early. Now the
section might be called a “blighted” or low grade residential
area, yet the price at which land is held prohibits its purchase
for industrial expansion. It is a typical case of the impasse
which may develop as the result of the totally undirected
growth which has been so characteristic of American city devel¬
opment. This residential section, with poor drainage, and other
undesirable characteristics, adjacent to an industrial area, can
never improve greatly, yet at the present time at least it can not
be economically turned to a use to which it is more suited. Were
this land available to industries, it would solve to a degree the
expansion problems of certain of the present establishments.
Halverson — Geography of Beloit, Wisconsin.
135
The outstanding manufacturing industry of the city is that
of Fairbanks, Morse and Company. It occupies a site east of
the river on the upland adjacent to the valley site, spilling over
the edge of the bluff at some points. This was not the site of the
original plant, which manufactured windmills, that being early
located on the millrace west of the river. Later the plant of the
Beloit Wagon Works on the present site was acquired. With
ample room for the expansion which followed the shift to steam
power, this establishment has not suffered from the congestion
which at present hinders expansion and the development of
“straight-line” production methods along the waterpower west
of the river. Although the site of this establishment is isolated
from those of other industrial developments, the building of the
Joint Switch track has given it connections with each of the
railways serving the city.
Since there are no available industrial sites on which to build
modern plants in the older industrial sections of Beloit proper,
a new manufactural district has been developed recently in the
city. The type of industry common in Beloit uses power in rela¬
tively small quantities as compared with the primary metal in¬
dustries, and individual electric motors, or carbo-electricity pro¬
duced in the plant, are the two most common forms of power in
the newer factories. Thus the site requirements are cheap level
land and a railroad siding. These requirements were met in the
northeastern section of the city, and two establishments have
located there. There is room for other plants in that district.
Across the State Line in South Beloit is an industrial section
analagous to that west of the river in Beloit.
From this consideration of the metal-working industries and
their locations in Beloit, it is clear that they are of about the
same type as to materials and labor requirements. Relatively
small quantities of the heavier raw materials are required, since
the operations are of the secondary type. Pig iron, scrap iron,
coal and coke are used in some quantity, but in small quantities
as compared with those used by the primary metal industries.
Semi-finished materials are used, but these generally are suffi¬
ciently valuable to stand some transportation, and the distance
from Gary, or even from the Pittsburg district, is not excessive
for the relatively small quantities of the type of materials
moved. Finished accessories assembled with the manufactured
product are sufficiently valuable to stand long hauls, especially
136 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
when moved in large quantities. Further, certain classes of the
required materials are distributed from Chicago or Milwaukee,
and the transport costs are based upon the distance from these
factory branches. In obtaining this class of materials Beloit en¬
joys a distinct advantage. For all of the larger establishments
shipments of raw materials and the finished products are in
carload lots.
Perhaps the most commonly recognized factor in the success
of the metal-working establishments in the Beloit district is the
quality of the labor available. The early establishment of the
metal-working industries, and their growth and expansion
through several decades, has produced not only skilled machine
operators, but technical and engineering skill of a very high
order. It appears that the Beloit sites, and the situation of the
city in the nation with relation to materials and markets, are
sufficiently advantageous to enable the present metal-working
establishments to continue successfully, providing efficient man¬
agement exists in manufacturing and sales organizations. New
industries of the same type should find here also a set of condi¬
tions favorable to successful operation.
The Shoemaking Establishments. Beloit village in 1845 list-
de among its industries two shoemaking shops.10. In 1870 John
Foster organized an establishment, said to have employed 60
hands in the manufacture of fine shoes, with a daily production
of 12 dozen pairs.* 11 In addition there was an early glove and
mitten factory, which may have been a factor in providing
workers experienced in cutting and sewing leather. In short,
when the managers of the present establishments came to Be¬
loit, there was something of a supply of labor experienced in the
operation of shoemaking machinery, and with the expansion of
the present establishments the supply has been gradually in¬
creased. Normally in the grade of shoes produced in Beloit over
half of the wage-earners are women. The light nature of the
materials and machinery used makes possible the use of second
or even third floor levels in certain manufacturing processes.
The larger establishment occupies a site on the Rock River val¬
ley bottom on the east side, a short distance north of the State
Line. This is essentially a continuation of the west side valley
10 History of Rock County, Western Historical Company, p. 617.
11 Ibid., p. 264.
Halverson — Geography of Beloit , Wisconsin .
137
bottom industrial district type of site, though the river and the
West Grand Avenue commercial section intervene. The site of
the other establishment is adjacent to the Joint Switch track, in
the northeastern part of the city, but not as far northeast as
the new industrial section. The cheap handling of raw materi¬
als in carload lots demands a railroad siding, and both estab¬
lishments have that service. Both have room for expansion, and
expansion upward is always possible, if for any reason lateral
expansion is not feasible.
These establishments exemplify the decentralization of the
shoemaking industry in recent decades. Chicago is the prin¬
cipal market, and shoes are largely moved to market by motor
truck. The situation of Beloit is excellent with respect to leath¬
ers obtained from the Milwaukee tanneries and apparently
is without particular disadvantages in relation to the bringing
in of raw materials from distant sources, while its advantage¬
ous situation with regard to the Chicago market is important.
Perhaps the most important factor, at least in bringing the
establishments to Beloit rather than to some other city having
equal advantages of situation, was the supply of labor. Other
shoe manufacturing establishments could find equally satisfac¬
tory sites in Beloit, with definite advantages of situation and
labor supply, and with equally satisfactory management should
make comparable success.
The Public Utilities . The early importance of waterpower
in the development of the Beloit district has been emphasized.
The power potentialities of Turtle Creek are now too small for
economical development in these times of large power demands.
The Rock River is still used to a small degree, although a public
utilities corporation now owns a voting control of the water¬
power. Through a period of years all the public utility services,
with the exception of the street railway and the telephone sys¬
tems have been united under the ownership of the Wisconsin
Light and Power Company. This corporation, through its dis¬
trict and city organizations provides gas, water, and electric
services, and in addition has an important commercial function
in marketing electrically operated appliances. The company
serves a large area in southern Wisconsin.
The various units of this company in Beloit are housed sepa¬
rately, because they were earlier individually owned and oper-
188 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
ated and their functions, to a degree, resulted in different site
demands. The gas producing unit is located on the valley bot¬
tom adjacent to the river on the east side, and between the
river and the Northwestern Line tracks. This location when
purchased gave cheap land for producing and storage units.
These units have a capacity at present which permits produc¬
tion far in excess of the needs of the Beloit district, and a pipe
line has been constructed to Janesville and Edgerton, and is
projected farther, eliminating multiple plant investments and
coal transport. The producing unit is located in Beloit, as the
district consumes about four times the volume of gas consumed
in Janesville. The important raw materials are coal and fuel
oil, the source of the coal being eastern Kentucky. Even with
this grade of coal, supplementary fuel oil is used to “step-up”
the gas to the required B. T. U. level. The location of the plant
is central in location in relation to the two sides of the river,
and not far from South Beloit.
The Water Supply. The natural conditions are favorable to
the procuring of a large supply of good water from shallow
wells at the water horizon of the glacial gravels, deeper wells
tap the St. Peter Sandstone, while the deepest wells reach the
horizon of the Cambrian Sandstone, with its great supply of
water. From the standpoint of organic impurities all of these
sources are safe if the wells are properly cased. A drawback
for certain industrial uses is the hardness of the water, produc¬
ing scale in boilers. The pressure is maintained by means of a
standpipe of 200,000 gallons capacity, located upon the top of
the bluff on the east side of the river. The Wisconsin Light and
Power Company uses water from its mains in the gas-producing
plant, but the large volume of water used in the carbo-electric
plant, in boilers and condensers, averaging 1,500 gallons a min¬
ute, comes from the Rock River.
The Electrical Energy Supply . The electrical energy sup¬
plied locally is generated on a typical riverside site, (whether
the source be a carbo-electric or hydro-electric) . The plants are
at the east end of the dam across the Rock River, on the rela¬
tively narrow valley bottom between the mill pond and the
eastern valley side. As has been stated, a large volume of river
water is used in the carbo-electric unit, and the availability of
such a water supply is one of the prime site requirements of
Halverson — Geography of Beloit, Wisconsin.
139
such an installation. The plant is served by a siding from the
Joint Switch track, making coal available in carload lots. This
carbo-electric installation has a generating capacity in the
neighborhood of 10,000 kilowatts. In addition, the unit installed
in the hydro-electric development on the same site has a capa¬
city of about 475 kilowatts, the total output of the two types of
installations being the electrical energy possible of development
under ideal conditions. The Rockton installation a few miles
south now has a capacity of about 1,300 kilowatts, the energy
feeding in to Beloit. These three installations comprise the total
electrical energy capacity of the Beloit area, and power needs
over and above the volume produced must come from outside
sources. To supplement the power resources already named, the
corporation has a high tension line from Belvidere, Illinois,
which feeds energy north into southern Wisconsin. It would
seem that Beloit is tied up with an electrical power supply sys¬
tem not only capable of meeting the industrial demands of the
present, but capable of expansion to meet future demands.
Waterpower. The head of water at the dam at Beloit is
figured normally at about 8 feet, and the flow at 8,000 second-
feet. With an efficient centralized hydro-electric installation
there might be developed a power supply of about 2,000 kilo¬
watts. The present capacities of the water wheels total about
1,500 horsepower, but it has been estimated that the power
actually developed is not over 500 or 600 horsepower. The
small users of power along the race-way in the industrial dis¬
trict west of the river develop power from shafting connected
with old style water wheels. There is little incentive for any
individual owner or group of owners of waterpower shares to
develop a modern installation, since the fluctuation of flow
characteristic of a river such as the Rock makes an auxiliary
source of power necessary, if the power needs are at all large.
As a result many of the holders of shares in the waterpower
have sold to the Wisconsin Light and Power Company. The
position of this public utility company in the utilization of the
potential hydro-electric power development is quite different
from that of an individual owner-user. This company could
more efficiently use the small quantity of power developed, since
it already has multiple sources of power, so that the drawbacks
of fluctuations would be minimized. This corporation has as
140 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, omd Letters .
well a full 24 hour demand for power, with multiple sources of
outlet through its various services, while its interlocking trans¬
mission lines make possible the sale elsewhere of any excess
energy developed in the Beloit district. It should be realized,
however, that the natural conditions are not favorable to a
large power development on the Rock River, and it would not
be economical for the utility company to develop the potential
power resource, when it already has energy producing units in
efficient operation, unless the costs of the development, includ¬
ing the cost of procuring the shares in the waterpower, were
kept at an absolute minimum. Yet it would be unfortunate if
the present inefficient utilization of the power potentialities of
the Rock River at Beloit should be continued indefinitely.
The Gravel and Sand Industries . This development, most
active in South Beloit, is of a dual nature, in that in at least one
instance affiliated establishments carry on different activities.
The major activity is the exploitation of outwash gravel de¬
posits, with sand as a by-product. Accessory to the gravel ex¬
ploitation is the manufacturing of cement and concrete prod¬
ucts, with sand, and some gravel, as the raw materials. Cement
blocks, concrete pipe and tile, are the finished products. The
working of the gravel pits is seasonal, the work stopping in the
winter, but the manufacturing activity may be carried on
throughout the year, with somewhat greater activity in the
warmer season. The total male labor employed in all the gravel
producing and using industries was reported as numbering
138.12 The manufacturing phase of the gravel industry is an
attempt to find a profitable outlet for the sand, which normally
is a drug on the market.
There are at least two factors of geographic significance to
be considered in dealing with this industry. They are, first, the
concentration of gravel deposits of high grade in great thick¬
ness, related to the glacial history of the area, and, second, the
situation of these rich deposits of fresh gravels within a short
distance of the Chicago metropolitan market. The deposits now
being worked are being utilized first, and at the lowest cost, be¬
cause of their situation with relation to railroad transport al¬
ready on the ground. The gravel produced in the Beloit area
must compete with gravels from points much nearer Chicago,
12 Beloit Industrial Survey, 1927, pp. 54-55.
Halverson — Geography of Beloit, Wisconsin .
141
such as those deposits located west of the Valparaiso morainic
system at Joliet and at other points less than 50 miles from Chi-
cago. While a large proportion of the gravel goes into the
Chicago district, the market for the products of the manufac¬
turing is quite different. The small manufacturers of concrete
blocks market locally, but the concrete tile and pipe find more
distant markets in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa. The gravel
exploitation industry, and manufacturing activity growing out
of it, are type cases of human utilization of natural resources
^hich are particularly favorably situated. While the industries
are not heavy employers of labor, they do their share along with
other industries, in the upbuilding of the district. They are
particularly important in that they provide a large share of the
railway freight tonnage moving out of the Beloit district.
Knitting and Sewing Industries . The knitting and sewing
industries are relatively unimportant in the Beloit district.
Among the various types of such establishments in operation
there is something of a division on the basis of the labor used.
These establishments find cheap land or cheap rentals impor¬
tant, with the added requirement of easy accessibility to a fe¬
male labor supply. The sites in Beloit represent varying com¬
promises. Before any new industry of this general type is
brought to Beloit a careful analysis of the particular type of
labor demanded should be made. There is apparently some sur¬
plus of female labor in Beloit, but it is of various types, not
equally suited to all industries.
Foodstuffs Processing Group. The establishments consid¬
ered under this heading are mainly engaged in the processing
and manufacturing of milk and its products, and the making of
breads and pastries, with flour as the bulk raw material. In
addition there is a little slaughtering of meat animals, some
candy making, and bottling of beverages. In practically all
cases the markets are limited to the Beloit district, and a small
immediately tributary area.
The sites of the establishments processing, bottling, and
manufacturing dairy products are apparently located in part in
relation to the distribution locally of the merchantable products.
The largest single establishment is located west of the river, but
its site is such in relation to river crossings that it can serve the
east side as well as the west. Further, it is accessible to farm
142 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
territory on either side of the city, without crossing the whole
city. This establishment handles a full line of dairy products
from bottled milk to ice cream and butter. Other establish¬
ments occupy less central sites, possibly related to areas served
in the city, as well as the farm area outside the city from which
raw milk comes.
A bakery establishment has two possible outlets for its prod¬
ucts — the wholesale and the retail trade. The choice of site for
the establishment will depend to a degree upon the nature of the
outlet. In Beloit the bakeries are in two types of locations, de¬
pending upon whether their outlet is wholesale or retail, or
both. Retailing in turn is of two phases, that of merchandising
over the counter in a desirable commercial location, and
through vending the product on established routes through the
residential section of the city. One baking establishment mainly
engaged in wholesaling is located on the far west side, even
though much of its selling is to grocers on the east side. This
location, in the heart of a residential district, is an attempt to
avoid the high rents charged in more central locations. The site
is not favorable in relation to the marketing of the products,
but apparently in this case the advantage of a cheap site is of
more importance than nearness to consumers. Three establish¬
ments have sites in the downtown commercial district and retail
their products over the counter. The largest of these has its
plant in the rear on cheaper land off the thoroughfare, but the
site is such that it is accessible to both sides of the river on
wagon routes. Various combinations of marketing functions
exist in the case of the baking industry in the Beloit area in an
attempt to get volume sales in the face of chain store and other
competition.
Miscellaneous Industries. There are industries which do not
fall naturally into any of the groups so far enumerated, yet in¬
dustries of some significance, such as the Central Radio Corpo¬
ration, Young Manufacturing Company, Beloit Box Board
Company, and a number of others.
The Beloit Box Board Company is an interesting modern in¬
dustry, for the paper making industry early developed in Beloit,
using rye straw as a raw material, and through much of the
life of the city there has been an operating mill within its
borders. The present mill manufactures box boards and build-
Halverson — Geography of Beloit , Wisconsin.
143
ing paper. The raw materials are waste paper and rags col¬
lected largely from nearby sources. Sulphite pulp comes from
Nekoosa, Wisconsin. Though steam is now the main source of
power, direct waterpower is still used to some extent. As might
be expected, the site of this mill is at the end of the dam across
the Rock River, on the west side of the valley bottom.
Beloit Industries: Conclusions
The industries of the Beloit district have been treated in
varying detail as regards their geographic aspects, but from
that consideration rather definite conclusions may be drawn:
(1) Beloit industries use relatively light weight valuable raw
materials, capable of bearing fairly heavy transportation costs.
(2) The industries use relatively large quantities of semi-fin¬
ished and finished accessories, capable of bearing heavy trans¬
port costs when moved in quantity. (3) The industries use ma¬
terials which suffer little loss in weight through use. Coal is the
marked exception, and industries using large quantities of coal
so far from the source of supply are paying freight charges on
a large quantity of tare, in the form of ash, moisture, and other
unused constituents. (4) Beloit industries give a high propor¬
tion of added value to the materials used, through the expendi¬
ture of relatively large quantities of skilled labor upon them,
with an additional increment in value as a result of the costly
highly specialized machinery used in the operations. (5) For
industries of most types Beloit has a supply of highly satisfac¬
tory labor, both common and skilled, not only drawn from the
Beloit district proper, but from the adjacent villages and cities
within automobile commuting distance. (6) There is an ade¬
quate supply of reasonably priced electrical energy available
for the use of industries of the district. (7) Certain Beloit
industries in the valley bottom west of the river are in need of
room for expansion. Though there is ample room for expansion
in new sites, the cost of such a change is likely to be too high.
(8) Industries find in Beloit a situation with relation to the
great middle western consuming market, including the Chicago
metropolitan area, which is favorable to the distribution of the
relatively high valued products. (9) Industries find in the Be¬
loit district excellent home-owning possibilities for their wage-
earners, leading to a settled, dependable, wage-earning group,
an asset to any industrial section.
144 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
The public utilities and foodstuffs processing group, since
they specialize in service to the community, do not conform to
the above pattern, nor do the gravel industries, directly located
to exploit that resource. Though there are other exceptions
in varying degrees to the above generalizations, they cover in a
broad way the industrial complex in the Beloit district. The
congestion in the industrial district west of the river is a condi¬
tion which must be met step by step as acute periods develop,
but safeguards should be developed to prevent the same condi¬
tion arising again as industry projects itself into new areas.
Constructive, directive planning should begin now to insure
that within 20 years the present far northeastern district indus¬
tries are not so circumscribed by residential developments as to
make desirable expansion impossible.
The Commercial City
The situation of the Beloit community, in this period of auto¬
motive transportation, is unfavorable to the development of any
extensive wholesale activity. The trade area is notably circum¬
scribed, being cut off to the north about half-way to Janesville
by the competition of that city, while to the south the Rockford
trade area extends more than half-way to Beloit. On the west
the county line marks off a fairly definite division between the
trade areas of Beloit and Monroe, while to the northwest the
area is cut off about three miles short of Orfordville due again
to the competition of Janesville. Though there are several small
towns to the east, the Beloit trading area apparently extends to
about a north-south line through Clinton, since east of this di¬
viding line Delavan and Harvard are centers of importance.
The area thus outlined might be termed the immediate trading
territory, while in certain specialties, such as furniture, electri¬
cal equipment, and radios, there is an extensive twilight zone
which includes localities which are by no means limited to Be¬
loit in their buying. The almost entire absence of wholesale
establishments, except those distributing perishable products
such as meats, fruits, and ice cream, is concrete evidence that
no important local wholesale trade serving this very circum¬
scribed area exists.
The explanation of this condition is not difficult to find. The
development of concrete and other types of surfaced roads has
Halverson— Geography of Beloit, Wisconsin.
145
made accessible to truck delivery all of the smaller towns of the
district, and in turn has made Beloit accessible to truck delivery
from Chicago and Milwaukee. In addition, the surfaced roads
have made it possible for sales representatives from the large
centers to call weekly or oftener at the retail stores. This com¬
bination of conditions, related in the main to changed modes of
selling and distribution, has effectually eliminated the small
wholesaler who carried a stock on hand from which the local
retailer could order daily to meet local needs. Further, the price
competition forced by the omnipresent chain store, particularly
in the grocery held, has so narrowed the margin in handling the
merchandise that the small wholesaler can no longer profitably
stay in business. These findings as related to the grocery held
are borne out by the investigations of the United States Depart¬
ment of Commerce, showing Chicago and Milwaukee as the
wholesaling centers which serve most of southern Wisconsin
and northern Illinois.13 The same methods and conditions which
have eliminated the wholesaling of any but perishables in the
foodstuffs line, have operated in a similar fashion in most other
lines. It is apparent that the advantages of situation which
have made the great Chicago market accessible to the manu¬
factured products of the Beloit district have reacted generally
to eliminate the local wholesaler in favor of Chicago and other
large city establishments.
The Retail Trade and Trade Area of Beloit. To some degree
the same circumscribing limits which apply to Beloit as a whole¬
saling center apply in relation to the retail trade. The Beloit
retailer feels the competition of the neighboring cities, particu¬
larly to the north and south. This competition may be con¬
cretely illustrated by the sales of establishments handling cer¬
tain types of merchandise in Beloit contrasted with sales of
similar establishments in other Wisconsin cities. Definite mer¬
chandising quotas are determined for such establishments on
the basis of population, number of telephones in service, or on
other bases known only to the members of trade associations.
A comparison of the projected quotas and the actual merchan¬
dise sales for Beloit and a comparable city are given in Table I.
These data demonstrate that Beloit in this particular line of
merchandise does not have a market capable of absorbing goods
13 Domestic Commerce Series No. 30, Map of Wholesale Grocery Territories.
146 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
in as high a proportion as a comparable city, but a city with a
less circumscribed trade area. This point is further empha¬
sized by the fact that in Beloit proper, not including South
Beloit, in 1927, almost a million dollars more in wages was paid
than in the city with which it was compared. In addition, the
industries of South Beloit, which is a unit commercially with
Beloit, pay in the neighborhood of a million dollars in wages
annually. This indicates that it must be the more extensive
trading area in the case of the comparable city which gave it
the advantage in sales during the period involved. In retail
grocery establishments, some index to the staple consumption
of a district, the Beloit metropolitan district out-numbers the
comparable city about two to one.
Table I
A study of national scope dealing with retail selling through
department stores shows Beloit to lack importance as an outlet
for the types of merchandise handled by such establishments.14
It is apparent that the retail establishments are largely de¬
pendent upon the trade of the local urban area, including the
college population as a significant element, plus the rural trade
of a relatively circumscribed area. If the trade area is to be
extended, the most logical lines of expansion are due west and
southwest into a section not now served by concrete roads lead¬
ing to Beloit, and southeast into a section of Illinois which is
relatively isolated. The expansion of the Beloit trade area to
include these favorably located sections will depend largely upon
road improvement developments within the next few years.
Local merchants should realize that even though trade does not
naturally flow to Beloit in volume, conditions are not so un¬
favorable but that by aggressive methods the trading zone may
be extended, to the particular advantage of retailers dealing in
14 Domestic Commerce Series No. 30, maps showing the Retail Shopping Area
by Important County Centers, by the J. Walter Thompson Company.
Halverson — Geography of Beloit , Wisconsin .
147
other than staple foodstuffs, though the latter should benefit to
an appreciable degree.
The Sites of Retail Establishments . The sites of retail estab¬
lishments may be roughly classified as (1) downtown central
commercial district, (2) strategic outlying commercial centers,
and (B) neighborhood sites. The river crossing by means of
the Grand Avenue bridge is a strategic factor in the develop¬
ment of the central commercial district, and Grand Avenue, on
both sides of the river, is the strategic street. Traffic converges
on East and West Grand Avenue as the bridge is approached,
resulting in the most dense traffic stream developed in the city.
It is this concentration of traffic flowing to and fro across the
bridge that makes frontage on downtown Grand Avenue most
desirable for commercial establishments able to afford the
rentals such sites entail. The central commercial district in
Beloit, as in most cities of its size, covers a considerable area
and the actual area covered is related to natural conditions.
Since there is here available a large area of valley bottom which
is suited to commercial utilization, with resulting relatively low
priced ground rents, commercial sites are not used intensively.
This is reflected in the prevalence of two story buildings in the
retailing district, with the district stretched out rather thinly.
Concentrated development is normally much easier for the
shopper, since establishments are more accessible to each other,
with resulting saving in time and effort. One of the very neces¬
sary elements in the extension of the trade area of Beloit lies in
providing some solution of the automobile parking problem in
the downtown commercial district. This problem results in part
from the wide extent of the district and the tendency of patrons
to shop by automobile rather than on foot.
Zonation in the Central Commercial District. Within the
downtown commercial district there is zonation. For a long
period the downtown corner occupied by the Goodwin Block has
been the most intensively used piece of real estate in Beloit.
The ground floor of this building is in part occupied by a chain
drug store, a typical use of such key sites. Shoe stores, jewelry
shops, and department stores are found in the heart of the dis¬
trict. Furniture stores, with their large showroom space re¬
quirements are normally just outside the center of the district,
where rents are somewhat lower. Grocery stores, meat mar-
148 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
EAST GRAND AVENUE
RECREATIONAL DWELLINGS COMMERCIAL OFFICES S-STORAGE
GENERALIZED V- VACANT
Fig. 1. Diagrams showing site use in the commercial district. Only the
first and second floors are shown. The office building on the upper left has
four floors; the recreational building on the lower left and the hotel on
the upper right have three floors; otherwise there are no buildings in this
block more than two stories high.
Halverson — Geography of Beloit , Wisconsin.
149
kets, and other providers of staples are commonly on the outer
fringes of the central retailing district, though there are special
exceptions. The general exceptions to the conditions outlined
are provided by the chain stores, regardless of the line of mer¬
chandise handled. Illustrations of this condition are numerous
in the Beloit downtown commercial district.
A sample of the type of drawing designed in connection with
this study to show the lack of intensive use of high grade sites
in the central commercial district is shown in Fig. 1. From such
drawings several conditions of significance may be determined,
and generalizations formulated as follows: (1) The average
number of floors above the basement is two. (2) Passenger ele¬
vators are few in number in Beloit, as a result of the lack of
intensive use of any but a few of the most strategic sites. (3)
The spread of the retailing district discourages the shopper go¬
ing from store to store to compare values, and the difficulty in
making such comparisons may deter out-of-town buyers from
attempting to purchase in Beloit. (4) Second floor levels very
near to the most strategic corner in the central commercial dis¬
trict, that at the intersection of East Grand Avenue and State
Street, are used as dwellings. This use is very common toward
the edges of the district. (5) The lack of intensive use of even
some of the more strategic sites is without question in part re¬
lated to the attempt to develop dual commercial centers, one on
either side of the river.
Sub-surface utilization is not indicated in detail, since with
the lack of intensive use of the surface, with few exceptions
basements are used only for storage. One exception is significant,
in that a furniture store affiliated with a chain uses some base¬
ment space for the showing of kitchen goods. This establish¬
ment is located in a central site where rentals are sufficiently
high to cause it to use but the first floor of the building, supple¬
mented by the basement space. An independent furniture store
could not well function under such an arrangement as it needs
more show-space for stock which it does not turn over as rap¬
idly as does the chain store. Furniture stores on more typical
sites toward the edge of the central commercial district utilize
second or even third floors for show room and storage space.
Outlying Commercial Centers. The sites of outlying com¬
mercial centers are apparently related to three factors of signi-
150 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
ficance, first, distance from the downtown commercial district,
second, concentration of traffic flow, and third, the character of
the tributary neighborhood area. Outlying centers are located
in many cases, on sites which were once the commercial fron¬
tiers of the city. As the city grew outward new commercial
centers developed to care for the retailing needs of the new
urban developments, in fact in some cases anticipating those
needs too far in advance. In the vanguard of this outer fringe
of urban development today is the gasoline and oil service sta¬
tion.
Another location favorable to retail commercial development
is at the crossing of streets which are important traffic carriers,
outside of the central commercial district. The neighborhood
stores do not reveal in their sites the operation of locating fac¬
tors as do the outlying trading centers. There is normally an
attempt to serve a small neighborhood free of competitive estab¬
lishments, yet in some instance the stores are very close to¬
gether. Probably the most important factor in site selection is
remoteness from the downtown commercial district. Prior to
the general use of the automobile the neighborhood store un¬
doubtedly occupied the place on the city’s frontier now occupied
by the oil and gas station. Many of the neighborhood groceries
were established on the outskirts of the city, and now the city
has surrounded them.
The Eastward Trend of Commercial Development . An east¬
ward trend in the expansion of the commercial district is mani¬
festing itself, indicated by the site of the new theatre and the
movement of other retailing establishments. One of the factors
involved in the lack of new developments in the commercial dis¬
trict west of the river is lack of suitable space for expansion.
The slope of the valley side at the western edge of the district
along West Grand Avenue makes the real estate less desirable
for commercial utilization. The railroad tracks are somewhat
of an obstacle to westward expansion, but their removal would
not offset the other disadvantage. The fact that there is not
room for expansion need not mean that the section will become
decadent, as its situation with relation to the populous resi¬
dential and active industrial areas west of the river gives it
noteworthy possibilities. A possibility is to develop a grouping of
definite types of stores in this district. Furniture stores should
Halverson — Geography of Beloit, Wisconsin .
151
find here satisfactory site conditions, and if a number of such
establishments were grouped here the buyer would hesitate to
shop for such merchandise without visiting this district. It
must be by the exercise of such constructive judgment that this
portion of the downtown district west of the river will be en¬
abled to maintain healthy retail establishments.
From this consideration of the commercial aspect of the Be¬
loit district in the light of its geographic implications rather
definite conclusions may be drawn :
1. It is to the mutual advantage of both Beloit and South
Beloit that they be served by a single central commercial dis¬
trict, since it makes available to residents of South Beloit a
trading center far more complete than the buying power of that
community alone would warrant, while it gives added volume
of business to the merchants of Beloit, making more and better
establishments possible, to the advantage of all.
2. More intensive utilization of the most central sites is de¬
sirable, making shopping less difficult and more satisfactory.
A long train of minor advantages should follow the accomplish¬
ment of this ideal.
3. The Beloit central commercial district is spread out thinly.
Greater concentration is desirable and is certain to occur. The
outer edges of the central district should meet the concentration
of certain types of establishments in the heart of the area by
specialization by districts, comparable to the specialization in
automobile sales in the Broad Street area, but more concen¬
trated in its nature.
4. The situation of Beloit with relation to competing trading
centers, such as Janesville, Rockford, Milwaukee and Chicago,
necessitates a conscious effort on the part of local establish¬
ments to hold and extend the trade area. At present the parking
problem aggravates this unsatisfactory condition, and before a
campaign to draw in trade is begun, means of handling the
traffic must be provided.
5. While the situation of Beloit is far from ideal for the de¬
velopment of an outstanding commercial center, there are possi¬
bilities beyond the present level of utilization. These possibili¬
ties can be realized only through the fullest co-operation of the
merchants and other agencies in the community, with construc¬
tive planning to make the most of the natural endowment of
site and situation.
152 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts , and Letters .
The Residential City
In the Beloit community the industries have spread out of the
valley bottom to the upland, the forms of commercial utilization
have likewise encroached upon the upland, but though there is
residential utilization of portions of the valley bottoms, there is
no first-class residential district upon such a site. This single
fact is significant in showing a definite relationship between site
and the quality of residential development. The residential sec¬
tion of the city in the period of early settlement was in the val¬
ley bottom, but allocation of land use between the industries,
commercial establishments, and residential utilization early de¬
veloped, as is indicated by the following quotation : “The divi¬
sion of the city which put the factories and business center in
the valley and the homes on the hill was a most fortunate
one. . .”15 The natural vegetative cover may have been an addi¬
tional factor in causing the inhabitants early to utilize the
higher upland sites for residences, as “burr oak openings” were
typical of this section, while a “grove of heavy timber covered
the lower grounds, now the business part of the city.”16
The Upland. On the upland where much of the residential
area of Beloit has developed, there still are variations in the
desirability of sites resulting from differences in natural condi¬
tions. The most desirable natural site is at the edge of the
upland overlooking the valley. Sites overlooking the valleys of
the Rock River and Turtle Creek are occupied by such develop¬
ments as the Beloit College campus, Hillcrest, Bluff Street
through part of its extent, and the residential sites outside of
the city along the east side of the River Road. Fairbanks, Morse
and Company’s plant on this type of site is an accident growing
out of a set of circumstances of no general significance. The
remaining expanse of the upland level offers few relief features
of significance in affecting residential utilization.
The Spotted Nature of Residential Land Utilization. The
natural conditions which are characteristic of a first class resi¬
dential site have been tabulated as follows : moderate elevation,
good drainage, access to sunshine and air, and attractive views.
To these has been added for large cities, proximity to a boule-
15 Beloit Daily News, June 22, 1897.
16 Brown, William Fiske, History of Rock County , Vol. I, p. 130.
Halverson — Geography of Beloit , Wisconsin . 153
yard system, making the site accessible through the use of the
automobile.17 It must be understood that the encroachment of a
single undesirable factor, such as a railroad right-of-way, or an
industrial or commercial establishment, may partially or com¬
pletely nullify the natural advantages. The presence of the
Fairbanks, Morse and Company plant has made undesirable for
high grade residential use natural sites near it that have inher¬
ently excellent qualities. Since this industry has long occupied
its present site the residential development adjacent is in har¬
mony with the presence of the establishment.
The presence of industrial and commercial establishments on
upland sites in Beloit is a factor of great significance in resi¬
dential land utilization. The Joint Switch track opens a large
area of land to industrial and commercial use, yet the poten¬
tialities of such use apparently were not generally realized until
recently. The Joint Switch track, with its adjacent storage,
commercial, and industrial establishments, cuts a swath directly
through the residential section of the east side.
The Valley Bottoms . The valley bottoms present a much
more uniform condition in relation to classes of residential land
use than does the upland. On the valley bottoms the status of
residential site improvements is only fair in the better sections
and very poor in the worst. Thus, on the bottoms adjacent to
Turtle Creek along Race Street, veritable hovels house a portion
of the Negro, Mexican, and other population of the community.
The nearness to the industries and railroads, added to the nat¬
ural factors of low elevation and poor drainage, causes these
sites to be so low in real value that no quality improvements are
justified.
Beloit, like most unplanned America cities, is characterized
by great variation in residential improvements, in many cases
totally unrelated to the site characteristics, and presenting a
condition which when mapped in great detail shows great vari¬
ations within short distance. The selection of a site by the pro¬
spective home owner in Beloit consequently presents a compli¬
cated and difficult problem. As a result of the continuously
changing condition of urban land utilization to meet the needs
of industrial, commercial, and residential establishments, and
the lack of directive planning and comprehensive zoning of any
high scientific quality, there are too many variable items con-
17 Dorau and Hinman, op. cit., pp. 68, 312.
154 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
fronting the investor. It is to the owner of the cheaper home
that' this problem is particularly acute. There are many owners
of cheap homes in Beloit who have seen their property depre¬
ciate greatly in the last fifteen years through the development
of nuisances beyond the control of the individual.
Summary
1. The valley bottoms with their typical industrial commer¬
cial, and railroad utilization, are marked by residential utiliza¬
tion of rather low grade, due to the natural characteristics of
this type of site, as well as to the major forms of utilization.
2. The spotted nature of the residential development on the
upland is mainly related to the presence of industrial, commer¬
cial, and railroad forms of utilization, and the lack of function¬
ing private or public controls in residential real estate develop¬
ment.
8. The condition of urban site use cannot be revolutionized,
since industrial, commercial, and railroad utilization of the up¬
land areas is an established fact, but future residential utiliza¬
tion should show intelligent adjustments to the presence of such
forms, as well as to the site characteristics desirable in resi¬
dential land.
4. Controls and restrictions should make difficult the sub¬
division of unripe sites, unable to meet the restrictive require¬
ments of moderately good grade residential developments. This
should eliminate the most undesirable forms of garage-house
occupance of sites.
The Cultural City
The New England cultural background is outstanding in the
Beloit community. Though not the first settlers on the site, the
members of the New England Emigration Company with their
arrival and settlement gave a quality to the community which
has persisted. Representatives of this group of settlers searched
the middle west for a desirable site, and finally selected Beloit.
It is apparent that certain of the site conditions made a definite
appeal to the agents of the company. There were prairie lands
not needing clearing, oak openings which furnished fuel and
fence material, as well as easily harnessed sources of water¬
power to turn the wheels of grist and saw mills.18 It is further
18 Western Historical Company, op. cit., p. 609.
Halverson — Geography of Beloit , Wisconsin .
155
suggested that they were attracted by the New England-like
look of the country.19 That the land available for purchase in¬
cluded a hundred acres already broken may have been an addi¬
tional factor of some significance in influencing the selection.
New England traditions demanded schools for the children
of the community, and when the general organizations of the
Congregational and Presbyterian churches projected an insti¬
tution of higher learning for the new region of the Northwest
Territory opened for settlement by the Blackhawk War, citizens
of Beloit made a determined effort to secure the college, in
which they were successful. In the selection by the church
organizations of the place in which the projected college was to
be situated, the location of Beloit at the territorial boundary
line, in a position to draw students from both Illinois and Wis¬
consin, was a situation factor of significance.20 The situational
advantage of Beloit, about half-way between Lake Michigan
and the Mississippi River, has been suggested as another factor
considered as favorable in its selection.21 Through the years the
college faculty and their families have been the moving spirits
in the cultural history of the Beloit community. Their direct
and indirect influence in the spiritual, cultural, educational, and
even commercial and industrial activities in the city has been
immeasurable. It is apparent that there are elements of geo¬
graphic import related to the New England settlement on the
Beloit site, the establishment and persistence of the college in
its situation, and the resulting cultural personality of the com¬
munity.
In conclusion it may be said that the Beloit community, but
more especially Beloit proper, has a rather definite personality,
related to its New England cultural background, and the New
England elements which still persist in its population. Its in¬
dustries today reflect the influence of typical New England in¬
genuity and mechanical skill. Its outlook is essentially conser¬
vative, but not reactionary. In its city improvements, its re¬
cently adopted city-manager form of government, and its at¬
tempts to meet the problems of urban land utilization by a
zoning act, the municipality demonstrated that it is alive to its
local problems.
“Whitney, op. cit., p. 133.
20 Chapin, R. C. Semi-Centennial Anniversary of Beloit College, June 1897, p. 44.
21 Smith, Professor E. G. Interview.
STRIKE SLIP FAULTING IN THE ACADIAN
APPALACHIANS
H. D. Squires
This paper is primarily concerned with the deformation of
the crust of the earth as seen along the coast of Maine, the Bay
of Fundy coast of New Brunswick, and farther east in the
mainland of Nova Scotia, a region which is popularly known as
Acadia. In Maine and New Brunswick geological mapping has
been confined chiefly to areas along the coast on the north side
of the Bay of Fundy. Farther inland a meager amount of infor¬
mation may be obtained from the description of the various
quarries and of deposits of the economic minerals of the region.
Definition . According to Reid and others,1 a strike slip fault
is present “where the net slip is practically in the direction of
the fault strike.”
Crustal Movements Affecting the Acadian Region
Deformation of the rocks in this region has been produced
by compression acting in two directions nearly at right angles
to each other. The more spectacular effects have been produced
by compression effective in a direction at right angles to the
Bay of Fundy syncline. Movements so generated have devel¬
oped great folds in the earth’s crust. This same compression
developed numerous small folds by a minor wrinkling of the
earth’s crust. These lesser folds are parallel to the axial direc¬
tion of the greater folds and are an effect of the same shortening
movement. The Bay of Fundy lies in a downfold, while the
mainland of Nova Scotia and the land mass of New Brunswick
and Maine represent the widespread, upbowed portions on
either side of it. Following this earlier deformation, the moun¬
tain building forces were inactive for a considerable period of
time. Then the region was compressed in such a fashion as to
develop folds nearly at right angles to the earlier series.2 This
1 Reid, H. P. & Others — Report of the Committee on the Nomenclature of
Faults, p. 176.
2 Bastin, E. S. & Williams, H. S. — Description of Eastport Quadrangle, Maine.
Structure Sections, p. 13.
158 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
effect of structural adjustment is not nearly so prominent as
the folding parallel to the Bay of Fundy, but it is quite definitely
present.3 After the passage of a considerable time in the earth’s
history, compressive forces once again became effective in a
direction normal to the axis of the Bay of Fundy. This time the
Fig. 1. The mapped areas indicated by numerals are as follows:
1. St. Stephen Area. 2. Eastport Quadrangle. 3. St. George Area. 4. St.
John Area. 5. Moncton Area. 6. Horton-Windsor Area. 7. Northumber¬
land Straight Area. 8. Lake Ainslie District. 9. Penobscot Quadrangle.
10. Rockland Quadrangle. 11. Minto Coal Basin.
rocks which previously had been closely folded responded to the
need for adjustment by fracturing, followed by the overthrust¬
ing of huge blocks or slices of the earth’s crust over each other.
At this time, too, there was lateral displacement along approxi¬
mately vertical faults, the blocks affected having, in general, a
horizontal movement relative to each other. Overthrusting,
folding, and normal faulting are all present in the younger
rocks of the region, but no cases of strike slip faulting are de¬
scribed. It is of interest to find that the deformation of this
3 Squires, H. D. — Cross Warping in the Acadian Appalachians.
Squires — Strike Slip Faulting.
159
region has continued to be active even since glaciation in the
St. John Area (Fig. 1, No. 4) where numerous very small over¬
thrusts have been found in glaciated outcrops. An instance is
cited by Hayes4 in which he says, “In an exposed area, measur¬
ing thirty feet across the strike, thirty overthrusts were counted
with throws varying from one-quarter inch to three inches.”
Strike Slip Faulting Near the International Boundary
St. Stephen Area. Along the shore of the Bay of Fundy for
a few miles on either side of the International Boundary Line,
strike slip faulting has played an interesting part in the devel¬
opment of rock structures. This type of faulting is found in
three different localities in the district near St. Stephen and
St. George in New Brunswick and Eastport in Maine. Near
St. Stephen (Fig. 1, No. 1) the writer first found strike slip
faulting of importance while mapping a gabbro mass upon
which the town was built. Numerous vertical faults cut the
gabbro and the polished sides of these are often exposed in the
road cuts and in the so-called “gravel pits” from which ma¬
terials have been dug to resurface the roads. The faults at¬
tracted particular attention because the striations on the ex¬
posed surfaces are almost always horizontal, showing that the
crustal blocks forming the two sides of each fault have moved
by each other in a horizontal direction. Faults are seldom found
in which the movement is in a direction normal or oblique to
the strike.
A careful analysis of the direction of displacement along all
the faults found in the gabbro shows that the movement in
nearly ninety per cent of the cases is in the horizontal direction,
never departing from that direction by more than ten degrees.
The strike, or cross country direction, followed by the faults is,
on the average, north forty-five degrees west. There is also
some multiple faulting. In one outcrop less than one hundred
feet in diameter the writer saw no less than ten faults. Shear
zones are also common. Rapid disintegration in these broken
zones has given rise to the so-called “gravel pits” in which fully
three-fourths of the decayed rock is small enough to be used as
surfacing material for the secondary roads. Strike slip faulting
is present to the exclusion of practically all other types in this
Hayes, A. O. — Geology of the St. John Map Area, New Brunswick, p. 234.
160 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
district as there is little evidence of either oblique faulting or
overthrusting.
Eastport Quadrangle. This same type of crustal adjustment
appears again in the Eastport Quadrangle (Fig. 1, No. 2) about
thirty miles to the southeast of St. Stephen. Strike slip faulting
is found only occasionally in this district, one instance being
cited* 5 where this type of faulting is combined with an over¬
thrust sheet of sedimentary rock which moved in the same di¬
rection. This peculiar combination is due to the movement
which took place between two horizontal beds of sediments, the
margins of which were folded down at right angles to the re¬
mainder of the sheets.
St. George Area. A union of the two fault types present
around St. Stephen, New Brunswick and Eastport, Maine is
found in the St. George6 Area (Fig. 1, No. 3). The first type
to be noticed is the strike slip faulting common to the region
with a strike lying between north and west. In addition to this,
however, there is a second system of faults which also appears
to be related in time and cause to those just mentioned. This
second group has a strike of about fifteen to thirty degrees east
of north. The relation of the group striking east of north to
that striking west of north seems very indefinite until it is seen
that in practically every case the faulting follows the line of
folding developed by the cross warping along the southern por¬
tion of the International Boundary Line. When considered in
the light of this fact, it is quite natural to expect the fractures
to be formed along the line of weakness already developed in
the folded portion of the rocks. At least one of these faults
formed the northwestern boundary of a sheet which had been
thrust westward in the cross warping movement and later
pushed north-northeast at the time of the formation of the
strike slip faults.
Faulting in Other Districts
St. John Area. Farther east in the St. John Area (Fig. 1,
No. 4) is another instance of strike slip faulting. In this case,
6 Bastin, E. S. & Williams, H. S. — Description of the Eastport Quadrangle,
Maine, p. 13.
6 Squires, H. D. — Cross Warping in the Acadian Appalachians.
Squires — Strike Slip Faulting .
161
Hayes7 says that “overthrusts from the southeast combined
with cross faulting parallel with the direction of movement.”
Mainland of Nova Scotia. Across the Bay of Fundy in the
mainland of Nova Scotia there is a similar movement along
vertical faults in the rocks of the Goldenville series.8 In some
cases displacement along these faults has separated formerly
adjacent points in various structures by as much as one and
one-quarter miles, measured along the strike of the faults. The
general cross country direction of these faults is almost without
exception northwest-southeast. Numerous examples of these
are seen along the southeastern coast of the mainland of Nova
Scotia. Along this coast, fault after fault has been described
by Malcomb and Fairbault.9 The major portion of the move¬
ment has been in a horizontal direction between nearly vertical
surfaces. Less mapping has been done in the southwestern por¬
tion of the peninsula of Nova Scotia and in consequence fewer
faults have been located there to date.
Areas Not Affected by Strike Slip Faulting
Northumberland Strait Area. In contrast to the abundance
of strike slip faulting along the southeastern coast of Nova
Scotia, there is a notable lack of this type of structural adjust¬
ment in the districts bordering the northern coast 10> 11 (Fig. 1,
No. 7). The strike slip faulting is found northward to the
southern margin of the younger Pennsylvanian rocks.
Cape Breton Island. To the east in the Lake Ainslie Dis¬
trict12 (Fig. 1, No. 8) and in the southern part of the Sydney
Coal Field,13 there is a similar lack of strike slip faulting.
New Brunswick. Much farther west in the Moncton Area
(Fig. 1, No. 5) Wright14 makes no mention whatever of strike
slip faulting and the latest faulting indicated on the map of the
area is older than the Pennsylvanian rocks. In south central
New Brunswick in the Minto Coal Basin (Fig. 1, No. 11)
7 Hayes, A. O. — Geology of the St. John Map Area, p. 234.
8 Malcomb, W. & Fairbault, E. R. — Gold Fields of Nova Scotia, p. 27.
9 Ibid.
10 Bell, W. A. — Carboniferous Formations — Nova Scotia.
“Williams, M. Y. — Arisaig-Antigonish District, Nova Scotia.
12 Bell, W. A. — Petroleum in Lake Ainslie District, Cape Breton Island.
“Hayes, A. O. & Bell, W. A. — Sydney Coal Field, Nova Scotia.
“Wright, W. J. — Geology of Moncton Map Area, New Brunswick.
162 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Avis, and, Letters.
Dyer15 found no sign of strike slip faulting and but one tension
fault.
Maine. This type of faulting, so common near the Interna¬
tional Boundary Line, is absent farther to the southwest in the
Penobscot Quadrangle16 and in the Rockland Quadrangle17 as
well.
Extent of Strike Slip Faulting
The area then, over which this strike slip faulting is in evi¬
dence is limited on the north by a mantle of Pennsylvanian and
younger rocks. This applies in general to Cape Breton Island,
to the north shore of Nova Scotia, and to the southern third of
New Brunswick. The western limit of the strike slip faulting
apparently lies in eastern Maine, while on the east and south,
the region so affected passes beneath the Atlantic Ocean.
Genesis of the Faults
General Features. While working on the problem of the
mechanics of strike slip faulting, the writer has found that the
descriptions of the structural geology of the Muddy Mountains
Area18 and the Goodsprings Quadrangle,19 both in Nevada, sup¬
plement rather nicely the record found in Acadia. The com¬
posite record of the three regions gives a comprehensive idea
of the history of such structural developments. In the two areas
in Nevada a maximum of 13,000 feet of previously undisturbed
sedimentary rocks is involved in the strike slip faulting and
associated structural adjustments. These sediments form a
great blanket overlying the older and more metamorphosed
rocks. In Acadia, in contrast, the equally great blanket of sedi¬
mentary rocks has been almost entirely eroded. In consequence,
the strike slip faulting as exposed is found chiefly in the original
basement of closely folded early Silurian and older rocks.
The depth of formation for the faults varies from a few
thousand feet as exposed in the younger formations of the
15 Dyer, W. S. — Minto Coal Basin, New Brunswick.
16 Smith, G. O., Bastin & Brown — Description of Penobscot Bay Quadrangle,
Maine.
17 Bastin, E. S. — Description of Rockland Quadrangle, Maine.
18Longwell, C. R. — Geology of the Muddy Mountains, Nevada, pp. 103-126.
19 Hewett, D. F. — Geology and Ore Deposits of Goodsprings Quadrangle, Ne¬
vada. pp. 42-55.
Squires — Strike Slip Faulting .
163
Goodsprings Quadrangle to a known maximum of three miles
for Acadia and probably as much as five miles in localities
where erosion has been more active.
As a whole, the information available concerning the effects
of strike slip faulting under such a wide range of rock condi¬
tions gives a rather good opportunity for the study of the vari¬
ous genetic relations of this type of faulting. The most fre¬
quent association of strike slip faulting is with the formation of
overthrust faults, but it is also clear that strike slip faults are
formed in folded rocks in cases where overthrust faults are not
developed at all.
Genetic Relation to Overthrusts. A careful study of the ag¬
gregate structural features of the Muddy Mountains Area, the
Goodsprings Quadrangle, the Eastport Quadrangle, and the St.
Stephen, St. George and St. John Areas, gives a comprehensive
idea of the relationship between strike slip faulting and the de¬
velopment of overthrust faults. The most common and definite
association of strike slip faulting and overthrusts is found
164 Wisconsin* Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
where strike slip faults form the lateral margins of thrust
blocks. Examples of this are found in all the areas named
above. Minor movements within the thrust blocks themselves
are commonly accomplished by horizontal movement along
strike slip faults as illustrated in Figure 2. A single set is
shown in this diagram. Numerous instances of minor faults
are found in the thrust blocks in the Goodsprings Quadrangle
and in the St. George Area. It seems very probable that they
are no less abundant in the Eastport Quadrangle since unless
these faults bring dissimilar rocks into contact, it is almost
impossible to see them. Also, unless one side of the fault is laid
bare, the horizontal nature of the movement is so very definitely
concealed that normal faulting is likely to be given credit for
the displacement. In any event, the irregular advance westward
of the different segments of the great thrust fault block of the
Edmunds Formation, separated as they are by faults, strongly
suggests adjustment, at least in part, along strike slip faults.
Commonly one set of these faults is prominent in an area,
but a second set is usually present also, as seen in the granite
porphyry of the Goodsprings Quadrangle. In this porphyry the
orientation of the faults in each group is in close agreement
with that of the faults found in one of the adjacent thrust fault
blocks. One set agrees with the fault block to the northwest,
and the other with that of the thrust block to the southwest.
The presence of thrust fault blocks, in which the direction of
motion is nearly at right angles to each other, strongly suggests
a variation in the direction of the application of the force which
developed the thrust blocks themselves. Since the overthrusts
and the strike slip faults develop simultaneously, in many
instances, a change in the direction of the application of the
diastrophic forces is evidently one cause for the variation in the
direction of the strike slip faults. Previous structures in the
rocks, together with differences in the type of rocks affected,
in turn give rise to further variations of these structures.
A double set of such faults is found in Acadia as well as in
Nevada and can be seen in the fault pattern of the major faults
as shown in Figure 1. In the St. George Area the divergence of
direction of movement is noticeable in overthrust sheets and
fault blocks of sandstone. In this case striations between folded
beds and in small overthrust sheets show that pressure was
applied from the east at an early date. Later the same folds were
Squires — Strike Slip Faulting.
165
cleft several times each, nearly parallel to the axial planes, by
faults striking north-northeast and having a major movement
in the horizontal direction. Wherever the movement could be
determined, the eastern side of the fault had moved to the north.
Genetic Relation to Folding. A careful study of strike slip
faulting shows that it is not limited to districts that have under¬
gone overthrust faulting. Strike slip faults are found cutting
across folds, both in cases where folds are obviously situated in
overthrust fault blocks, and in other cases, where the folds are
apparently entirely independent of thrust faulting.
In relation to the folds, as in relation to the thrust faults, the
strike slip faults are quite clearly the result of an irregular
advance of the different portions of the fold. This means that
some portions of a fold are more actively affected by compres¬
sion than others, and in consequence are either more closely
folded than the adjacent portions of the fold, or are pushed
forward out of alignment with it. The type of structures de¬
veloped under such conditions is illustrated in Figure 3 and
166 Wisconsm Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Figure 4. An example of the closer folding of a syncline on one
side of a strike slip fault which cuts across it is seen in the
Clam Harbor District of Nova Scotia.20 In this instance, two
small parallel anticlines, but five hundred feet apart, are cut by
the same strike slip fault and in one, the displacement is ninety
feet, while in the other, it is but a few feet. An example of the
axial displacement has been mapped in the Goodsprings Quad¬
rangle21 about two miles southeast of the Ironside Fault. Again
in the Muddy Mountains Area,22 a strike slip fault which defi¬
nitely forms the lateral boundary of an overthrust block cuts
directly across two anticlines which thus terminate abruptly
against the fault. Further the mere fact of such termination
indicates that the folds were formed prior to the overthrust and
were cut across by the strike slip fault during the formation of
2#Malcomb, W. — Gold Fields of Nova Scotia, p. 72.
21 Hewett, D. W. — Geology, Ore Deposits of Goodsprings Quadrangle, Nevada.
p. 162, plate 11.
22Longwell, C. R., Geology of the Muddy Mountains, Nevada, Fig. 6.
Squires — Strike Slip Faulting .
167
the overthrust. This represents a much more excessive dislo¬
cation than that illustrated by Figure 4.
Role Played by Rotational Stresses . According to Leith,23
“In geological usage the force tending to deform a rock is often
spoken of as a stress; the deformation, that is, the change in
shape or size, resulting from the application of stress is a
strain.”
A valuable key to the results of rotational deformation in the
generation of strike slip faults is found in Acadia. In this
region a combination of strike slip faulting and folding of the
rocks in the Eastport Quadrangle and the St. George Area aids
materially in determining the mode of formation of the regional
structures. Faulting in the post-Silurian intrusives and in the
still earlier folded rocks presents additional data. The series of
large and small folds strikes as a group almost due north. The
strike slip faults fall into groups, one of which strikes approxi¬
mately northwest, and the other north to northeast. The
youngest rocks involved in these structures are of Mississippian
age as seen in the St. George Area and along Northumberland
Strait.24 These structures do not occur, however, in the later
Carboniferous rocks of the latter area nor in those of the Hor-
ton-Windsor Area,25 the Moncton Area,26 or the Minto Area.27
During the Appalachian revolution the approximate direction
along which crustal shortening took place in Acadia was quite
definitely between north and northwest. The closing of the
Acadian geosyncline as shown in diagrams by Schuchert28
gives evidence of this. At first glance the relation between this
regional movement and the formation of the minor structures
described above seems somewhat obscure. In general, either
non-rotational or rotational pressure might be responsible for
these structures.
It seems very doubtful that non-rotational pressure would
have produced these particular structures for two reasons.
First, pressure effective in a north to northwest direction would
have developed folds striking east to northeast. The folds found
in the area strike nearly due north. Second, it seems equally
33 Leith, C. K.- — Structural Geology, p. 15.
24 Bell, W. A. — Carboniferous Formations, Northumberland Strait.
25 Bell, W. A. — Horton-Windsor District, Nova Scotia.
28 Wright, W. J. — Geology-Moncton Map Area, New Brunswick.
n Dyer, W. S. — Minto Coal Basin, New Brunswick.
28 Schuchert, Chas. — Orogenic Times of the Northern Appalachians, pp. 701 etc.
168 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
improbable that the pressure would have been applied in an
east-west direction since an entirely new and separate source of
pressure would have been necessary, and there is no evidence
that such a pressure has been active. In addition, the direction
of greatest pressure would, in many cases, be at an angle of as
much as sixty degrees to each of the two sets of strike slip faults
formed. Experimental work of Leith’s29 has shown that under
simple non-rotational pressure, rocks break at angles of some¬
what less than forty-five degrees to the direction of greatest
pressure. This experimental fact makes it seem extremely
doubtful that these faults were formed by non-rotational forces.
The action of rotational stress best explains the structures
found between the towns of Eastport, Maine and St. George,
New Brunswick. Experimental work by Mead30 shows that
folds such as those present could have been formed by shearing
deformation acting along either a northwest or a northeast
direction. When the strike slip faults are also taken into con¬
sideration, the northwest direction alone is feasible. This is so
because the more important plane of maximum shear strikes
nearly northwest in this region. In the St. Stephen Area only
one shear plane is well developed as the strike of nearly all the
strike slip faults (planes of maximum shear) is within a few
degrees of northwest.
Folds overturned to the west-northwest are common near the
eastern margin of the area of north-striking folds. This indi¬
cates pressure toward the north-northwest and not toward the
north-northeast as would have been the case had the greatest
applied pressure been effective in a northeast direction. Pres¬
sure effective in a northwest direction also fits in with the
other structural development of the region, while shear along
a northeast direction does not.
These structures, then, lying between the towns of Eastport
and St. George indicate that the strike slip faulting throughout
Acadia is the result of the Acadian portion of the earth’s crust
being pushed northwest relative to New England.
Summary
Strike slip faulting occurs chiefly along the western half of
the north shore of the Bay of Fundy and in that portion of the
29 Leith, C. K. — Structural Geology, p. 20.
89 Mead, W. J. — Notes on the Mechanics of Geologic Structures, p. 519.
Squires — Strike Slip Faulting.
169
mainland of Nova Scotia which borders the Atlantic Ocean.
In this part of the Acadian region, strike slip faulting locally
overshadows all other types of faulting. The average direction
of the faults is northwest ; the dip is steep, being approximately
vertical, and the movement between adjacent surfaces of the
crustal blocks follows the horizontal direction, the average de¬
parture therefrom being less than ten degrees. Locally struc¬
tures present prior to the formation of the faults may cause
variations in their strike. The other characteristics are strik¬
ingly constant.
This type of crustal adjustment plays an interesting part in
the structure of the north shore of the Bay of Fundy, but the
most spectacular results of strike slip faulting are seen along
the coast of Nova Scotia where formerly adjacent points are
now distant from each other by as much as one and one-quarter
miles, measured along the fault.
The structural history of the region begins, so far as is
known, with regional folding along axes striking approximately
northeast-southwest. This was followed in late Paleozoic time
by shearing deformation which developed local warping with a
north south trend. Overthrusts to the west and strike slip
faults were also developed by the shearing deformation. Still
later, overthrusting, folding, and normal faulting, all with axes
in a general northeast direction, followed the strike slip fault¬
ing. This movement continued to some extent even after glacia¬
tion in the St. John Area.
The age of the strike slip faulting is post-late-Devonian (or
early Mississippian) and predates the deposition of the late
Pennsylvanian rocks.
Bibliography
Bastin, E. S. — Description of the Rockland Quadrangle, Maine. U. S. G. S.,
Geol. Atlas, Rockland Folio No. 158. (1908)
Bastin, E. S. & Williams, H. S. — Description of the Eastport Quadrangle,
Maine. U. S. G. S., Geol. Atlas, Eastport Folio No. 192. (1914)
Bell, W. A.— Carboniferous Formations of Northumberland Strait, Nova
Scotia. Geol. Surv. Can., Sum. Rpt. 1924, pt. C. pp. 142-180. (1926)
Bell, W. A. — Prospects for Petroleum in Lake Ainslie District, Cape
Breton Island, Geol. Surv. Can., Sum. Rpt. 1926, pt. C. pp. 100-109.
(1927)
Bell, W. A. — Horton- Windsor District, Nova Scotia. Geol. Surv. Can.,
Mem. 166. (1929)
170 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
Dyer, W. S. — Minto Coal Basin, New Brunswick. Geol. Surv. Can., Mem.
151. (1926)
Hayes, A. O. — Geology of the St. John Map Area, New Brunswick. Geol.
Sur v. Can., Sum. Rpt. 1913, pp. 228-243. (1914) -
Hayes, A. O. & Bell, W. A. — The Southern Part of the Sydney Coal Field,
Nova Scotia. Geol. Surv. Can., Mem. 133. pp. 1-89. (1923)
Hewett, D. F. — Geology and Ore Deposits of the Goodsprings Quadrangle,
Nevada. U. S. G. S. Prof. Paper. 162. (1931)
Leith, C. K. — Structural Geology, Henry Holt & Co., N. Y., 1923.
Longwell, C. R.— Geology of the Muddy Mountains, Nevada. U. S. G. S.
Bull. 798. (1928)
Malcomb, Wyatt — Gold Fields of Nova, Scotia. Geol. Surv. Can. Mem. 156.
(1929)
Mead, W. J. — Notes on the Mechanics of Geologic Structures, Journ. of
Geol. vol. 28, pp. 505-523. (1920)
Smith, G. 0., Bastin, E. S. & Brown, C. W. — Description of the Penobscot
Bay Quadrangle, Maine. U. S. G. S., Geol. Atlas, Penobscot Bay Folio
No. 149. (1907)
Squires, H. D. — Cross Warping in the Acadian Appalachians. (In prep¬
aration)
Williams, M. Y. — Arisaig-Antigonish District, Nova Scotia. Geol. Surv.
Can., Mem. 60. (1914)
Wright, W. J. — Geology of the Moncton Map Area, New Brunswick.
Geol. Surv. Can., Mem. 129. (1922)
PRELIMINARY REPORTS ON THE FLORA OF
WISCONSIN. XXL GERANIALES
Norman C. Fassett
These maps are compiled from specimens in the following
herbaria: the University of Wisconsin (including hosts of
fungi), Milwaukee Public Museum, Northland College, Law¬
rence College, the Field Museum, and the private herbarium of
Mr. S. C. Wadmond. The writer gratefully acknowledges the
courtesies of the curators of these herbaria.
LINACEAE— One genus, Linum.
a. Petals blue; capsule 10-12 mm. in diameter; sepals not glandular
b. Sepals, or at least the inner ones, ciliate
c. False partition of capsule not ciliate ........... L. usitatissimum.
c. False partition of capsule ciliate . . . L. humile.
b. Sepals not ciliate . . L. Lewisii.
a. Petals yellow; capsule 3-6 mm. in diameter; sepals glandular-margined
d. Petals more than 1 cm. long; sepals deciduous from the mature fruit;
false partition of capsule not ciliate; leaves without glands at base
. . . . . . . L. rigidum.
d. Petals 4-8 mm, long; sepals persistent on the mature fruit; false
partition of capsule ciliate; leaves with 2 dark glands at base .
. . . . . . . . . . L. sulcatum.
L. USITATISSIMUM L. Common Flax. (Fig. 1). This is to be
expected as an escape almost throughout the state, since there
are (or were in 1927) but 17 of Wisconsin's 71 counties in which
flax is not a crop plant.1
L. humile Milk (Fig. 2, dots). Much less common.
L. Lewisii Pursh. (Fig. 2, circles). This is recorded from
Wisconsin in Gray's Manual, ed. 7, and in Britton & Brown’s
Illustrated Flora, ed. 2. Dr. Percy Wilson writes me from the
New York Botanical Garden that they have there no specimen
from this state upon which the report might have been based ;
Professor M. L. Fernald in a letter tells me that the report is
*U. S. D. A. and Wis. D. A. Crop Reporting Service Bull. 90 : 54-55. 1928.
172 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
not based on any specimen in the Gray Herbarium, but probably
on the inclusion of this species by Russel in his Check list of the
Flora of Milwaukee County.* 2 This report, in turn, goes back to
that of W. J. Bennetts, who wrote,3 “I found this species or the
L. perenne of Europe for two successive years growing in a
vacant lot on the east side.” I have not seen any specimen to
substantiate this record.
A collection of this species on railroad ballast at Minong,
Washburn County, July 6, 1917, Charles Goessl, no. 7522, might
be referred to L. pratense (Norton) Small, since it has sepals
but 4 mm. long, but it agrees rather with L. Lewisii in that these
sepals are fully § as long as the mature capsule. Doubtless ad-
ventive from farther west.
L. rigidum Pursh. (Fig. 2, cross). A single collection was
made along the railroad track at Lyndon Station, Juneau
County, June 30, 1917, J. J. Davis.
L. sulcatum Riddell. (Fig. 3). Dry hillsides, sand dunes,
railroad embankments, etc., in the southwestern half of the
state. Our only native species.
OXALIDACEAE — One genus, Oxalis.
a. Plants stemless; flowers white or purple
b. Flower solitary on each scape; petals usually white with purple lines;
plant with a creeping rootstock . O. montana.
b. Flowers several in an umbel; plants with a scaly bulb
c. Petals purple . 0. violacea.
c. Petals white . 0. violacea , f. albida.
a. Plants with leafy stems; flowers yellow
d. Stems creeping, rooting at the nodes . O. corniculata.
d. Stems erect or decumbent, but not rooting at nodes
e. Flowers 1-3 on a peduncle, usually umbellate; fruiting pedicels
horizontal or deflexed, with erect capsules; capsule and pedicels
with fine and dense, closely appressed, hairs
/. Capsule with some loose viscid hairs . O. stricta.
f. Capsule with only short appressed hairs .
. O. stricta , var. piletocarpa.
2 Bull. Wis. Nat. Hist. Soc. 5 : 206. 1907.
2 Ibid. 1 : 164. 1900.
173
Fassett — Reports on Flora of Wisconsin. XXL
var. piletocarpa
• Oxalis europaea 4. Oxalis europaea
f. cymosa
O Oxalis europaea X Oxalis europaea
f. pilosella f. villicaulis
174 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
e. Flowers usually 3 or more to a peduncle, cymose; fruiting pedicels
spreading or ascending; capsules glabrous or only with spreading
hairs
g. Upper surface of leaflets glabrous
h. Hairs on pedicels appressed
i. Stem glabrate or with appressed hairs . 0. europaea.
i. Stem with spreading hairs . O. europaea , f. pilosella.
h. Hairs of pedicels spreading
j. Stems nearly or quite glabrous _ O. europaea, f. cymosa.
j. Stems with spreading hairs . O. europaea, f. villicaulis.
g. Upper surface of leaflets with scattered hairs
k. Hairs on pedicels appressed
1. Stems with spreading hairs . O. europaea, var. Bushii.
1. Stems with appressed hairs or glabrate .
. O. europaea, var. Bushii, f. subglabrata.
k. Hairs of pedicels spreading. .0. europaea, var. Bushii, f. vestita.
0. Montana Raf. ; Fernald, Rhodora 22 : 143-144. 1920.
0. americana Bigel.; Fernald, Rhodora 20 : 76-78. 1918. 0.
Acetosella of American authors, not L. Wood Sorrel. (Fig. 4,
dots). Mostly in coniferous woods, northward.
0. VIOLACEA L. Violet Wood Sorrel. (Fig. 4, crosses) . Bluffs
and gravelly hillsides, south westward. 0. violacea, f. albida,
n. f., corollis albis. Occasional with the purple-flowered plant.
Type in Herb. Univ. of Wis., Lewiston, Wis., May 18, 1929,
N. C. Fassett & Henry Winkler, no. 9916. (Fig. 4, asterisks) .
0. CORNICULATA L., Wiegand, Rhodora 27 : 120. 1925, not of
Gray’s Manual, ed. 7. 0. repens Thunb. Apparently not at all
common. Russel, l. c ., records it from Milwaukee County as a
weed in city gardens, and there is a specimen in the Milwaukee
Public Museum from a garden (presumably in Milwaukee),
September 17, 1900, Wm. Finger .
0. stricta L. Yellow Wood Sorrel. (Fig. 5, crosses). Scat¬
tered, in fields and on hillsides, often on lawns, mostly southern,
as is the more common var. piletocarpa Wiegand (Fig. 5,
dots). I have found the two forms growing together as weeds
on a Madison lawn. Specimens not in fruit, so not determinable
as to variety, are represented by circles in Fig. 5.
Fassett— Reports on Flora of Wisconsin. XXL
Geranium maculatum
Geranium Bicknellii
® Geranium Robertianum
© Erodium cicutarium X Geranium pusillum
+ Ptelea trifoliata
• Polygala paucifolia
176 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
0. europaea Jord. ; Wiegand, l. c., 134. 0. corniculata of
Gray’s Manual, ed. 7, not L. Yellow Wood Sorrel. (Fig. 6,
dots). Throughout the state, often as a weed in lawns, under
hedges, in greenhouses and gardens, etc. Forma pilosella
Wiegand (Fig. 6, circles), f. CYMOSA (Small) Wiegand (Fig. 6,
crosses), and f. villicaulis Wiegand (Fig. 6, x’s) occur sop-
radically, often with the typical form.
0. europaea, var. Bushii (Small) Wiegand (Fig. 7, dots)
and its f. subglabrata (Small) Wiegand (Fig. 7, crosses) and
f. vestita Wiegand (Fig. 7, x’s) are decidedly southern in
range, running northward along the Mississippi River. This
study of Wisconsin material tends to corroborate the opinion of
Professor Wiegand, that while pubescence of stem and pedicels
is of little taxonomic value in this species (hence the disposition
of these variants in the category of forms), the plants differing
in having pubescence on the leaflets are more segregated geo¬
graphically, and are better treated as constituting a variety.
GERANIACEAE
Geranium maculatum L. Wild Geranium; Cranesbill.
(Fig. 8) . Throughout the state except in a limited north-central
area. The albino, f. albiflorum (Raf.) House, N. Y. State
Mus. Bull. 243-244: 48. 1923, has been collected near Madison,
northeast of Lake Mendota.
G. Robertianum L. Herb Robert. (Fig. 9, dots). Door
County, where very abundant, often occurring as a weed in
cleared ground. It is especially common on cobblestone beaches.
G. carolinianum L. (Fig. 9, crosses). This species has, to
judge from material in herbaria, been somewhat confused with
the next. It is much less common than is G. Bicknellii, and is
perhaps adventive, at least northward.
G. Bicknellii Britton. (Fig. 10). Mostly northward, com¬
ing south to the Baraboo Hills in Sauk County, and along the
Lake Michigan shore, as do a number of other predominantly
northern plants in this state.
G. pusillum Burm. f. (Fig. 9, x’s). Adventive; rare.
Erodium CICUTARIUM (L.) L’Her. Storksbill. (Fig. 9, circle).
Adventive; Manitowoc.
Fassett — Reports on Flora of Wisconsin. XXL 177
RUTACEAE
Xanthoxylum americanum Mill. Prickly Ash. (Fig. 11).
Mostly southward. Recorded as being common in Racine and
Kenosha Counties.4
Ptelea trifoliata L. Plop Tree. (Fig. 12, crosses). In a
few southeastern counties. Wadmond4 records this as “Rare;
thickets and stream borders/’ while Russel5 writes, “Common
in Menomonee Valley” of Milwaukee County.
POLYGALACEAE — One genus, Polygala.
a. Flowers 1.5-2 cm. long, 1-4 on each stem . P. paucifolia.
a. Flowers 5 mm. or less long, in a spike
b. Leaves all alternate
c. Plants with numerous cleistogamous flowers on underground
branches; aerial flowers with pedicels about 2 mm. long .
. P. polygama.
c. Plants without underground flowers; pedicels 1 mm. or less long
d. Stems many in a cluster from a stout rootstock, usually not
branched, covered with minute spreading gland-like hairs just
below the inflorescence
e. Leaves not over 1.5 cm. wide . P. Senega.
e. Leaves reaching 4 cm. in width .... P. Senega , var. latifolia.
d. Stems solitary, often branching, glabrous
/. Petals united into a fringed tube 6-7 mm. long. . .P. incarnata.
f. Petals not united into a long tube
g. Spikes 8-10 mm. thick
h. Flowers at least tinged with purple
i. Flowers purple . P. sanguinea, f. typica.
i. Flowers greenish, with some purplish ones intermixed
. P. sanguinea , f. viridescens.
h. Flowers all white . P. sanguinea , f. albiflora.
g. Spikes about 4 mm. thick .... P. verticillata, var. ambigua.
b. At least the lower leaves whorled
j. Spikes sessile or nearly so, 8-18 mm. thick . . P. cruciata.
j. Spikes peduncled, about 4 mm. thick . . P. verticillata.
4 Wadmond, Trans. Wis. Acad. 16 : 848. 1909.
5 Bull. Wis. Nat. Hist. Soc. 5 : 206. 1907.
178 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
P. paucifolia Willd. Fringed Polygala. (Fig. 12, dots).
Northern.
P. polygama Walt. (Fig. 13). Mostly in sandy regions; rare
northwestward.
P. Senega L. Seneca Snakeroot. (Fig. 14). Southern; also
on a railroad embankment at Minong, Washburn County.
Grades into var. latifolia T. & G., which is represented by a
specimen from Waterworks Woods, Wauwatosa, Milwaukee
County, August 3, 1891, Ruben M. Strong. This is apparently
the basis of Russel’s record from Wauwatosa, while Wadmond,
l. c., lists this variety as “Rare ; wooded bank along Pike Creek,
Somers, Kenosha Co.”
P. incarnata L. (Fig. 15). Rare, southern Wisconsin. The
Jefferson County collection was made by T. Kumlien in 1860,
who noted on the sheet, “now exterminated.”
P. sanguinea L., f. typica Farwell, Am. Mid. Nat. 11: 63.
1928, (Fig. 16, dots), f. albiflora Millsp. FI. W. Va. 333. 1892,
(Fig. 16, crosses), and f. viridescens (L.) Farwell, l . c. (Fig.
16, x’s) occur mostly southward, with apparently no correlation
between color and geographical distribution.
P. cruciata L. (Fig. 17). Rare, mostly southward. Check
marks in Polk and Marquette Counties represent old collections
without precise localities, by T. J. Hale and J. Townley, re¬
spectively.
P. VERTICILLATA L. (Fig. 18, dots). Southward and west¬
ward. The extreme northwestern station is on moist rocks, not
common, Eau Claire, July 26, 1915, Charles Goessl, no. 1730.
A specimen of well-marked var. ambigua (Nutt.) Wood (Fig.
18, cross) was collected at Chippewa Falls by Goessl in 1913.
EUPHORBIACEAE
Croton
C. texensis (Klotzsch) Muell. Arg. Railroad tracks by the
Kinnickinnic River, Milwaukee, September 4, 1899. Wm. J.
Bennetts. This is without doubt the basis of the report by
Russel6 from the same locality.
6 Bull. Wis. Nat. Hist. Soc. 5 : 207. 1907.
179
Fassett — Reports on Flora of Wisconsin. XXL
f. albi flora
+ Polygala verticillata
var. ambigua
180 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and. Letters .
Acalypha
A. virginica L. Three-seeded Mercury. (Fig. 19). Mostly
southward, frequent. Wadmond, L c., records it only from Wind
Lake in Racine County.
Euphorbia
a. Glands of the involucre with petal-like usually white or rose-colored
margins or appendages
b. Leaves all opposite, oblique at base; stipules present and persistent;
stems low, depressed or somewhat ascending, much-branched
c. Seeds smooth and even; leaves entire
d. Leaves oblong-linear . E. polygoni folia.
d. Leaves oblong-ovate . E . Geyeri
c. Seeds roughened or wrinkled; leaves more or less finely serrulate
e. Capsule glabrous
/. Capsule less than 1.5 mm. long; seeds reddish
g. Seeds slightly cross- wrinkled ; leaves narrowed to the base
. E. serpyllifolia.
g. Seeds strongly cross- wrinkled ; leaves rather cordate at base
. E. glyptosperma.
/. Capsule 1.5 mm. or more long; seeds black
h. Capsule 2.25 mm. long, rounded at summit; seeds 1.77 mm.
wide, with short and sharp irregular ridges; stems glabrous
or nearly so; leaves 20-35 mm. long, usually with a red spot
. E. nutans.
h. Capsule 1.75 mm. long, retuse; seeds about 0.7 mm. wide,
with a few shallow furrows or nearly even; stems hirsute;
leaves 8-18 mm. long, rarely with a red spot. .E. Rafinesquii.
e. Capsule pubescent
i. Seeds with about 4 grooves across each side . E. maculata.
i. Seeds minutely roughened . . E. humistrata.
b. Leaves, except the uppermost, scattered, equal at base; stipules
lacking or deciduous; stems tall and mostly erect
j. Uppermost leaves with conspicuous white margins. ..E. marginata.
j. No leaves white-margined . E. corollata.
cL Glands of the involucre without petal-like appendages
k. Involucres in terminal clusters, each with 1-few glands
Fassett — Reports on Flora of Wisconsin. XXL
181
l. Upper part of stem with close short pubescence as well as scat¬
tered hairs; leayes usually all alternate, essentially uniform in
shape and color . E. dentata.
l. Stem glabrous above except for scattered crisped hairs; leaves, ex¬
cept the lower, opposite, rhombic (sometimes deeply lobed) or linear
to lanceolate, usually with both types on the same plant, those of
the inflorescence usually red toward the base . E. heterophylla.
k. Involucres in umbel-like inflorescences, each with usually 4 glands
m. Glands broad and round; leaves usually serrate . . . E. Helioscopia
m. Glands crescent-shaped or 2-horned; leaves entire
n. Leaf-blades linear or lanceolate, at least 3 times as long as
broad; plants perennial
o. Leaves 2-6 cm. long; floral bracts 1-1.5 cm. wide . . . E. Esula.
o. Leaves 0.5-2 cm. long; floral bracts about 5 mm. wide .
. E. Cyparissias.
n. Leaf -blades about as broad as long; plants annual
p. Upper leaves petioled; pod with 2 narrow wings on each lobe;
seed with about 12 deep pits on the back, each about as broad
as the space between pits, and 2 grooves on the inner face ....
. E. Peplus.
p. Upper leaves sessile; pod without wings; pits on both faces of
the seed and more numerous, small and shallow. .E. commutata.
E. polygonifolia L. Seaside Spurge. (Fig. 20, dots) . Shore
of Lake Michigan, mostly southward. Wadmond (1. c.) states
that it occurs only on the beach in Racine and Kenosha Counties,
as does Russel (L c.) for Milwaukee County. This species reaches
its western limit in Wisconsin; see D. C. Peattie, Rhodora
24 : 59-60. 1922.
E. Geyeri Engelm. (Fig. 20, crosses). Sandy soil, mostly
along the larger rivers.
E. serpyllifolia Pers. (Fig. 20, x’s). The only collections
referable to this species are from St. Croix Falls, Polk County,
and Campbellsport, Fond du Lac County.
E. GLYPTOSPERMA Engelm. (Fig. 21). Common.
E. nutans Lag. E. Preslii Gus. (Fig. 22). Southward,
particularly abundant along the Mississippi River, which it
follows northward.
E. Rafinesquii Greene, Pittonia 8 : 207. 1897. E. hirsuta
Wiegand, not Schur. (Fig. 28). Southeastward, not common.
182 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
E. maculata L. (Fig. 24). Mostly southward. Recorded by
Wadmond as being common in Racine and Kenosha Counties.
Northward, this seems to be largely replaced by E . glypto -
sperma.
E. humistrata Engelm. There is much material so labelled in
most of the herbaria consulted, including many sheets so la¬
belled by the writer, but on subsequent study almost all prove
to belong to the preceding species. The single exception is a
specimen, in the Field Museum, from the Brown County Fair¬
ground, September, 1889, J. H . Schuette.
E. MARGINATA Pursh. Snow-on-the-Mountain. This has been
found as an escape in Juneau, Rock and Milwaukee Counties.
E. corollata L. Flowering Spurge. (Fig. 25). Common and
abundant southward. Like many prairie plants, this is spread¬
ing northward along railroads. A record of the collectors’ notes
in the more northern counties is significant. Bayfield County,
“One plant on R. R. ballast,” Lenawee [a lumber town, now
abandoned], August 6, 1917, Charles Goessl, no. 8275; Barron
County, “Quite common in R. R. ballast,” Barron, August 20,
1917, Goessl, no. 8651 ; Rusk County, “Along R. R., fairly com¬
mon,” Ladysmith, August 18, 1917, Goessl, no. 2211; Wood
County, “Gravelly soil; fairly common,” Marshfield, June 8,
1915, Goessl, no 218, and again, “R. R. embankment, not com¬
mon,” Marshfield, September 24, 1915, Goessl, no. 3077; Sha¬
wano County, “Dry sandy soil, very common,” Shawano, July
18, 1916, Goessl, no. 4737 ; Oconto County, “Small colony, sandy
soil,” Oconto, August 22, 1916, Goessl, no. 5772. An older col¬
lection is from Lincoln County, near Merrill, July 31, 1893, L. S.
Cheney, no 2782; this was perhaps introduced with hay in the
logging days.
E. dentata Michx. (Fig. 27, dots). Local along the Missis¬
sippi River in sand or along the railroad; also in hard soil,
Walworth, Walworth County, August 13, 1927, S. C. Wadmond.
Occasional individuals have narrow leaves as ascribed to E.
cuphosperma Boiss.
E. HETEROPHYLLA L. Painted Leaf. (Fig. 26, dots). Sandy
shores and railroad embankments along the Mississippi River.
E. Helioscopia L. Wartwort. (Fig. 26, crosses). Occa¬
sional; adventive.
Fassett — Reports on Flora of Wisconsin . XXL
183
184 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
E. Esula L. (Fig. 27, x’s). Apparently recently adventive,
but becoming increasingly common. First collected at Cam¬
bridge, Dane County, and in Ozaukee County, in 1925, then in
Oconto County in 1928, in a second locality in Ozaukee County
in 1928, and a third in 1930, in Adams County in 1930. It was
first seen at Madison in 1929, and was observed at a second
locality in that city by the writer in 1931, and at Middleton in
1932.
E. Cyparissias L. Cypress Spurge. (Fig. 28). About old
gardens; particularly in the sandy regions, where abandoned
dwellings are common, lilacs and spurge are conspicuous plants
in the spring. Old collections were made in Racine County in
1881, and in Portage County in 1894.
E. Peplus L. Petty Spurge. (Fig. 27, crosses) . Collected in
Dane County in 1889 and 1893, and in Milwaukee County in
1884, 1886, and 1897. Recorded by Russel (l. c.) as in “City
gardens and waste places. Sparse.” in Milwaukee County. Ap¬
parently no longer a member of our flora.
E. commutata Engelm. (Fig. 26, x). Collected at Beloit by
T. J. Hale in 1861, again by J. J. Davis in 1910, and seen there
by the writer in 1932. Apparently native.
CALLITRICHACEAE — One genus, Callitriche.
a. Upper leaves obovate and 3-nerved, often in a floating rosette; carpels
grown together for more than half their width; plants sometimes sub-
terrestrial
b. Fruits 1 mm. or less broad
c. Fruit higher than broad, its lobes keeled . C. palustris.
c. Fruit about as broad as high, its lobes obtusely angled .
. C. heterophylla.
b. Fruit about 2 mm. broad . C. stagnalis.
a. All leaves linear and 1-nerved, with none in floating rosettes; carpels
separate nearly to the central axis; plants always aquatic .
. C. hermaphroditica.
C. palustris L. (Fig. 29). Common northward; apparently
rare southward.
C. HETEROPHYLLA Pursh. (Fig. 30, cross). Collected in
creek pools, Devils Lake, Sauk County, August 5 & 7, 1897,
Fassett — Reports on Flora of Wisconsin . XXL
185
X Euphorbia commutata + Euphorbia Helioscopia
+ Euphorbia Peplus X Euphorbia Esula
© Callitriche hermaphroditica
X Callitriche stagnalis
186 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
L. M. Urnbach. Not collected in the state since, although C.
palustris has been more recently collected at Devils Lake.
C. HERMAPHRODITICA L. C. autumnalis L. (Fig. 30, dots).
Not collected in Wisconsin until 1931, when Mr. John H, Steenis,
working on a lake survey project with the Economic Land Sur¬
vey, found it in two lakes in Douglas County, and in one in
Bayfield County, and Mr. Neil Hotchkiss of the U. S. Biological
Survey collected it in Bayfield County.
C. stagnalis Scop. (Fig. 30, x) . This has only recently been
reported from the United States7 and Canada8 ; our sole collec¬
tion has been identified by Dr. Svenson. It was collected in the
swamp south of Rhinelander, Oneida County, August 25, 1925,
J. J. Davis. This species is quite distinct from C. palustris and
C . heterophylla in its large fruit, equalling in size that of C.
hermaphroditica. That species, however, never has the floating
rosettes of leaves usually characteristic of C. stagnalis. A more
constant character is in the mature fruit ; in C. hermaphroditica
the carpels may be easily separated from one another with the
point of a needle, with almost no tissue being broken, while in
C. stagnalis they may be so separated only by tearing consider¬
able connecting tissue.
7 Svenson, Rhodora 34 : 37-39. 1932.
8 Fernald, Rhodora 34 : 39. 1932.
PRELIMINARY REPORTS ON THE FLORA
OF WISCONSIN. XXII.
CORNACEAE— DOGWOOD FAMILY
A. A. Drescher
The following report is a survey of the species of Cornaceae
as they are found throughout the state of Wisconsin. It is based
on a study of the specimens in the herbaria of the University
of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Public Museum, Northland Col¬
lege, Lawrence College and of Mr. S. C. Wadmond. The writer
was very fortunate in that the material in the Wisconsin her¬
barium had previously been checked by Mr. C. C. Deam of
Indiana.
Key to the Species in Wisconsin
A. Flowers perfect, 4-parted ; petals 2-5 mm. long; ovary two-celled
B. Plant herbaceous; rootstock nearly horizontal.
C. Leaves verticillate at summit of stem . C. canadensis
C. Leaves borne in pairs at internodes below upper whorl .
. C. canadensis f. elongata
B. Plants woody; shrubs erect, ranging from 1-5 meters in height.
D. Leaves alternate, grouped toward end of twig . C. alternifolia
D. Leaves opposite.
E. Leaves broadly ovate, with 7-9 pairs of veins, the lower surface
woolly pubescent ; one-year old twigs usually blotched . . C. rugosa
E. Leaves ovate, oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, with generally
3-6 pairs of veins, the lower surface woolly or appressed pube¬
scent; twigs not blotched.
F. Branchlets usually reddish-brown, pubescent toward the tip;
pith brown; petals 5-6 mm. long . C. obliqua
F. Branchlets glabrous; red or reddish-brown to gray; pith white
or brown; petals 3-4 mm. long.
G. Branches red; pith white, usually more than one-third the
diameter of the stem.
H. Lower surface of leaves appressed pubescent .
. C. stolonifera
H. Lower surface of leaves woolly pubescent .
. C. stolonifera var. Baileyi
188 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
G. Branches gray; pith usually brown, shading to tawny white,
less than one-third diameter of stem . C. femina
A. Flowers polygamous or dioecious; 5-parted; petals minute or none;
ovary one-celled . . Nyssa sylvatica
1. CORNUS
C. canadensis L. Low or Dwarf Cornel; Bunchberry. (Fig.
1). Abundant in northern portion of state, and following Lake
Michigan. Less common throughout the central and southern
portions of the state. It reaches its southern limit in Indiana
and is abundant northward into Alaska. Common in swamps,
along sandy shores or in damp woods; found occasionally on
sand bluffs.
The form elongata Peck, N. Y. State Mus. Bull. 150 : 44.
1911, differs from the typical form of the species in its having
opposite leaves at the internodes in addition to the verticillate
grouping at the summit. Both types may be borne on the same
rootstock.
C. alternifolia L. f. Alternate-leaved Cornel. (Fig. 2).
Commonly, though less abundantly, distributed throughout the
state. Frequents a moist habitat, such as swamps and shaded
river bluffs.
C. RUGOSA Lam. Encycl. 2 : 115, 1786. C. circinata L’Her.
Cornus 7, pi. 3. 1788. (Fig. 3). Quite general throughout the
state, frequenting low, moist situations. Southward it is found
usually on dry sandstone bluffs.
C. obliqua Raf. Pale Dogwood. (Fig. 4). C. Amomum of
Gray’s Man., ed. 7, in part. Common throughout southern part
of the state, as far as Marathon and Marinette counties which
seem to form its northern limit in Wisconsin.
C. stolonifera Michx. FI. Bor. Am. 1 : 92. 1803. Red-Osier
Dogwood. (Fig. 5). Of general distribution throughout the
state; more common throughout the central portion than is
indicated by the map. In contrast to var. Baileyi, C. stolonifera
has a wide distribution throughout North America. Its range
extends from Alaska into Newfoundland, south into Virginia
and west into Arizona and California. Usually found in swampy
or at least moist habitats. Collected in Dane county on dry
sandstone bluffs and in Ashland county on dry soil.
Dr escher— Reports on Flora of Wisconsin . XXI L 189
C. stolonifera
C. stolonifera
var. Baileyi
190 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
C. stolonifera Michx. var. Baileyi n. comb. C. Baileyi Coul¬
ter and Evans. Bot. Gaz. 15 : 37. 7890. (Fig. 6). Var. Baileyi
differs from the species only in its pubescence, which is woolly,
and in its range which is about the Great Lakes and westward
into Wyoming and Winnepeg. In Wisconsin it is limited to the
northern and eastern portions of the state.
C. femina Mill. Gard. Diet. Ed. 8, Number 4. 1768. C. can-
didissima Marsh, Arb. Am. 35. 1785, not Mill. 1768. C.
paniculata L’Her. Cornus 9. pi. 15. 1788. Gray Dogwood.
(Fig. 7). Common throughout the state. The habitat of this
species is more variable than the other dogwoods. It is found
both in wet, swampy regions (especially along the margin) and
on rather dry road banks and clearings.
C. femina Nyssa sylvatica
2. Nyssa
N. sylvatica. Marsh. Pepperidge, Sour Gum. (Fig. 8). A
species distinctly southern in range, represented in Wisconsin
by two trees located at Berryville in Kenosha county.1
The writer wishes to express his sincere appreciation to Dr.
N. C. Fassett for his advice and criticism in the preparation of
this paper and to Mr. C. C. Deam for his aid in the identification
and keying of the species.
1 Wadmond S. C. Flora of Racine and Kenosha counties. Trans. Wis. Acad.
Vol. XVI Pt. II p. 857. 1909.
PRELIMINARY REPORTS ON THE FLORA OF
WISCONSIN. XXIII. URTICACEAE
David F. Costello
This report is based on specimens in the herbaria of the Mil¬
waukee Public Museum, the University of Wisconsin, Mr. S. C.
Wadmond, and of the author ; and on field data compiled by Mr.
L. S. Cheney.1 Ranges reported by Mr. Cheney are represented
by small dots ; additions to these ranges are indicated by crosses.
Large dots or triangles indicate localities represented by her¬
barium specimens.
The writer acknowledges the friendly cooperation of Mr.
Fuller and Mr. Smith, and of Mr. Wadmond. He is especially
grateful to Dr. Norman C. Fassett who assisted in the identifi¬
cation of the nettles in the University Herbarium.
1. Ulmus — Elm
There are three native elms in Wisconsin: U. fulva, U.
americana and U. racemosa. Labels on herbarium specimens
indicate that these are frequently confounded. U. fulva is dis¬
tinguished as follows: bud scales rusty pubescent; leaves usu¬
ally scabrous on upper surface, folded on the midrib; flowers
clustered, on very short pedicels ; samara with rusty pubescence
over the seed. U. americana is characterized by leaves very
unsymmetrical, long acuminate, with 14 to 17 pairs of conspicu¬
ous veins; flowers in umbellate clusters, pedicels long and
drooping; samara ciliate on the margins. A form with rough
leaves and pubescent twigs is frequently collected in swamps.
U. racemosa may be distinguished as follows: leaves nearly
symmetrical, abruptly acuminate, soft pubescent below, 17 to
21 pairs of conspicuous veins; flowers in racemose clusters;
twigs frequently corky ridged ; samara white pubescent on both
faces.
1. U. FULVA Michx. Slippery or Red Elm (Fig. 1). Common
in rich soil along streams, or on rocky slopes or hillsides.
Widely distributed throughout the southern two thirds of the
state.
1 See previous reports in this series.
192 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
2. U. AMERICANA L. American or White Elm. Occurs in
every county in the state and is widely planted as a shade tree.
Adaptable to almost any type of soil. The habit of this elm
varies considerably. “Vase forms,” “plume forms,” “weeping-
willow forms,” and “feathery forms,” have been distinguished.
3. U. RACEMOSA Thomas. U. Thomasii Sarg. Cork or Rock
Elm (Fig. 2) . Cheney states that this elm grows on “low, heavy
clay soil, rocky slopes, rather high river banks or even dry
gravelly uplands” in company with “hard maple, basswood,
white elm, white oak and bur oak.” It occurs in considerable
abundance in three separate areas, as is indicated by the map.
In other regions of the state it ranges from abundant to rare.
[Z7. pumila L. and U . campestris L. are planted to some extent
in cities. The latter occasionally escapes.]
2. Celtis — Hackberry
C. occidentals L. Hackberry or Sugarberry (Fig. 3) . Con¬
fined to river banks and bottom lands in the southern two thirds
of the state. Occasionally found about the shores of lakes. The
range of this tree almost coincides with that of Quercus bicolor
Willd. in Wisconsin.2
C. occidentals var. CRASSIFOLIA (Lam.) Gray. C. crassifolia
Lam. (Fig. 3, triangles). Occurs with the species. Cheney does
not distinguish this variety in his notes. Rosendahl and Butters3
state that in Minnesota this variety is “apparently far more
common than typical C. occidentalism ”
3. Cannabis — Hemp
C. sativa L. (Fig. 4). An introduced species common on
waste ground. Probably more common than is indicated by the
map.
4. Humulus — Hop
The majority of plants from Wisconsin correspond closely
to H. americanus Nutt, as treated by Bailey (Man. Cult. PI,
p. 240. 1924) and by Peattie (FI. Indiana Dunes, 1930), and
are here separated according to these keys. H. americanus is
doubtfully a distinct species.
2 See Trans. Wis. Acad. 26 : 277, fig. 4. 1931 .
•Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota, page 124. 1928.
Costello— Reports on Flora of Wisconsin . XXII L 193
Claus fulva
IJXmus racemosa
# Celtis occidentalis Cannabis sativa
AC. occidentalis var. crassif olia
• Humulus Lupulus
4H. americanus
194 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
1. H. Lupulus L. Common Hop or European Hop (Fig. 5).
An introduced species. Apparently widely distributed.
2. H. americanus Nutt. American Hop (Fig. 5, triangles).
Generally distributed throughout the state. Common in thickets
and waste places.
3. H. JAPONICUS Sieb. & Zucc. Frequently collected as an
escape from cultivation.
5. Maclura — Osage Orange
M. pomifera (Raf.) Schneider. Has been collected at Liv¬
ingston, Grant Co., where it was planted.
6. Morus — Mulberry
1. M. RUBRA L. Red Mulberry (Fig. 6). Found in the south¬
ern half of the state on rich moist soil along streams and at the
foot of rocky bluffs. It is nowhere abundant. Occasionally
planted for its fruit.
2. M. ALBA L. White Mulberry. Sometimes collected as an
escape from cultivation.
7. Urtica — Nettle
Until recently the identity of our two common nettles has not
been clear. It should be noted that U. Lyallii Wats., which for¬
merly passed as U. gracilis Ait., properly belongs to the north
Pacific slope. The following key will serve to distinguish our
native species :
a. Stem glabrous or sparingly pilose above; leaves lanceolate to ovate,
rounded or cordate at base, middle leaves with 13-23 pairs of teeth;
stipules straw-colored, glabrous to pilose . U. gracilis
a. Stem slightly bristly, pilose or puberulent above; leaves usually nar¬
rowly ovate lanceolate, middle leaves with 19-35 pairs of teeth; stip¬
ules cinereous-puberulent . U. procera
1. U. gracilis Ait.4 U. Lyallii of Am. authors, not Wats.;
Gray’s Manual, ed. 7 (Fig. 7). In moist places throughout the
state.
4 See Rhodora 28 : 191-199. 1926.
• 4
Costello— Reports on Flora of Wisconsin. XXIII. 195
Boehmeria cylindrica
B, cylindrica var. seabra
Parietaria
pennsylvanica
196 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
2. U. PROCERA Muhl.5 U. gracilis of most Am. authors ; Gray’s
Manual, ed. 7; not Ait.; (Fig. 8). Common alongside roadsides,
in pastures, and moist places throughout the state.
3. U. DIOICA L. Stinging Nettle (Fig. 7, triangle). Repre¬
sented by a single specimen in the University Herbarium, col¬
lected at Menomonie, Dunn Co.
8. Laportea — Wood Nettle
L. canadensis (L.) Gaud. (Fig. 9). Common in rich moist
woods.
9. Pilea — Clearweed
P. PUMILA (L.) Gray. Including P. oyaca (Lunell) Rydb.6
(Fig. 10). In rich, damp, shaded places north to Marinette,
Lincoln, and Washburn counties.
10. Boehmeria — False Nettle
B. cylindrica (L.) Sw. (Fig. 11). In wet thickets and shady
places north to Oconto, Langlade and Dunn counties. Appar¬
ently grades into the following variety.
B. cylindrica var. scabra Porter. B. Drummondiana Wedd.
(Fig. 11, triangles). Southeastern portion of the state; rare.
11. Parietaria— Pellitory
P. pennsylvanica Muhl. (Fig. 12). Abundant in moist
shaded woods, following closely the areas of limestone.
_
8 Rhodora, l. c.
6 See Rydberg, Flora of the Prairies and Plains of Central North America, page
273. 1932.
THE QUERCUS ELLIPSOIDALIS-QUERCUS
COCCINEA COMPLEX.
S. C. Wadmond
Early settlers coming into Wisconsin terrritory noticed an
oak which was tardy in the natural pruning of its lower
branches, and they observed that when the branches did break
off it was usually at some distance from the trunk, leaving
many persistent stumps penetrating to the center of the tree.
They remembered an oak from their old homes which did this
very thing, and which was there called the Pin Oak. Naturally
they called this Wisconsin oak likewise — the Pin Oak — and
botanists, apparently, fell into the same error.
The first edition of Gray's Manual (1848) listed Quercus
palustris, the Swamp Spanish or Pin Oak, as ranging from
“South New York to Wisconsin,” its occurrence in Wisconsin
being validated by Dr. Increase A. Lapham, who had settled in
Milwaukee in 1886 and immediately began his work on our
flora. This error was perpetuated through four editions of
Gray’s Manual, and it was not until the 5th edition (1868) that
Q. palustris was not ranged but simply listed as “In low
grounds ; rather common.” In the 6th edition (1889) it was
again ranged this time “From Mass, to Del. and Md., west to
Minn., E. Kan., and Ark.” which was again erroneous, since
this oak is absent from Minnesota as it is from Wisconsin.
Gray’s 7th edition (1908) finally relegated it to “Mass, to Va.,
west to Kan. and Ark.” Britton & Brown’s Illustrated Flora
(1896) continued the 60-year-old error by listing it from “Mass,
to Wis., Del., and Ark.”
Long before the manuals had gotten right on the distribution
of Q. palustris, it had been discovered that while the Wisconsin
tree had the same habit of tardy pruning as the true Q. palus¬
tris, resulting in persistent dead lateral branches, its acorn was
quite different, and that the true Q. palustris was absent from
Wisconsin. Where, then, should this puzzling oak be allocated?
What was this species which persisted for so many years mas¬
querading under the title of Q. palustris ?
198 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
There seemed nothing else to do but to refer it to Q. coccinea,
the Scarlet Oak, and there it remained for many years. As early
as 1870, however, Dr. George Vasey, then a resident of northern
Illinois, but editorially connected with the American Entomolo¬
gist and Botanist, puzzling over this complex, had attempted to
divide Q. coccinea as he understood it, and one of the forms, his
var. micro car pa is unmistakably figured (Amer. Entomol. &
Bot. 1 : 344-5 f. 213). Wisconsin botanists were also puzzling
over an oak with elliptical elongated acorns, quite unlike those
described for Q. coccinea, but they had no other alternative than
to class it as that species, and accordingly both the elliptical and
the globose-acorned forms of this tardily pruning oak were
grudgingly lumped into Q. coccinea .
In 1899, however, Rev. E. J. Hill of Englewood, Ill., an ama¬
teur botanist, settled the identity of the elliptical-acorned tree
for us by publishing Q . ellipsoidalis . (Bot. Gaz. 27 : 204, pi.
2-3), so named because of the elongated acorn. I have in my
files a yellowing letter from Mr. Hill in which he naively goes
on to say, “It was the difficulty of placing this oak either with
Q. coccinea or Q. velutina that led me to separate it.” Mr. Hill
made no reference to Dr. Vasey’s treatment, published a gen¬
eration earlier, of this ambiguous oak, nor did he note that
Vasey’s Q. coccinea microcarpa well pictures his own Q . ellip¬
soidalis.
But the ghost was not yet laid. What was to be done with the
tree which exactly matched the elliptical-acorned one but with
semi-globose acorns? Mr. Hill agreed that the Wisconsin ellip¬
tical-acorned tree was a genuine Q. ellipsoidalis, but assigned
our semi-globose-acorned material to Q . coccinea. The good
dominie did not quite know the extremes of his own protean-
acorned oak, nor did we of Wisconsin. Accordingly it was
agreed that both Q. ellipsoidalis and Q. coccinea were present in
Wisconsin, although we were constantly finding intergrading
forms which we would put first into one and then into the other.
Gray’s Manual in its 5th, 6th and 7th editions ranged Q. coc¬
cinea “West to Minn.” which of course would take in our own
State.
Eventually, as this group was given more critical study, it
became apparent that Q. coccinea did not occur in Wisconsin at
all, and that the elliptical and globose-acorned trees were ex¬
treme forms of the same species, Q. ellipsoidalis.
Wadmond—Quercus ellipsoidalis-Q. coccinea Complex . 199
In 1919, Prof. William Trelease, then of the University of
Illinois, published “The Jack Oak" (Trans. Ill. Acad. Sci., voL
12, pi. 139-143). He described and figured typical Q. ellipsoi -
dalis and five forms; four of them, incurva, intermedia , de-
pressa and coronata , depending upon acorn characters. He also
included a sketch map showing the distribution of Q. ellipsoi-
dalis as then known. He confessed that he found it impossible
to recognize Q. coccinea in the region in which Q. ellipsoidalis
occurs.
Most Wisconsin botanists had independently reached the
same conclusion. In “Wisconsin Trees” 1927, published by the
Milwaukee Journal but largely the work of the botanical depart¬
ment of the Milwaukee Public Museum, p. 55, there is this para¬
graph which sounds as though written by Curator Huron H.
Smith,— “Hill's oak, the latest species to be named in the oak
family, passed for many years as the pin oak or the scarlet oak.
It was first identified as a different species by the Reverend
Elkanah J. Hill, an amateur botanist living in Chicago, who
found it growing on the DesPlaines river near Riverside, Ill.
As a result of this man's work, we realize that the scarlet oak
has never grown in Wisconsin and we know that we have count¬
less representatives of Hill's oak.”
In Preliminary Reports on the Flora of Wisconsin XIII.
Fagaceae (Trans. Wis. Acad, of Sci., Arts & Letters XXVI :
277-279, 1931) Prof. David F. Costello includes a distributional
map of this species, adding that Mr. L. S. Cheney, formerly of
the Department of. Botany of the University of Wisconsin, now
of Barron, Wis., who traveled in the years 1897 and 1898
throughout the state, noting on maps the trees of each region,
called this tree Q. coccinea, but that there is no doubt but that
he described what is now known as Q, ellipsoidalis, and that the
scarlet oak, Q. coccinea, is not known to occur in Wisconsin.
Similar confusion appears to have existed in neighboring
states. In “Fagaceae of Iowa,” by T. J. and M. P. L. Fitzpatrick
(Iowa Acad, of Sci., VoL VIII, 1901, p. 18) the authors note
that Q . ellipsoidalis is represented in Iowa by one tree growing
near Big Rock, Scott Co. On p. 16 of the same publication they
report Q. coccinea as widely distributed throughout the state.
Prof. Shimek, Curator of the Herbarium, State University of
Iowa, writes me that many of the earlier reports from Iowa of
Q. coccinea were Q. velutina- (the old Q. coccinea var. tinctoria).
200 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
He is certain that in some cases the varietal name was dropped
and the species reported as Q. coccinea . In most cases, however,
he adds, especially from the northern part of the state, Q. elUp-
soidatis was reported as Q. coccinea. He notes that Q. ellipsoi-
dalis is now found to be rather extensively distributed through¬
out Iowa, but so far no true Q. coccinea has been found.
In Michigan the two species have likewise been confounded :
Mr. 0. A. Farwell in the American Midland Naturalist, March
1928 (Vol. XI No. 2, pg. 81) lists Q. coccinea from three coun¬
ties in Michigan, and adds, “Well distributed over the Penin¬
sula.^ Q. ellipsoidalis is reported from two counties. In the
same publication for July 1930 (Vol. XII No. 4, p. 120) Mr.
Farwell writes that all the collections listed as Q. coccinea are
not that species but a variety of Q. ellipsoidalis which he sepa¬
rates as a new variety coccinoides. Mr. Farwell writes me that
he has never seen Q. coccinea in Michigan or any material of it
from Mich. It is interesting to note, in passing, that his variety
coccinoides very closely matches in acorn characters collections
from Racine County, Wisconsin.
In Indiana, Research Forester Deam writes that he has milled
over this complex for a long time without getting correctly
oriented. In his Trees of Indiana, ed. 4, p. 141, he maps Q. coc¬
cinea from five counties in the extreme northwesterly corner
of the state. My guess would be that the report of Q. coccinea
from these northwesterly counties is erroneous ; that later re¬
search will find them to be Q. ellipsoidalis instead, with Q. coc¬
cinea confined to the southern third of the state.
In Minnesota Drs. Rosendahl and Rutters, in “Trees and
Shrubs of Minnesota,” p. 108, say of Q. coccinea: “Less com¬
mon than the following species [Q. ellipsoidalis'] with which it
has been much confused.” Here again my guess is that the tree
which they report as Q. coccinea will be found to be a form of
Q. ellipsoidalis and that Q. coccinea is absent from Minnesota
entirely. My guess is made almost certainty on receiving word
from Dr. Ernest J. Palmer of the Arnold Arboretum that one
Minnesota collection by Rutters & Rosendahl in the Aboretum
herbarium labeled Q. coccinea has it noted that the autumn
leaves are a brilliant red, although it seems to be Q. ellipsoidalis.
I might add that Forest Trees of Wisconsin by F. G. Wilson,
Forester, published by State Conservation Commission 1928,
lists both Q. coccinea and Q. ellipsoidalis, mentioning the for-
Wadmond — Quercus ellipsoidalis-Q. coccinea Complex. 201
mer as “distributed over southern Wisconsin.” I am assured
by the gentleman, however, that future editions of this publica¬
tion will omit Q. coccinea, since he is now convinced that it is
absent from the state.
Fig. 1. Map showing the distribution of Q. ellipsoidalis (dots) and Q.
coccinea (shaded area) in the United States.
Distribution
In Fig. 1 I have indicated what appears to be the range of
Q. ellipsoidalis and Q. coccinea as now known. The dots show
definite localities from which Q. ellipsoidalis has been reported,
while the shaded area indicates the approximate range of Q.
coccinea as here understood. It is evident from the map that
Q. coccinea is more eastern and much more extensive in its
202 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
range than Q. ellipsoidalis which is confined to a comparatively
limited area in the north central states. I have not been able
to discover that the two species overlap at any point ; if they do,
it will probably be found to occur somewhere in northwestern
Ohio.
Q. ellipsoidalis appears in its western range to cease only
where the forests merge gradually into the prairies through a
region of prairie groves and savannahs. Dr. Trelease (1. c.)
concludes that the peculiar and abrupt ending of the range of
the Jack Oak in Illinois may be due primarily to its intolerance
of the iron, sulphur, magnesium, etc., with which the rocks of
the coal country are charged. So far I have been unable to con¬
nect its distribution with evident barriers (except on its west¬
ern borders), drainage systems, soil belts or glacier limits.
Professor Shimek writes me as follows of its occurrence in
Iowa : “As far as its relation to the coal country, there is none
noticeable. It is a common species on the borders of prairie
groves, especially northward, but this is in no way related to
the Carboniferous. The species is less common southward, it is
true (this being in the Carboniferous territory in part) but this
seems to be due rather to the fact that it has sharper competi¬
tion with other trees, of which there are many more southward.
The species does not stop abruptly at the coal areas. It stops
abruptly locally where the forest runs out. It shares with Q .
macrocarpa the place of a border species, being more common
northeastward, while Q. macrocarpa extends farther west, being
perhaps the more xerophytic of the two species. It rarely occurs
in deeper woods.”
Rosendahl & Butters (1. c.) find it “rare in the groves of the
prairie districts.”
Occasionally I find Q. ellipsoidalis an inhabitant of the flood
plain, but it is essentially an upland species, preferring the
sandy gravelly morainic hills so common in our area where it
and the hickories seem to possess the land practically unchal¬
lenged.
Distinction between Q. ellipsodalis and Q. coccinea.
Dr. Palmer of the Arnold Arboretum writes that he was con¬
siderably puzzled by trees which he saw at the Morton Arbor¬
etum (Du Page County, Illinois, 25 miles west of Chicago)
growing in native woods, since some of the trees there were
Wadmond — Quercus ellipsoidalis-Q. coccinea Complex . 203
turning a brilliant red in the autumn while most of them were
yellow or orange, although he decided that all of them should
be referred to Q. ellipsoidalis. He also reports a Minnesota col¬
lection previously mentioned on which is noted that the autumn
leaves are a brilliant red, although the species appears to be
Q. ellipsoidalis . It seems quite certain that while the autumn
coloration in these two species is ordinarily a distinguishing
feature, there is occasional variation in individual trees which
has confused many observers and made them think they had
found the scarlet oak where it really does not occur.
I have seen freshly gathered material of Q. coccinea, from the
tree at the Arnold Arboretum so labeled, as well as from the
State Forest Reserve of Indiana, and from southeastern Ohio,
and it seems to me there should be no confusion between these
two species when the freshly gathered acorns and winter buds
are at hand. In Q. coccinea the buds are rather large, 3-5 mm.
long, 1.5-3 mm. wide; in Q. ellipsoidalis, rather small, 1-3 mm.
long, .75-1.5 mm. wide. In Q. coccinea the acorn may be desig¬
nated as oval or oblong-ovoid with a pronounced shoulder, of a
light reddish brown color and dull. In Q. ellipsoidalis the acorn
varies from the typical ellipsoid form to semi-globose, but
always gradually tapering to the point ; acorns shiny as though
freshly varnished, medium to dark brown, and very frequently
striped with darker lines.
The cup scales are strikingly dissimilar; in Q. coccinea they
are deltoid-lanceolate, acute, yellow with reddish brown edges
and not closely appressed; in Q. ellipsoidalis they are light
brown, homochromous, ovate, obtuse, or truncate, and very
closely appressed. I feel that the confusion existing between
the two species is largely an inherited one rather than because
of the fact that Q. ellipsoidalis is not markedly distinct from its
congeners.
I should like to express my appreciation to Dr. E. J. Palmer
of the Arnold Arboretum, Dr. J. H. Ehlers, University of Michi¬
gan, Research Forester Deam of Indiana, Mr. 0. A. Farwell,
Botanist of Parke, Davis & Co., and Professors Shimek and
Rosendahl for information on county records and other helpful
data. It has been a real pleasure to correspond with these fine
helpful gentlemen.
Delavan, Wis.
THE TRANSPARENCY, THE COLOR AND THE SPECIFIC
CONDUCTANCE OF THE LAKE WATERS OF
NORTHEASTERN WISCONSIN
C. JUDAY AND E. A. BlRGE
Notes from the Limnological Laboratory of the Wisconsin Geological
and Natural History Survey.* No. 52.
Introduction
A general survey of 530 different lakes and lakelets situated
in the Highland Lake District of northeastern Wisconsin was
made between the years 1925 and 1931, inclusive. In these
studies a complete set of field determinations comprised 19 dif¬
ferent physical, chemical and biological items. The results ob¬
tained in some of these determinations have been presented in
previous reports. A general account of the phosphorus content
of these lake waters was published in 1931 and a similar report
on the dissolved oxygen and oxygen consumed appeared in
1932. The present report deals with the data obtained in three
other items included in these determinations, namely the trans¬
parency, the color and the specific conductance of these lake
waters.
I. Transparency
The transparency of the water was determined by means of
a white disc 10 cm. in diameter. The standard size of discs
usually used for such determinations is 20 cm. in diameter, but
the smaller size is more convenient, especially when it is em¬
ployed in connection with a considerable amount of apparatus
required for other phases of limnological work. In a series of
experiments the readings obtained with the 10 cm. disc were
within 5 per cent of those that were taken with discs having a
diameter of 25, 50 and 75 cm. respectively; the readings ob¬
tained with the 25 cm. disc were substantially the same as those
taken with the 50 cm. and 75 cm. discs, so that there is no ad-
*This investigation was made in cooperation with the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries
and the results are published with the permission of the Commissioner of Fisheries.
206 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
vantage in increasing the diameter beyond 20 to 25 cm. Since
this method gives only a rough determination of the transpar¬
ency of the water, it was thought best to use the smaller and
more convenient size of disc. The results indicated in the tables
are stated in terms of the 10 cm. disc and they can be readily
changed to those of the 20 cm. disc by adding 5 per cent to them.
The transparency of a lake is affected both by the turbidity
and by the color of the water. The turbidity of the water is
dependent upon the particles held in suspension ; this suspended
material consists of silt and organic debris on the one hand and
of microscopic living organisms on the other. No attempt has
been made to determine the turbidity of these lake waters, but
it is very low in some cases where the lakes have neither an inlet
nor an outlet ; the shores of some of these seepage lakes consist
of clean sand which filters the greater part of the silt out of the
water that enters them from the land. The living organisms
and organic debris constitute the centrifuge plankton and the
scarcity or abundance of this material has an important bearing
on the transparency of the water; the centrifuge plankton is
present only in relatively small amounts in some of these
seepage lakes and this scarcity of plankton, together with a
comparatively small amount of silt, gives such bodies of water
a low degree of turbidity.
The brown color produced by the vegetable extractives de¬
rived from bogs or marshes has a very marked effect upon the
transparency of the water; this is true especially when these
brown colored waters give readings as high as 80 or more on
the platinum-cobalt scale. These stains cut off very rapidly the
solar energy which penetrates the water, so that the more
deeply stained waters have a low degree of transparency even
if there is very little turbidity.
Transparency readings were taken on 470 lakes of which 201
have neither an inlet nor an outlet and 269 are listed as having
outlets. The former have been designated as seepage lakes and
the latter as drainage lakes. A total of 879 disc readings was
taken during the investigation and 283 of them represent only
a single observation on a lake. The other 596 disc readings in¬
clude from 2 to 22 observations on each of the various lakes that
were visited more than once. The largest number obtained from
a single lake (22) was taken on Trout Lake, while Crystal and
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 207
Table I
Distribution of the various lakes on which transparency readings were
taken. The number of seepage and drainage lakes in the different groups
is indicated also. See Fig. 1.
Weber lakes, with 11 each, were second in rank and Silver Lake
was third with 10 disc readings. Only two or three readings
were made on most of the other lakes included in this group.
The separation of the 470 lakes into groups on the basis of
the transparency of their waters is indicated in Table I and the
results are shown graphically in Figure 1. The unshaded por¬
tions of the columns representing the different groups indicate
the seepage lakes and the shaded portions the drainage lakes.
Where two or more disc readings were obtained on a single
lake, the mean of the different determinations was used in as¬
signing the lake to its respective group. Both the table and the
diagram show that the great majority of the lakes with low
transparency — -those in which the disc readings do not exceed
2.4 m. — belong to the drainage type. The four groups with
these low transparencies include 2B6 lakes, or half of the total
number on which disc readings have been taken ; of this number
only 47 are seepage lakes, or 20 per cent of the number in these
four groups. This tendency of the waters of the drainage lakes
to have a lower transparency than those of the seepage lakes is
208 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
due partly to the silt and colored water brought into them by
affluents and partly to the somewhat larger crop of plankton
which they usually contain.
Approximately half of the lakes in the 2. 5-2.9 m. transpar¬
ency group are seepage lakes, that is, 21 seepage to 23 drainage
lakes; while the groups with disc readings of 3 m. or more are
made up chiefly of seepage lakes. All of the lakes having a
transparency of 6.5 m. or more belong to the seepage type.
Fig. 1. This diagram shows the grouping of 470 lakes on the basis of
the disc readings. The vertical spaces represent the number of lakes in
the various groups. The unshaded part of each column shows the number
of seepage lakes and the solid black part the number of drainage lakes in
each group. The diagram includes 201 seepage and 269 drainage lakes.
Crystal Lake gave the maximum disc reading, namely 13.6
m. on June 26, 1928 ; another reading of 13 m. was obtained on
this lake on August 19, 1931. This is a seepage lake whose
water is unusually free from silt and plankton, so that the water
is clear and transparent. It is so transparent, in fact, that from
1 per cent to 4 per cent of the solar energy that is delivered to
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 209
the surface of the lake penetrates to a depth of 18 m., which is
within 3 m. of the maximum depth of the lake. In 12 observa¬
tions on Crystal Lake the disc readings varied from a minimum
of 6 m. on May 9, 1926, to a maximum of 13.6 ; only one reading
was less than 7 m. and the mean of the 11 observations is 9.4 m.
Transparencies of 7 m. or more were observed on 18 lakes
and 44 readings of this amount were obtained. Eleven of these
readings were taken on Crystal Lake, 9 on Weber Lake and 3
each on Diamond, Island and Pauto lakes, with only one or two
on each of the other 13 lakes. As previously noted the largest
readings were found on Crystal Lake; Pauto Lake was second
with a maximum reading of 10.8 m. and Weber Lake was third
with 10.3 m. In these 44 readings, there were 27 which
amounted to 8 m. or more. These lakes have very little brown
stain in their waters or none at all. The maximum color read¬
ing obtained on any of them was 16 on the platinum-cobalt
scale. In 15 of them none of the color determinations exceeded
9 and no color whatever could be detected in most of the samples
from these lakes. The majority of the 18 lakes also yielded
relatively small amounts of plankton. The quantity of organic
matter in the centrifuge plankton from them varied from 0.27
mg. to 1.33 mg. per liter of water. Catches in excess of 1 mg.
were noted in only 5 of the 18 lakes.
Table II
Results of transparency determinations on 14 American lakes.
210 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
The maximum transparency of Crystal, Pauto and Weber
lakes compares favorably with that of some of the more trans¬
parent American lakes, while much larger disc readings have
been obtained in others ; for purposes of comparison the results
for 14 lakes are given in Table II. Tahoe, Crater and Fallen
Leaf lakes have a much greater transparency than the Wiscon¬
sin lakes ; the disc reading on Lake Chelan is only a little larger
than the maximum of Crystal Lake, while the readings on Priest
Lake and 3 of the Finger lakes of New York fall within the
range of those obtained on the 6 Wisconsin lakes included in the
table. All of these Wisconsin lakes are much smaller and shal¬
lower than the other lakes represented in this table, so that
their volumes are much smaller than those of the other lakes;
thus their waters are more readily affected by factors that
change the transparency. On the other hand, these 6 lakes
belong to the seepage class so that they receive very little drain¬
age water from the surrounding land and their waters contain
a relatively small amount of plankton.
In the group of lakes with a low degree of transparency, 37
gave readings amounting to less than 1 m. ; these lakes are rep¬
resented in the first column of Figure 1. A minimum of 0.3 m.
was noted in Brazell or Allen Lake on July 8, 1928, and another
reading of 0.4 m. was obtained in this lake on July 29, 1930.
This low degree of transparency was due partly to the color of
the water and partly to the presence of a large crop of plankton.
The color of the water was 314 on the platinum-cobalt scale on
the first date and 240 on the second ; on July 8, 1928 the organic
matter in the centrifuge plankton amounted to 6.4 mg/1. No
plankton catch was taken in 1930. Disc readings of 0.5 m. were
obtained on 4 lakes of this group, 0.6 m. on 7 and 0.7 m. on 2,
so that the results on 14 of these 37 lakes did not exceed 0.7 m.
In 17 of the other members of this group the readings were 0.8
m., thus leaving only 6 lakes with readings of 0.9 m. The mean
transparency of the 37 lakes is 0.73 m. (Table III).
The brown color of the water in this group of 37 lakes ranged
from 28 to 340 on the platinum-cobalt scale. Color readings of
200 or more were noted on 9 lakes and 12 fell between 100 and
200; the remaining 16 lakes gave readings below 100, but 5 of
them were between 90 and 98. The mean color for the group is
138. The organic matter in the centrifuge plankton of these 37
Juday & Birge—hake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 211
212 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
lakes varied from 1.04 to 8 mg/1 in the surface samples. Three
of these lakes yielded more than 6 mg/1, 8 were between 3 and
6 mg/1 and 9 were between 2 and 3 mg/1. That is, the centri¬
fuge plankton of 20 of these lakes yielded more than 2 mg. of
organic matter per liter, while 17 fell between 1 and 2 mg/1.
The mean quantity of organic matter in the centrifuge plankton
of these lakes is 2.8 mg/1.
The means of the disc readings in the other transparency
groups are given in Table III ; they gradually increase in value
from 1.16 m. in the 1.0-1.4 group to 8.7 m. in the 7.5-9.4 group.
The color means on the other hand show a decrease in value
with increasing transparency as might be expected ; that is, the
color falls from 138 in the 0.0-0.9 group to zero in the 7.5-9.4
group. The plankton results also are similar to those of color ;
the plankton crop decreases in quantity with increasing trans¬
parency, the mean falling from 2.8 mg/1 in the 0.0-0.9 group to
0.58 mg/1 in the 7.5-9.4 group. In the groups with low trans¬
parency changes in color and in the quantity of plankton are
more marked than they are in the more transparent waters;
the lakes with transparencies of 3 m. or more show a more
gradual change in color and plankton than those with trans¬
parencies below 3 m., but there is a gradual change even in the
more transparent groups.
In order to obtain enough lakes to give a fair mean, it was
necessary to combine all of the lakes falling between 5.5 m. and
7.4 m. into one transparency group and the 4 lakes with trans¬
parencies between 7.5 and 9.4 m. have been combined into an¬
other.
The standard deviations of the disc readings do not differ
greatly except in the 5.5-7.4 and the 7.5-9.4 groups; the read¬
ings in these two groups vary more widely than in the others,
hence the deviations are larger. (Table III). Also the probable
error of the average and that of the standard deviation are
much the same except in these two groups. On the other hand
the standard deviations of the color readings decline from 76.33
in the 0.0-0.9 transparency group to zero in the 7.5-9.4 group ;
there are corresponding decreases in the probable error of the
average and that of the standard deviation. The plankton also
shows similar decreases in its standard deviations and in its
probable errors.
Juday & Birge—Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 213
Transparency and Color of Water
Figure 2 shows the correlation between the mean transpar¬
ency and the mean color for the various groups of lakes as
given in Table III. The curve in this diagram brings out clearly
the relation between high transparency and low color at one
end, that is, between transparencies of 4.1 m. and 8.7 m., and
that between low transparency and high color, at the other end,
from 0.7 m. to 2.1 m. The region of marked change lies between
transparencies of 2.1 m. and 4.1 m. where there is a rapid shift
from the vertical axis to the horizontal axis. There are some
irregularities in the curve in this region of rapid change, but
the portions of the curve that lie above and below these limits
are quite regular.
Fig. 2. The relation between the transparency and the color of the wa¬
ter. The transparency is represented by the depth, in meters, at which
the Secchi disc disappears from view and the color is indicated in terms
of the platinum-cobalt standard.
While there are wide variations in the amount of brown color
in the various groups of lakes with approximately the same
transparency, the largest variations are such that they tend to
neutralize each other. That is, those with a high color will be
balanced by those with a low color provided enough lakes, say
214 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
25 or more, are included in each group. The range of color in
the first group, or those with a transparency below 1 m., is from
28 to 340; 16 of these 37 lakes gave readings below 100, but
only 2 of them were below 50, while 8 were above 200. (Fig. 1
and Table III). The mean of the group, however, falls in line
with those of the three following groups. In the second group,
those with transparencies ranging from 1 to 1.4 m., the color
varies from 19 to 206 ; in 31 of the 68 lakes in this group the
readings are less than 100 and 13 of these are below 50. Only 2
lakes in the group gave readings of 200 or more. Similar results
were obtained in the other groups, so that it is not necessary to
give a detailed discussion of them. It is probable that a larger
number of lakes falling between transparencies of 2 m. and 4 m.
would eliminate some of the irregularities in the curve between
these two points in Figure 2, but each group included in that
part of the curve represents from 27 to 46 lakes.
Transparency and Plankton
The correlation between the mean transparency and the mean
quantity of organic matter in the centrifuge plankton of the
various groups of lakes is shown in Figure 3. There is a fairly
regular rise in the curve from the group of lakes having the
lowest transparency up to those with a mean of 3.1 m. ; the
curve has a somewhat steeper gradient between 3.1 m. and 3.6
m., with a more regular gradient above the latter point. It will
be noted that the irregularity in this curve between transpar¬
encies of 3.1 m. and 4.1 m. is similar to that between these two
points in the curve of Figure 2, but no explanation of the
similar irregularity in the two curves is evident from the data
in hand.
Rather wide variations were also noted in the amount of
organic matter found in the centrifuge plankton of the lakes
belonging to the various groups, but in this case too the lakes
with large amounts of plankton were counterbalanced by those
with small amounts. As a result the mean quantities of plank¬
ton in the various groups of lakes make a fairly regular and
consistent curve when platted against the mean transparencies
as shown in Figure 3.
Figures 2 and 3, as well as the results given in Table III, indi¬
cate that the decrease in transparency is due to both color and
Juday & Birge—Lake Waters of N. E, Wisconsin . 215
Fig. 3. The relation between the transparency and the plankton content
of the water. The results for plankton show the amount of dry organic
matter per liter of water in the centrifuge catches.
centrifuge plankton, but color is undoubtedly more important
than plankton in the majority of the lakes with low transpar¬
ency. Part of the vegetable material which produces the brown
color consists of particles that are large enough to be removed
by the centrifuge and these organic particles make an appreci¬
able contribution to the organic matter obtained in the centri¬
fuge catches. On the other hand the numerical results show that
there is a larger number of plankton organisms in the centri¬
fuge catches from the lakes with the lowest transparency than
in those with the highest. Approximately 5 times as many
plankton organisms were found in the centrifuge catches from
the lakes with a transparency of 0.7 in. or less as in those with
transparencies of 7 m. or more. The plankton organisms, there¬
fore, must be regarded as an important factor in decreasing
the transparency of the water, but they are not as important as
the vegetable extractives which impart the brown color to the
less transparent lakes.
216 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Transparency and Transmission of Solar Radiation
There is a fairly definite correlation between the transpar¬
ency of lake waters and their transmission of solar radiation
(Birge and Juday 1929). Usually a small number of observa¬
tions does not reveal such a relation, but readings on a consid¬
erable number of lakes or a number of observations on the same
lake at different times will show a rough correlation between
the depth at which a Secchi disc disappears from view and the
transmission of solar radiation. The various observations may
show rather wide ranges of transmission for approximately the
same degree of transparency, but in a large series of results the
low transmissions are usually balanced by the high ones for a
particular transparency, so that the mean transmission of the
various series will show a rough correlation with the mean
transparency.
In Lake Mendota, for example, the transmission ranged from
37 to 50 per cent in the 1-2 m. stratum when the disc reading
fell between 2 m. and 3 m. and from 42 to 58 per cent with disc
readings of 3 m. to 4 m. In a total of 36 cases on this lake, the
mean transmission fell below the mean transparency in 18 cases
and at or above the latter in the other 18 instances; in this way
the high transmissions and the low ones tend to counterbalance
each other and thus yield a mean which is rather definitely
correlated with the mean transparency. The same relation
holds true for observations on a number of different lakes
which possess similar transparencies; that is, low transparen¬
cies, in general, are accompanied by low transmissions and high
transparencies by high transmissions.
II. Color
Lake waters show a wide range in color, varying from a more
or less deep blue through green to yellow, brown and reddish-
brown, thus covering a large part of the visible spectrum. This
great variation in color is due to a number of factors, some of
which are physical, some chemical and others are biological in
character.
Several theories have been suggested to account for the blue
color of water, but the molecular scattering theory of Raman
(1922) is now regarded as the best explanation; it is similar to
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 217
the molecular scattering theory proposed for the explanation of
the blue color of the sky. According to Raman the blue color of
the sea and of very transparent inland lakes is due to the dif¬
fraction or scattering of the light by the molecules of water.
These blue waters contain only a very small amount of finely
dispersed matter in suspension, so that the effect of these parti¬
cles is almost negligible; however, “a large quantity of such
matter would cause some increase in intensity, accompanied by
a decrease in the saturation of the hue.” He states that ‘'sus¬
pended matter not very finely dispersed would operate in a dif¬
ferent way. With a collection of particles of different sizes, the
color of the light scattered would be practically the same as the
color of the light incident on the particles in any given layer,
and we should find the water exhibiting a greenish-blue or green
color according to the quantity of the suspended matter.”
In this connection also, the green color of lake waters may be
due to the presence of a large crop of chlorophyll-bearing organ¬
isms, since the color of these organisms would affect the color
of the scattered light. The color range from yellow to reddish-
brown is produced by vegetable stains derived from bog and
marsh deposits and the various shades of these colors depend
upon the quality and quantity of these vegetable extractives or
humic substances that are present in the water. Very small
quantities of this humic material have an appreciable effect
upon the color of the water as well as upon the transmission of
solar energy. Spring (1897) found that as little as 1 part of
humic material added to 40 million parts of distilled water
changed the color of the latter, giving it a greenish-blue color
instead of pure blue. Recent experiments with a monochromator
show that 0.1 per cent of a lake water having a color of 264 on
the platinum-cobalt scale added to distilled water reduces the
amount of light transmitted by the latter ; most of the decrease
is found between the wave-lengths 4100 and 6000 A. This small
amount of lake water, however, did not impart an appreciable
brown color to the distilled water, not enough at least to make
it detectable with the instrument used for such readings.
The color readings made on the waters of the Highland Lake
District of Wisconsin were confined almost entirely to the
quantitative determination of the brown color. Up to the pres¬
ent time no good quantitative method has been devised for the
218 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, omd Letters.
different shades of blue and green colors found in lake waters,
so that definite quantitative data can not be obtained for this
part of the spectrum. On the other hand, a standard quantita¬
tive method for the determination of the various shades of
brown has been in practical use for more than a quarter of a
century. This is the platinum-cobalt method of the United
States Geological Survey which was devised by Mr. Allen
Hazen (Leighton 1905).
The Forel-Ule scale was devised for the purpose of covering
the whole range of colors, from blue to brown, usually found in
lake waters, but the various shades of color in this scale are
indicated only by arbitrary numbers which have no exact quan¬
titative significance. These arbitrary standards serve the pur¬
pose of comparing the color of one lake water with that of an¬
other, but they do not yield quantitative data which can be cor¬
related with other physical or chemical characteristics of these
waters. While some readings were made with a set of the Forel-
Ule color tubes, such determinations were not made regularly
because they have so little value from a quantitative stand¬
point. Determinations of the brown color based on the plati¬
num-cobalt standard, however, do give quantitative results that
can be correlated directly with transparency, with the transmis¬
sion of solar radiation and with the quantity of organic carbon
in the water. Readings based on this standard, therefore, have
been made regularly during the progress of these investigations
on the waters of the northeastern lakes, but no attempt has
been made to cover the blue and green colors shown by a few
of these lake waters.
The standard comparator of the United States Geological
Survey has been used for the color readings. The values of the
brown colored discs of this instrument are based upon standard
platinum-cobalt solutions and the units of color correspond to
the amount of metallic platinum in the solutions in parts per
million. A color reading of 10, for example, represents 10 parts
of platinum per million in the platinum-cobalt solution which
matches the color of the lake water. The 6 amber colored discs
represent colors ranging from 8 to 88 and other colors may be
determined by using various combinations of these discs. Read¬
ings below 8 must be estimated and those below 4 or 5 can
hardly be detected with this instrument. Thus some of the lake
Juday & Birge—Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 219
waters that were recorded as having no brown color may have
had a trace of it.
The brown color of the lake waters of northeastern Wiscon¬
sin is due to stains that are derived from the leaves of trees,
from plankton, from large aquatic plants and from tributary
peat bogs, marshes and swamps. These extractives consist of
dissolved and colloidal substances which the water acquires
when it comes into contact with various materials of vegetable
origin and the intensity of the brown color depends upon the
quantity of these extractive substances in the water. The
amount of extractives, in turn, is dependent chiefly upon the
quantity of leaves blown into a lake and upon the amount of
peaty material along the shore, or upon the amount of drainage
water received from marshes, as well as upon the volume of the
lake in proportion to the volume of the inflowing colored water.
All of the northeastern lakes are comparatively small and shal¬
low, so that their volumes are correspondingly small and a
relatively small amount of inflowing water with a high color
will affect the general color of the lake.
The depth of the brown color in many of these lakes is also
dependent upon the amount of precipitation, since a large
amount of rain will bring a larger amount of drainage water
from bogs and marshes into those that receive water from such
sources. Bogs and marshes of various sizes are rather abundant
in this lake district and all of the streams flowing out of them
possess more or less deeply stained waters ; as a result, the great
majority of the streams of this region contain waters that have
a certain amount of stain. The color of 4 streams flowing into
Trout Lake ranged from 22 to 202, for example, and that of the
Manitowish River was 74. Some of the most highly colored
waters, however, are found in bog lakes and lakelets that have
neither an inlet nor an outlet, but which have relatively large
areas of bog surrounding them. The quantity of the summer
precipitation will have an effect upon the color of these bodies
of water also ; a large amount of rain will dilute the highly col¬
ored water already in them and it will bring into the open water
more vegetable extractives from the surrounding peaty deposits.
Color readings have been made on the surface water of 580
lakes ; of this number 238, or 45 per cent of the total, are seep¬
age lakes, or those without an inlet or an outlet, and 292 (55 per
220 Wi Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
cent) are drainage lakes. Results have been obtained from 1110
surface samples; only one observation each was made on 276
lakes, so that 834 readings were made on the surface waters of
246 lakes. The number for each lake belonging to the latter
group varied from 2 to 12. The largest number (12) was taken
on Trout Lake and Weber Lake was second with 10 readings.
The color of these surface samples varied from zero up to
340 on the platinum-cobalt standard. The various lakes have
been separated into groups on the basis of the color of their
waters; the results of these groupings are given in Table IV
Table IV
Color ranges of the lake waters of northeastern Wisconsin, the number of seepage and
drainage lakes and the total number of lakes in the various color groups.
and they are shown graphically in Figure 4. In the table the
lakes that did not show any brown color in their surface waters
are placed in a separate group, but in the diagram they are
combined with 1-9 to form the 0-9 color group. The table
shows that the lakes having colors above 199 are distributed
over a wide range and they are omitted from the diagram.
Where more than one determination was made on a lake, the
mean of the various readings has been used in making assign¬
ments to the different groups.
The table shows that no brown color was observed in the
surface waters of 56 lakes and only 7 of this number belong to
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 221
the drainage class. That is, more than 87 per cent of those that
did not possess any brown color were classed as seepage lakes
and approximately 13 per cent as drainage. These figures rep¬
resent 20 per cent of the total number of seepage lakes, but only
2.4 per cent of total number of drainage lakes belong in the no
brown color group. The readings of 57 lakes fell in the 1-9
color group and of this number 38, or two-thirds of those in this
group, belong to the seepage type. Thus only 26 out of 113 lakes
in which the color ranged from 0 to 9 on the platinum-cobalt
scale were classed as drainage lakes; this entire group, there¬
fore, consisted of 77 per cent seepage and 23 per cent drainage
lakes. As indicated in Figure 4 this 0-9 color group contains
the maximum number of lakes, namely 113, and the relation
between the number of seepage and drainage lakes is well shown
in the diagram ; the clear portion of the column represents the
number of seepage lakes and the shaded portion the number of
drainage lakes in the group.
Fig. 4. This diagram shows the grouping of 518 lakes on the basis of
the color of their waters in terms of the platinum-cobalt scale. The ver¬
tical spaces indicate the number of lakes in the various color groups. The
unshaded part of the column represents the number of seepage and the
solid black part the number of drainage lakes in each group. The diagram
includes 234 seepage and 284 drainage lakes.
222 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
The 10-19 color group, with 102 lakes, ranks second with
respect to number. In this group there are 54 seepage and 48
drainage lakes; that is, the former constitutes approximately
53 per cent of this group and the latter 47 per cent. The 20-29
group contains 77 lakes of which 43, or 56 per cent, belong to
the seepage class and 34, or 44 per cent, to the drainage type.
The 30-39 group includes 46 lakes of which 17 are classed as
seepage and 29 as drainage lakes; 37 per cent of this number
belongs to the former and 63 per cent to the latter type. This
is the first color group in which the drainage outnumber the
seepage lakes. There is a gradual decrease in the percentage
of seepage lakes in the groups having colors of 40 or more ; no
seepage lakes are found between colors 110 to 189 and only 6
above the latter color. The 6 seepage laks with colors above 190
belong to the bog type ; they are small bodies of water in which
the open water is surrounded by a rather wide bog.
Combining these lakes into larger groups, Table IV shows
that the color of 292 of them fell between 0 and 29; of this
number 184, or 63 per cent of them, are classed as seepage and
108, or 37 per cent, as drainage lakes. In the more highly col¬
ored waters, on the other hand, the majority of the lakes belong
to the drainage type. Thus 238 lakes fall in the groups having
colors of 30 to 340 and of this number 184, or almost 78 per cent
of the total number, are drainage and 54, or a little more than
22 per cent, are seepage lakes. It will be noted that the number
of seepage lakes in the 0-29 groups, namely 184, is the same as
that of the drainage lakes in the 30-340 groups. The number
of drainage lakes in the 0-29 groups, however, is twice as large
as that of seepage lakes in the 30-340 color groups. The small
amount of stain in most of the seepage lakes is due to the fact
that they have no inflowing streams to bring in organic sub¬
stances from the surrounding drainage basin and also to the
fact that the shores of these lakes are generally composed of
clean sand so that all of the water that does enter them from the
land is well filtered.
Seasonal and Annual Variations of Color
The depth of color of the brown stained lakes is subject to
more or less pronounced seasonal variations; this is true espe¬
cially of the drainage lakes. These variations are due chiefly to
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 223
Table V
Seasonal fluctuations in the color and in the specific conductance of the
surface waters of 17 lakes.
the fact that the amount of drainage water coming from bogs
and marshes varies a great deal during the course of the year,
as well as from year to year. Table V shows the results ob¬
tained in spring and summer color readings on 17 lakes; in 16
cases the determinations were made in April 1930, but in Fish-
trap Lake the reading was taken in February. No reading was
taken in Muskellunge Lake during the summer of 1930 and the
result for July 19, 1929 is given instead. Exactly the same
224 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
readings were obtained in spring and summer in Little John Jr.
and Wild Cat lakes, the former a seepage and the latter a
drainage lake. In the other 15 lakes the summer color readings
were different from those taken in spring. The largest differ¬
ence was noted in Boulder Lake where there was a change from
45 in April to 78 in July. Readings taken in Boulder Lake
during the months of June and July from 1927 to 1929 inclu¬
sive, varied from 53 to 65, so that the July result of 1930 was
higher than those obtained in previous summers. This lake has
an area of 248 ha. and a maximum depth of only 6 m., so that
its volume is relatively small in comparison with its size; a
fairly large stream, the Manitowish River, flows through the
lake and an appreciable percentage of the water, therefore, is
subject to constant renewal. Thus the color of the water may
vary considerably during a period of two or three months, de¬
pending upon the color of the inflowing water. Mann Lake
showed the next largest difference, rising from 20 in April to
32 in July, while Muskellunge Lake followed with a color differ¬
ence of 10. In 9 other lakes the summer readings were from
2 to 8 points higher than those taken in April, but there was a
decrease of 2 points in Day Lake.
Whipple (1927) states that “experiments made by exposing
bottles of colored water at various depths in reservoirs have
shown that the bleaching action that takes place at the surface
of a reservoir is considerable, sometimes 50 per cent in a month.
It decreases rapidly with increasing depth, and the rapidity
with which it decreases below the surface depends upon the
color of the water in the reservoir.,, No experiments of this
character have been performed on the highly colored waters
found in some of the northeastern lakes, but color decreases of
such a magnitude that might be attributed to bleaching have not
been observed. The surface water of Tadpole Lake had a color
of 120 on July 12, 1932, for example, and the same reading was
obtained on August 13, 1932. Several readings taken on the
surface water of Mud Lake during July and August, 1932, var¬
ied from 32 to 34, so that its color may be regarded as constant
during this period of two months. There was a 15 per cent
decrease in the color of the surface water of Helmet Lake
during a period of almost two months; that is, the color de¬
clined from 210 on June 23 to 180 on August 13, 1932. These
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 225
three lakelets belong to the seepage type, so that the color was
not affected by water derived from affluents. In general the re¬
sults obtained on the various lakes with brown colored waters
indicate that the color remains fairly constant for periods of
two months or more during the summer.
Annual variations in the color of many of these lakes have
been observed. These variations depend principally upon the
amount of precipitation, because this determines how much
drainage water reaches them from bogs and marshes, which
are the chief sources of this brown stain. Some of the lakes
with very little or no brown color gave practically the same
readings from year to year, while others showed moderate vari¬
ations. Representatives of these two groups are given in Table
VI; Diamond and Franklin lakes represent the first group,
while North Two, Pallette, Weber and Wyondock belong to the
second. The lakes in these two groups belong to the seepage
type. A somewhat wider variation was noted in some of these
low color lakes, such as Alma, Black Oak, Presque Isle and
Trout. A few of the lakes with more highly colored waters
showed only a comparatively small annual variation also, such
as Allequash, Armour, Carroll, Long and Rock, while others
showed a more marked variation, such as Adelaide, Big Saint
Germain and Mary lakes. Maximum differences in the annual
variations were noted in Brazell, Little Pickerel and Nixon
lakes ; a difference of 74 points was noted in the first, 58 in the
second and 40 in the third lake. These three lakes are shallow
and weedy, with a certain amount of marsh along their shores ;
Little Pickerel and Nixon lakes have affluents which play an
important role in producing the color variations in them.
The color of the surface water of Trout Lake varied from
zero up to 14. Four of the 12 readings were recorded as zero
and 2 as 14; the others fell between 6 and 12. Four streams
entering Trout Lake have more highly colored waters, but the
quantity of water brought into the lake by them is so small as
compared with the total volume of the lake that this stained
water has very little effect upon the general color of the lake
water. Allequash Creek which enters the lake near the Trout
Lake post office has a color of 26; Mann Creek on the south
shore of the lake gave a reading of 22; Spring Creek at the
north end of the lake was 49 and a marsh creek flowing into
226 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences ,v Arts , and Letters.
Table VI
Annual variations in the color of the surface water of the northeastern lakes
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 227
the east side of the north part of the lake was 202. The volume
of water brought in by these streams is relatively small, how¬
ever, and all trace of this more highly colored water is lost
within a short distance of the mouths of the various streams.
On the other hand, the color of the upper water may be affected
by the inflowing water when there is an unusual amount of pre¬
cipitation, such as occurred on August 28-29, 1982. On this
date the precipitation amounted to 10 cm. in 24 hours, so that
a large amount of drainage water reached Trout Lake at this
time. The color of the surface water of the lake rose from 6
previous to this rain to 15 on August 29; it declined to 12 by
September 3.
Vertical Distribution of Color
In some of the lakes that are deep enough to be thermally
stratified in summer, the color of the water was substantially
the same from the surface to within 1 m. of the bottom; all of
the bottom samples were taken 1 m. above the mud. This group
is represented in Table VII by such lakes as Big Carr, Blue,
Clear, Crystal, Diamond and Fence. In some years however,
the lower water of part of these lakes may show a slight in¬
crease of color toward the bottom, such as found in Big Carr
on July 12, 1929, in Blue on August 6, 1929 and in Clear on
August 24, 1931.
In the other group, there is a marked increase in the brown
color with increasing depth; such results are shown in Table
VII for Anderson, Black Oak, Bragonier, George, Mary, No-
komis, Papoose and Two Sisters lakes. In some cases, such as
George and Papoose lakes, the increase of color is due to an in¬
crease in the quantity of the vegetable stain in the lower water,
but in other instances, such as Anderson, Mary and Nokomis
lakes, the increase in the brown color of the lower water is due
to the presence of iron in these strata. (See Juday and Birge
1932, p.466).
Color and Transparency
The relation between the color of these lake waters and their
transparency is discussed under the section dealing with trans¬
parency (p. 213) and no further consideration is necessary in
228 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
Table VII
Color and specific conductance determinations on samples of water from
different depths in 14 lakes, together with disc readings in the upper
stratum. The disc readings are indicated in meters , the color is based on
the platinum-cobalt standard and the specific conductance is expressed in
reciprocal megohms. Tr. means trace.
Juday & Birge~bake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 229
Table VII— Continued
this section. A definite correlation between them was found in
the various lakes and this fact is shown in Figure 2, page 213.
Color and Transmission of Solar Radiation
The vegetable extractives which are present in these lake
waters and impart to them their brown color, have a very
marked effect upon their transmission of solar radiation. The
effect of this brown stain is very variable in the different lakes
and it varies somewhat also in the same lake at different times.
These brown stains have a selective action upon the solar radia¬
tion ; they act more strongly on the short wave radiation at the
blue end of the spectrum and they are effective in proportion to
the amount and kind present in a lake water. In a highly col¬
ored water, for instance, very little solar energy will be found
at a depth of a meter or two and the greater part of it will
consist of the longer wave-lengths toward the red end of the
spectrum.
230 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
The results obtained on Crystal Lake and Lake Mary will
serve to illustrate the effect of this brown stain upon the trans¬
mission of solar radiation by their respective waters. (Birge
and Juday 1931). The water of Crystal Lake has no brown
color and the total amount of radiation present at 1 m. is about
38 per cent of that delivered to the surface of the lake ; in Lake
Mary on the other hand, with a color of 123, only about 4 per
cent of the solar energy delivered to the surface penetrated to
a depth of 1 m. In Crystal Lake 42 per cent of the total energy
found at 1 m. came from wave-lengths shorter than 5000 A,
while in Lake Mary only 4 per cent of the energy at that depth
came from the same region of the spectrum. The percentage
of the total energy present at 1 m. which was derived from
wave-lengths greater than 7000 A rose from 7 per cent in Crystal
Lake to 34 per cent in Lake Mary. Thus the total quantity of
solar energy present at 1 m. in Lake Mary was very much
smaller, less than one-tenth as much, than in Crystal Lake and
a much larger proportion of the amount that was present at
that depth in the former fell in the region of the longer wave¬
lengths. In Helmet Lake with a color of 268, only 1.1 per cent
of the solar radiation incident on the surface penetrates to a
depth of 1 m.
The data in hand concerning the relation between color and
the transmission of solar radiation have led to the following
conclusions: “That in all lakes the characteristic transmission
is determined by factors of color and turbidity ; that color is the
main factor determining the place of the lake in the general scale
of transmission ; that turbidity causes much variation in trans¬
mission, causes overlapping of the several color groups, and
wide range of transmission in each group.” (Birge and Juday
1932, p. 560).
Relation between Color and Oxygen Consumed
Quantitative determinations of oxygen consumed or oxygen
absorbed were made on 290 of these lakes and the general rela¬
tions between the amount of oxygen consumed and the color of
the waters of the various lakes has been discussed by Juday
and Birge (1932), so that it needs only a brief consideration at
this time. The color of the surface water of the 290 lakes on
Juday & Birge—Lake Waters of N . E. Wisconsin. 231
which oxygen consumed determinations were made ranged
from zero up to 268 on the platinum-cobalt scale. The quantity
of oxygen consumed by these same lake waters varied from a
minimum of 1.2 mg/1 in Dorothy Dunn Lake, with a color of
14, to a maximum of 34.5 mg/1 in Helmet Lake with a color of
268. Table IX and Figure 34 of Juday and Birge (1932) show
that the mean quantity of oxygen consumed by the surface
water increased from 3.7 mg/1 in the 0-9 color group of these
lakes to 15.9 mg/1 in the 100-149 color group. The general re¬
sults, therefore, indicate that there is a rather close correlation
between the brown color of the water and the amount of oxygen
consumed. From this it appears that the vegetable extractives
which produce the brown color are of such a nature that they
are readily oxidized by the potassium permanganate solution
in proportion to the amounts present in the water.
In some of these lakes the lower water was more highly col¬
ored than that at the surface ; in all cases where the increase in
the color of the lower water was due to an increase in the
amount of vegetable extractives present, there was a corre¬
sponding increase in the quantity of oxygen consumed. In some
instances, however, the increased color in the lower water was
due to the presence of iron and in these cases there was no
increase in the quantity of oxygen consumed corresponding to
the increase in color.
Relation of Color to Organic Carbon
As already indicated, the brown stains found in these lake
waters consist of vegetable extractives or humic substances
derived chiefly from peat and marsh deposits. Chemical
analyses show that these substances are mainly carbon com¬
pounds. While there is usually a larger amount of organic ni¬
trogen present in the residues from lakes with highly colored
waters than in those with little or no color, the larger quantity
of nitrogen is by no means proportional to the larger quantity
of organic carbon found in the former. That is, the carbon-
nitrogen ratio is much larger in the lakes with highly colored
waters than in those which show little or no brown color.
The relation between the color of these lake waters and the
quantity of organic carbon present in them is shown in Table
232 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
VIII and also in Figure 5. All of the color groups represented
in Table VIII show a wide variation in the quantity of organic
carbon in the several lakes belonging to each group, but the
means of the various groups show a definite increase in the
amount of organic carbon correlated with an increase in the
color of the waters. This is well shown in the solid line curve
of Figure 5 which indicates the results obtained by platting the
mean quantity of organic carbon in the different groups against
the mean color of the respective groups. The lakes with colors
above 200 have not been included in the diagram because they
are so few and they cover such a wide range of color that it is
impossible to obtain a fair mean for them. The broken line
curves shown above and below the one representing the means
indicate the maximum and minimum amounts of organic carbon
respectively in the various color groups.
Taking the entire group of lakes, the average amount of
organic carbon is about 7 mg/1, while the average color is 43.
0 -19 20-39 40-59 60-79 60-99 100-119 120-139 140-159 160-179 180-199
Fig. 5. The relation between the color of the water and its organic car¬
bon content. The upper curve shown by a broken line represents the max¬
imum amounts of organic carbon found in the various color groups; the
lower broken line curve shows the minimum amounts of organic carbon.
The solid line curve between them indicates the mean quantities of or¬
ganic carbon in the various color groups. (See Table VIII).
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 233
The standard deviation of the organic carbon is 4.64 and that
of the color is 43.5; the coefficient of correlation between the
organic carbon and the color is 0.91.
It will be noted that no brown color was observed in the sur¬
face waters of 56 lakes and that these lakes yielded the smallest
mean quantity of organic carbon, namely 3 mg/1 ; they showed
a range from 1.2 to 4.5 mg/1, or approximately a fourfold dif¬
ference. In the entire 0-9 color group the range is from 1.2 to
6.4 mg/1, which represents a little more than a fivefold differ¬
ence. There is approximately a sixfold difference between the
maximum and minimum amounts of carbon in the 10-19 and the
20-29 color groups, but in the higher color ranges the variations
are not proportionately so great; the difference between maxi¬
mum and minimum in the 130-159 and in the 160-199 groups
is less than twofold, for example, but the quantitative difference
in these two groups is larger than in the groups having low
colored waters. The difference between maximum and mini-
Table VIII
The relation between the color of the surface waters of the lakes in
northeastern Wisconsin and the amount of organic carbon in them. The
lakes are separated into groups on the basis of their brown color in com¬
parison with the platinum-cobalt standard; the maximum, minimum and
mean quantities of organic carbon are indicated in milligrams per liter of
water for the various toolor groups, as well as the number of lakes in each
group. The lakes are grouped by color ranges of 10 up to 69, but the num¬
ber in the various 10 groups above this color is so small that they have
been combined into larger color groups in order to obtain a fair mean.
See Fig. 5.
234 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
mum carbon in the 0-9 group is 5.2 mg/1, while it is 10.3 mg/1
in the 160-199 group and 7.3 mg/1 in the 130-159 group.
Spring (1897) studied the color of various dilutions of a
deeply colored bog water. This bog water had an organic con¬
tent by combustion of 128 mg/1 and the dilutions with distilled
water were based upon the amount of humic material in the
water. A tube 5 m. long was used for the experiment. The bog
water had a black color when viewed by reflected light and a
coffee-brown by transmitted light. His qualitative tests showed
that a mixture containing 1 part of the combustible organic
matter to 500,000 parts of water gave a yellow-brown color,
while 1 part of the former to 20 million of the latter was green
and 1 to 40 million was greenish-blue ; 1 part to 50 million, how¬
ever, did not produce any appreciable change in the blue color
of the distilled water.
Observations have been made on the transmission of light
through various dilutions of some of the highly colored waters
of the northeastern lakes by means of a monochromator and the
results obtained on one of them may be considered briefly in
this connection. The sample of water from Helmet Lake, a
small bog lake, had a color of 264 on the platinum-cobalt scale
and an organic content of 55 mg/1 based on organic carbon and
organic nitrogen determinations. Adding 1 cc. of this bog water
to 999 cc. of distilled water did not produce any brown color
that could be detected with the standard color instrument, but
when this diluted water was examined with the monochromator
the amount of light transmitted between the wave-lengths 4078
and 6000 A was about 5 per cent less than that transmitted by
the distilled water. The distilled water used for this experiment
transmitted 10 per cent of the light at 8000 A, 58 per cent at
7000, 84 per cent at 6000 and 94 per cent at 4078, while the
above mixture of 0.1 per cent bog water gave a transmission of
83 per cent at 6000 A and 87 per cent at 4078; the transmission
of the mixture was about the same as that of the distilled water
between 8000 and 6000 A. This dilution represented approxi¬
mately 1 part of organic matter to 180 million parts of water.
A dilution of 10 cc. of Helmet Lake water to 990 cc. of dis¬
tilled water gave a color reading of about 4 or 5 and the trans¬
mission of this mixture was 79 per cent at 6000 and 65 per
cent at 4078 A. This dilution contained about 1 part of organic
Juday & Birge—-bake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 235
matter to 18 million parts of water. When 100 cc. of the bog
water were added to 900 cc. of distilled water the resulting
mixture had a color of 25 ; its transmission was 48 per cent at
7000, 53 per cent at 6000 and only 4 per cent at 4078 A. These
results show clearly how rapidly the vegetable stains in such
waters reduce the transmission of light, especially toward the
blue end of the spectrum. The undiluted water of Helmet Lake
gave a transmission of about 5 per cent at 8000 A, a maximum
of 12.5 per cent at 6900 and it declined substantially to zero at
5460 A. This is in good agreement with the result indicated for
this lake on a previous page; that is, it was found that only 1.1
per cent of the solar radiation incident on the surface of Hel¬
met Lake penetrated to a depth of 1 m. and all of this energy
belonged to the longer wave-lengths.
It should be noted, however, that certain kinds and amounts
of organic material may be present in lake waters without
imparting an appreciable brown color to them. This is shown
by the fact that the surface waters of 56 lakes did not possess
any brown color that could be detected with the standard instru¬
ment used for such readings, yet these waters contained from
1.2 to 4.5 mg/1 of organic carbon some of which, most probably
the greater part, had a vegetable origin. The peat deposits of
marshes and bogs, together with leaves, are the chief sources
of the vegetable extractives that are responsible for the brown
color in lake waters, but there are other vegetable derivatives
which do not impart a color to the water as indicated by these
56 lakes with uncolored waters.
Raymond and Stetson (1931) found a practically colorless
jelly-like substance of vegetable origin in suspension in ocean
water. Similar material has been observed in Green Lake, but
it has not been noted in any of the northeastern lakes.
III. Conductivity or Specific Conductance
The quantity of electrolytes held in solution by the waters of
the Highland Lake District varies widely in the different types
of lakes. These bodies of water are situated in a glacial region
where the deposit ranges from 40 to 70 m. in depth and the
underlying rock consists of granite, quartzite, slate, iron forma¬
tions and schist. The glacial material contains relatively small
286 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
amounts of calcium and magnesium in most cases ; a survey of
the region by Whitson and others (1916) demonstrated that
most of the soils have an acid reaction owing to the scarcity of
calcium carbonate. In some instances it would require nearly 6
metric tons of lime per hectare to correct this acidity for agri¬
cultural purposes.
As already indicated 238 of the lakes that have been studied
possess neither an inlet nor an outlet (seepage lakes), while
292 of them have outlets and many of them both an inlet and an
outlet. As a result of the scarcity of calcium and magnesium in
the surrounding glacial material, the seepage lakes contain com¬
paratively small amounts of electrolytes, some of them very
small amounts in fact. The drainage lakes, on the other hand,
possess waters that have come into contact with larger quanti¬
ties of glacial debris and have thus acquired larger amounts of
electrolytes; while the waters of these drainage lakes usually
have a larger electrolyte content than those of the seepage lakes,
they are by no means to be regarded as hard waters when com¬
pared with those of lakes situated in limestone regions. They
may be regarded as ranging from rather soft up to medium
hard waters ; the waters of the seepage lakes are to be regarded
as soft.
Determinations of conductivity or specific conductance were
made on the surface waters of the 530 lakes that have been
visited. These readings were taken with a Digby and Biggs
Dionic Water Tester manufactured by Evershed and Vignoles
of London (Evershed 1911). The instrument is well adapted
for field use and it requires only a minute or two to make a
determination. It is provided with a compensating conductivity
tube so that an adjustment can be made for the temperature of
the sample; in this way the specific conductance can be deter¬
mined directly without computing a temperature correction.
The scale readings of the meter indicate directly the conductance
at 20° C. in terms of reciprocal megohms; that is, specific con¬
ductance is the reciprocal of specific resistance and the unit
used for the calibration of the scale of this instrument is the
reciprocal of one megohm. A reading of one on this scale indi¬
cates that a cube of water having a dimension of one centimeter
on each edge offers an electrical resistance of one megohm, or
one million ohms. A series of comparisons with a more elabo-
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 237
rate and more accurate instrument shows that the limit of error
of the Dionic Water Tester used for these determinations does
not exceed 5 per cent; usually it falls between 0 and 3 per cent.
Table IX gives a summary of the general results obtained for
the surface waters of the 530 lakes. This table is based on 1113
observations of which 284 were single determinations on a lake,
leaving 829 readings for the other 246 lakes. The number of
observations on each of the latter group of lakes ranged from
2 to 14; the maximum number (14) was taken on Trout Lake
and Weber Lake was second with 10. Where more than one
reading was made on the surface water of a lake, the mean of
the various results obtained on it was used in assigning it to a
group.
The 5-9 conductivity group includes 35 lakes in which the
conductance did not exceed 9 reciprocal megohms. A minimum
reading of 6 was noted in the Cardinal Bog, a small bog pond
in which the open water is only about 20 or 25 m. in diameter.
Five surface samples were taken in this bog between 1926 and
Table IX
The conductivity or specific conductance of the seepage and drainage lakes of north¬
eastern Wisconsin. The results for specific conductance are expressed in terms of re¬
ciprocal megohms resistance at a temperature of 20° C. Based in surface samples.
238 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letter &.
1931 ; two samples gave readings of 6, two were 7 and one was
8. These were the only readings as low as 6. Three other sur¬
face samples gave readings of 7 and 17 were recorded as 8 ; the
other lakes and bogs in this group gave readings of 9. The
small amount of electrolytes in this first group can be more
fully appreciated by a comparison with distilled water ; in ordi¬
nary distilled water obtained from a metal still the conductance
will range from 3 or 4 up to 9 reciprocal megohms, while glass
distilling apparatus must be used and other precautions must
be taken in order to reduce the conductance of the distilled
water below 3. Thus the amount of electrolytes in the lakes
belonging to the first group is not much larger than that of ordi¬
nary distilled water.
In the second group of lakes the specific conductance falls
between 10 and 14 ; the maximum number of lakes, namely 131,
is found in this group. The third group, ranging from 15 to 19,
ranks second in the number of lakes and the 65-69 group is
third with 36 lakes; the first group is next in order with 35
lakes. The number of lakes falls to 13 in the 25-29 group and
then rises to 36 in the 65-69 group; following the latter the
number falls to 19 lakes in the 70-74 group and then to 4 in
95-99 group. Only 7 lakes were found that showed specific con¬
ductances of 100 or more and they are included in the 100-124
group. A maximum conductance of 132 was noted in the surface
sample of Wild Cat Lake on July 11, 1926, but the mean of 7
readings taken on this lake at different times, chiefly in differ¬
ent summers, is 120. A large percentage of the lakes, however,
belong to the low conductance groups ; that is, more than 42 per
cent of them are found in the first three groups in which the
conductance does not exceed 19 reciprocal megohms. The last
column in Table IX shows the mean conductance of the various
groups of lakes ; it rose from 8.3 in the 5-9 group to 96.5 in the
95-99 group and to 107.7 in the 100-124 group.
Figure 6 shows the distribution of the seepage and drainage
lakes in the various groups ; the unshaded part of each column
represents the number of seepage lakes in the group and the
solid black part shows the number of drainage lakes. This figure
serves to bring out more clearly than the table the fact that the
^waters of most of the seepage lakes contain only small amounts
of electrolytes. The conductivity of 34 of them, which is more
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 239
than 14 per cent of those belonging to this class, did not exceed
9 ; that of 126 lakes, or 53 per cent of the total number of seep¬
age lakes, fall in the 10-14 conductance group and 45, or about
19 per cent of them, belong to the 15-19 group. Thus the con¬
ductivity of 86 per cent of the 238 seepage lakes did not exceed
19, leaving only 14 per cent of them with higher conductivities.
The number of seepage lakes in the 20-24 group falls to 11, or
a little less than 5 per cent of the total number; beyond this
group the number of seepage lakes declines to 2 in the 45-49
group, with none in the higher conductivity groups. The two
lakes in the 45-49 group are Forest and Laura, with mean con¬
ductances of 46 and 47 respectively. While these two bodies of
water are typical seepage lakes, their waters seem to obtain a
fair amount of electrolytes from their limited drainage basins.
Likewise the three seepage lakes in the 40-44 conductivity
group are typical land-locked lakes, but in spite of this fact their
Fig. 6. This diagram shows the grouping of 530 lakes on the basis of
the specific conductance of their surface waters. The vertical spaces show
the number of lakes in the various conductance groups, ranging from
those with a specific conductance of 5-9 up to those with 100-124. The un¬
shaded part of each column represents the seepage and the solid black
part the drainage lakes; 238 of the former and 292 of the latter are in¬
cluded. The 10-14 group contains 53 per cent of the seepage lakes.
240 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
waters also contain a moderate amount of electrolytes. Mus-
kellunge Lake possesses a small outlet when the water reaches
an unusually high stage, but Anderson and Blue lakes do not
have any visible outlets.
The solid black part of the columns in Figure 6 shows the dis¬
tribution of the drainage lakes in the various specific conduct¬
ance groups. They are more widely distributed throughout the
conductance range of the lakes in this Highland Lake District
than the seepage lakes, so that there is a much smaller number
in the maximum group of the former class than in that of the
latter. The number of drainage lakes in the various conductivity
brackets rises from 1 in the 5-9 group to 36 in the 65-69 group;
beyond the latter the number falls to 19 in the 70-74 group and
then declines more or less regularly to 4 at 95-99, with 7 lakes
ranging from 100 to 120. The 60-64 group ranks second with
30 drainage lakes and 55-59 is third with 23. The wide distri¬
bution of the drainage lakes is well shown by the fact that the
maximum of 36 constitutes only a little more than 12 per cent of
the total number in this class, namely 292, while the maximum
of 126 seepage lakes in the 10-14 group makes up 53 per cent
of the total number belonging to that class, namely 238.
The only drainage lake in the 5-9 conductance group is a
small body of water known as Bass Lake which is situated near
the Woodruff fish hatchery. Its mean conductivity for 5 de¬
terminations is just a little more than 9 with a range of 8 to 10.
Only a small intermittent stream flows out of this lakelet, so
that it is essentially a seepage lake. The 5 drainage lakes in the
10-14 group are situated at the heads of small streams and they
have rather small drainage basins with no regular inlets. Three
of these lakes are situated at the southern limit of the lake
region which has been included in these investigations and the
other two are toward the northern edge of the district. All
except one of the 14 drainage lakes included in the 15-19 group
are situated in the northern half of the lake district, while one,
Summit Lake, lies at the southern edge.
Three of the 4 lakes in the 95-99 group are situated in the
northern part of the lake district which is occupied by the
Winegar moraine and the ground water of this moraine con¬
tains a rather large amount of electrolytes. The fourth lake
belonging to this group lies a short distance south of the region
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 241
occupied by this moraine. Five of the 7 drainage lakes having
conductances of 100 or more lie within the Winegar moraine
or near its southern edge ; the other two lakes of this group are
situated in the vicinity of the Muskellunge moraine. Six of the
lakes belonging to this group, namely Dollar, Little Martha,
Mann, Twin Island, Van Vliet, and Wild Cat, are shallow, the
maximum depth not exceeding 14 m., and they receive relatively
large amounts of spring water. Presque Isle Lake, on the other
hand, has a maximum depth of 29 m. and receives only a small
amount of spring water in comparison with its volume.
Seasonal and Annual Variations in Conductance
Ruttner (1914) found that the specific conductance of the
surface water of Lower Lunz Lake showed considerable sea¬
sonal variation; minimum readings were obtained in May and
maximum readings in autumn and winter. No attempt has been
made to follow the seasonal changes in the specific conductance
of the waters of these northeastern lakes throughout an entire
year, but observations have been made on the surface waters of
17 of them at other times than the summer season. The results
of these determinations are given in Table V. In Allequash,
Mann and Island lakes the same conductivity readings were
obtained in April and July. In Diamond Lake, a slightly higher
conductance was noted in July than in April. In 12 lakes the
summer readings were lower than those obtained in April ; the
difference ranged from a minimum of 1 unit in 4 instances to a
maximum of 7 units in Trout Lake. Wolf Lake was second with
a decrease of 6 and Silver was third with a decline of 5 recipro¬
cal megohms. In Fishtrap Lake the conductance was 18 units
higher in July than in February.
Ruttner (1921) found that Elodea and other aquatic plants
produce a more or less marked decrease in the electrolyte con¬
tent of water through their photosynthetic activities. In the
process of assimilation these plants remove some of the half¬
bound carbon dioxide from the bicarbonates, especially that of
calcium, and thereby form calcium carbonate which readily
precipitates because it is only slightly soluble in water. This
loss of calcium carbonate results in a decrease of the specific
conductance of the water.
242 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
Large aquatic plants are scarce in the majority of the north¬
eastern lakes on which these seasonal conductivity observations
were made, so that they did not play any important role in pro¬
ducing the decrease in those lakes that showed this phenomenon.
On the other hand, Allequash and Mann lakes possess rather
large crops of these plants, but the conductance readings in
them were the same in April and July, while Wolf Lake, which
produces a crop of about the same size as the former, showed
a decrease in conductance between April and July. The decrease
in conductance noted in Trout Lake can not be attributed to the
large aquatic plants, because it has such a small crop of them.
Thus the data in hand at present do not suggest any explanation
of these decreases noted in the specific conductance between
April and July. Seasonal differences in precipitation may be a
factor, but no data on the precipitation in the vicinity of these
lakes have been obtained up to the present time.
Decreases in conductance during the summer months have been
observed in the surface water of Trout Lake. In 1928 for exam¬
ple, a reading of 84 was obtained on June 24 and 76 on August 25.
Only a small summer decrease was noted in 1930 when the sur¬
face reading was 70 on June 30 and 69 on August 22. In 1927
on the other hand, a reading of 80 was obtained on June 24 and
82 on August 20. In 1931 the specific conductance of the surface
water of Silver Lake fell from 58 on July 25 to 55 on August 28,
while in 1926 it was 68 on July 8 and 66 on August 19.
Some of the lakes on which conductance readings have been
made for 3 to 6 different summers show very little or no varia¬
tion from year to year, while considerable differences have been
noted in others. In Armour Lake for example, the conductivity
of the surface water was 38 in 4 different summers in the month
of July, 1927 to 1930 inclusive. The same conductance was ob¬
tained in the surface waters of Buffalo, Carlin, Ike Walton and
Little Rudolph lakes and in Little Star Bog for 3 to 4 different
summers ; these are seepage lakes which are not greatly affected
by inflowing water, but Armour Lake has a small stream flow¬
ing through it. In all of the other lakes which have been visited
for 3 different summers or more, the conductivity of the surface
water was not the same for the various years. Minimum differ¬
ences of 1 unit were found in Finley and Pallette lakes, both of
which belong to the seepage type. The maximum annual varia¬
tion was noted in Turtle Lake ; during the 4 summers in which
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N . E. Wisconsin . 243
observations were made on this lake, the conductivity of the
surface water varied from a minimum of 80 on July 17, 1930 to
a maximum of 100 on July 2, 1929. Differences of 18 units were
found in 3 other lakes. In Allequash Lake the readings fell
between 60 and 78 in 5 different summers, in Carroll Lake be¬
tween 80 and 98 in 5 different summers and in Wolf Lake
between 90 and 108 in 6 summers. The 4 lakes with maximum
annual variations in conductivity belong to the drainage type
and all of them are relatively shallow, so that the affluents of
these lakes undoubtedly play an important role in the produc¬
tion of these variations.
In two other lakes the annual difference in conductivity
amounted to 17 units; Arbor Vitae ranged from 61 to 78 in 4
summers and Wild Cat from 115 to 132 in 7 different summers.
Both of these lakes also belong to the drainage class. In the
majority of the lakes on which conductance observations were
made for 3 summers or more, the differences in the readings did
not exceed 6 to 8 units in those having rather high conductivi¬
ties and 2 to 3 units in those with low conductances; thus the
quantity of electrolytes in the surface waters of the majority
of the northeastern lakes may be regarded as fairly constant
from year to year.
Vertical Distribution of Electrolytes
The various chemical and biological processes that take place
in a lake during the summer period of stratification have a
marked effect upon the vertical distribution of the electrolytes
in some lakes, while in others there is very little or no change
in distribution throughout this season. Representative sets of
readings which show the range of variation in vertical distribu¬
tion in 14 lakes are given in Table VII. In Big Carr, Clear,
Crystal, Fence, Weber, and Yawkey lakes the conductivity read¬
ings were substantially the same from surface to bottom; in
some instances the surface and the bottom were the same, while
in others the bottom was only 1 or 2 units higher than the sur¬
face. All of the bottom samples were taken 1 m. above the mud.
In other lakes, such as Black Oak, Dead Pike and Long Lakes,
the differences were somewhat larger, the bottom readings
being 3 to 4 reciprocal megohms higher than the surface, or in
some series as much as 5 or 6. In 11 series which have been
244 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
taken on Trout Lake the maximum difference between surface
and bottom has not exceeded 5, and in most of them it has been
between 2 and 4 reciprocal megohms. In the three series taken
on Presque Isle Lake, the conductivity of the bottom water
(28 m.) was between 5 and 9 points higher than that of the
surface; on August 11, 1927, for example, the surface reading
was 111 and the bottom 120, and on August 9, 1928 the respec¬
tive readings were 108 and 113.
C 70 74 78
Fig. 7. Vertical distribution of temperature (T), specific conductance
(C) and fixed or bound carbon dioxide (C02) in Trout Lake on July 1,
1931. The upper scale shows the specific conductance in terms of recipro¬
cal megohms; the lower scale shows the temperature in degrees centigrade
and the fixed carbon dioxide in milligrams per liter.
The maximum difference between surface and bottom con¬
ductivities was noted in Wild Cat Lake where a reading of 128
was obtained at the surface and 179 at the bottom on August
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 245
24, 1926, thus making a difference of 51 units; a difference of
33 was found in two other series taken in this lake.
In the Cardinal Bog there was a twofold difference, the sur¬
face water having a specific conductance of 6 and the bottom
(5m.) sample 12. There was almost a threefold difference in
Lake Mary; the surface reading was 21 and the bottom (21 m.)
59 on July 11, 1928. In three other series the difference was
more than twofold. More than a twofold difference was found
in Nebish Lake where the conductivity of the surface water was
18 and that of the bottom (14 m.) was 43 on August 29, 1931.
In another series the readings ranged from 18 at the surface
to 37 at the bottom; in three additional series, however, the
differences were less than twofold.
Another type of difference may be mentioned in this connec¬
tion. In several lakes a slightly higher conductivity reading
was obtained at the surface than at depths of 3 to 5 m. These
differences have never exceeded one unit on the meter of the
Dionic Water Tester, but they show distinctly and they have
C 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Fig. 8. Vertical distribution of temperature, specific conductance and
fixed or bound carbon dioxide in Lake Mary on July 11, 1928. (See Fig. 7
for further explanations).
246 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
been observed by three different individuals who have taken
conductivity readings at various times. No explanation has yet
been found for this phenomenon. Ruttner (1914) obtained
similar results on Lower Lunz Lake, but in a number of cases
he obtained greater differences than those noted on the Wiscon¬
sin lakes.
The vertical distribution of the electrolytes is shown graphic¬
ally in four diagrams which represent the different kinds of
distribution except that in which they are uniform from surface
to bottom. Figure 7 shows the results obtained on Trout Lake
on July 1, 1981 when the specific conductance ranged from 70
at the surface to 75 reciprocal megohms at the bottom (32 m.).
This lake represents the class in which the difference between
surface and bottom conductivities is comparatively small ; lakes
with smaller differences are not included in the diagrams, but
they are indicated in Table VII. The diagram shows that there
was only a small increase in the quantity of fixed or bound car¬
bon dioxide in the lower water of Trout Lake correlated with
the small increase in conductance.
Fig. 9. Vertical distribution of temperature, specific conductance and
fixed or bound carbon dioxide in Anderson Lake on August 8, 1929. (See
Fig. 7 for further explanations).
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 247
Figure 8 shows the results obtained in Lake Mary on July 11,
1928. The specific conductance of the water ranged from 21
at the surface to 59 at the bottom (21 m.), while the fixed or
bound carbon dioxide rose from 2.8 mg/1 at the surface to 10.5
ing/1 at the bottom, representing nearly a fourfold difference.
In Anderson Lake (Figure 9) the conductivity increased from
40 at the surface to 54 reciprocal megohms at the bottom (18
m.), while the fixed carbon dioxide was 10 mg/1 at the former
and 12.5 mg/1 at the latter depth. Thus the fixed carbon dioxide
did not show as great an increase as the conductance, but an in¬
crease in the quantity of iron in the lower water undoubtedly
played a role in increasing the conductance in this stratum ; the
amount of iron found in the water of Anderson Lake on August
8, 1929 increased from 0.2 mg/1 at the surface to 7 mg/1 at 18 m.
C 120 130 140 150 160 170 180
Fig. 10. Vertical distribution of temperature, specific conductance and
fixed or bound carbon dioxide in Wild Cat Lake on August 24, 1926. (See
Fig. 7 for further explanations).
The maximum difference of 51 reciprocal megohms noted in
Wild Cat Lake on August 24, 1926 is represented in Figure 10.
In this series the specific conductance rose from 128 at the sur¬
face to 179 at the bottom (11 m.) ; this increase in conductance
was correlated with an increase in the bound carbon dioxide
which ranged from 30.8 mg/1 at the surface to 44.1 mg/1 at the
bottom.
Specific Conductances of Lake and Ground Waters
For the purpose of comparing the physical and chemical
characteristics of the ground water of this lake district with
248 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts , and Letters .
those of the various lake waters, samples were obtained from
107 wells and 3 springs during the summer of 1931. These wells
and springs are located on the shores of 54 lakes, except that
4 of the wells are a kilometer or two from the nearest lake.
Only a single well sample was taken in the vicinity of each lake
in 33 cases, while from 2 to 22 samples were taken from wells
and springs on the shores of each of the other 21 lakes. The
largest number of well samples, namely 22, was obtained from
the shores of Trout Lake and Plum Lake was second with 8
samples. The number of well and spring samples for the other
19 lakes varied from 2 to 4.
The results obtained on some of these well and spring waters
are given in Table X. In this table the wells and springs
which are located on the immediate shores or in the vicinity of
the various lakes follow the results given for the surface waters
of the several lakes. The depths of most of the wells were ascer¬
tained and they are represented in the table ; they ranged from
Table X
Specific conductance of lake and ground waters. The latter consist of
samples of water obtained from wells and springs situated on the shores
or in the vicinity of the various lakes.
Specific
conductance in
reciprocal megohms
61
43
43
12
38
65
16
65
58
27
13
26
70
44
50
32
12.5
26
85
49
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 249
Table X — -Continued
Specific
conductance in
reciprocal megohms
100
53
200
160
14
35
12
180
50
52
225
550
57
17
65
26
13
32
47
490
39
18
7
39
13
35
67
107
80
98
68
49
53
175
33
58
60
51
100
58
69
225
69
80
64
76
50
70
250 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Table X — Continued
a minimum of 3.3 m. to a maximum of 45.7 m., so that they
represent only the upper strata of the ground water.
The specific conductance of these well and spring waters
varied from 17 to 550 reciprocal megohms. The lowest conduc¬
tivity for these ground waters (17) was noted in a sample from
the well of Sisson’s Resort; this well is located on the shore of
Little St. Germain Lake and it is 12.2 m. deep. The average
conductivity of the surface water of this lake is 57 which is
more than three times as great as that of the resort well. The
second lowest conductance was found in a sample of water
taken from a well 7 m. deep at The Pines Resort on Nokomis
Lake; this well water gave a reading of 18 and that of the
neighboring lake water was 39, or more than twice as large as
that of the well. The third in order of low conductivity is Hart’s
well on the south shore of Trout Lake, with a specific conduct-
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 251
ance of 22. Next in order are three wells with readings of 26.
They are the wells at Cypress Lodge on Hanchett Lake, at Pine-
hurst on Finley Lake and at Baer's Resort on Lost Lake; the
mean conductivities of the surface waters of these three lakes
are 12, IB and 65 respectively. Thus the conductivities of the
first two well waters are twice as large as those of the lakes on
which they are situated, while the third one is less than half as
large as that of the lake on which it is situated.
The highest specific conductance, namely 550 reciprocal
megohms, was found in a sample from the hotel well in the vil¬
lage of Winegar; this well is 8.5 m. deep and it is about 150 m.
from the edge of Little Horsehead Lake whose surface water
has a conductivity of 52, or less than one-tenth as much as that
of the well. The water of a small spring on the shore of this
lake gave a reading of 225, while another spring about a kilo¬
meter from this one, but situated on the shore of Horsehead
Lake, gave a reading of 160. The second highest conductivity
was found in the water of a well 18.B m. deep at Everett's
Resort on Muskellunge Lake, which is one of the Eagle River
chain of lakes; it gave a reading of 490 as compared with 47
for the surface water of the lake, which is more than a tenfold
difference.
The local variations in the specific conductance of the ground
water is well illustrated by the results for the 22 wells situated
on the shores of Trout Lake. Seven of these wells are located
on the west shore of this lake, 6 on the south shore and 9 on the
east and north shores. Their depths range from 3.4 to 25.B m.
The conductivity of their waters varied from 22 to 270 recipro¬
cal megohms. The mean conductance of the surface water of
the lake is 70, so that the minimum is less than one-third as
much as that of the lake and the maximum is nearly four times
as large. The mean of the 22 well waters is 94 as compared
with 70 for the surface water of the lake.
Marked differences in conductivity were found not only be¬
tween wells that are B or 4 kilometers from each other, but also
between wells that are less than 100 m. apart. The Meade well,
on the west shore of the lake, gave a conductivity reading of 33
and the Red Arrow well, also on the west shore, about 1.5 km.
from the former, a reading of 150. In 4 wells situated between
these two, the conductance ranged from 40 to 105. The Rlais-
dell well on the east shore of the lake is a little over 3 km. from
252 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
the Meade well and its water has a specific conductance of 120
and that of the McClain well on the north shore gave a reading
of 100. A striking difference between wells that are near each
other is shown by two at the Rocky Reef Resort on the south
shore of Trout Lake. One of them is a driven well 5.8 m. deep
which is located about 30 m. from the edge of the lake and the
other is a drilled well which is about 120 m. from the edge of
the lake and which is 17.4 m. deep. The specific conductance of
the driven well was 270 and that of the drilled well was only
160, yet these two wells are only about 90 m. apart.
It is worthy of note that the Meade well and the Richardson
well, both of which showed a conductivity of 33, are situated
at opposite ends of Trout Lake, the former at the southwest
corner of the 'lake and the latter at the northeast corner, so that
they are about 7 km. apart.
Samples were taken from 8 wells on the shores of Plum Lake,
4 on the north and 4 on the south shore. In depth these wells
ranged from 3.7 to 13.7 m. ; the specific conductance of their
waters varied from 33 to 175 reciprocal megohms. The wells
having the minimum and maximum amount of conductance are
both situated on the north shore of Plum Lake and the two wells
located between them gave readings of 98 and 107. The 4 wells
on the south shore ranged from 49 to 80 reciprocal megohms.
The mean conductance of the surface water of Plum Lake is 67,
so that the minimum reading for the wells is only half as much
as that of the surface water and the maximum of the wells is
a little more than two and a half times as large as that of the
lake.
The conductivity of 4 wells at Star Lake ranged from 51 to
100 and that of the surface water of the lake was 58. Three
well waters at Fishtrap Lake varied from 32 to 50 in compari¬
son with 70 for the surface water of the lake. Two well waters
at Ballard Lake gave conductivity readings of 43, while that of
the surface water of the lake was 61.
Two well samples were taken on the shores of a lake whose
water has a low conductance and one well sample from each of
11 other lakes of this type were obtained. The specific conduct¬
ance of these 12 lake waters fell between 7 and 19 reciprocal
megohms, while that of the wells on their respective shores
varied from 26 to 180. In all cases the conductivity of the well
waters was from 2 to 15 times as large as that of the corre-
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin. 253
sponding lake waters. The maximum difference was noted in
Little Bass Lake where the conductance of the lake water was
12 and that of the well water was 180. In the other 11 lakes
the differences fell between twofold and a little more than five¬
fold. Big Carr, Crooked, Finley, Ike Walton, McDonald and
Oswego lakes are representatives of this group.
In the lakes with higher conductivities the differences between
lake and well waters are variable. In some instances the lake
waters have a higher specific conductance than the correspond¬
ing well waters, in others they have a lower conductance, while
in still other cases some of the well waters have a higher con¬
ductivity than the lake waters and some a lower conductance
as noted in Trout and Plum lakes. The data now in hand show
that there is no direct correlation between the quantity of elec¬
trolytes in the ground water and that in the lake water. These
local variations in the amount of electrolytes in the ground
waters are due undoubtedly to similar variations in the electro-
jyte content of the glacial deposits found in this region, chiefly
differences in the amount of calcium and magnesium carbonates
present in them.
The specific conductance of three of the Trout Lake wells was
obtained again in 1932. That of the Blaisdell well was the same
in 1932 as in 1931, namely, 120 reciprocal megohms. The Meade
well gave a reading of 33 in 1931 and 37 in 1932, while the
Point Camp well was 60 in 1931 and 66 in 1932.
Conductance and Fixed or Bound Carbon Dioxide
The relation between the specific conductance of the surface
waters of the northeastern lakes and the amount of fixed or
bound carbon dioxide in them is given for the various conduc¬
tivity groups in Table XI. In order to indicate the range of
variation in the amount of carbon dioxide found in the different
groups, the minimum, maximum and mean amounts are indi¬
cated in the table. There is a rather wide range of variation in
the amount of carbon dioxide in the different conductance
groups, but the means obtained for the various groups show a
fairly regular increase in the quantity of bound carbon dioxide
correlated with the increase in conductivity. These fixed carbon
dioxide means rise from 1.4 mg/1 in the 5-9 conductivity group
to 23.2 mg/1 in the 90-99 group and to 26.2 mg/1 at 100-124.
254 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
There is a little more than a threefold difference between
minimum and maximum amounts of carbon dioxide in the 5-9
conductivity lakes, a nineteenfold difference at 10-14 and an
eightfold one at 15-19. The difference falls to a little more than
twofold in the 30-34 group and it is less than twofold in the
groups which have higher conductivities and larger amounts of
bound carbon dioxide. The largest actual difference between
minimum and maximum amounts is found in the 75-79 and the
100-124 groups, namely 11 mg/1 in each case; the smallest dif¬
ference is found in the 5-9 group, namely 1.8 mg/1.
Fig. 11. This diagram shows the relation between the specific con¬
ductance of the surface waters and their fixed or bound carbon dioxide
content. The upper broken line curve represents the maximum amounts
of carbon dioxide in the various conductance groups and the lower one
the minimum amounts; the solid line curve between them shows the mean
quantities of fixed carbon dioxide in the different groups. The diagram
shows the results obtained on 530 lakes. (See Table XI).
Figure 11 shows graphically the general increase of the mean
quantity of fixed carbon dioxide correlated with the increase
in conductivity. This diagram represents the results obtained
on 523 lakes; the 7 lakes with conductivities of 100 or more
cover such a wide range that they were omitted from the dia¬
gram. The curve represented by a solid line indicates the mean
amounts in the various groups and it shows clearly the general
rise in the amount of bound carbon dioxide corresponding to the
Juday & Birge~Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 255
Table XI
Correlation between the specific conductance of the surface waters of
the various lakes and the quantity of fixed or bound carbon dioxide. The
amount of carbon dioxide is indicated in milligrams per liter of water .
See Fig. 11.
increase in conductivity. The upper curve, represented by a
broken line, shows the maximum amounts of fixed carbon
dioxide in the various groups and the lower curve consisting of
a broken line shows the minimum amounts. An average of the
whole series of observations included in Table XI indicates that
an increase of 10 units in conductance is correlated with an
increase of approximately 2.3 mg/1 in the bound carbon dioxide.
While the individual conductivity readings on a given lake do
not always vary directly with the relatively small changes in
the quantity of fixed carbon dioxide from year to year, they
show a general shift in correlation with the more marked
changes in the latter.
Conductance in Relation to Calcium and Magnesium
Analyses show that calcium and magnesium are the most
important electrolytes in these lake waters. On the gravimetric
basis calcium is generally found in somewhat larger amounts
than magnesium ; the average for 292 samples of surface water
256 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
gives a ratio of 1.5 Ca to 1 Mg. Owing to the differences in their
atomic weights and in their equivalent conductances, the two
are substantially equal in importance in so far as specific con¬
ductance is concerned. That is, the differences in atomic weight
and in equivalent conductance make it necessary to multiply
the quantity of magnesium by the factor 1.47 in order to give
it the same conductance value as the calcium and all of the mag¬
nesium results were multiplied by this factor before they were
added to the calcium.
The general results for the relation between the specific con¬
ductance of the surface waters of the various lakes and the
amount of calcium and magnesium in them are given in Table
XII, where the minimum, maximum and mean amounts of these
two substances are indicated for the different conductance
groups. The results are also shown graphically in Figure 12.
Both the table and the diagram show rather wide differences
between the minimum and maximum amounts of calcium and
magnesium in the different conductance groups. There is al-
Fig. 12. Diagram showing the relation between the specific conductance
of the surface waters and the amount of calcium and magnesium present
in them. The upper broken curve represents the maximum amounts of
calcium and magnesium and the lower one the minimum amounts in the
various conductance groups ; the solid line curve between them shows the
mean amounts in the various conductance groups. The diagram includes
the results for 292 lakes. (See Table XII).
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E. Wisconsin . 257
Table XII
Relation between specific conductance and the quantity of calcium and
magnesium present . The quantity of magnesium has been multiplied by
the factor 1.4-7 before adding it to the calcium in order to give it a con¬
ductance value equal to that of calcium , The results are thus expressed
in terms of milligrams of calcium per liter of water.
most a sixfold difference between them in the 0-9 group and a
similar difference in the 10-19 group. In the other groups the
maximum is from two to four times as large as the minimum.
In spite of these large variations, the means of the various
groups show a general increase in the quantity of the calcium
and magnesium correlated with the increase in the conductance
of the waters.
The upper curve in Figure 12, consisting of a broken line,
connects the points representing the maximum amounts of cal¬
cium and magnesium in the different groups ; the lower broken
line curve represents the minimum amounts. The means of the
different groups are represented by the solid line curve between
them. The surface waters of 5 lakes gave conductances of 100 to
120, but they are not included in the diagram because they differ
too widely to give a fair mean. The area included between the
upper and lower broken line curves gives a good idea of the
greater range of variation in the maximum and minimum
amounts of calcium and magnesium as the specific conductance
rises; that is, the distance between these two curves increases
in the higher conductivity groups. While the percentile differ¬
ences between the maximum and minimum amounts of calcium
and magnesium are largest in the 0-9 and 10-19 groups, the
largest quantitative difference is found in the 90-99 group.
258 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
The curve in Figure 11 representing the mean amounts of
bound carbon dioxide in the various conductance groups is
similar to the one representing the mean amounts of calcium and
magnesium in Figure 12, but the former includes 580 lakes
while the latter represents only 287. The surface samples on
which calcium and magnesium determinations were made, were
selected as representatives of the different types of lakes and
these results indicate that they are a fair average for the 580
lakes. Attention may be called to the fact that the difference
between maximum and minimum amounts of bound carbon diox¬
ide in the different conductance groups is not as large as that of
the calcium and magnesium.
The causes of the wide variations in the amount of bound
carbon dioxide and of calcium and magnesium in each of the
various conductance groups is not known at present. These
lake waters contain a great variety of organic and inorganic
substances, both in solution and in suspension ; some of these
substances are electrolytes and others are non-electrolytes and
the interactions between these two types of substances may
affect the conductance of the water. Some of the electrolytes
are doubtless adsorbed by the non-electrolytes and some of the
former are in chemical combination with the organic com¬
pounds that are present in the water. The problem is a very
complicated one and would require a detailed investigation for
its solution.
Summary
1. The transparency of the lake waters of northeastern Wis¬
consin as measured with a Secchi disc ranged from a minimum
of 0.3 m. to a maximum of 13.6 m.
2. The transparency decreases with the increase of the brown
color of the water and with an increase in the amount of plank¬
ton, but the color is a more important factor than the plankton
in causing a decrease of transparency. (Figs. 2 and 3.)
3. There is a fairly definite correlation between the trans¬
parency of the water and its transmission of solar radiation.
4. The color of these lake waters varied from a minimum of
zero to a maximum of 340 on the platinum-cobalt scale.
5. There is a definite correlation between the brown color
which is derived chiefly from peat and marsh deposits and the
amount of organic carbon in the surface waters. (Fig. 5.)
Juday & Birge — Lake Waters of N. E . Wisconsin. 259
6. The specific conductance of the surface waters of these
lakes varied from a minimum of 6 to a maximum of 132 recip¬
rocal megohms at a temperature of 20° C.
7. The specific conductance is correlated with the quantity of
fixed or bound carbon dioxide in the water. (Fig. 11.)
8. The specific conductance is also correlated with the quan¬
tity of calcium and magnesium in the surface waters. (Fig. 12.)
Literature
Bancroft, Wilder D. 1919. The Color of water. Jour. Frank. Inst.
187 : 249-271, 459-485. (Chemical News, 118. 1919).
Birge, E. A. and Juday, C. 1929. Transmission of solar radiation by the
waters of inland lakes. Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts & Let. 24 : 509-580.
Birge, E. A. and Juday, C. 1931. A third report on solar radiation and
inland lakes. Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts & Let. 26 : 383-425.
Birge, E. A. and Juday, C. 1932. Solar radiation and inland lakes.
Fourth report. Observations of 1931. Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts &
Let. 27 : 523-562.
Evershed, S. 1911. The dionic water tester. 34 pp. London.
Juday, C. and Birge, E. A. 1932. Dissolved oxygen and oxygen con¬
sumed in the lake waters of northeastern Wisconsin. Trans. Wis. Acad.
Sci., Arts & Let. 27 : 415-486.
Leighton, Marshall 0. 1905. Field assay of water. Water-supply and
Irrigation Paper No. 151. U. S. Geol. Survey. 77 pp.
Raman, C. Y. 1922. On the molecular scattering of light in water and
the colour of the sea. Proc. Roy. Soc., Math.-Phys. 101 : 63-80.
Raymond, Percy E. and Stetson, H. C. 1931. A new factor in the trans¬
portation and distribution of marine sediments. Science 73 : 105-106.
Ruttner, Franz. 1914. Das elektrolytische Leitvermogen des Wassers der
Lunzer Seen. Internat. Revue, Hydrog. Sup. 5 : 1-39.
Ruttner, Franz. 1921. Das elektrolytische Leitvermogen verdiinnter
Losungen unter dem Einfluss submerser Gewachse. Akad. Wissensch.
Wien, math.-naturw. Kl. 130 : 71-108.
Spring, W. 1897. Sur le role des composes ferriques et des matieres
humiques dans le phenomene de la coloration des eaux, et sur Pelim-
ination de ces substances sous Y influence de la lumiere solaire. Bui.
Acad. Roy. des Sciences Belgique. 34 (3) : 578-600.
Whipple, George C. 1927. The microscopy of drinking water. Fourth
edition. Revised by G. M. Fair and M. C. Whipple. 586 pp.
Whitson, A. R. et al. 1916. Reconnoissance soil survey of north part of
north central Wisconsin. Bui. No. 1, Soil series No. 15. Wis. Geol. &
Nat. Hist. Survey. 80 pp. 1 map.
ON THE STOPPAGE OF SEWER LATERALS
BY ROOTS OF TREES
0. L. Kowalke
Chemical Engineering Department
University of Wisconsin
In the autumn of 1931 there seemed to be a great many more
stoppages of house sewer laterals in the Wingra Park district
of Madison, Wisconsin, than in previous years, and the testi¬
mony of several plumbers indicated that similar situations could
be duplicated throughout the city. Attempts were made to
gather statistics relative to the matter from all the plumbers,
but the attempts were unsuccessful, and only a few cooperated.
The data are unfortunately incomplete. The conditions and im¬
plications suggested in the available data, however, are deemed
sufficiently interesting to warrant this presentation.
Practically all stopped sewer laterals were glazed vitrified
tile with “bell and spigot” connections; and Portland cement
mortar was usually employed to seal the joints. It is not possible
to make an absolutely water tight joint with cement nor is it
probable that sound conduits were laid in every instance. Any
cracks in the cement seal or in the tile conduit will admit the
fine root ends to moisture rich in nitrogenous food.
The stoppages occurred under a wide variety of tree and
shrub conditions. Shrubbery close to the house, according to the
statements of plumbers was as much to blame as the larger
trees. Elms, ash, hackberry, maples hard and soft, box elder,
and oaks seemed to be about equally potent in producing stop¬
pages.
Many of the ditches observed in this section were at least 12
feet deep when the laterals were reached.
The available data indicated also that in certain districts of
Madison the stoppages were more numerous than in others.
The data refer largely to the district west and southwest from
the Capitol ; only meager data were obtained respecting the area
to the east. Investigation of the soil conditions, elevation above
the lake level, and of run-off pointed to rather interesting corre¬
lations with rainfall and temperatures to root growth.
262 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
The plumbing firm X supplied data covering all stoppages
for the years 1928, 1929, 1980, and 1981. The data from this
firm apply to the west end of Madison and are shown in Table I.
Table I
The five streets above are in the Wingra Park residence dis¬
trict. The trees are predominantly elms, with some soft maple,
some hard maple, some box elder, together with fewer ash and
hackberry, and they are about 25 to 30 years old. They are
practically all located between the curb and the cement side¬
walk, with occasional plantings between the sidewalk and the
house, and are spaced so that there are about two trees for a
60-foot lot. There are practically no vacant lots in this area
and the streets are all paved with material impervious to water.
The top soil is a loam about two or three feet deep and this is
underlain with a glacial till, sandy in character and containing
boulders of various sizes.
The firm (Y) supplied data only on the actual replacements
of stopped laterals, and these are judged to be incomplete.
Table II of these data shows a grouping of cases as to the Uni-
Table II
Koivalke — Stoppage of Sewer Laterals .
263
versity Heights district and that immediately south of the
Chemistry Building and Wisconsin Memorial Hospital. There
were many other stoppages but in widely separated locations.
In the University Heights district the top soil is a loam about
two feet thick. The sub-soil on the north slope is glacial deposit
which is rather irregular in composition. One deposit may be
sand and the adjacent section be clay, and another be sand and
boulders. The sub-soil on the south slope on the west end is
largely clay. On the slope toward the east the rock is rather
close to the surface. The native trees are largely oaks and the
planted ones are elms. There are houses on practically all lots
and the streets have been paved for several years.
The firm (Z) furnished data only on replacements and the
territory served was largely east of the Capitol. In 1930 there
were six replacements and in 1931 there were nine. For every
case of replacement there were over two cases where the lateral
was “rodded” and the roots cut to make a temporary repair.
Table III
Cases of replacements of sewer laterals ( city engineer)
Data on replacements furnished by the city engineer are
given in Table III. These are all under the pavement and
outside the curb. It is striking that in the month of April and
in the three autumn months, September, October, and November
there are the highest number of cases. While the ground is
frozen, digging is usually postponed if possible; that will ac¬
count for the large number of cases in April. The larger num¬
bers of cases in the autumn may be related to the deficiency in
rainfall combined with temperature and also to the chances for
rainfall to penetrate to the deeper levels.
The office of the U. S. Weather Bureau at Madison furnished
the data on rainfall and temperature shown in the Charts A and
B. In Chart A the cross hatched areas represent the recorded
rainfall in inches for the respective months. The dots represent
Dev/at/ on s of Monthly Mean Maxima and Minima Faom
The Monthly Mean ovez 43 -Yeah Period
264 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
D£GR££S f ah h. Rainfall /nches
CH/\RT A Rainfall
ISPS _ 1930 _ 1931
Koivalke — Stoppage of Sewer Laterals .
265
the means for those months over a 43-year period. Note that,
beginning with August 1929, there is a deficiency in rainfall
until April 1930. Following that there is another period of
scanty precipitation beginning in October 1930 and lasting
through July 1931.
In Chart B are shown the deviations of the mean maxima and
minima temperatures from the 43-year mean for the respective
months. It is obvious that beginning with November 1930 and
continuing through December 1931, the monthly mean is sev¬
eral degrees above the 43-year mean for the corresponding
month. Evaporation from the ground may be presumed to have
been greater than normal.
Precipitation as rain and snow is divisible into three portions
(a) that which is run-off, (b) that caught by roots and trans¬
pired through the foliage, and (c) that which passes to the
ground water supply.
Because of pavements, sidewalks, houses, and other construc¬
tion, and because the trees are usually between the sidewalk and
the curb, the area through which precipitation can reach the
roots is limited. A greater proportion of the precipitation must
run off in the cities than in the country. The City engineer
when making plans for sewers for residential districts estimates
that 40 per cent of the precipitation is run-off. Thus a consid¬
erable fraction of the precipitation is lost to vegetation even in
wet seasons ; in dry seasons with high temperatures during the
growing period moisture must be transpired in larger amounts
than normal. The U. S. Geological Survey in a Press Notice of
February 25, 1932, states that, “As a rule there is little or no
replenishment of the ground water supply during the summer
and autumn because vegetation makes such heavy demands on
soil moisture that the water derived from rains seldom gets
beyond the root zone.” A deficiency in the ground water can
be brought about, (a) if during the dormant period of plants
there is a deficiency in precipitation, (b) if the normal run-off
is rather large due to structures and to the frozen ground, and
(c) if the temperatures during the growing season are high.
When the sub-soil is porous and is in elevated locations, the
ground water is further depleted, and roots must follow down.
Any leaks from sewer laterals into dry porous sub-soil will pro¬
mote a large growth of root ends.
266 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
The data available for this discussion show that the stoppages
of sewer laterals due to roots occur mostly in sandy sub-soil or
glacial till which is quite apt to be deficient in nitrogen and
potash; districts underlain with clay do not seem to give so
much trouble.
Since the practice of laying tile sewer laterals luted with
Portland Cement mortar, in porous, dry, and lean soil in the
cities is quite certain to cause stoppage due to root growth, the
preferred construction would be metal conduits having the
joints luted with lead. The first cost of the latter might be a
little higher, but the chances for stoppages are practically elimi¬
nated.
DAILY VARIATIONS IN THE FREEZING POINT
OF MILK1
H. A. SCHUETTE AND E. 0. HUEBNER
Contribution from the Laboratory of Foods and Sanitation, Depart¬
ment of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin.
Following close upon the suggestion of Beckman [I ] that the
freezing point be utilized as a guide in judging a suspected
sample of watered milk and the announcement by Winter [2]
that his cryometric measurements had shown that milk and
blood serum are isotonic, there began to appear a literature,
now voluminous, on the application of the freezing point as a
physiological constant which is admirably suited for the detec¬
tion of this, perhaps the oldest, form of adulteration of milk.
Hortvet [S'] has reviewed this literature and discussed the gen¬
eral considerations involved in the application of the funda¬
mental principles of cryoscopy to the examination of milk.
Briefly stated it appears that the osmotic pressure of milk is
due chiefly to those constituents which are present in crystal¬
loid dispersion, and that the freezing-point figure is a gauge of
this pressure. The latter is not affected by the presence of the
fat and whatever influence the proteins may exert is either
negligible or too small for measurement by cryoscopic means.
Variations in the proportion of any one of the soluble constit¬
uents must be accompanied by a change in the concentration of
another constituent to the end that the proper osmotic pressure
may be maintained.
Since it is quite generally accepted that the freezing point is
the least variable of the so-called physical constants which are
ordinarily determined in the analysis of cow’s milk for regu¬
latory purposes, it seemed worth while to investigate (1) the
influence exerted upon this physiological constant by such fac¬
tors as stage of lactation, day-by-day composition of the milk
from individual cows, and the presence of colostrum, and (2)
1 Presented before the Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry at the 81st
meeting of the American Chemical Society, Indianapolis, March 30-April 3, 1931,
and published here by courtesy of INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING
CHEMISTRY.
268 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
the variation in the freezing point of milk of the herd itself of
which the cows in question were members.
Experimental
The milk used in this investigation was supplied by well fed
healthy individuals in the herd of the College of Agriculture of
the University of Wisconsin. Their diet consisted of a hay-
silage-grain mixture, the latter being made up of corn, oats,
bran and linseed meal. Five breeds were represented among
the eight cows which were chosen for this investigation. A
record of the breed of each animal, its stage of lactation at the
beginning of the test period, and the total lactation has been
made part of Table 6. Two series of observations on composite
morning and evening samples2 were made, viz: those on the
day-by-day composition of the milk of the individual cows
during the thirty-two day period between November 25 and
December 26, 1926 ; those on freezing point measurements from
February 8 to May 11, 1927.
Analyses were made daily by the methods of the Association
of Official Agricultural Chemists [4]. Protein, unless otherwise
indicated, was determined “by difference.” The Hortvet cryo-
scope [3] was used for making the freezing point determina¬
tions.
Freezing point determinations of the colostrum milk of Hol¬
stein cow No. 1 were made for three days following parturition
and then for a period of a week thereafter during the last stages
of which the milk was approaching its normal condition.
Analyses were also made of the composite evening-morning
milk during two days of the colostrum period and for two days
about a week later.
Data
Data are recorded in the form of complete records and, for
purposes of ready comparison, of summaries. Tables I and II
show the daily composition of the milk of two different breeds.
2 This mode of procedure was followed for a twofold reason, ( 1 ) because of the
fact that there is sometimes an appreciable, and often a conspicuous, difference in
the freezing point between morning and evening milk, and (2) market milk in¬
variably consists of a mixture of the two and it is, therefore, in this form when
the occasion arises, that it would come to the analyst’s attention.
Schuette & Huebner — Freezing Point of Milk .
269
Table I
Analysis of the milk of an individual Holstein cow
at the end of her lactation period
*Eveningmilk Maximum freezing point 0.542
Minimum freezing point 0.563
Average freezing point 0.551
270 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
Table II
Analysis of the milk of an individual Jersey cow
during eleventh month of lactation q period
* Morning milk
**Evening milk
Maximum freezing point
Minimum freezing point
Average freezing point
0.542
0.557
0.549
Schuette & Huebner — Freezing Point of Milk . 271
When the data of Tables I and II are in turn subjected to
analysis in terms of maxima, minima, average values, and devia¬
tions therefrom, they take the form shown in Table III.
Table III
Summary of analyses of milk
•at 15.6°/15.6°
Freezing point studies of the milk secreted by the one cow
(Holstein No. 1) which was in her last month of lactation were
Table IV
Freezing point of the colostrum and the normal milk secreted
by a Holstein cow following parturition
*a;verage depression of freezing point — 0.563°
**average depression of freezing point — 0.540°
272 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
continued during the time of colostrum flow— in this instance
arbitrarily designated as that produced three days after par¬
turition — and then, the return to normal secretion having
apparently again set in, for one week longer. Pertinent data
are recorded in Table IV.
A composite sample was made of the evening-morning milk¬
ings of samples 2 and 3 and 3 and 4, respectively. The proxi¬
mate composition of these samples, together with similar ones
of the normal milk produced about a week later form the basis
of Table V. Although the results are not a true criterion of the
exact composition of the colostrum, yet they indicate the order
of magnitude of the changes that take place in the composition
of the milk following parturition, especially when compared
with normal milk from the same animal.
Table V
Percentage composition of colostrum milk and that
secreted nine days after parturition
In this connection it might be well to point out that it is prob¬
ably true that colostrum depresses the freezing point to a
greater extent than does normal milk, but that this condition
in this instance is entirely due to the effect of salts in solution
is doubtful. Since protein and fat retard the rate of ice crystal
formation, it seems not improbable that the high protein con¬
tent of colostrum retards crystallization to such an extent that
the true freezing point of the sample is not obtained. In fact,
in making this test on colostrum it was observed that the rise
of the mercury column in the thermometer was not as pro¬
nounced when freezing was induced as it was in the case of
normal milk.
The freezing point of the milk of six other cows besides the
two already mentioned (cows 1 and 8) was determined for thir¬
ty-day periods, pairs being analyzed during the months of Feb-
Schuette & Huebner — Freezing Point of Milk.
273
ruary to May inclusive. Acidity determinations were always
made in conjunction with the foregoing because of the fact that
abnormal values have a disturbing effect upon them. They are
not here recorded because not a single instance of high acidity
was found. Pertinent freezing point data have been summar¬
ized3 (Table VI) as before, in terms of average depression and
mean deviations therefrom, as well as maxima and minima.
The freezing points which were noted at the beginning and the
completion of each series of tests never deviated from the grand
average by more than ±0.01 °C., nor was a greater difference
than 0.01° noted in the individual averages for the several cows
in this group.
Table VI
Summary of the freezing points of composite morning and evening herd milk and
that of individual cows.
Finally, the milk from the herd of which the eight cows in
question are members was put to a similar test over a ninety-
day period (February to May). The resulting data are pre¬
sented (Table VI) as a summary and, like all others, have been
rounded off to the second decimal place for it is in this form that
they find practical application in the routine inspection of milk.
The actual variation in the depression of the freezing point was
found to be 0.016°C. ; the average depression for the herd
0.541°. The latter value is somewhat higher than that (0.55°)
adopted by the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists
[4] as a basis for calculating the amount of extraneous water
3 For the complete record of these data see E. O. Huebner, “Studies on the
Cryoscopy of Milk”, Master’s Thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1927.
274 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
in milk, but the difference is not deemed to be disturbing for
after all it represents an added water content of less than
two per cent, and this is less than the probability of error (three
per cent) claimed for the whole procedure in determining this
form of adulteration of milk. Significant, however, is the fact
that the average freezing point depression of the herd milk ex¬
actly coincides with that of the eight individuals of this group
under test and that this condition is evidently independent of
the stage of lactation. To be sure it does not lie beyond the
realm of probability that the selection of the eight individuals
was a fortuitous one and that the above noted agreement of
average values is, therefore, an accident. This probability seems
remote, however. Rather, since all the cows in question were
stall-fed on a ration of uniform composition, it seems to point
to the fact that under these conditions the animal maintains in
her body an osmotic equilibrium which is practically constant.
An interesting example of this will be found in Table I, for as
the lactose content decreased with the approach of parturition
there was a corresponding increase in the inorganic salts, par¬
ticularly the chlorides of the ash. On the other hand, in Table
II will be found an example of how osmotic equilibrium is main¬
tained by a constancy of those factors that form the basis for
this condition.
Conclusions
1. The freezing point of the milk secreted by an individual
well fed cow does not under normal conditions vary more in a
thirty-day period than does that of the herd of which she is a
member.
2. This physical constant is independent of the period of lac¬
tation but is affected by the presence of colostrum in the milk.
3. The animal itself regulates the concentration of those sub¬
stances with which an osmotic equilibrium is maintained within
the body.
Literature Cited
1. Beckman, Ernst. Milch-Ztg., 23, 703-4 (1894).
2. Winter, J. Compt. rend., 121, 696-8 (1895).
3. Hortvet, J. J. Ind. Eng. Chem., 13, 198-208 (1921).
4. Assoc. Official Agr. Chem., “Methods of Analysis”, Washington, 1930,
3d ed., p. 214 ff.
THE OSMOTIC PERMEABILITY OF LIVING
PLANT MEMBRANES
Louis Kahlenberg and Ralph N. Traxler
Chemical Laboratory , University of Wisconsin
In a previous paper1 experimental results on the selective
permeability of various fruit and vegetable membranes have
been reported. In that investigation perfect fruits and vege¬
tables severed from the plant were brought into contact with
different solutions, and the rates of passage of the solutions
through the unbroken membranes determined. In the experi¬
ments described below, various plants growing undisturbed in
pot or field were irrigated with measured quantities of the vari¬
ous solutions, or poultices wet with the solutions were applied
to leaves, stems or berries, and the entrance of the various sub¬
stances into the different parts of the plant was determined by
analysis. In both of these series of investigations the specific,
selective permeability of plant membranes has been found to
be very marked.
This investigation of the passage of substances through plant
membranes is a part of the series of studies on osmosis and
dialysis carried on in this laboratory in recent years. The se¬
lective action of various membranes2 to aqueous and non-
aqueous solutions have been investigated. The passage of dif¬
ferent substances through the human skin3 has been studied.
Artificial membranes have been prepared4 by means of which
it has been possible to separate crystalloids from crystalloids.
The deductions made from these investigations all lead to the
conclusion that membrane permeability is a phenomenon de¬
pendent upon the chemical nature of the membrane and the
solute and solvent bathing it.
Most of the following experiments were conducted at Madison
between August 1 and September 20. A few were performed
during July, August and early September. In every case the
1 Kahlenberg and Traxler, Plant Physiology Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 39 (1927).
3 Journ. Phys. Chem., 10, 141, (1910).,
8 Journ. Biological Chem. 62, 149 (1924) ; also ibid. 79, 405 (1928).
* Phil. Mag., vol. i, 385 (1926).
276 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , omd Letters .
plant and the soil around it were not disturbed unless otherwise
stated, with the exception that in the field a small embankment
was built up around the individual plant to prevent the solution
from passing into the ground too far from the roots. The solu¬
tions were usually added between the hours of 8 A. M. and 3
P. M. The plants were subjected to the temperature and hu¬
midity existing at Madison during the months given above. The
seasons were both rather below the average as far as tempera¬
ture was concerned.
The salts and the boric acid used were of the best grade ob¬
tainable and were not recrystallized. Distilled water was used
in preparing all the solutions. The saturated solutions of boric
acid and lithium tetraborate were prepared by dissolving so
much of each substance in hot water that on cooling to room
temperature the excess of the solute crystallized out. This
excess of the solid solute was left in the bottle in which the so¬
lutions were stored, thus assuring the maintenance of a perfectly
saturated solution. The one-tenth molar solutions were pre¬
pared by dissolving weighed amounts of the respective sub¬
stances in less than 1000 cc. of water and then diluting these
solutions to the proper volume.
The various parts of each plant were analyzed within a very
short time after removal from the soil. In the case of carrots
and similar vegetables the roots were washed immediately after
removal from the soil to prevent the entrance of foreign sub¬
stance through lacerations caused by pulling from the ground.
Boric acid, borax and lithium tetraborate were detected by
means of turmeric paper. The material was placed in a plati¬
num crucible, covered with a small amount of sodium bicar¬
bonate and ignited. When most of the carbon had been burned
away, leaving only a small charred mass, the crucible was al¬
lowed to cool and 15 cc. of 10% hydrochloric acid added. Fresh,
bright turmeric paper was placed in the crucible. The paper
was left in the solution for a few moments, removed and dried
on a glass plate at the temperature of boiling water. A drop
of potassium hydroxide was added to the pink colored dried
paper as a confirmatory test for the presence of boric acid.
Standard solutions of boric acid of various strengths were used
to determine the depth of pink color produced by them on tur¬
meric paper. The turmeric strips used in all of the determina-
Kahlenberg & Traxler — Permeability of Plant Membranes . 277
tions were 8x1^ cm. By comparison of the tests obtained from
the plant material, with the tests obtained from these standard
solutions a quantitative estimate was made of the boron content
of plant material investigated.
Lithium chloride, nitrate, sulphate and tetraborate and stron¬
tium chloride were detected in the material by placing the
sample on a platinum wire and heating in a Bunsen flame.
When the water had been largely expelled the flame was ob¬
served through a Kriiss spectroscope.
Barium chloride was tested for by igniting in a platinum
crucible with sodium bicarbonate, taking up with dilute hydro¬
chloric acid, filtering and heating with dilute sulphuric acid.
The presence or absence of barium sulphate was determined
by holding the test tube up to a strong light.
Iodide was tested for by treating the plant material with
fresh chlorine water and fresh starch paste.
Blank determinations for each substance were made on un¬
treated individuals of each type of plant used.
Experiments with Japanese barberry . The bushes were
growing near the chemistry building and at the time of the
experiments (August 1) were covered with small red berries,
averaging 2 to 3 mm. in diameter. The berries were grouped
along the twigs and were quite close together. The bushes them¬
selves were large, averaging 6 to 8 feet in total height.
(a) A group of berries selected for their apparent lack of
scars and imperfections were soaked in saturated boric acid
solution. The berries were not separated from the bush. To
accomplish the immersion of the berries a cord was tied around
the neck of a large-mouthed bottle containing the solution. This
cord was then fastened to the stem carrying the berries so that
the berries themselves (but not the stem or leaves) were held
under the solution. The experiment lasted 27 hours. The twig
was removed from the bush and the berries washed very thor¬
oughly with distilled water. The berries contained a fair
amount of boric acid.
(b) The same experiment was performed allowing the berries
to remain in contact with the solution for only one hour. No
boric acid could be detected in the berries.
278 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
(c) The same experiment was repeated using 1 per cent
borax and saturated lithium tetraborate solutions on separate
clusters of berries. After 30 hours of immersion in the solu¬
tions the berries contained detectable quantities of borax. No
lithium from the lithium tetraborate was found in the berries,
although traces of boron were present.
(d) Absorbent cotton was tied around some of the upper
twigs of these bushes. The cotton only came in contact with the
bark and extended for a distance of 10 centimeters. This cotton
was kept moist with a saturated solution of boric acid for 4
days. The leaves below the compress were affected very slightly .
The leaves above the compress and close to the absorbent cotton
were beginning to wilt at the end of 108 hours. The wilted
leaves contained large amounts of boric acid, whereas the ber¬
ries among these leaves contained only small amounts of the
acid. The normal appearing leaves near the wilted ones con¬
tained fair amounts of boric acid, from which it is evident that
leaves may contain a certain amount of this substance without
changing their external appearance. The berries near these
unwilted leaves contained no detectable quantity of boric acid.
It is evident that the boric acid is able to pass through the
bark of the Japanese barberry and into the leaves and fruit.
Also it is apparent that the leaves take up the acid much more
rapidly than the fruit, the latter not receiving any of the boric
acid until the neighboring leaves have taken up about all it is
possible for them to hold.
(e) An experiment identical with (d) was performed using,
however, a compress containing saturated lithium tetraborate
solution. At the end of 48 hours the leaves on the upper side of
the compress contained a fair amount of boric acid and a small
amount of lithium. The leaves below the compress contained
mere traces of boron. It is of interest that the leaves died much
more rapidly in this experiment than when saturated boric acid
solution was used, although the lithium tetraborate solution
(because of the slight solubility of this salt) was much more
dilute than the boric acid solution. In the experiments here dis¬
cussed the lithium was detected by the spectroscope with which
even mere traces of lithium can be recognized. Therefore, in
the case where the turmeric paper test was strong and the
lithium test weak, the latter element was retarded in its upper
Kahlenberg & Traxler — Permeability of Plant Membranes . 279
progress. The general question raised by this result is well
worthy of further investigation.
(f) The same experiment was performed, using a one per
cent borax solution. Leaves again gave evidence of containing
more boron than the adjacent berries. It is interesting that at
the end of 7 days the branches described in (c) which were
exposed to lithium tetraborate were withered from the com¬
press to their tips, whereas those in this experiment, exposed to
borax solution, were to all appearances scarcely affected, al¬
though they contained just as much boron as those treated with
the lithium borate. From these experiments, the toxic effect of
these substances when applied to the bark or outer covering
of the barberry bushes does not seem to be wholly dependent
upon the rate or amounts of entrance into the plant. Lithium
salt appears to be more harmful than the corresponding sodium
salt.
Experiments with potted fuschias. The plant was obtained
from the hot house of the University of Wisconsin. It was 50
cm. tall, with 3 main stalks (each 4 to 5 cm. in diameter) . Three
flowering groups were present with blossoms and unopened
buds. 100 cc. of saturated boric acid solution were poured over
the soil in the pot. At the end of 2 days the plant was com¬
pletely withered with the leaves dry and grayish in color. The
flowers and buds were the first part of the plant to be affected.
In this respect the fuschia was different from the other plants
studied since these parts of the organism are usually the last to
be invaded and injured. Strong tests for boric acid were found
in all parts of the plant.
Experiments with potted geraniums. This plant was ob¬
tained at the same time and place as the fuschia of the pre¬
ceding experiment. The plant had one stalk 30 cm. high and 7
mm. in diameter at the base, and carried one flower group with
blossoms and unopened buds. 100 cc. of saturated boric acid
were added to the soil in which the geranium was growing. At
the end of 3 days some of the lower leaves on the plant were
withered. These withered leaves contained only minute amounts
of the acid and the flowers and buds none at the end of 3 days.
New buds were opening continuously and except for some of the
older leaves at the base of the plant no injury was noticeable at
280 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
a time when the fuschia exposed to the same treatment was
completely dead and withered.
Experiments with Jerusalem cherry. The plants were in
pots and the total height of the stalks was 23 cms. 25 cc. of
saturated boric acid when added to the soil around the plants
caused the leaves to turn yellow after 71 hours had elapsed.
The plant had not wilted. Boron was found in abundance in all
parts of the plant. A plant treated with 25 cc. of saturated
lithium borate solution wilted completely in 52 hours but
showed no discoloration. Traces of boron were found only in
the stem. Lithium was present in every part of the plant.
Experiments with potted chrysanthemums. The total height
of the plants varied from 46 to 50 cm. Leaves began to drop
from the plant, watered with 40 cc. of saturated boric acid so¬
lution, at the end of 71 hours. Black spots appeared on some of
the leaves. Boron was found throughout the plant, most abun¬
dantly, however, in the roots. The plant treated with 25 cc. of
one-tenth molar borax solution showed some black spots on the
leaves but no wilting at the end of 95 hours. Boron was found
in very considerable amounts in all parts of the plant. 25 cc.
of saturated lithium tetraborate caused the plant to wilt
and black spots to appear in 71 hours. Both lithium and boron
were found in all parts of the plant.
Experiments with potted ornamental peppers. The plant
watered with 25 cc. saturated boric acid solution was 27 cm.
high. At the end of 77 hours the leaves had turned yellow and
wilted. Boron was found in fair amounts in all parts of the
plant, except in the upper leaves where only traces were pres¬
ent. The plant irrigated with 25 cc. of one-tenth molar borax
solution was 16 cm. high. The upper leaves were spotted with
yellow but not wilted at the end of 96 hours. Boron was present
in all parts of the plant. 25 cc. of saturated lithium tetraborate
solution caused the upper leaves of the pepper to become wilted
and spotted with yellow in 47 hours. Lithium and boron were
both distributed throughout the plant.
Experiments with potted Begonias. A plant 50 cm. high was
watered with 50 cc. of saturated boric acid solution. At the end
of 97 hours boron was detected in considerable quantity
Kahlenberg & Traxler — Permeability of Plant Membranes . 281
throughout the plant. The upper leaves were spotted with
yellow. 50 cc. of one-tenth molar borax solution caused a plant
50 cm. in height to wilt in 94 hours, but no spots appeared.
Copious amounts of boron had entered all parts of the plant.
50 cc. of saturated lithium tetraborate were added to a begonia
26 cm. in height. At the end of 94 hours the lower leaves had
died and become dry. Lithium was found throughout the plant
but no detectable amount of boron.
Experiments with potted Coleus. 25 cc. of saturated boric
acid added to a pot containing a plant 25 cm. high caused iso¬
lated leaves on the plant to wilt at the end of 77 hours. Boron
was found in detectable quantities only in the roots and there
in small amounts. A plant 35 cms. tall when treated with 25 cc.
of one-tenth molar borax caused the entire plant to droop and
leaves to fall in 71 hours. Boron was found throughout the
plant, except in the upper leaves where no detectable amount
was present. 25 cc. of saturated lithium tetraborate when added
to the soil around a Coleus 23 cm. high caused the complete col¬
lapse of the plant in 31 hours. Excellent tests for boron and
lithium were obtained from all parts of the plant.
Most of these potted plants were more rapidly injured by the
lithium tetraborate than by the boric acid or borax. The Be¬
gonia was an exception, being equally affected by all three solu¬
tions. The boric acid and borax seemed to have about the same
injurious effect on the Begonia and Coleus. On the rest of the
potted plants studied the boric acid caused more rapid injury
than the borax. The more rapid injury by the lithium borate is
probably due to the lithium. In considering these results it
should be remembered that the lithium borate solution was
much weaker than the boric acid or borax solutions.
The following experiments were performed during the period
from August 20 to September 1 on plants which were mature
and in the flowering stage. Considerable rain fell during the
time of experimentation, which since the plants were all grow¬
ing in the open field, should be taken into consideration.
Experiments on Zinnia plants in the field. 150 cc. of sat¬
urated boric acid when placed on the soil around a Zinnia 35 cm.
high penetrated every part of the plant after 7 days had elapsed.
The leaves turned slightly yellow. 150 cc. of one-tenth molar
282 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
borax solution also entered all parts of a plant 40 cm. in height
at the end of 7 days. The leaves over the entire plant turned
yellow. 150 cc. of saturated lithium tetraborate when added to
the soil around a plant 50 cm. high caused the plant to turn
yellow at the end of the 4th day. Both boron and lithium were
present in all parts of the plant.
Experiments on aster plants in the field. The plants were all
50 cm. high and each was watered with 100 cc. of solution. The
plants were diseased and thus the results are not those of normal
plants. Saturated boric acid had not killed the plant irrigated
with it at the end of 17 days. The plant watered with borax
solution withered and died at the end of 7 days. Boron was
found in all parts of the plant. Lithium tetraborate did not
injure the plant in 5 days, although both boron and lithium
were detected in all parts of the plant at the end of this period.
Experiments on dahlia plants in the field. The plants were
all 100 cm. high. 300 cc. of solution were added to the soil
around each plant. The leaves of the plant watered with sat¬
urated boric acid turned yellow at the end of 5 days, but very
little boron was detected in any part of the plant. At the end of
10 days the dahlia irrigated with borax solution showed black
spots on the leaves and detectable quantities of boron were
present in all parts of the plant. 6 days after the addition of
lithium tetraborate the plant was covered with black spots. The
upper leaves contained neither boric acid nor lithium ; the lower
leaves and stem contained lithium but no boron.
Experiments on Chingma plants in the field . This Chinese
fibre plant was grown in the fields of the Agricultural College,
University of Wisconsin. The plants were 100 cm. tall. 500 cc.
of solution was poured on the soil around each plant. Within 3
days the leaves became spotted and fell from the plant thus
watered with saturated boric acid solution. Boric acid was
found in all parts of the plant. Borax and lithium tetraborate
caused no apparent injury in 14 days. No boron or lithium
could be detected in any portion of the plants after this period
of time. This resistance that chingma offers to the entrance of
sodium and lithium borate, while allowing the free acid to enter,
is rather unique among the plants investigated.
Kahlenberg & Traxler — Permeability of Plant Membranes . 283
Experiments on ambari plants in the field . These plants were
grown in the fields of the Agricultural College, University of
Wisconsin. The plants were 100 cms. in height. Each plant was
watered with 250 cc. of solution. The leaves on the plant
watered with saturated boric acid were spotted slightly at the
end of 26 days. No other injury to the plant was noted. Boric
acid was found throughout the plant. The plants irrigated with
borax and lithium tetraborate solution showed no injury what¬
ever at the end of 30 days. No boric acid or lithium could be
detected in any part of the plants. Here again a very marked
resistance to the sodium and lithium salts of boric acid is noted,
while the free acid itself passes quite readily into the plants.
Experiments on hemp plants in the field . The hemp plants
used were part of the experimental plot grown in the fields of
the Agricultural College, University of Wisconsin. The plants
were 200 cms. high. 500 cc. of solution were placed on the soil
around each plant. Within 3 days of the addition of either boric
acid or borax solution the leaves on the hemp plants dried up
without discoloration. Boric acid was found in all parts of the
plant. The plant watered with lithium tetraborate solution was
cut down by a workman 5 days after the addition of the solu¬
tion. At this time no injury to the plant had become apparent.
The hemp shows unusual behavior in being so sensitive to boric
acid and the sodium salts, but resistant to the lithium salt. This
is the opposite of the behavior exhibited by most plants.
Experiments on corn plants in the field . The corn plants
used in these experiments were somewhat retarded by a late
and unfavorable season and thus at the time of experiment,
August 20 to September 1, the plants were just forming the ear.
(a) A hill of mature corn was irrigated with 500 cc. of po¬
tassium iodide solution, containing 16 grams of the salt. The
leaves on the entire plant were dying at end of 76 hours.
(b) A hill of mature corn was treated with 500 cc. of sat¬
urated boric acid and 500 cc. of potassium iodide containing 16
grams of the salt. In 72 hours the entire plant was withered
and dead. Very small amounts of boric acid were found in the
upper part of the plant. Large amounts of the acid were found
in the roots. The dead leaves were silvery white or grey.
284 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
(c) A corn plant 250 cm. high was watered with 500 cc. of
saturated boric acid solution. At the end of 8 days grey spots
had appeared on the leaves. A large amount of boric acid was
found in the roots but no detectable amount was present in the
upper part of the plant.
(d) 750 cc. of 5 per cent solution of borax when placed
around a corn plant 200 cm. high caused yellow spots to appear
on the leaves in 7 days. Boron was present in the roots in large
amounts, but none could be detected in the upper parts of the
plant.
(e) 200 cc. of saturated lithium tetraborate added to the soil
around a corn plant 200 cm. tall caused no injury to the plant
in 10 days. Lithium and boron were detected in the roots but
not in the upper parts of the plants.
(f) A hole was made in a perfect stalk of corn by means of
a wooden awl. The wooden awl was chosen for it allowed one
to puncture the stem without actually cutting the fibres. The
hole was 40 cms. from the ground and midway between two
nodes. A blunt glass nozzle was inserted into this hole and the
nozzle was connected by rubber tubing to a burette. A firm
joint was made at the entrance to the corn by means of bandage
gauze and chewing gum. The burette was filled with saturated
boric acid and so adjusted that the level of the liquid was 65 cm.
above the point where the solution entered the plant. 85 cc. of
the boric acid were taken up by the corn stalk in 24 hours. The
entire upper portion of the plant contained a large amount of
the acid. Only very small amounts of boric acid could be found
in the roots of the corn plant. The boric acid would go up into
the plant from its point of entrance and also down until it came
in contact with the ring or node just above the bracing roots
where it was stopped by some structure at this point in the
plant.
(g) The same experiment was performed except that the
boric acid was forced into the plant below the ring marking
the bracing roots. In this plant large amounts of the acid were
found in the roots and section of the stalk below the bracing
roots but only minute amounts were found in the upper parts
of the plant. Colin and Rufz de Lanison5 found that barium
5 Rev. Gen. Bot., 22, 337 (1910)
Kahleriberg & Traxler — Permeability of Plant Membranes . 285
nitrate does not rise past the roots in pea, corn and bean
plants, whereas strontium nitrate and calcium nitrate rise into
the stems. This is an interesting phase of the selective action
of plants which is deserving of more study.
(h) Corn stalks were carefully dug up and the soil washed
from the roots. The stem was cut off about 10 inches above the
point where the bracing roots enter the stalk. The roots were
trimmed off sufficiently to allow them to be placed in a two liter
beaker. The stalk was held in place by iron clamps. The upper
parts of the stalks were carefully hollowed out by means of a
cork borer. Distilled water was placed in the beakers. Normal
solution of potassium iodide, sucrose, ferric chloride, urea and
boric acid were each placed in a separate corn stalk thus pre¬
pared. Potassium iodide was detected by means of chlorine
water and starch paste ; ferric chloride with potassium sulpho-
cyanate ; sucrose by heating with hydrochloric acid followed by
Fehling’s solution ; urea with potassium hypobromite and boric
acid with turmeric paper. The experiments were continued for
4 days. Urea was the only substance that passed from the reser¬
voirs in the corn stalks into the water in the beakers in this
length of time. There is good reason to believe that possibly
this came from the roots of the corn and not from the solution
placed in the stems.
(i) Corn was raised during the fall of 1924 in the hot house
owned by the Agricultural College. This season of the year
was very unfavorable for the growing of corn, but plants were
obtained which grew to a height of 40 cms. in 25 days. These
young corn plants were found to be very permeable to boric
acid. The plants treated with the acid were saturated in their
growth. The leaves became dry and grey at the tips. This
appearance spread slowly and finally ended in the death of the
plant.
Experiments on sorghum plants in the hot house. Small
sorghum plants 30 to 50 cms. in height were watered with 30
cc. of saturated boric acid solution. Within 6 days the plants
began to die and boric acid was found in large amounts in the
stem and upper leaves. The death of the plants was slow and
gradual, not being complete until 30 days after the solution had
been added to the soil around the roots. During this time no
growth took place.
286 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Experiments on lupine beam in the hot home. When the
plants were 18 days old and 13 cms. high they were watered
with 30 cc. of saturated boric acid solution. The old leaves were
blackened at the edges within 6 days but the plant did not col¬
lapse until after 13 days. The plants continued to grow and
send out new leaves even while the old leaves were turning
black. The roots of the plant were badly decayed. Boric acid
was found throughout the plant except in the newly formed
leaves.
Experiments on carrots in the field. Carrots grown on re¬
claimed marsh land owned by the University of Wisconsin were
used in these experiments. The soil around each carrot was
banked up slightly so that the solution would penetrate the soil
immediately around the root. 250 cc. of solution were poured
around each plant. Care was taken that none of the solution
came in contact with the stems or leaves. The carrots were
washed thoroughly in clean water immediately after being re¬
moved from the soil. The plants were analyzed immediately.
The outer membranes of the carrots were readily permeable
to boric acid, borax, lithium nitrate, and lithium chloride.
Strong tests for these substances were found in the tops of the
carrots after 48 hours and no test in the heart of the carrot even
after 72 hours. Lithium tetraborate and lithium sulphate pene¬
trated the carrot membranes very slowly and sparingly.
Lithium tetraborate was found in small amounts in the tops of
the carrots, but only after 120 hours, although it was present
in the outer membrane of the roots after 48 hours. The carrots
were not noticeably permeable to potassium iodide, barium
chloride or strontium chloride within 5 days. Strontium was
found in spectroscopic amounts after 168 hours.
In none of the cases, even where large amounts of the sub¬
stance in solution were found in the plant, was any injury to
the carrots detected. The center or heart of the root was with¬
out exception free from any trace of the substance with which
the plant had been treated. Large amounts of the boric acid
and of the salts which entered the plants were found in the tips
of the leaves. This indicated that the substances which entered
the carrots gradually accummulated in the upper parts of their
tops.
Kahlenberg & Traxler — Permeability of Plant Membranes . 287
Experiments on red beets in the field . 400 cc. of solution
were added to the soil around each beet. The beets were prac¬
tically full grown and were located in reclaimed marsh land
owned by the University of Wisconsin. Boric acid penetrated
no further than the outer covering of the root within 72 hours.
Lithium sulphate penetrated the beet, being found in the outer
membrane and in the tops after 72 hours but not in the heart of
the beet. Potassium iodide could not be detected in any part
of the beet plant after 72 hours had elapsed.
Discussion
The most important and outstanding deduction that can be
made from these experiments is that every plant has its own
characteristic selective action toward the substances it will
allow to pass through its external membrane. There is a definite
and particular rate at which each membrane allows each per¬
meable substance to pass through it. The entire phenomenon
therefore appears to be essentially chemical in nature.
A plant shows different permeabilities to the same substance
at different stages of its development. Young corn is much more
readily penetrated by boric acid than is the mature plant. The
mature corn plant shows a peculiar behavior in not allowing
boric acid and some of its salts to pass in either direction past
the node or ring just above the bracing roots. The experiments
in this connection are unique and interesting in the implications
of their results.
A plant when permeable to a toxic substance makes every
effort to protect its fruit or seeds against the effects of the
foreign substance. There is a tendency also to protect the
younger leaves and stems. In numerous experiments on the
Japanese barberry and other plants it has been found that the
leaves will take up material which is harmful to the plant and
keep it from the fruit. The toxic substance enters the fruit only
after the neighboring leaves have been filled to their capacity.
Corn at the earing stage of its development shows this protec¬
tive action toward its seed to a very marked extent. The same
action has been noted by other investigators in the case of pea
and bean plants. The plants make every effort to protect the
future generation from the poisonous or foreign substances.
288 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters.
This behavior is common and well recognized in the animal
kingdom. It must be noted, however, that this protective action
does not always take place. The fuschia, for example, allows
boric acid to go directly to the flowers and buds, these being the
first part of the plant affected.
The exceptional resistance of chingma and ambari to boric
acid and borax and the susceptibility to the entrance of lithium
tetraborate are of especial interest.
The experimental results obtained indicate that the individual
pecularities exhibited by the various plants are dependent upon
the chemical natures of the membranes through which the sub¬
stances pass. Free diffusion or any sieve theory cannot explain
the entrance of the various substances into the different plants.
Selective action is the only explanation of the phenomenon en¬
countered, and this selective action is no doubt chemical in char¬
acter, as already stated.
Substances which are able to dissolve in the membrane ma¬
terial, that is enter into some sort of chemical combination with
the constituents of the membrane and then leave the membrane,
because of a greater attraction exerted by the substances on the
inner side of the membrane are the ones which will penetrate
into the organism. Consequently the chemical nature of the so¬
lution, both solvent and solute, of the membrane and of the
material within the membrane determines whether substances
will pass through the membrane or not. The selective permea¬
bility of various plants to the same solution is thus determined
(1) by the specific chemical nature of the membrane, and (2)
by that of the tissue beneath the membrane.
Summary
1. Experiments performed on Japanese barberry showed the
stems, bark and berries of this plant to be permeable to boric
acid, borax and lithium tetraborate solution. The foreign sub¬
stances were found in the leaves before any could be detected
in the adjacent berries.
2. Potted fuschias were found to be very permeable to boric
acid. The flowers and buds of the plant were the first to be
affected which was found to be a behavior not in harmony with
experiments on other plants.
Kohlenberg & Traxler — Permeability of Plant Membranes . 289
3. Potted geraniums were much more resistant to boric acid
than the fuschias. The flowers and buds of the geraniums were
apparently not affected by the solution, although old leaves died
and wilted.
4. Jerusalem cherries, chrysanthemums, ornamental peppers,
Begonias and Coleus growing in pots were watered with sat¬
urated boric acid, lithium tetraborate and one-tenth borax solu¬
tion. The Begonia plants were affected to about the same de¬
gree by all three solutions. The Coleus was injured to the same
extent by the boric acid and the borax solution. Most of the
plants were most rapidly injured by the lithium tetraborate.
The boric acid entered all the plants more rapidly and copiously
than did the borax, with the exceptions noted above.
5. Experiments were performed in the field on Zinnia, aster,
dahlia, chingma, ambari, and hemp plants. The hemp plants
were very readily penetrated by boric acid and borax solutions,
but very slowly by lithium tetraborate. Zinnia, aster and dahlia
were affected by boric acid, borax and lithium tetraborate to
about the same extent. The minor differences in effects are
given in detail. Ambaric and chingma were slowly permeable
to boric acid but impermeable to borax and lithium borate in
30 days.
6. Corn was killed by potassium iodide and injured by boric
acid, borax and lithium tetraborate. Unique experiments were
performed which showed that boric acid would pass in only
minute amounts through the node or ring just above the roots
of a mature corn plant. This phenomenon has been observed in
other plants by other investigators. Young, hot house grown
corn plants were very permeable to and easily killed by boric
acid solution.
7. Corn roots and a short section of the stalks, which were
hollowed out to form reservoirs, were used as membranes to
separate solutions of potassium iodide, sucrose, ferric chloride,
urea and boric acid from pure water. Urea was the only sub¬
stance found in the water after four days. This may have come
from the plant and not from the solution contained in the hol¬
low stalk.
8. Experiments on hot house grown sorghum plants showed
that they were permeated and gradually killed by boric acid
solution.
290 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
9. Lupine beans grown in the hot house were eventually
killed by boric acid. While the older parts of the plant were
dying new leaves and stems contained no boric acid.
10. Carrots growing in the field were found to be readily
permeable to boric acid, borax, lithium nitrate and lithium
chloride. These substances were found in large amounts in the
tops of the plants. Lithium sulphate and lithium tetraborate
entered the plant slowly. Potassium iodide, barium chloride and
strontium chloride either entered very slowly or not at all. Even
when substances entered the carrots in copious amounts no
injury to the plants could be detected in this case.
11. Red beets were permeable to boric acid and lithium sul¬
phate and not permeable to potassium iodide.
THE DETERMINATION OF CALCIUM IN LAKE WATER
AND LAKE WATER RESIDUES
V. W. Meloche and T. Setterquist
Chemical Laboratory , University of Wisconsin
In the chemical study of the water from Wisconsin Lakes,
conducted for the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History
Survey as a part of a general study supervised by Professor
E. A. Birge and Professor C. Juday, it has been necessary to
develop micro methods of analysis which would be applicable
to the examination of soft waters, since the concentration of
dissolved solids in the waters of some of these lakes is very low.
Upon examination of the literature on the determination of
calcium, the McCrudden1 method was chosen as one most nearly
satisfying the conditions encountered in our lake water analysis.
It is proposed here to outline a modified procedure used in our
laboratory, give some of the results obtained in the analysis of
various samples, and mention parts of the procedure in which
special care must be used if one is to obtain satisfactory results.
Procedure
Samples of lake water residues are prepared by low tempera¬
ture evaporation, 60 °C, of two to four liters of water. While
the early part of the evaporation is conducted in eleven inch
evaporating dishes, the final evaporation is made in a four inch
dish. The transfer is made when the original volume of the
water has been reduced to about one hundred cubic centimeters.
When the water has been completely removed, the residue is
promptly removed from the dish by means of a steel spatula,
transferred to a platinum crucible of two cubic centimeters ca¬
pacity and after standing in a calcium chloride desiccator for
some time is weighed. The record of the residue is always kept
in terms of milligrams per liter. Since it is usually necessary to
store the sample for some time and the residue is hygroscopic,
it is always dried in a Fischer Pistol* * before analysis.
1 McCrudden, P. C., J. Biol. Chem. 7 : 83 (1909); 7 : 201 (1909); 10 : 187
(1911).
*A low temperature 60 °C vacuum desiccator.
292 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
A sample of 1-10 mg. is weighed on a micro watch glass or
from a micro weighing bottle, depending on whether or not the
sample is hygroscopic and is transferred to a 15 cc. centrifuge
tube. The sample is moistened with one drop of water and dis¬
solved by the addition of five cubic centimeters of a 5 % solution
of HC1. Upon solution one drop of brom cresol purple is added
and the excess of acid just neutralized with dilute ammonia
(1-1). The solution is then made just acid by the addition of
5% hydrochloric acid solution. One drop of acid is added in
excess and the solution is ready for the precipitation of the cal¬
cium oxalate. Two cubic centimeters of a 4% ammonium oxa¬
late solution are added and the solution is allowed to stand 10
minutes. The solution is finally made alkaline by adding a 25%
solution of sodium acetate (1-2 cc.) and allowed to stand ten
minutes. The tubes are placed in the centrifuge and the machine
operated at high speed (about 3000 r. p. m.) for five minutes.2
The supernatant liquid is carefully separated from the precipi¬
tate by decantation, the tube is inverted over a filter paper and
allowed to drain three or four minutes in order to increase the
effectiveness of washing. The inside of the tube is carefully
wiped dry by means of a clean towel, using a small glass rod to
rotate the towel. At this point one must be careful not to dis¬
lodge precipitate. The sides of the tube are then washed with
not more than 5 cc. of a solution containing 2% ammonia and
the tube centrifuged again for three minutes. The excess liquid
is separated from the precipitate by decantation and the tube
inverted over a filter paper and allowed to drain. The walls of
the tube are carefully dried with a clean towel and the precipi¬
tate is ready for solution and titration.
Five cubic centimeters of approximately N sulfuric acid are
added and the precipitate is dislodged by means of small glass
rod. The solution is transferred to a 50 cc. beaker and after
heating in a water bath to about 90 °C is titrated with .01 N
potassium permanganate solution.
2 The above procedure describes definite time intervals for the operation of the
centrifuge. In order to separate a precipitate successfully by means of the cen¬
trifuge, the tube should have a sharp tip and smooth clean sides. After centrifug¬
ing the solution the precipitate should be a compact mass in the bottom of the
tube, no precipitate remaining on the walls of the tube or in the meniscus of the
solution. It should be possible to decant the supernatant liquid without disturbing
the precipitate. If this is not possible it is necessary to operate the centrifuge
for a longer period of time or at higher speed.
Meloche & Setter quist — Determination of Calcium in Lakes . 293
Solutions
0.1% solution of brom cresol purple3
5% solution of hydrochloric acid
25% solution of sodium acetate
2% ammonia solution
4% solution of ammonium oxalate
solution of approximately 1 N sulfuric acid
0.01 N potassium permanganate solution
Results
The procedure described has been used in this laboratory
for nearly three years. It has also been used successfully in the
field laboratory at Trout Lake. The results expressed in Table I
give some idea of the precision one may expect when this
method is used.
Table I
The analysis of a standard solution of calcium chloride
In examining these data it should be remembered that the
titration was made with a micro buret using 0.01 N potassium
permanganate as the titrating agent. One can read the usual
micro buret with a precision of .01 cc. However, one drop has
a volume of about .03 cc. and this would be equivalent to .003
mg. of calcium. One may therefore reasonably expect a possible
error in titration of .010 mg. of calcium.
8 The color change of this indicator is from yellow at pH 5.2 to purple at pH 6.8.
294 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Since relatively small amounts of iron, alumina, phosphorus,
and manganese are present in our lake waters and residues it
would seem unnecessary to consider the effect of these contami¬
nants on the proposed method for the determination of calcium.
However, iron in the form of ferric sulfate was added to the
standard calcium chloride solution in proportions as high as
0.2 mg. iron to 0.25 mg. Ca without appreciably interfering
with the determination of calcium.
The standard calcium chloride solution represents in part the
situation one would face in the direct analysis of water. One
limitation exists and that is the ability to measure accurate
aliquots of the standard solution. In the direct analysis of
natural water samples this complication completely disappears
since the water samples are more dilute. In order to apply the
procedure to the analysis of a standard residue, we selected a
dolomitic limestone, Bureau of Standards sample number 88.
Table II contains characteristic results.
Table II
Analysis of Bureau of Standards Sample No. 88 Theoretical — -30.50%
In the analysis of the Bureau of Standards sample more
consistent results were obtained when the calcium oxalate was
reprecipitated. The magnesium content of this sample was
21.5% (MgO). Reprecipitation of the calcium oxalate has not
been found necessary in the analysis of the northern lake waters
and their residues. Although some irregular results were ob¬
tained when small samples were used, it has been our experience
that in the analysis of relatively hard waters the small sample
gives more consistent results, e. g., in the above sample 1 to
5 mg. is preferred.
Table III illustrates the direct application of the method to
hard water.
Meloche & Setter quist — Determination of Calcium in Lakes. 295
Table III
Average Ca ppm 32.66 (macro)
The results given in Tables IV and V show the agreement
obtained by the application of the procedure to lake water
samples and residues.
Table IV
Analysis of Water Samples
In using 100 cc. samples, evaporation was made in small por¬
celain evaporating dishes having a capacity of 25 cc. The
evaporation was continued until the bulk of the sample was
reduced to about 5 cc. and the sample was then transferred to a
centrifuge tube and the procedure used as described. It is neces¬
sary to use hydrochloric acid in order to transfer the concentrat¬
ed solution completely from the evaporating dish to the centri¬
fuge tube since a slight residue is usually formed during
evaporation.
296 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
An examination of the results expressed in the tables clearly
indicates that the factor used to convert milligrams of calcium
to parts per million is small for the large sample and large for
the small sample. Errors in the determination of calcium in
small aliquots of water are correspondingly magnified in the
conversion from mg.Ca . to p.p.m.
Table V
Analysis of Lake Wate7 - Residues
In many instances in the study of Wisconsin lake waters, it
has been convenient to evaporate known quantities of water ac¬
cording to the procedure already given and save the weighed
residues for later examination. Since a considerable quantity of
organic matter is sometimes present, it is desirable to weigh the
sample for the determination of calcium in a small platinum
dish and carefully ignite the sample for one minute before
transferring to the centrifuge tube.
Judging from our experiences during the last three years, we
believe the procedure described to be applicable to the determi¬
nation of calcium in lake waters and their residues. The method
is particularly convenient and rapid for the study of calcium
variations in soft waters. In his work on calcium, Shohl4 has
emphasized the fact that the separation of pure calcium oxalate
depends largely on a careful adjustment of hydrogen ion con¬
centration. Each new type of sample must be carefully studied
before the method can be successfully applied.
The waters which we have examined have varied in hardness
and organic content and in general had a low concentration of
iron and phosphorus. Under these conditions when the pro¬
cedure is carefully followed, a reasonably accurate result will
be obtained.
* Shohl, J. Biol. Chem., 50 : 527, (1922)
SHAFTESBURY AND THE DOCTRINE OF OPTIMISM
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
William E. Alderman
It would indeed have been strange had not Shaftesbury's
theories of universal harmony, both physical and moral, led him
to his theory of optimism. In this he was running counter to
the orthodoxy which taught that this world was a corrupt place
and gave promise of a more salutary habitation in the here¬
after. “What therefore can be worse done in the cause of a
Deity than to magnify disorder, and exaggerate (as some zeal¬
ous people do) the misfortunes of virtue, so far as to render it
an unhappy choice with respect to this world. They err widely
who propose to turn men to the thoughts of a better world by
making them think less of this.”1
If it is admitted that there is a system of all things and a
universal nature, it follows that “there can be no particular
being or system which is not either good or ill in that general
one of the universe.”2 If any particular part is really ill, the
whole is ill and imperfect. When, however, an apparent ill is
for the good of the whole, the ill is not a real one in itself. If
there were such a thing as ill in the universe, it must have come
by knowledge (design) or chance. To admit the former would
be to make the designing principle corrupt; to grant the latter
would be to ascribe to it impotency or ill-will. Both of these
were repulsive to the “perfect Theist,” who stoutly preached
that “everything is governed, ordered, or regulated for the
best, by a designing principle or mind, necessarily good and
permanent.”3 If “the whole itself is thought to want perfec¬
tion, and to be only a vast and infinite deformity,” then would
a person be little disposed to love any particular subordinate
beauty.4
But there are no blemishes in Nature. “’Tis good which is
predominant.”5 It is impossible “that Heaven should have acted
1 The Moralists, Pt. II, sect. iii.
2 Inquiry concerning Virtue, Bk. I, Pt. II, sect. i.
3 Inquiry concerning Virtue, Bk. I, Pt. I, sect. ii.
4 Inquiry concerning Virtue, Bk. I, Pt. Ill, sect. ii.
5 The Moralists, Pt. I, sect. iii.
298 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
otherwise than for the best.” Nature has suited form, shape,
and even affections to each other: “All managed for the best,
with perfect frugality and just reserve; profuse to none, but
bountiful to all.”6 “Whatever the order of the world produces is
in the main both just and good.”7
The optimist was not blind to the fact that there was suffer¬
ing and hardship in the world any more than was the cynical
Mandeville or the sensible Dr. Johnson. Looking at the totality
of things, however, he came to the same conclusion time and
time again. “But I deny she (Nature) errs: and when she
seems most ignorant or perverse in her productions, I assert her
even then as wise and provident as in her goodliest works.”8
Cold, inquiring Philocles soon comes to see that “there may be
no real ill in things, but all may be perfectly concurrent to one
interest, the interest of that universal One.”9
The apparent ill is so only because of our limited insights.
“For nothing beside what is infinite can see infinite concep¬
tions.”10 More elaborately stated we have elsewhere the same
explanation that “in an infinity of things thus relative, a mind
which sees not infinitely can see nothing fully ; and since each
particular has relation to all in general, it can know no perfect
or true relation of any thing in a world not perfectly and fully
known.”* 11 Thus the optimistic conclusion is not invalidated.
Count upon it, the ill is actually excluded. The “jarring motions
of intelligent beings” are made to “contribute to the good and
perfection of the universe.”12 Everything is for “the good of all
in general ; and what is for the good of all in general is just
and good.”13
That there was herein any clash between the optimist and the
moralist seems not to have occurred in any disconcerting way to
Shaftesbury or his followers. At any rate, the Third Earl would
have been the last person to have remained supinely silent and
inactive in the face of discord and spiritual imperfection. His
theistic tenets would not allow him to escape from optimism on
6 The Moralists, Pt. II, sect. iv.
7 Inquiry concerning Virtue, Bk. I, Pt. Ill, sect. iii.
8 The Moralists, Pt. I, sect. iii.
9 The Moralists, Pt. Ill, sect. i.
10 The Moralists, Pt. Ill, sect. i.
11 The Moralists, Pt. II, sect. iv.
12 The Moralists, Pt. Ill, sect. L
13 Ibid.
Alderman — Shaftesbury and the Doctrine of Optimism . 299
the one hand, and drove him to seek harmony on the other.
Strangely enough the contradiction was so little felt that opti¬
mistic beliefs took vigorous root in the English mind and flour¬
ished across the channel.
The mention of the continent recalls such figures as Leibnitz
and Voltaire, so prominent in the history of speculation, and
these in turn require certain explanations to set them in their
proper relation to Shaftesbury and to the optimistic philosophy
which they shared with him. Warton points out that the doc¬
trine was originally inculcated “by Plato and the Stoics, but
more amply and particularly by the later Platonists, and by
Antoninus and Simplicius.”14 That Liebnitz was not a pioneer
in the field is evident from the fact that his Theodicee did not
appear until the year following the publication of The Moralists ,
and from his remark that he found the greater part of Shaftes¬
bury’s philosophy in his own written, but unpublished treatise.
The remark of Warton that Pope owed a debt to Leibnitz,15 is
discounted by the fact that Pope denied having ever read a
single line of the Theodicee ,16 by the statement of Warburton to
the effect that those passages in the Essay on Man that resem¬
bled Leibnitz came from Shaftesbury,17 and by the slighting
remarks directed against the foreign philosopher by Boling-
broke in a letter to Pope.18 Voltaire knew the writings of Pope
and Shaftesbury intimately, and made the former dependent
upon the latter.19 Early in his life he adopted the optimistic
philosophy wholeheartedly. Later, when he had had a change of
heart, it was only his Pangloss, tutor to Candide, who insisted
that “all is for the best in this best possible of worlds.” Voltaire
continued to point out, however, that it was Shaftesbury who
brought optimism into fashion.20
14 Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, London, 1806. Vol. II, p. 58.
15 Ibid. See Did Leibnitz Influence Pope’s Essay by Moore, Journal of English
and Germanic Philology, Vol. XVI, pp. 84-102.
16 Letter to Warburton, Feb. 2, 1739.
17 Warburton, in a letter to Dr. Birch, said : “As to the passages of Mr. Pope
that correspond with Leibnitz, you know he took them from Shaftesbury”.
18 Letter to Mr. Pope in volume with Letter to Wyndham, 1753, p. 476.
is “L’Essai sur l’Homme de Pope me parait le plus beau poeme didactique, le
plus utile, le plus sublime qu’on ait jamais fait dans acune langue. II est vrai
que le fond s’en trouve tout entier dans les CharactSristiques du lord Shaftesbury ;
et je ne sais pourquoi M. Pope en fait uniquement honneur & M. de Bolingbroke,
sans dire un mot du c£l§bre Shaftesbury, §l§ve de Locke.” Lettres sur Anglais.
20 “Those who exclaim that all is good are charlatans. Shaftesbury, who brought
the fable into fashion, was a very unhappy man. I have seen Bolingbroke
300 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
It is not to be understood that the doctrine of “Whatever is,
is right” made headway without opposition. On the one hand
it seemed to engender a supine complacency and a contentment
with things as they were ; and on the other to be a flat denial of
disease, poverty, and those kindred miseries that constantly
harassed mankind. Although to conceive it thus was to mis¬
represent it,21 and although the optimists were also the most
ardent of the benevolists, yet the theory had its detractors
among those devoted to common-sense and reason. Dr. Johnson
concludes some remarks on the necessity of patience with these
words : “A settled conviction of the tendency of everything to
our good, and of the possibility of turning miseries into happi¬
ness, by receiving them rightly, will incline us to bless the name
of the Lord, whether he gives or takes away.”22 But the melan¬
choly, disappointment, gloom, and suffering of the world are to
him so actual and ubiquitous that he inclines not at all to the
more cheerful philosophy of life. The relatively conservative
opposition of such men as Johnson and Swift supposedly gave
courage to orthodoxy; whereas the more radical distrust of
Mandeville bred a dangerous distrust in the order of the moral
world and, consequently, in a designer back of it all. Some used
Shaftesbury’s own weapon, raillery, in attempting to give the
theory its quietus, and others attempted a reductio ad absurdum.
Sly thrusts at the doctrine in the most unexpected places give
proof of its popularity. It will be remembered that Jolter, hear¬
ing of Peregrine Pickle’s love for Emily and his conduct at
Windsor, rode to him and attempted, by a mathematical demon¬
stration, to convince him of the error of his ways. After Per-
grine had listened to his teacher for some time, he “could
contain himself no longer, but interrupted the investigation
with a loud laugh and told him, that his postulata put him in
mind of a certain learned and ingenious gentleman, who under¬
took to disprove the existence of natural evil, and asked no
devoured with chagrin and rage, and Pope, whom he induced to put the mockery
into verse, was as much to be pitied as any man I have every known — deformed
in body, unequal in temper, always ill, a burthen to himself, and harrassed by a
hundred enemies in his dying hour.” Cited from OEuvres, tom, xlvii, p. 98, by
Elwin, Works of Pope, Vol. II, p. 299.
21 For an interpretation of the doctrine of the philosophical optimists of the
eighteenth century see Arthur O. Lovejoy, Optimism and Romanticism, P. M. L. A.
Vol. XLII, pp. 921-945.
22 Rambler, 32, July 7, 1750.
Alder man-— Shaf tesbury and the Doctrine of Optimism. 301
other datum on which to found his demonstration, but an ac¬
knowledgement that everything that is is right.”2* At the very
end of the century the Anti-Jacobin makes grim sport of those
votaries of sensibility who could look upon all horrors of the
revolution— Cities drenched in blood, foul crimes that blot the
age, subverted altars and thrones, and all the rage of madness—
“and hope, that all is for the best.”24
That stagnant contentment which some feared would be the
result of applied optimism appears but rarely in the literature
of the century. John Byrom’s happy workman, in Contentment,
however, is just such a self-satisfied product. He lives in a cot¬
tage, works all day, is not troubled with politics, envies the rich
not at all, and concludes :
“In short, my condition, whatever it be,
Tis God that appoints it, as far as I see,
And I’m sure I can never do better than He.”
But the state of mind of this happy-go-lucky artisan is the re¬
sult of a lackadaisical trust, spiritually soporific, rather than of
an impelling belief in the ultimate justice of all that transpires.
What, on the surface of things, may appear to be but a half¬
hearted acceptance of the hopeful views of Shaftesbury and
Pope is that of Brooke in Universal Beauty. Although he ac¬
cepts the theory of Universal Harmony, he denies the goodness
of man.
Ay, there’s the task, the labour of our song —
To prove that all is right, though man be wrong.25
The disagreement is apparent, however, rather than real. All
is right despite the fact that man is wrong. But it is civilized
man who is wrong, not natural man. A return to simpler ways
of living, a closer conformity to the original order of things,
would restore original goodness; and this, it will be remem¬
bered, is in accord with deistic philosophy. It is hard for us to
refrain from being captious in the face of seeming contradic¬
tion between the optimist and the moralist. This, however, is
because we apply too meticulously and too immediately a theory
whose truth depends upon a more universal application. Neither
23 Smollett, Peregrine Pickle, Ch. XXIV.
z*Neio Morality in Anti Jacobin XXXVI, July 9, 1798.
26 Bk. Ill, 11. 90-91.
302 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
Shaftesbury nor any of his followers was so purblind as to fail
to see the existence of personal and social blemishes, nor so be¬
sotted as to deny the need and means of remedy.
The optimist is ready with an answer to the scoffer who in¬
sists that all is not right because there is in evidence so much
that is wrong.
Let no presuming impious railer tax
Creative Wisdom, as if aught was formed
In vain, or not for admirable ends—
Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?
As if upon a full proportioned dome,
On swelling columns heaved, the pride of art,
A critic fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole.26
So speaks Thomson to those who are bold to criticize, and Aken-
side is one with him in spirit. Mortal man, says he, has not
sufficient insight to warrant his aspiring to judge “the Lord of
Nature and his works, or to lift his voice against anything that
the All-wise one has decreed to be good and lovely.27 As Pope
sees it,28 only the one who is capable of infinite perception can
M Summer, 11. 318-328.
2T Thou, alas !
Dost thou aspire to judge between the Lord
Of Nature and his works? to lift thy voice
Against the sovereign order he decreed.
All good and lovely? to blaspheme the bonds
Of tenderness innate, and social love,
Holiest of things ! by which the general orb
Of being, as by adamantine links,
Was drawn to perfect union, and sustained
From everlasting?
Pleasures of the Imagination , Bk. II, 11. 245-254.
28 The purposes of this article do not necessitate an elaboration or defense of
the statement, often repeated, that Pope owed a verbal and intellectual debt to
Shaftesbury. Herder says that "ohne die Moralisten haette Pope die besten Verse
seines Essay on Man schwerlich geschrieben” (See Vater, Pope und Shaftesbury,
Halle, 1897, p. 22). See footnote 19 supra for one of Voltaire’s many references.
Parallels between Shaftesbury’s Characteristics and Pope’s Essay on Man can
easily be found. The following short list of references will suffice here. Robert¬
son’s edition of Characteristics, London, 1900, Vol. I, pp. xxv-xxvi ; Fowler,
Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, New York, 1883, p. 152 ; Warton Essay on the
Genius and Writings of Pope, London, 1806, Vol. II, pp. 91-94 ; Pattison, Essay on
Man, p. 9 et seq.; Elwin, Works of Pope, Vol. II, p. 37 ; Lyons, Shaftesbury’s
Ethical Principles of Adaptation to Universal Harmony, New York, 1909, p. 23-25.
A Herman — Shaft es bury and the Doctrine of Optimism. 303
see and explain all things.29 Heaven hides from us all that is
written in the book of fate and reveals it only in the ever re¬
curring present.30 Not until the dull ox comes to know just why
he is what he is, will man comprehend all the mysteries of his
life. In other words, finite man will never possess omniscience ;
but this does not render him imperfect, for he is as perfect as
he needs to be for his present state and place.31 What, therefore,
appears to be physical or moral ill may not be so at all. Indeed
God does not send ill at all ; partial ill, if rightly understood, is
universal good.32
With this steadying philosophy, Mallet, in The Excursion
(1728), could look upon the inexplicable phenomena of nature
with a firm faith that they were for the best. Reason is subdued
and confused in the face of a city swallowed up by an earth¬
quake,33 and the accompanying sacrifice of the guilty and the
29 He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose the universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What vary’d being peoples every star,
May tell why heav’n has made us as we are.
Essay on Man, Ep. I. 11. 23-28.
39 Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib’d their present state.
Essay on Man, Ep. I, 11. 76-77.
81 When the proud steed shall know why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o’er the plains ;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now AEgypt’s god :
Then shall man’s pride and dullness comprehend
His actions', passions’, being’s, use and end ;
Why doing, suff’ring check’d, impell’d ; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.
Then say not man's imperfect, heav’n in fault ;
Say, rather, man’s as perfect as he ought :
His knowledge measur’d to his state and place ;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
Essay on Man, Ep. I, 11. 61-72.
82 What makes all physical or moral ill?
There deviates nature, and here wanders will.
God sends not ill ; if rightly understood,
Or partial ill is universal good.
Essay on Man, Ep. IV, 11. 111-114.
83 The reaction of the disillusioned Voltaire after the Lisbon disaster is interest¬
ing by way of contrast. See The Lisbon Earthquake, especially pp. 8-10, 14,
Works of Voltaire, Du Mont edition, 1901, Vol. X, pt. 2.
Horrors on horrors, griefs on griefs, must show,
That man’s the victim of unceasing woe,
And lamentations which inspire my strain,
Prove that philosophy is false and vain.
304 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
just alike, and yet it acknowledges the divine will to be “un¬
erring, wisest, justest, best!”34 Having described morning,
noon, and night, a thunderstorm, the northland and the south¬
land, the deserts of Tartary and an Italian city destroyed by the
unresistable forces of nature, he concludes Canto I with these
lines :
Thus roaming with adventurous wing the globe,
From scene to scene excursive, I behold
In all her workings, beauteous, great, or new,
Fair Nature, and in all with wonder trace
The sovereign Maker, first, supreme, and best,
Who actuates the whole; a,t whose command,
Obedient fire and flood tremendous rise,
His ministers of vengeance, to reprove,
And scourge the nations. Holy are his ways,
His works unnumber’d, and to all proclaim
Unfathom’d wisdom, goodness unconfin’d.
To the true optimist the partial ills are but a means to an
end — the general good. The individual dissonances unite with
other dissonances and harmonies to make a symphonic whole.
This point of view finds elaborate support. To Thomson, all in
the moral world is fitted and impelled by the hand of wisdom
and issues “in general good.”35 To Akenside, even the “dates of
being,” “the field of motion,” and “the hour of rest” are so fixed
All’s right, you answer, the eternal cause
Rules not by partial but by general laws.
Say what advantage can result to all,
From wretched Lisbon’s lamentable fall?
* * * * * *
Oh worthless bliss! In injured reason’s sight,
With faltering voice you cry, “What is, is right”?
The universe confutes your boasting vain,
Your heart retracts the error you maintain,
Men, beasts, and elements know no repose
From dire contention ; earth’s the seat of woes :
We strive in vain its secret source to find.
34 How greatly terrible, how dark and deep
The purposes of Heaven ! At once o’erthrown,
White age and youth, the guilty and the just,
O, seemingly severe, promiscuous fall.
Reason, whose daring eye alone explores
The fearful providence, confus’d, subdued
To silence and amazement, with due praise
Acknowledges th’ Almighty, and adores
His will unerring, wisest, justest, best !
The Excursion, Canto I.
88 Winter, 11. 583-587.
Alderman — Shaftesbury and the Doctrine of Optimism . 305
as to further the “universal good.”36 Pope, likewise, has all
tending toward one end,37 and the impartial man of Melmoth,
in Of Active and Retired Life (1735) ,
“Sees different turns to gen’ral good conspire.”
Thus are we constantly led back to that conclusion, aphoris¬
tically put by Pope and closely echoed by others,38 to the effect
that “Whatever is, is right.”39 Both the way of reasoning and
the manner of phrasing are so similar to the logic and wording
of Shaftesbury that he who runs may read.40 A passage quoted
above from The Moralists forcefully recalls the resemblances
and, therefore, furnishes a fitting close. Everything is for “the
good of all in general ; and what is for the good of all in general
is just and good.”
Beloit College
86 Pleasures of the Imagination , Bk. II, 11. 304-343.
87 Essay on Man, Ep. Ill, 11. 1-2.
38 O let thy soul
Remember, what the will of Heaven ordains
Is ever good for all ; and if for all,
Then good for thee.
Pleasures of the Imagination , Bk. II, 11. 548-551.
39 All nature is but art, unknown to thee ;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see ;
All discord, harmony, not understood ;
All partial evil, universal good.
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, ‘Whatever is, is right’.
Essay on Man, Ep. I, 11. 289—294.
The very best will variously incline,
And what rewards your virtue, punish mine.
Whatever is, is right.
Essay on Man, Ep. IV, 11. 143—145.
Show’d erring pride, whatever is, is right.
Essay on Man, Ep. IV, 11. 394.
40 The reader who cares to look further into the general influence of Shaftes¬
bury on the thought of his century is referred to the following : Shaftesbury and
the Ethical Poets , by C. A. Moore, P. M. L. A., Vol. XXXI, pp. 264—325 ; and
these articles by the present writer : The Significance of Shaftesbury in English
Speculation, P. M. L. A., Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 175-195 ; The Style of Shaftesbury,
M. L. N., Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 209-215 ; Bibliographical Evidence of the Vogue of
Shaftesbury in the Eighteenth Century, Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy
of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, Vol. XXI, pp. 57—70 ; Shaftesbury and the Doctrine
of Benevolence in the Eighteenth Century, Transactions of the Wisconsin Acad¬
emy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, Vol. XXVI, pp. 137—159 ; Shaftesbury and the
Doctrine of Moral Sense in the Eighteenth Century, P. M. L. A., Vol. XLVI,
pp. 1087-1094.
THOMAS PAINE’S THEORIES OF RHETORIC
Harry Hayden Clark
Thomas Paine has long been recognized as foremost among
those who brought the rationalism of the eighteenth century
home to the plain people and, in revolting against throne and
altar, encouraged them to strive for democracy and the religion
of humanity. If authorities on the history of political theory
are agreed that in spite of his vast influence “Paine cannot be
classed as a great political thinker” since “his theories of the
state of nature, the rights of man, the social contract, repre¬
sentative government — -in fact, all the great features of his
system [ — ] had been marked out before and better by others,”
if the “source of his power is found in his rare faculty for popu¬
lar statement,” if “few political writers have had a more perfect
mastery of the art of popular persuasion,”1 it should be of inter¬
est to ascertain as far as possible the literary theories which
helped to make the great republican the “prince of pamphle¬
teers.”2 Of course, being neither a literary critic nor an
aesthete, being concerned not with “pure” but with “applied”
literature, Paine had relatively little to say regarding abstract
literary theories. Nevertheless, if the criterion of the success
of applied literature is its acceptance by those in whose cause it
is applied, the fact that the demand for Common Sense and the
Rights of Man ran to half a million copies of each3 suggests
that, the same ideas being available in other forms, their style
embodied a congruency to the human mind and heart which is
after all the badge of a valid literary theory and which gives
what Paine does have to say of his literary theory a rather
unusual claim to our attention.
1 C. E. Merriam, “The Political Theories of Thomas Paine,” Political Science
Quarterly, XIV, 402. See also C. B. R. Kent, English Radicals, London, 1899, 115.
As regards The Age of Reason, I. W. Riley concludes, “there is not an idea in it
which cannot be matched in the writings of the English free-thinkers of the
Georgian era.” ( American Philosophy. The Early Schools, New York, 1907, 299).
2 The Cambridge History of English Literature, XI, 53.
8 M. D. Conway, The Life of Thomas Paine, New York, 1892, I, 69, and The
Writings of Thomas Paine (hereafter referred to as Writings) , edited by Conway,
New York, 1894-96, III, 382.
308 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
I
Before coming directly to a consideration of this theory, how¬
ever, it may be well to remind ourselves that the contemporary
effectiveness of Paine’s work was due in part to other factors
than the intrinsic merit of its style. Applied writing depends
in no small measure for its success upon the condition of the
point of application, and probably at no time in history had
economic distress and political inefficiency done so much to
make acceptable Paine’s mordant criticism of monarchy and
his ardent advocacy of humanitarian reform.4 He himself re¬
marks in Common Sense, which is often credited with having
single-handed caused a somersault in opinion as to the Ameri¬
can Revolution, that he found “the disposition of the people
such, that they might have been led by a thread and governed
by a reed,”5 a situation which does not suggest the need of any
very violent power to overcome inertia. And it has been plaus¬
ibly argued that Paine was not so much the creator as the
voice of popular opinion,6 moulded by an infinite variety of
other factors. In England “the chief activities [of the Society
for Constitutional Information] were confined to spreading the
writings of Thomas Paine in cheap editions, printing ‘Proclam¬
ations’ and letters advocating their principles, and attempting
to cooperate in these measures with various similar organiza¬
tions.”7 Unfortunately, all writers cannot rely upon such an
organization for distributing their work !
Furthermore, Paine’s literary effectiveness may depend upon
intangible factors, in part, integral with his general outlook and
character. “What I write,” he said, “is pure nature, and my
4 See W. P. Hall, British Radicalism, 1791-97, New York, 1912, especially the
earlier part.
6 Writings, I, 275.
9 R. G. Adams, Political Ideas of the American Revolution, Durham, North Car¬
olina, 1922, p. 112, and Sir George O. Trevelyan, The American Revolution, Lon¬
don, 1903, I, 162. One should remember that Paine was only one of a vast number
of propagandists. See P. Q. Davidson, Jr., “Revolutionary Propaganda in New
England, New York, and Pennsylvania, 1763-76.” University of Chicago Abstracts
of Theses, Humanistic Series, VII, pp. 239-42.
7 The Life of Thomas Holcroft, (ed. by Colby), London, 1925, II, 34. According
to C. B. R. Kent ( The English Radicals, p. Ill), “In the end it [the second part
of the Rights of Man ] was adopted by the Constitutional Society as a kind of
democratic Magna Charta, and sent by them to all the Corresponding Societies in
England, France, and Scotland.” See also Julius West, A History of the Chartist
Movement, London, 1920, p. 22.
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine.
309
pen and my soul have ever gone together.”8 It is probably true,
as I hope to demonstrate in detail elsewhere, that Paine wrote
in the light of an all-embracing central principle, essentially
religious,9 and such a principle, regardless of its intrinsic va¬
lidity, helps to give a man’s writing focus and unity and driving
power, as well as the sort of effectiveness which comes from
hitting the reader repeatedly on the same nerve. No doubt
Paine’s devotion to geometry and to scientific methods essen¬
tially deductive tended to give his work syllogistic convincing¬
ness and the air of dogmatic assurance which springs from the
absence of a tedious inductive approach and a distracting re¬
gard for qualifications and exceptions. His general programme
of returning to the simplicity of nature and his ostensible con¬
tempt for book-learning as opposed to the universal and suffi¬
cient light of nature10 tended, furthermore, to free his style
from pedantic literary allusions which so often clogged earlier
American style, as for example that of Cotton Mather’s Mag-
nalia. If the rank and file of robust men are attracted by a good
fight, Paine handled words as the pugilist handles his gloves;
he delights in verbal knock-outs. Witness the way in which this
so-called Quaker apostle of humanitarian brotherhood salutes
an opponent: “Remember thou hast thrown me the glove,
Cato, and either thee or I must tire. I fear not the field of fair
debate, but thou hast stepped aside and made it personal. Thou
hast tauntingly called on me by name; and if I cease to hunt
thee from every lane and lurking hole of mischief, and bring
thee not a trembling culprit before the public bar, then brand
me with reproach, by naming me in the list of your confed¬
erates.”* 11 At the period of the birth of the nation the Fathers
were outspoken, believing in free speech as a means of “convey¬
ing heat and light” (especially heat!) as Paine’s friend Benja¬
min Rush said, “to every individual in the Federal Common¬
wealth.”12 After an age when opponents of monarchy and ec-
8 Conway, Life of Paine, I, 88.
9 This is also asserted by E. Halevy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism,
London, 1928, pp. 188-89.
19 Writings, IV, 339-40. “Man must go back to Nature for information” ( ibid .,
II, 402). “Perfection consists in Simplicity.”
11 Writings, I, 133.
12 H. Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America, 235. The Con¬
tinental Congress, according to its Journal (edition of 1904, I, 108), stood for
freedom of the press “whereby oppressive officials are shamed or intimidated into
310 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
clesiasticism, living at their mercy, had been obliged to take
refuge in sinuous methods and guarded analogies, many vigor¬
ous spirits no doubt found Paine’s outspoken bluntness refresh¬
ing, if not contagious. Finally, if, as Emerson remarks, a man
can excel in nothing who does not believe that what he is doing
is at the moment the most important thing in the world, Paine’s
solemn conviction that he was a messiah sent to liberate man¬
kind from “the tributary bondage of the ages” to throne and
altar, to usher in “the birthday of a new world,”13 steeled him
with self-confidence, economic and political history having given
him a sympathetic audience, which inspired his pen in its con¬
secration to a noble cause with a fervour apostolic. His spirit
was dampened by no paralyzing surrender to determinisms,
economic or mechanistic, or by any misgivings as to the efficacy
of his tools : he was enraptured by the magic witchery of words,
confident that if mankind were to be regenerated, it would be
through the mighty power of the pen. A perfectibilian dedicated
to the current faith that conduct is the mere externalization of
opinion, he regarded “one philosopher though a heathen” as of
“more use” than “all the heathen conquerors that ever existed,”
the French Revolution being literally truth clad in hell-fire, “no
more than the consequence of a mental revolution priorily exist¬
ing in France”14 engendered by “the writings of the French
philosophers.” “There is nothing which obtains so great an in¬
fluence over the manners and morals of a people as the Press.”15
“Letters, the tongue of the world,” represent the fighting wedge
of progress, the writer commanding “a scene as vast as the
world. . . . Jesus Christ and his apostles could not do this.”16
II
If such general factors, integral with Paine’s general out¬
look, help in part to explain his power, it must also be borne
in mind that his mastery of his art was conditioned, in no small
measure, by a knowledge of the achievements and methods of.
other writers and thinkers. It has been conventional to take
more honourable or just modes of conducting affairs." See T. Schroeder’s "In¬
tellectual Liberty and Literary Style,” Open Court, XXXIV, 275 ff.
13 Writings, I, 119.
“Ibid, II, 333.
« Ibid., I, 16.
13 Ibid., II, 102-3 ; IV, 287.
Clark— -Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
311
him at his word — “I neither read books, nor studied other peo¬
ple’s opinion”17 — notwithstanding the fact that he contradicted
this assertion repeatedly in word and act; it has been conven¬
tional to assume as axiomatic that he was distinguished by an
“immense ignorance of history and literature.”18 Ignorant he
no doubt was, if one uses the learning of a Coleridge or an
Arnold as a standard ; but such a view of Paine’s knowledge of
books, which has never been thoroughly investigated, would
seem rather naively to neglect certain somewhat unique consid¬
erations. If, as in the case of Franklin, his formal schooling
ended at an early age, he was aflame with an insatiable curi¬
osity, and he had most unsual opportunities for satisfying it.
“I seldom passed five minutes of my life however circum¬
stanced,” he confides, “in which I did not acquire some knowl¬
edge.”19 To begin with, contemporary doggerel records that as a
result of his repeated triumps in debate at the “White Hart
Evening Club” his fellow-townsmen at Lewes crowned “Im¬
mortal Paine . . . General of the Headstrong War,” his ability
being such that the excisemen of England finally appointed him
to plead with Parliament on behalf of “The Case of the Officers
of the Excise,” 1772. He had served as a school-teacher, and
Franklin, who sponsored his coming to America, supposed he
would continue that calling there. There, however, as editor
of The Pennsylvania Magazine , he received and commented
upon current publications in America, England, and France.
It appears that before 1775 he had “received much pleasure
from perusing” such English magazines as The Gentleman’s,
the London, the Universal, the Town and Country, the Covent-
Garden, and the Westminster .20 The Continental Congress re¬
garded him as competent to serve as “secretary for foreign
affairs almost two years,”21 a position in which he read and
wrote a vast number of important letters. These opportunities
for securing information, however, are trivial compared with
it Writings, II, 463.
18 Cambridge History of English Literature, XI, 53.
19 Quoted by his friend, T. C. Rickman, The Life of Thomas Paine, London,
1819. “As to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves
only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for him¬
self afterwards. Every person of learning is finally his own teacher . .
Writings IV, 64.
20 Writings, I, 15.
21 Ibid., I, 413.
312 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
his immense opportunities as a result of his multitudinous con¬
tacts, in Franklin's circle in America, Godwin's circle in Eng¬
land, and Condorcet’s circle in France.22 What could he not
have learned regarding ideas, perhaps from books whose names
were unmentioned, from listening to the conservation not only
of the men mentioned but of such men as Jefferson, Barlow, Dr.
Rush, John Adams, Horne Tooke, Holcroft, Burke (whose
earlier work Paine admired), Brissot, Lafayette, and countless
others who were Paine’s frequent companions and his hosts?
The fact that Paine seldom refers to other writers may not
be inconsistent with a knowledge of their ideas, especially when
one takes into account the indirect conversational sources sug¬
gested above and the considerations which follow. First, as a
perfectibilian condemning the past and gazing hopefully into
the future, as a sworn enemy of a socially mediated tradition,
Paine was generally too much of a logician to cite that tradition
as support for an attack upon it. Second, as a naturalistic op¬
ponent of philosophies and religions dependent upon books
which were for him rooted in traditional imposture and national
and temporal idiosyncrasies, Paine advocated, through the sci¬
entific quest for universal and immutable natural law, the study
not of books but of nature, which was supposed to be every¬
where, to all times and peoples, a uniform and universal revela¬
tion of a wisdom and benevolence divine ; consequently, he could
not logically appear to depend himself upon books. Indeed, con¬
temporary critics taunted him upon the inconsistency of himself
condemning a book-religion by means of a book and offering a
book as a remedy.23 Third, it was part of the established cam¬
paign strategy of the Godwinian circle, which saw to the details
of publishing the Rights of Man in England, to cite “no authori-
22 See Conway’s Life of Paine , I, 225 ; M. C. Tyler’s Literary History of the
Revolution , New York, 1897, I, 455-56 ; John Adams, Works, Boston, 1850-56, II,
507.
23 Writings, IV, 83. See William Cobbett ( Observations on Paine’s Age of Rea¬
son, p. 1-2) : “You offer wonders of inconsistency for our digestion. We are to
believe you on your word, that we, infallible men of reason, having the Bible of
Creation (as you call it) daily before our noses, are not withstanding, in im¬
minent danger of losing sight even of morality, humanity, and theology — that a
work, a written book on Religion, is not only necessary, but even exceedingly
necessary for our preservation ; that our Creator has not provided for such a
work, but has abandoned mankind to the pernicious effects of seduction and im¬
morality ; that he is surpassed in benevolence by you ; and that he has left the
production of a work exceedingly necessary, in a moral point of view, to the care
of poor, silly Tom Paine . . .”
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
313
ties.”24 Fourth, Citizen Egotism, as Paine was called, posing as
an original genius, was not anxious to share the glory of having
“a range in political writing beyond, perhaps, what any man
ever possessed in any country,”25 of having “arrived at an
eminence in political literature the most difficult of all lines to
succeed and excel in, which aristocracy with all its aids has not
been able to reach or to rival,”26 of having by his pen equalled
the power of Washington’s sword, his book which liberated
America having “the greatest sale that any performance ever
had since the use of letters.”27
Fifth, considering that Paine was the spokesman of the un¬
schooled and the illiterate, priding himself upon his ability to
resolve imposing sophistry to its simple elements, to avoid the
artificiality of an aristocratic culture, it would be unlikely that
Paine would strain toward literary allusions. And finally, it
was an effective part of his strategy in The Age of Reason , as
Pdchard Watson scrupulously noted,28 to disclaim all learned
appeals to other books, and “to undertake to prove, from the
Bible itself, that it is unworthy of credit.” How Paine revels
in demonstrating, as he thinks, that the Bible is “book of lies,
wickedness, and blasphemy”29 without going for proof beyond
what was regarded as the sacred Word of God !30 Considering
such a confessed controversial strategy, it would seem rather
obvious that the paucity of other books cited could not be taken
as valid evidence of the author’s “immense ignorance.” This,
however, is but one of many instances of inadequate interpre¬
tations of Paine as a result of a failure to read individual pas¬
sages in the light of both the contemporary climate of opinion
and the man’s central philosophical outlook. I would not imply
24 Witness Godwin’s advice to Thelwall : “Amass as much knowledge as you
please, but no authorities. To quote authorities is a vulgar business ; every soul¬
less hypocrite can do that. To quote authorities is a cold business ; it excites
no responsive sentiments and produces no heart-felt conviction . . . Appeal to
that eternal law which the heart of every man of common-sense recognizes im¬
mediately. Make your justification as palpable to the unlearned as the studious.
Strip it of all superfluous appendages ; banish from it all useless complexity.”
(Quoted by C. Cestre, John Thelwell, London, 1906, 202).
23 Writings, II, 463.
28 Writings, II, 462-3.
™ Ibid, IV, 431.
28 An Apology for the Bible, in a series of Letters Addressed to Thomas Paine
. . Cork, 1796, p. 96.
29 Writings, IV, 103.
80 Ibid., IV, 105.
314 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
that Paine was in any sense a prodigy of learning, but I do
think that he had a decent knowledge of contemporary currents
of opinion and literary methods. With the six considerations
just suggested in mind, it would seem that what references
Paine does make directly to other writers might be taken at
somewhat more than their customary face-value, since such
references conflicted with his whole philosophy and his contro¬
versial method, inviting taunts, painful to a logician and mor¬
alist, of an inability to follow his own precepts. Elsewhere31
I hope to discuss Paine’s references to more than an hundred
such figures as the following, and to show his knowledge, in
varying degrees, of their work; these are: Homer, Xenophon,
Aesop, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Zoroaster, Con¬
fucius, Cicero, Virgil, Pliny, Tacitus, Scaliger, Dragonetti,
Augustine, Maimonides, Origen, Spinoza, Luther, Cervantes,
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Barclay, Milton, Bunyan, Tillotson,
Locke, Sydney, Henry Lord, Descartes, Newton, ‘Hudibras’
Butler, Grotius, Denham, Dryden, Defoe, Swift, Pope, Smollett,
Thomson, Allan Ramsay, Chatterton, James Ferguson, Benja¬
min Martin, Conyers Middleton, Churchill, Robertson, Chester¬
field, Wilkes, Blackstone, ‘Junius’, George Lewis Scott, Samuel
Rogers, Fox, Burke, Johnson, Shelburne, Robert Merry, Blake,
Sampson Perry, Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, Holcroft,
Priestly, Cobbett, Rapin, Burgh, Price, David Levi, Ferguson,
Sir William Jones, Whiston, ‘Peter Pindar’, Adam Smith, David
Williams, Franklin, Jefferson, Barlow, John Adams, James
Wilson, Samuel Adams, Christie, Edward Fitzgerald, Towers,
Mackintosh, Washington, Gouverneur Morris, Monroe, Palmer,
Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Turgot, Quesnay, Raynal,
Helvetius, Boulauger, Brissot, Lafayette, and Condorcet. But
could the ‘rebellious staymaker’ read critically and digest the
ideas of such authors? His diabolically acute analysis of the
Holy Scriptures suggests that he could. At least he should have
been able to profit by the theory and practice of these authors
31 1 have begun this task in a study of “Thomas Paine’s Relation to Voltaire
and Rousseau,” which will be found in the Revue Anglo- Americaine, April and
June, 1932. Two quotations from Rousseau, unnoted there, have since come to my
attention; see Writings , III, 104, (80-81) and I, 150. F. J. C. Hearnshaw ( Devel¬
opment of Political Ideas , 1927, pp. 56-57) says Paine “disseminated Rousseau’s
doctrines.”
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
315
in formulating his own literary theories, which are for the
most part in close accord with those of his age.32
Ill
Having now considered extra-literary factors which aided
Paine and having suggested that he was not quite so ignorant
of literary tradition as generally supposed, let us turn directly
to a presentation of what he himself has to say regarding lit¬
erary theory and the art of writing controversial prose. What
were his avowed aims?
First among these aims is candour, simplicity, and clarity.
He would '‘rid our ideas of all superfluous words, and consider
them in their natural bareness and simplicity.”33 “I speak a
language full and intelligible,” he remarks in summing up his
writing on “every subject.” “I deal not in hints and intimations.
I have several reasons for this: First, that I may be clearly
understood. Secondly, that it may be seen I am in earnest ; and,
thirdly, because it is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with
complaisance.”34 He describes the Rights of Man as “a book
calmly and rationally written, ... in a fair, open, and manly
manner,”35 and he tells us elsewhere that he forbade himself
“the use of equivocal expression or mere ceremony.”36 When
Americans were reluctant on account of sentimental ties to
break the bond which bound them to the Fatherland, he ex¬
claimed impatiently, “I bring reason to your ears, and in lan¬
guage as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.”37 No
doubt John Adams came as near hating Paine as any man, and
as a Federalist he increasingly abominated his anti-traditional38
and equalitarian principles, yet he was honest enough to recog-
82 Unfortunately, little study has been devoted to the literary theories underly¬
ing the applied literature of Americans such as Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Bar-
low and Hamilton. If the birth of the nation was in no small measure rendered
possible by the literary efforts of these men, it would seem that the theories un¬
derlying these efforts deserve presentation and analysis. Most critics who have
approached them from the literary point of view have been content with regis¬
tering their merely subjective likes and dislikes.
38 Writings, II, 238.
34 Ibid., IV, 406.
35 Writings, III, 54-55.
38 Ibid., Ill, 115. “Plain language may perhaps sound uncouthly to an ear
vitiated by courtly refinements, but words were made for use.” Ibid., I, 182.
87 Writings, I, 178. “I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments,
and common sense.” (Ibid., I, 84).
88 See Writings, III, 61.
316 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
nize that he himself “could not have written anything in so
manly and striking a style [as Common Sense],” and that it
contained “a great deal of good sense delivered in clear, simple,
concise, and nervous style.”39 This first ideal of Paine’s was of
course in line with that of eighteenth-century prose writers
from Defoe to his beloved patron Franklin, although Paine
was conspicuously lacking in Franklin’s inoffensive Socratic ap¬
proach and his skill in winning assent without antagonizing.
As Franklin wrote Hume, who had pronounced him the first
man-of -letters of the New World, “certainly in writings in¬
tended for persuasion and for general information, one can not
be too clear; and every expression in the least obscure is a
fault . . . The introducing new words, where we are already
possessed of old ones sufficiently expressive, I confess must
be generally wrong.”40 Moreover, Paine’s mastery of his fa¬
miliar friend’s ideal in this respect is attested by the fact, as
Jefferson remarked,41 that Common Sense, which Paine submit¬
ted to Franklin for criticism, was first attributed to Franklin.
One may designate boldness Paine’s second ideal, one, un¬
fortunately, as it seems to me, which not seldom carried him,
as he confessed, beyond the “common track of civil language.”42
It is, he says, “curious to observe how soon this spell [of senti¬
mental attachment to monarchy] can be dissolved. A single ex¬
pression, boldly conceived and uttered, will sometimes put a
whole company into their proper feelings: and whole nations
are acted on in the same manner.”43 In transferring this lit-
39 Works, I, 205.
40 From Franklin’s letter quoted by W. C. Bruce, Benjamin Franklin Self-
Revealed, New York, 1917, II, 439. Franklin summed up his own conception of
what constitutes a good piece of writing as follows : “To be good it ought to have
a tendency to benefit the reader, by improving his virtue or his knowledge. But,
not regarding the intention of the author, the method should be just ; that is, it
should proceed regularly from things known to things unknown, distinctly and
clearly without confusion. The words used should be the most expressive that the
language affords, provided that they are the most generally understood. Nothing
should be expressed in two words that can be as well expressed in one ; that is,
no synonymes should be used, or very rarely, but the whole should be as short
as possible, consistent with clearness ; the words should be so placed as to be
agreeable to the ear in reading ; summarily it should be smooth, clear and short,
for the contrary qualities are displeasing.” (Quoted by W. C. Bruce, Franklin
Self-Revealed, II, 440).
41 Works (ed. Ford), New York, 1904—5, X, 183.
42 Writings, I, 140.
43 Ibid., II, 481. See also the passage ( ibid ., I, 133-134) where Paine tries to
rationalize his delight in abusiveness, arguing that “personality is concerned in
any political debate.”
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine . 31?
erary method acquired in the rough-and-tumble of politics to
religion, Paine was conscious of pioneering in “a style of think¬
ing and expression different to what had been customary in
England.”44 As he wrote Elihu Palmer, whose “Principles of
Nature” carried on Paine’s tradition in America, “The hinting
and intimidating manner of writing that was formerly used on
subjects of this kind, produced skepticism, but not conviction.
It is necessary to be bold. Some people can be reasoned into
sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that
will stagger them, and they will begin to think.45 And in speak¬
ing of the agitation caused by the boldness of the first part of
The Age of Reason, he concludes, “I have but one way to be
secure in my next work, which is, to go further than in my
first. I see that great rogues escape by the excess of their
crimes, and, perhaps, it may be the same in honest cases.”46 I
do not choose to stain these pages by quoting examples of the
scarlet and profane Billingsgate and the coarse innuendoes
which Paine unworthily employed as an attack upon Christi¬
anity in his illiberal and intolerant endeavour to prove that
“the only true religion is deism.”47 If Franklin was an agnostic,
he was also tolerant of most religions and rich in the benign
wisdom of silence. Where the master feared to tread, the dis¬
ciple rushed in, with the result that whereas Franklin died the
venerated Citizen of the World, beloved of mankind, Paine lit¬
erally became an object of fear and pity, spending his last years
in a vain endeavour to patch together the floating fragments of
a wrecked renown. We cannot digress from our restricted pur¬
pose here to discuss the vast problems involved in Paine’s deism.
One observation might be ventured, however. Just as Paine’s
view that the dead have no authority over the living, that one
generation can renounce its obligation to its predecessor, has
been undermined by modern doctrines of the inexorable con¬
tinuity of evolution, so his religious view that one must “vindi¬
cate the moral justice of Cod against the calumnies of the
Bible,”48 in which God is presented as cruel, by forsaking the
44 Writings, II, 394. Thomas Seccombe (The Age of Johnson, London, 1900,
p. 115-16) says that Paine’s manner, as applied to Christianity, was “of a rather
different kind to any that had preceded it in England.”
45 Conway, Life of Paine , II, 298. See also Writings, III, 404.
48 Ihid.
47 Writings, IV, 167. See also IV, 190.
48 Writings, IV, 96.
318 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
Bible for nature, has likewise been undermined by the modern
evolutionists’ demonstration that nature is more cruel than the
God of the Old Testament in her indifference to the struggle for
existence and the survival of the fittest. Evolution has rein¬
forced, unexpectedly, the famous nature-argument of Butler’s
Analogy (1736), against the earlier deists, who were sure that
nature was all benevolence, an argument which Richard Watson
tellingly used against Paine in 1796.49
If, as a political thinker, his chief weakness lay in his
blindness to the unconscious and historical element in human
association, the recognition of which constitutes “Burke’s su¬
preme claim to greatness,”50 as a religious thinker this handicap
is much more pronounced, since as a rationalist Paine sees but
one path to truth, discounting insight, faith, illusion, and the
religious imagination, which have guided such seers as Plato
and Dante, as mere obscurantism. And this defect is further¬
more aggravated by the fact that, with one or two exceptions,
he was totally unfitted, by his external, mechanistic concept of
God as a watchmaker and by his doctrine that worship consists
only in external humanitarian service, to “be a Columbus to
whole continents and worlds within,” which has constituted
the central objective of the American transcendentalists and of
most distinctively religious people. Thus does the iniquity of
oblivion, at the behest of time, scatter her poppy, and in ren¬
dering the boldest affirmations untenable instruct us in the wis¬
dom of philosophic humility and the avoidance of unseemly dog¬
matism and violence of expression.
Of course Paine’s boldness of phrase is merely the outward
garment of the perfectibilian’s black-and-white philosophy, ac¬
cording to which all rulers of the past were devils51 while all
rulers of the future will be saints. “The present state of civili¬
zation is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite
49 Apology, 8-9. See Joseph Butler’s The Analogy of Religion , Natural and Re¬
vealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, ed. Halifax, Oxford, 1844, p. 5
and p. 11 ; and see W. Grisenthwaite, A Refutation of .. . Thomas Paine, etc..
Wells, 1822, pp. 10-11.
50 C. P. Gooch, Cambridge Modern History, VIII, 756-57.
si “What scenes of horror, what perfection of iniquity, present themselves in
contemplating' the character and reviewing the history of such governments ! If
we would delineate human nature with a baseness of heart and hypocrisy of
countenance that reflexion would shudder at and humanity disown, it is Kings,
courts and cabinets that must sit for the portrait”. ( Writings , II, 413 ; see also,
ibid., IV, 256).
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine.
319
of what it should be.”52 “The politics of Britain, so far as re¬
spects America, were originally conceived in idiotism and acted
in madness.”53 He is forever the implacable enemy of “mixed
governments,” middle courses, and gradual methods; nothing
will do but “a total reformation.”54 To this apostle of the reli¬
gion of humanity his former sovereign, afflicted with mental
infirmity, is his “Madjesty,”55 otherwise a “Royal Wretch,”56 a
“Royal Criminal,”57 or “a sceptred savage.”58 The long struggles
of the English people for a “freedom slowly broadening down
from precedent to precedent” are to him nothing; in the back¬
ground he sees not Magna Charta but William of Normandy, to
him the “son of a prostitute and the plunderer of the English
nation.” His universal ascription of dark motives to men of the
past would better become a believer in total depravity than a
believer in liberalism and natural goodness. Indeed, his bru¬
tality toward his opponents accords oddly with his professed
monopoly on virtues humanitarian. If Paine’s ideal of boldness
must be pronounced one of the regrettable weaknesses of his
literary theory, we should recall that it was a weakness he
shared with his contemporaries, whose ungentle ways, it must
be admitted, were not conducive to temperate expression. Wil¬
liam Cobbett, for example, whose later affection for Paine
caused him to bring his remains back to his native land, called
him “a profane fool,” a “blockhead,” a “bloodhound,” “an ass,”
and “red-nosed Tom, . . . the impostor, the liar, and the dis¬
turber of mankind.” “Men will learn to express all that is base,
' malignant , treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous, by the
single monosyllable Paine.”59 And Paine’s good friend Samuel
Adams, who argued that “the natural liberty of man is to be
free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the
will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of
nature for his rule,60 was addressed by American opponents as
62 Writings, III, 337.
63 Ibid., II, 122. “Everything- in the English government appears to me the re¬
verse of what it ought to be, and of what it is said to be,” {ibid, II, 315).
54 Ibid., II, 120.
55 Conway’s Life, II, 31.
se Writings, I, 123.
57 Ibid., I, 161.
58 Ibid., I, 132.
59 Observations on Paine’s Age of Reason, pp. 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8.
60 As quoted in J. T. Adam’s The Epic of America, 83. See the correspondence
between Samuel Adams and Paine, Writings, IV, 200-8. As examples of Samuel
320 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
“the foulest, subtlest, and most venomous serpent ever issued
from the egg of sedition.” And in England, of course Paine’s
boldness was in accord with that of such writers as Junius, “the
favorite model of political writers,”61 whose “brilliant pen . . .
enraptured” Paine, who said that “in the plenitude of its rage
it might be said to give elegance to bitterness.”62 “No writer of
the time came so near to the style of Junius,” it had been said,
“as Paine.”63
Somewhat akin to Paine’s ideal of boldness was his third
ideal, that of wit. “Wit,” he explained, “is naturally a volun¬
teer, delights in action, and under proper discipline is capable
of great execution. ’Tis a perfect master in the art of bush¬
fighting ; and though it attacks with more subtility than science,
has often defeated a whole regiment of heavy artillery . . . ’Tis
a qualification which, like the passions, has a natural wildness,
that requires governing. Left to itself, it soon overflows its
banks, mixes with common filth, and brings disrepute on the
fountain. We have many valuable springs of it in America,
which at present run purer streams, than the generality of it in
other countries.”64 He may have been thinking of the wit of
Franklin, rising to the surface of his work like sparkling bub¬
bles in wine, or the wit of Freneau, or of Barlow and the Hart¬
ford Wits. Occasionally Paine gives us a mild cerebral tickle
as when, in speaking of peace terms unpopular with the demo¬
crats, he remarked, “this is what the tories call making their
peace, ‘a peace which passeth all understanding’ indeed.”65
Often, however, as Romilly said, he is “flat where he attempts
Adams’s boldness of language see Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Cushing, New
York, 1904-8, II, 313-21. (“Vindex” in Boston Gazette, April 20, 1772) and II,
332-37. (“Valerius Poplicola” in Boston Gazette , Oct. 5, 1772). R. V. Harlow
( Samuel Adams, New York, 1923, p. 183) says “There are pages upon pages of
this sort of thing in Adams’s extant works.”
61 J. B. Daly, The Dawn of Radicalism, London, 1886, 105.
62 Writings, II, 198.
63 W. H. Burr, Paine, Was He Junius? 1890, p. 14. The argument that Paine
was Junius seems to me inconclusive ; but might not the “three hundred parallels
of character, conduct, opinion, style, sentiment, and language” suggest that Junius,
whom Paine read, influenced him?
64 Writings , 1, 16. Paine wrote elsewhere (ibid., IV, 342), anonymously, “With
respect to morality, the writings of Thomas Paine are remarkable for purity and
benevolence ; and though he often enlivens them with wit and humour, he never
loses sight of the real solemnity of his subject.”
p5 Writings, I, 177,
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine ,
321
wit,”66 as when he described the traitor Arnold boarding “the
Vulture sloop of war lying in the North River; on which it may
be truly said, that one vulture was receiving another.” And
often his wit is winged with a desire to pain. John Adams, who
had been a target for Paine, attributed the Federalists’ defeat
in part to a failure to guard themselves against “that scoffing,
scorning wit, and that caustic malignity of soul, which appeared
so remarkably in all the writings of Thomas Paine.”67 Certainly
in respect to his wit, and his deficiency in humour, Paine was a
true citizen of that rationalistic century which produced such
wits as Swift, Defoe, Bolingbroke, Pope, Churchill, Peter Pin¬
dar, Wilkes, and Junius, all of whom Paine read and admired.
Paine’s fourth ideal — perhaps unexpected in one who was
essentially a rationalist otherwise — may be described as an
appeal to feeling and a regard for those niceties of composition,
such as connotation, antithesis, balance, and cadence, which are
productive of emotional or poetic pleasure. This aspect of
Paine’s work has been, I think, little noticed, and yet I venture
to think it has stood him in good stead in his conflict with ob¬
livion. “I had some turn,” he confessed, reminiscently, “and I
believe some talent for poetry ; but this I rather repressed than
66 Sir Samuel Romilly, Memoirs, etc., I, 415-16. “There have been several answers
to Burke since you left us, but none that have much merit except one by Paine
. . . It is written in his own wild but forcible style ; inaccurate in point of
grammar [for an exhaustive list of such errors see P. Oldys, Life of Paine, Lon¬
don, 1792, pp. 46, 67, 88, 98 ff.] flat where he attempts wit, and often ridiculous
when he indulges himself in metaphors ; but, with all that, full of spirit and
energy, and likely to produce a very great effect. It has done that, indeed, al¬
ready ; in the course of a fortnight, it has gone through three editions ; and, what
I own has a good deal surprised me, has made converts of many persons who
were before enemies to the [French] Revolution.” See also Tom Paine’s Jests:
Being an entirely new and select collection of Patriotic Bon Mots, Repartees,
Anecdotes, Epigrams, Observations, dec. on Political Subjects, By Thomas Paine
and other supporters of the Rights of Man . . . London, 179 4. (A copy of
this rare volume, of 56 pages, sold at sixpence, will be found in the British
Museum, No. 8135. a. 65).
67 John Adams, Works, IX, 278. In arranging terms of a debate with the Abbe
Sieyes on monarchy, Paine promised to “treat the subject seriously and sin¬
cerely,” but held himself “at liberty to ridicule, as they deserve, Monarchical
obsurdities, whensoever the occasion shall present itself.” His so-called wit di¬
rected at the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene is of course especially painful.
Richard Watson censured him for introducing “railing for reasoning, vulgar and
illiberal sarcasm in the room of argument,” ( Apology , 14) and the anonymous
author of Christianity the Only True Theology ; as an answer to Mr. Paine’s Age
of Reason, (London, n. d.), censures Paine’s neglect of “a serious and impartial
examination of truth” for “illiberal satyr, and impertinent witticism,” for “the
lighter weapons of ludicrous description and impudent buffoonry”. (pp. 7, 58-59).
322 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters.
encouraged, as leading too much into the field of imagination.”68
Nevertheless, this repressed feeling for the poetic is seldom far
beneath the surface, fertilizing his art, giving it at times, as
even his enemies admitted, an elevation which was not without
beauty. At first, although I think it is not generally known, this
hard-headed rationalist was much given to wandering in fairy
lands of fancy, as one will note who reads his early papers in
The Pennsylvania Magazine for the year 1775 on such topics as
“Cupid and Hymen.” Enchanted with his new-found home,
Paine wandered fancifully in “the groves of Arcadia,” charmed
with the “lovely appearance,” the “air of pleasantness,” every
shepherdess being “decorated with a profusion of flowers,”
while amidst the “little cottages” and the “jessamine and
myrtle” “the sound of labour was not heard” but only “a sweet
confusion of voices mingled with instrumental music.”69 It is
08 Writings, IV, 63. This attitude toward poetry was in accord with that of
Paine’s contemporaries. Witness Franklin’s advice to Ralph : “I approved the
amusing one’s self with poetry now and then, so far as to improve one’s language
but no farther.” Writings, I, 270. Madison argued that “something more sub¬
stantial, more durable, more profitable [than poetry] befits our riper age.” See H.
H. Clark, Poems of Freneau, New York, 1928, especially pp. xlvii-lviii, for a con¬
sideration of Deism as related to the genesis of American poetry. On Paine’s
editorship in relation to early American journalism and its literary ideals see
Lyon N. Richardson, A History of Early American Magazines, 1741—1789, New
York, 1931, and A. H. Smyth. The Philadelphia Magazines and Their Contributors
17^1-1850, Philadelphia, 1892.
69 Writings, I, 36. As further examples of this sort of style, see Writings, I,
26-27, where he delights, in a “pleasant kind of melancholy,” when even “the
trees seemed to sleep,” in crossing the Styx to the “Plutonian world” in quest of
Alexander the Great, marvelling at a chariot “drawn by eight horses in
golden harness” and all the splendour which “shined so luminously”. The
tendencies here suggested are found elaborated in the work of Paine’s con¬
temporary and admirer, Philip Freneau. (See H. H. Clark, “What Made
Freneau the Father of American Prose?” ( Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,
Arts, and Letters. XXV, May 1930, pp. 39-50). And see the purple patch ( Writ¬
ings , I, 22-23) which suggests that the deist’s delight in nature was not so ex¬
clusively cold-blooded and scientific as might be imagined : “Tho’ nature is gay,
polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly at home : Return
the visit, and she admits you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the re¬
luctance of an antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in
antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste of receiving
visitants in her dressing-room : she locks and bolts up her private recesses with
extraordinary care, as if not only resolved to preserve her hoards, but to conceal
her age, and hide the remains of a face that was young and lovely in the days
of Adam. He that would view nature in her undress and partake of her internal
treasurers, must proceed with the resolution of a robber, if not of a ravisher.
She gives no invitation to follow her to the cavern. The external earth makes
no proclamation of the interior stores, but leaves to chance and industry, the
discovery of the whole. In such gifts as nature can annually re-create, she is
noble and profuse, and entertains the whole world with the interest of her for¬
tunes ; but watches over the capital with the care of a miser. Her gold and jewels
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
323
in this scene that Cupid rescues the beauteous Ruralinda from
Gothic, Lord of the Manor, and returns her to her shepherd
swain with whom she lives happily ever after. No wonder
Paine, who is popularly pictured in this period as a sort of fire-
eater, wrote Franklin, “I thought it very hard to have the
Country set on fire about my Ears almost the moment I got into
it.”70 Nevertheless, he was summoned forth from this Arcadian
fairyland to publish Common Sense, the call to arms, January
10, 1776, which presages his matured prose style embodied fif¬
teen years later in the Rights of Man. As I have suggested, his
style in 1775 was, for the most part, ornate, involved, artificial,
rich in languorous emotional overtones which caress the senti¬
mental fancies of an Arcadian; his style in 1791 is essentially
bare, terse, swift, metallic, and epigrammatic, not without an
echo, here and there, of stately eloquence. What accounts for
this interesting stylistic evolution?71 It cannot be attributed
entirely to the outgrowing of youthful sentimentalism, for
Paine was thirty-eight when he wrote the passages just quoted.
No doubt, as in the case of Sidney Lanier later, the author’s
personal experience in the war had something to do with helping
him to view things realistically and to give his words the ring
of sincerity. For Paine was an aide to General Greene, and took
part in an engagement which involved rowing “in an open boat
to Fort Mifflin during the cannonade,” a “very gallant act,” as
a contemporary said, “that shows what a fearless man Mr.
Paine was.”72 Such an experience in the teeth of a cannonade
has a way of making a man think less about Cupids and shep¬
herdesses and fairies and Necromancers’ cells. No wonder he
poured out “The Crisis” in “a passion of patriotism,”73 writing,
lie concealed in the earth, in caves of utter darkness ; and hoards of wealth,
heaps upon heaps, mould in the chests, like the riches of a Necromancer’s cell.”
One would hardly suspect that this passage constitutes a good share of a so-
called “useful” essay on ways and means of mining ! For evidence regarding
Paine’s authorship of these and other early articles, see Frank Smith, “New Light
on Thomas Paine’s First Year in America,” American Literature, I, 347-371.
70 Writings, I, 393.
71 It should be borne in mind, of course, that between Paine’s early work in 1775
and the Rights of Man in 1791 and 1792, there was a general reaction in America
against stilted and grandiloquent language, which was satirized, for example, by
the Hartford Wits’ Echo. See the ridiculous examples of contemporary high-
flown artificiality quoted at length by C. B. Todd, Life and Letters of Joel Bar-
low, New York, 1886, pp. 52-53.
72 Conway, Life of Paine, I, 99.
73 Writings, IV, 431.
324 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
it is said, on the head of a drum in the light of flickering camp¬
fires while the wornout army slumbered. More important, how¬
ever, was the intellectual influence of associating on intimate
terms, as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, fellow-author, or guest,
with the leaders of Revolutionary thought such as Jefferson and
Franklin, and the natural tendency to assimilate not only their
thought74 but their ideals as regards the art of writing, which
were in the direction of sobriety, clarity, precision, ease, vigour
and purposeful didacticism. He confessed that, while he for¬
merly had no interest in politics,75 “it was the American rev¬
olution that made me an author,”76 and that as regards his
later work such as the Rights of Man “the principles .... were
the same as those in “Common Sense,”77 learned in America.
Henceforth, the ever-growing faith in the natural man and
Utopian progress, which throbbed and pounded and exulted
through his work, was in his mind given philosophic sanction
by what he took to be the concrete and successful embodiment
of it in the history of America. In such an interpretation, how¬
ever, it is manifest that he, like other naturalists of the French
Revolutionary era, failed to perceive the extent to which the
American “order and decorum,”78 which Paine expected in vain
in the French Revolution, and which he attributed to natural
goodness, were the inherited habitude of a Puritan liberalism,
mindful of the dark impulses of the human heart, which strove
not to make men masterless but self-mastered.79 Such an en¬
trancing vision of being instrumental in “regenerating the Old
World by the principles of the New,”80 by merely modifying the
external machinery of government, in conjunction with the
stylistic ideals of such intimate friends as Franklin and Jeffer¬
son,81 made him impatient not only of fanciful writing but even
74 See M. R. Eiselen, Franklin’s Political Theories , New York, 1928; and G.
Chinard, Thomas Jefferson , Boston, 1929.
76 Writings, IV, 6 3 f f .
78 Ibid., Ill, 402.
77 Ibid., Ill, 382.
78 Writings, II, 463.
79 See J. W. Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution, Boston, 1860 ;
and Alice M. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution,
Durham, North Carolina, 1928.
80 Writings, III, 98.
81 Jefferson (Works, ed. Ford, VIII, 65) wrote, in 1801, regarding poetry: "In
earlier life I was fond of it, and easily pleased. But as age and cares advanced,
the powers of fancy have declined ... So much has my relish for poetry
deserted me that, at present, I cannot read even Virgil with pleasure . . . The
Clark— Literary Theories of Thomas Paine.
325
of non-didactic or non-historical writing such as the drama.
“Mr. Burke should recollect,” he says, “that he is writing his¬
tory and not plays; and that his readers will expect truth, and
not the spouting to rant of high-toned exclamation.”82 Jefferson,
in the interest of “reason and fact, plain and unadored,” had
condemned the undidactic novel for its “poison” of “fancy.”
As I have suggested, however, Paine’s early delight in the
poetic did not desert him, but, being repressed, indirectly fer¬
tilized his style, giving it, at its best, colour, connotation, and
cadence, enabling him to hold in thrall not only the reader’s
head but his heart. For the “prince of pamphleteers” knew that
“the mind of a living public . . . feels first and reasons after¬
wards.”83 Everyone, of course, is familiar with his picturesque
retort to Burke, who in the French Revolution pitied the rich
but forgot the poor. As Paine remarked, “He is not affected
by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the
showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities
the plumage, but forgets the dying bird .”84 In metaphors of
such haunting beauty Paine often succeeds in pointedly com¬
pressing his argument, rendering it strikingly memorable and
quotable. “The palaces of kings are founded on the bowers of
paradise.” “Government, like dress, is the badge of lost inno¬
cence.” “Cannons are the barristers of kings.” If “there is in
Paine’s style none of the organ’s roll which hushes Burke’s
very feelings to which it [poetry] is addressed are among those I have lost.”
Although as a young man Jefferson did not object to novels provided they were
sufficiently didactic and morally “useful” { Works, Ford, ed. I, 396), in general he
considered them fanciful, and hence objectionable : “A great obstacle to good edu¬
cation is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels, and the time lost in that
reading which should be instructively employed. When this poison infects the
mind, it destroys its tone and revolts it against wholesome reading. Reason and
fact, plain and unadorned, are rejected. Nothing can engage attention unless
dressed in all the figments of fancy, and nothing so bedecked comes amiss. The
result is a sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real business of life.”
{Works, ed. Ford, X, 104). It should be remembered, also, that Benjamin Mar¬
tin, the Newtonian popularizer whose lectures impressed Paine at the age of
twenty (Writings,' IV, 63), proclaimed “As to Poetry, it is so far from being the
Source of any Learning, that, on the contrary, it has, for its subject, pure Fiction,
which is quite its Opposite : If Wit and Fancy be your Taste, read Poetry ; if
Wisdom and Learning, attend on [natural] Philosophy”. {A Panegyrick, p. 54).
82 Writings, II, 286-87. “I consider Mr. Burke’s book in scarcely any other light
than a dramatic performance ; and he must, I think, have considered it in the
same light himself, by the poetical liberties he has taken of omitting some facts,
distorting others, and making the whole machinery bend to produce a stage
effect.” {Ibid., II, 297).
83 Writings, I, p. 395.
84 Ibid., II, 288.
326 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters.
listeners into a state of veneration and awe,”85 a state¬
ment to which there are many exceptions, he is a master of
epigrams, clothed often in homely phrases, which “became
catchwords; household proverbs; verbal banners to flaunt be¬
fore the astonished vision of a comfortable aristocracy and a
contented conservatism.”86 This facility in the art of epigrams
stems, no doubt, partly from the neo-classical delight in the
general rather than the particular, partly from Paine’s delight
in logical abstraction as opposed to historic relativism, and
partly from the fact that his delight in the university of
natural law led to a delight in framing major premises in
terms universal. I venture to think, however, that Paine’s
writing derives no small measure of its vibrating power
from his ability, as a retentive student of the English Bible,
to clothe his thought in the moving diction and haunting ca¬
dences of that masterpiece of beauty which has left its authentic
stamp upon most of what is great in English letters. For Paine
did not condemn all the Bible, even in content. He never tires
cf praising the Book of Job, especially for its style. “As a com¬
position, it is sublime, beautiful, and scientific: full of senti¬
ment, and abounding in grand metaphorical description ... In
the last act, where the Almighty is introduced as speaking from
the whirlwind, to decide the controversy between Job and his
friends, it is an idea as grand as poetic imagination can con¬
ceive.”87 And it will be found, I think, that usually wherever
Paine attains a dignity and impressiveness of style, an earnest
and lofty eloquence, and a telling incisiveness of phrase, there
are subtle echoes of the book he condemned. “The vanity and
presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridicu¬
lous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man ;
neither has any generation a property in the generations which
are to follow.”68 “The farce of monarchy in all countries is fol¬
lowing that of chivalry, and Mr. Burke is dressing for the
funeral. Let it then pass gently to the tomb of all other follies
and the mourners be comforted.” “It is [quoting] authority
against authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin
85 Seccombe, op. cit., 86—87.
86 W. P. Hall, op. cit., 87.
87 Writings, IV, 276. See also his appreciation of the nineteenth Psalm (ibid.,
IV, 337).
88 Ibid., II, 278.
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
327
of the rights of man at the creation. Here our enquiries find a
resting place and our reason finds a home.”89 And in the follow¬
ing sentence, notice not only the biblical echoes in this attack
on the Bible, but the balance and antithesis, and the stately
cadence : . the terrors and inquisitorial fury of the Church,
like what they tell us of the flaming sword that turned every
way, stood sentry over the New Testament; and time, which
brings everything to light, has served to thicken the darkness
that guards it from detection.”90 Paine’s nice regard for ryth¬
mical units and for the music of the spoken word are obvious,
and this regard must have been effectively advanced by his man¬
ner of composing, which was also, incidentally, not unlike that
of Emerson. “His manner of composing, as I have heard per¬
sons who have heard him relate,” writes Hogg, “was thus. He
walked backwards and forwards about a room until he had com¬
pleted a sentence to his satisfaction; he then wrote it down
entire and perfect and never to be amended. When the weather
was fair, if there was a garden, a field, a courtyard at hand, he
walked about out of doors for a while, and then came in and
put down the sentence which he had arranged mentally, and
went out again and walked until he was ready to be delivered
of another.”91 No wonder he could make his words, terrible but
beautiful, march like soldiers with trumpets; no wonder he
could make his words vibrate with the indignation of a Hebrew
prophet foretelling the destruction of “Sodom and Gormor-
rah.”92 In praising his timely appeal to feeling, however, I have
in mind not so much his war propaganda, a type of work with
which we are all unpleasantly familiar, as that portion of his
writing inspired by passion social and humanitarian. For the
bitterness with which he hated the oppressors was of course
merely the reverse side of the tenderness with which he pitied
the oppressed. “I defend,” he said, “ the cause of the poor, . . .
of all those on whom the real burden of the taxes fall— but
above all, I defend the cause of humanity.” “I speak an open
and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of
humanity . . . my country is the world, and my religion is to do
89 Writings, II, 304,
80 Ibid, IV, 405.
91 Hogg, Life of Shelley, ed. Dowden, 517.
92 Writings, I, 208.
328 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
good.”93 If Paine was blind to most of what the historic ma¬
jesty of the past has to teach, and if his idyllic prophecies of a
New Jerusalem come., on earth were belied by the events of the
future, if few can accept today either his religion or political
doctrines, which subsume a benevolence in nature and the nat¬
ural man v/hich realistic observation and evolution has tended
to disprove, it may turn out that his most important contribu¬
tion was the impetus which he gave toward a wider recognition
of social evils and a quest for concrete remedies. A contem¬
porary and reader of humanitarians such as Thomson, Cowper,
Blake, Mary Woilstonecraft, Franklin, Jefferson, Voltaire,
Rousseau, Raynal, Brissot and Condorcet, it is no wonder that,
in elaborating his many practical suggestions94 for the relief of
social suffering, whereby life’s blessings were to be more equally
distributed, his words throb with a contagious sympathy95 which
brought hope to the unfortunate, the poor, and the oppressed.
For, much as he tempered his earlier addiction to the senti¬
mental, he never forgot that “the mind of a living public . . .
feels first, and reasons afterwards.” In this respect, Paine ap¬
proaches, for a moment, the view of Burke, whose essay on
“The Sublime and the Beautiful” (1756) he evidently read, who
held that an ideal sentence should involve first, a thought, sec¬
ond, an image, and, third, a sentiment.
If the rationalist Paine was not unmindful of an appeal to
the reader’s feelings, if he aimed “to make the reader feel,
fancy, and understand justly at the same time,”96 his practice
had the support of a typically neo-classic theory of a desired
balance between Memory, J udgment and Imagination, a balance
which may be said to constitute his fifth literary ideal. It is in¬
teresting to note, incidentally, that the literary effectiveness of
his defence of liberty is in no small measure dependent upon an
allegiance to a principal of control. His statement of his theory
is so important that I must beg leave to quote it in full, long as
it is:
93 Writings, II, 472.
94 Among Paine’s humanitarian interests were abolition of slavery, arbitration
schemes to avoid war, land reforms, income taxes, old age pensions, more prac¬
tical and universal education, remedies for yellow fever, copyright laws, and
many inventions for saving time and life.
95 See, for example, the moving passage ( Writings , II, 493) which conclude’s
Paine’s presentation of his fourteen concrete suggestions, in the second part of
the Rights of Man, for alleviating suffering.
96 Ibid, II, 69-70.
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
329
“The three great faculties of the mind”, he wrote, much as
did Sir William Jones, whom Paine read,97 “are Imagination ,
Judgment and Memory. Every action of the mind comes un¬
der one or the other of these faculties . . . [The mind being
like a watch,98] the main spring which puts all in motion
corresponds to the imagination; the pendulum which corrects
and regulates that motion, corresponds to the judgment; and
the hand and dial, like the memory, record the operation.
... if the judgment sleeps whilst the imagination keeps
awake . . . the master of the school is gone out and the boys
are in an uproar.”99
“. . . How very few men there are in any country,”
he remarks in censuring Raynal, “who can at once, and with¬
out the aid of reflection and revisal, combine warm passions
with a cool temper, and the full expansion of the imagination
with the natural and necessary gravity of judgment, so as to
be rightly balanced within themselves, and to make a reader
feel, fancy, and understand justly at the same time. To call
three powers of the mind into action at once, in a manner
that neither shall interrupt, and that each shall aid and in¬
vigorate the other, is a talent very rarely possessed. It often
happens that the weight of an argument is lost by the wit of
setting it off; or the judgment disordered by an intemperate
irritation of the passions: yet a certain degree of animation
must be felt by the writer, and raised in the reader, in order
to interest the attention; and a sufficient scope given to the
imagination, to enable it to create in the mind a sight of the
persons, characters and circumstances, of the subject: for
without these, the judgment will feel little or no excitement
to office, and its determinations will be cold, sluggish, and im¬
perfect. But if either or both of the two former are raised
too high, or heated too much, the judgment will be jostled
from its seat, and the whole matter, however, important in
07 Paine seems to have drawn some of his knowledge of Eastern religions from
Sir William Jones’s Asiatic Researches ( Writings , IV, 330) ; and Jones’s Prin¬
ciples of Government (1782), which ran to five editions by 1818, is strikingly
paralleled by passages in Paine’s later political writing. In “A Discourse on the
Institution of a Society,” etc., p. 8, Jones writes : ‘‘Human knowledge has been
elegantly analysed according to the three great faculties of the mind, Memory,
Reason, and Imagination ; which we constantly find employed in arranging and
retaining, comparing and distinguishing, combining and diversifying the idea,
which we receive through our senses, or acquire by reflection.”
98 In 1804, after Paley’s works were published, Paine wrote: ‘‘When we see a
watch, we have as positive evidence of the existence of a watchmaker as if we
saw him ; and in the same manner the creation is evidence to our reason and our
senses of the existence of a Creator.” ( Writings , IV, 317) If Paine may have
borrowed this mechanical figure from Paley, Paley’s political philosophy of nat¬
ural rights has interesting resemblances to Paine’s, elaborated in print before
most of Paley’s works had appeared.
99 Writings, IV, 360-62.
330 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
itself, will diminish into a pantomine of the mind, in which
we create images that promote no other purpose than amuse¬
ment.”100
It is often erroneously supposed that the neo-classicists and the
radical rationalists were implacably hostile to the imagination.
It is true, as we have seen, that Paine repressed his interest
in poetry as “leading too much into the field of imagina¬
tion” ;101 his hostility toward what he calls “the vapours of the
imagination”,102 however, refers only to the unbalanced and un¬
disciplined use of that faculty. For to Paine, as to many of his
contemporaries, the imagination, as he described it above, is
the “main-spring” of the mind. We should notice carefully,
however, exactly what he means by imagination. To Paine it
not so much an Aristotelian faculty, essentially moral, whereby
ethical universals are envisaged on the basis of particulars
purged of what is accidental or idiosyncratic, a conception held
by such men as Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the mature
James Russell Lowell,103 as it was a creative arranger of images
furnished by memory and controlled by judgment. If we recall
how exuberant were Paine’s early flights of fancy, how strongly
he leaned toward the over-ornate and the Arcadian, we will
understand how difficult, and necessary, in his case was self-
discipline, and we will perhaps be more charitable toward
his frequent and deplorable inability to bring his writing, often
done under stress of emergencies which forbade revision, into
complete harmony with his ideal of a fruitful and purposeful
balance between the Memory, the Judgment and the Imagina¬
tion. With regard to this ideal, as with others, he was in accord
with the main current of his age. For, as Professor F. B. Kaye
100 Writings, II, 69-70.
™Ibid., IV, 63.
102 Ibid., I, 178. “But priests, preachers, and fanatics, put imagination in the
place of faith, and it is the nature of the imagination to believe without evidence.”
Ibid., IV, 422.
103 See Norman Foerster, American Criticism, Boston, 1928, on Lowell’s imag¬
ination ; H. H. Clark, “Lowell’s Criticism of Romantic Literature,” Publications of
the Modern Language Association, XLI, 209-228, and also “Lowell-Humanitarian,
Nationalist, or Humanist?” Studies in Philology, XXVII, 411—441 (July, 1930).
Paine, of course, had little in common with the contemporary heralds of original
genius who used the imagination mainly as a means of escape, or a means of
creating what was idiosyncratic or unique. In a paper on “The Romanticism of
Edward Young” ( Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, XXIV) I
have discussed the neo-classical as contrasted with the classical imagination, al¬
though I should have given more stress to the idea that the neo-classicists were
not hostile to the sort of imagination just described.
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine.
331
reminded us, “The neo-classicist distrusted only the undisci¬
plined use of the faculty [imagination] ; the disciplined imagi¬
nation he required. The following is a typical neo-classic state¬
ment: Tn a good poem, whether it be epic or dramatic; as also
in sonnets, epigrams, and other pieces, both judgment and
fancy are required . . .’104 This was a doctrine preached by
Pope and Addison [whom Paine read, admired and quoted].
That the neo-classicists could hardly help respecting
the imagination is shown by their conceptions of the creative
art. The central psychological theory was that of Hobbes and
Locke, according to which the judgment separates the impres¬
sions stored in the memory by the senses and the imagination
joins and relates them. Imagination, therefore, was as neces¬
sary to controlled thinking as judgment, and shared its good
repute.”105
Sixth, having advocated this difficult balance of facuties nec¬
essary to the writer, Paine aimed to adjust language to thought
with such exquisite precision as to create exactly the impression
he wished to produce and no other. The ex-soldier knew that
ammunition is not more necessary than infallible aiming. As
he himself sums the matter up. “To fit the powers of thinking
and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a
clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question and nothing
else, is the true criterion of writing.”106 Conscious of his own
earlier weaknesses, he is aware that the means should be always
subordinated to the end, the part to the whole, that writing may
fail “through an excess of graces”, if as in Raynal’s case, “the
coloring is too high for the original”, even though “the concep¬
tion is lofty and the expression elegant”.107 As he boasted later,
reviewing, no doubt, his own struggles for literary self-control
and for artistic integrity, “All the world knows, for it cannot
help knowing, that to judge rightly, and to write clearly, and
that upon all sorts of subjects, to be able to command thought
104 Hobbes, Of Man, Pt. I, sect. 8.
105 In the Philological Quarterly, VII, 178. See also, Charles Gildon, The Com¬
plete Art of Poetry, 1718, I, 125 ; “For Fancy and Judgment must join in every
great Poet, as Courage and Judgement in every great General ; for where either
is wanting, the other is useless, or of small Value. Fancy is what we generally
call Nature, or a Genius, Judgment is what we mean by Art, the union of which
in one Man makes a complete Poet.”
106 writings, II, 110.
107 Writings, II, 110,
332 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
and as it were to play with it at pleasure, and be always master
of one's temper in writing, is the faculty only of a serene mind,
and the attribute of a happy and philosophical temperament."108
Like Milton, whose work he read,109 Paine recognized that lit¬
erary success depends upon far more than verbal carpentry and
astute craftsmanship, important as these are; he recognized,
like the greater and more profound radical, the organic relation
between character and literary creation, the fact that the life
of a poet must itself be a genuine and living poem. The deist,
grossly libelled as an atheist or infidel, who spent his life ringing
the changes on his master-theme that “It is only in the Creation
[nature] that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can
unite,"110 was not slow to grasp the parallel idea that the literary
creation of man is a revelation of its human creator, noble or
ignoble in proportion as the deeper springs of his character are
in fruitful harmony with what Emerson, like Paine in this re¬
spect, called “the law alive and beautiful",* * 111 the Oversoul. And
if Paine’s writing is not flawless, if he wanders far at times
from the high-road he charted, it is perhaps not unrelated to
the fact that he never completely achieved the “happy and philo¬
sophical" self-command he sought,112 that he did not escape what
108 Ibid., Ill, 402.
109 Ibid., I, 91. John Adams, Works, II, 508, records that Paine came “to my
lodgings and spent an evening with me,” and in discussing the portion of Common
Sense dealing with monarchy, he “said he had taken his ideas in that part from
Milton”.
no Writings, IV, 46. He was the champion, unlike Rousseau, of representative
government {Ibid., II, 414-429) and he was among the first to see that “the union
of America is the foundation-stone of her independence; the rock on which it is
built . . {Ibid., I, 340; see all of Crisis, XIII).
111 Emerson, Complete Works (Centenary Edition), III, 283. See H. H. Clark,
“Emerson and Science”, Philological Quarterly, X, 225-260, where evidence is pre¬
sented to show that on one side Emerson’s thought had a strong kinship with
that of the deists.
112 Of course Paine has been unpardonably libelled as regards his personal char¬
acter, especially by such biographers as Cheetham. His sympathetic champion,
however, M. D. Conway, was obliged to accept the fact that he was dismissed
from the excise for a violation of his trust, and his best friends have reluctantly
admitted that in later life he “gave in to the too frequent indulgence of drinking,
neglected his appearance, and retired, mortified and disgusted, from an ill-judging,
unkind, unjust world, into coarse obscurity, and the association of characters in
inferior life.” This is the testimony of Rickman, {Life of Paine, London, 1819,
p. 11), and it is substantiated by other friends such as Barlow (C. B. Todd, Life
and Letters of Joel Barlow, New York, 1886, see Barlow’s long letter on Paine
quoted pp. 236-39). See also C. Wilmont, An Irish Peer on the Continent
(1801-3), pp. 26-27. James Monroe, who had Paine released from prison and who
nursed him back to health in his own ambassadorial residence, was grieved that
Paine “would commit such a breach of confidence as well as of gratitude”, as that
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
333
his defender, Shelley,113 called the “contagion of the world’s
slow stain”. On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that
this ultimate stress upon self-discipline in literary art is in the
last analysis the inevitable result, in literary terms, of the con¬
temporary outlook of religious radicals, or deists, culminating
with Bolingbroke and Pope, whom Paine admired as “Free¬
thinkers”.114 For, as I hope to show elsewhere, the views of such
religious radicals as Paine represents have been somewhat
misunderstood, and important political, humanitarian, and lit¬
erary results of such views largely ignored. Paine was anything
but an atheist or an anarchist. If he advocated, like Pope, fol¬
lowing nature, the concept “nature” must be interpreted in the
light of the contemporary climate of opinion. He did not mean
by following nature to return to the actual physical life of a
savage in a wilderness. For to Paine, as to most of the deists,
nature had a special meaning, confirmed by Newtonion science :
as Paine expressly says, “nature is of divine origin. It is the
laws by which the universe is governed” ;115 nature “is no other
than the laws the Creator has prescribed to matter”, laws op¬
erating in “unerring order and universal harmony”,116 and per¬
ceptible through the study of science by means of “the divine
gift of reason”.117 Nature is law , eternal , immutable, univer¬
sal ,118 Now, whatever were the facts of the personal life of
Paine, philosophically, far from preaching lustful license or do-
as-you-please, the ultimate virtue to him, as his deist contem¬
poraries in England, was living in harmony with this law which
is nature, a conformity involving no little discipline, as has been
involved in publishing from his host’s home pamphlets which compromised his
host, the United States’ ambassador, and according to B. Fay, “Paine shattered
his work”, ( The Revolutionary Spirit in France and America, New York, 1927,
trans. by R. Guthrie, pp. 379-380 ; Writings of James Monroe, New York, 1898-
1903, II, 440-42; III, 20-21; III, 27).
113 The Shelley Correspondence in the Bodleian Library, ed. R. H. Hill, Oxford,
1926, p. 21 ff., Letter XXVI, “Shelley to J. H. Hunt, 3 November, 1819, on the
conviction of Richard Carlile for Publishing Paine’s ‘Age of Reason’.” (The first
and third sheets only of this letter had been printed, as in editions by Forman
and Ingpen).
114 Writings, IV 391-93 and 342.
115 Ibid., IV, 311.
118 Writings, IV, 339.
117 Ibid., IV, 315-16, and 322.
118 In another study, “Newtonianism and Thomas Paine”, I have endeavoured to
define and outline Paine’s central assumptions in the light of contemporary
thought, especially thJLt of Newtonians such as James Ferguson and Benjamin
Martin, who were Paine’s teachers.
834 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters.
demonstrated in the case of Shaftesbury.119 Thus, to indicate
Paine's accord with the spirit of the age, in this matter of a
disciplined precision, “the true criterion of writing", we may
recall that to Pope, as to Paine, “prayerbooks are the toys of
age",120 while God is revealed in nature, in “the stupendous
whole" harmony of nature’s laws, which are universal— -“still
the same". Thus, unlike the “original genius" naturalists such
as Edward Young, whose cult of following nature led to a lit¬
erary diversitarianism, a quest of the eccentric, of noncon¬
formity, Pope and Paine urge us to “first follow nature, which
is still the same",121 a quest of the concentric or the universal,
an ideal, in Pope’s case, if less faithfully in practice in Paine’s,
which involved the most intense literary self-discipline as re¬
gards craftsmanship in the interest of finality of expression,
of what was “ne’er so well expressed". The crowning stress,
then, which Paine lays upon harmonizing a writer’s powers by
allegiance to a judgment which “corrects and regulates", and
upon being able “to command thought and as it were to play
with it at pleasure", to hit the point in question and nothing
else", this crowning stress upon control in writing was but a
reflection of the central philosophy of that day, wherein man
found his salvation by a self-disciplined conformity to nature’s
law, the “unerring order and universal harmony", and it can
be only inadequately, if not falsely, interpreted when divorced
from that philosophic background of deism and Newtonian
law.122
119 Esther Tiffany, “Shaftesbury as Stoic”, Publications of the Modern Language
Association, XXXVIII (1923), 642-84.
120 “Essay on Man” (1734).
121 “Essay on Criticism”. Mary Segar has recently argued, inconclusively, as it
seems to me, that Pope’s deism may be reconciled with his nominal Catholicism.
(“Some Notes on Pope’s Religion”, Dublin Review, No. 381, April, 1932).
122 This vastly important subject of the relation between literary ideals and
Newtonian deism awaits, so far as I am aware, thorough investigation, both in
England and America. A suggestive but very brief tabulation of meanings of the
term “nature” in criticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth century will be
found in a paper on “ ‘Nature’ as Aesthetic Norm” by A. O. Lovejoy ( Modern
Language Notes, XLII, 1927, pp. 444—50). As regards America, Carl Becker has
admirably shown how important were widespread Newtoman naturalism and
deism in moulding political theory and history ; he does not mention Paine, but it
should be evident that if Paine imbibed Newtonianism earlier in England through
indirect sources, he must have had his faith reinforced by breathing its prevailing
atmosphere in America. {The Declaration of Independence. A Study in the His¬
tory of Political Ideas, New York, 1922, Ch. II). And see B. F. Wright, Jr.,
“American Interpretations of Natural Law”, American Political Science Review,
XX, (1926), 524-47 ; and A. O. Lovejoy (Modern Philology, XXIX, Feb. 1932,
Clark-Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
335
Having satisfied himself as to the perfection of the units of
his composition, striving, as we have seen, for candour, sim¬
plicity, and clarity, for boldness, for wit, for an appeal not only
to reason but to feeling, for a balance between judgement and
imagination, and for a purposeful and precise adjustment be¬
tween language and ideas with reference to a definite audience,
Paine strove, finally, to arrange his units, his carefully con¬
structed sentences, in an architectonic pattern designed to give
them their maximum effectiveness. He worshipped order in
everything, but especially in literary composition, and as a
critic he is especially sensitive to faults in order and method.
His friend Rickman testifies that “he used to speak highly of the
sentimental parts of Raynal’s History”,123 and he acknowledged
that the Frenchman who cloaked humanitarianism under his¬
tory “displays great powers of genius, and is a master of style
and language”.124 Yet as an apostle of orderly method in the
development of an argument, he cannot overlook the fact that
“the greater part of the abbe’s writings, (if he will pardon me
the remark) appear to me uncentral, and burdened with variety.
They represent a beautiful wilderness without paths ; in which
the eye is diverted by everything, without being particularly
directed to anything . . ,”125 The same fault loomed large to him
in the writing of “Cato”, whose attack on Common Sense called
forth Paine’s Forester papers: “Cato’s manner of writing has
as much order in it as the motion of a squirrel. He frequently
writes as if he knew not what to write next, just as the other
jumps about, only because it cannot stand still”.126 And especi¬
ally, in answering Burke’s Reflections , he lamented the difficulty
of imposing an orderly pattern upon the Rights of Man , since,
as he remarked in one of his happy phrases, he had to tread “a
pp. 281-299) “"She Parallel of Deism and Classicism”. A. Bosker, Literary Criti¬
cism in the Age of Johnson (The Hague, 1930), surveys his subject in the light
of the stock interpretations and romantic assumptions.
123 Rickman, Life of Paine, 136. See also p. 32: ‘‘Distinctness and arrangement
are the peculiar characteristics of his writings : this reflection brings to mind an
observation once made to him by an American girl, that his head was like an
orange — it had a separate apartment for every thing it contained.”
124 Writings, II, 79.
125 Writings, II, 110. See also ibid, IV, 379: ‘‘Isaiah is, upon the whole, a wild
disorderly writer, preserving in general no clear chain of perception in the ar¬
rangement of his ideas, and consequently producing no definite conclusions from
them.”
128 Ibid, I, 138.
336 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
pathless widerness of rhapsodies”.127 In common with the main
figures of his era, devoted to the beauty of symmetry and the
progressive unfolding of a rationalistic argument, Paine ex¬
claims, “I love method, because I see and am convinced of its
beauty and advantage. It is that which makes all business easy
and understood, and without which, everything becomes em¬
barrassed and difficult.”128 For “it is only by reducing compli¬
cated things to method and orderly connexion that they can be
understood with advantage, or pursued with success.”129
Paine’s own practice of this theory is, as everyone knows, im¬
perfect. He never succeeded in bringing his compositions into
that faultless harmony with geometrical method illustrated so
finely by the structure of Godwin’s Political Justice . Neverthe¬
less, as he remarks regarding one subject, he “endeavoured to
give it as systematical an investigation as the short time al¬
lowed.”130 His manner of lighting the way through his compo¬
sitions is simple: in general, at his best, he follows the old
playwright’s advice of telling us what he is going to do, of tell¬
ing us he is doing it, and then telling us he has done it. Thus
we find him making use, regularly, of what one may call “sign¬
post” sentences,131 and “flash-backs” such as the “Recapitula¬
tion” at the end of Part I of The Age of Reason.1*2 Such a
method of securing method, added to his “damnable iteration”
of his master-ideas, made it practically impossible for even the
most unliterary reader to miss his meaning, so clear did he
make it. Thus we are eventually come full circle, his last ideal
of method serving to make possible his first ideal of clear sim¬
plicity. Just as the first is ultimately grounded on his deistic
faith that “man must go back to nature for information”, since
“perfection consists in simplicity”, so his last ideal, that of
order, is also grounded on his deistic faith that the test of the
revelation even of God himself is that “harmonious, magnificent
order that reigns throughout the visible universe,” an order
127 Ibid, II, 302.
las writings, I.
129 Ibid, I.
130 Ibid, II, 24. Watson ( Apology , p. 8) taxes The Age of Reason, Part II, with
“much repetition, and a defect of proper arrangement, ” a criticism also made by
T. Meek, Sophistry Detected, or, a Refutation of T. Paine’s Age of Reason, New¬
castle, MDCCXCV, p. 28.
131 Such as, “Having done A, we will now turn to B,” etc. See especially, for ex¬
amples, Writings II, 520; II, 83-4; III, 331; IV, 62; I, 290; I, 329.
™Ibid., IV, 83-84.
Clark— Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
387
which is “the standard to which everything must be brought.”133
Like his theories political, economic, humanitarian, and educa¬
tional, his theories of rhetoric ultimately stem from and are
fully explainable only in the light of Newtonian science and
deism. The pivot round which his thought revolved was sci¬
entific deism . As I have suggested, in espousing orderly method
in writing Paine was in full accord with his contemporaries;
witness his idol, Franklin, giving typically prosaic and practical
suggestions whereby his friend Benjamin Vaughan could over¬
come his want of “perspicuity” which Franklin traced “prin¬
cipally to a neglect of method”.134 If there are splendours and
glooms of the human soul which the eighteenth century seldom
cared to explore, if in general, as compared with the Age of
Wordsworth, the Age of Pope is inferior in moral and imagina¬
tive sublimity, it is well to remember that the latter is pre¬
eminent in its regard for form and for exquisiteness of literary
order. Deism, with its belief in God, man, and nature as sharply
distinct, its belief in what Paine called divinely “unerring
order”, is parallelled in literature and art and landscape gar¬
dening by order ;135 whereas pantheism, with its belief in unity,
or the fusion of God, man, and nature, is parallelled in these
same fields, by comparative disorder. “Order,” said Pope, “is
Heav’n’s first law.” The apotheosis of order, and this is
the point I would stress, whether or not a result of deism, was
characteristic of Paine’s age. Loving “unerring order” and
133 Writings, IV, 339-40.
is4 “What I would therefore recommend to you is, that, before you sit down to
write on any subject, you would spend some days in considering it, putting down
at the same time, in short hints, every thought which occurs to you as proper to
make a part of your intended piece. When you have thus obtained a collection of the
thoughts, examine them carefully with this view, to find which of them is proper-
est to be presented first to the mind of the reader that he, being possessed of that,
may the more easily understand it, and be better disposed to receive what you
intend for the second ; and thus I would have you put a figure before each
thought, to mark its future place in your composition. For so, every preceding
proposition preparing the mind for that which is to follow, and the reader often
anticipating it, he proceeds with ease, and pleasure, and approbation, as seemingly
continually to meet with his own thoughts. In this mode you have a better chance
for a perfect production ; because the mind attending first to the sentiments alone,
next to the method alone, each part is likely to be better performed, and I think
too in less time.” Quoted by W. C. Bruce, Franklin Self-Revealed, II, 441. It is
interesting to observe that Franklin, who read “Shaftesbury and Collins”, was the
friend of Henry Pemberton, author of A View of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophy ,
(London, 1729), and who confessed that he “became a thorough deist”, placed
high among his cardinal virtues the virtue of order.
135 See Myra Reynolds, The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry, Chicago,
1919, p. 327 ff.
338 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
finding it sublimely present in the “eternal harmony” of the
stars, symbols of light and law, Paine said that “my belief
in the perfection of the Deity will not permit me to believe that
a book [the Bible] so manifestly obscure, disorderly, and con¬
tradictory can be his work”,136 but Thomas Burnet in 1759 de¬
plored the “disorder”, even of the stars, because they did not
conform to the neo-classic demand for. a symmetrical pattern :
“They lie carelessly scattered as if they had been sown in
the heaven like seed, by handfuls, and not by a skilful hand
neither. What a beautiful hemisphere they would have made if
they had been placed in rank and order; if they had all been
disposed into regular figures, and the little ones set with due
regard to the greater, and then all finished and made up into
one fair piece or great composition according to the rules of
art and symmetry !”137
Could a passion for order go beyond this?
If Paine suffered many disappointments, was the object of
much public and private malice, and was ultimately disillusioned
with the French Revolution, and obliged to “despair of seeing
the great object of European liberty accomplished,”138 Jefferson,
his great idol, the father of democracy, recognized the precious
services of his pen :
“No writer”, Jefferson wrote, “has exceeded Paine in ease
and familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happi¬
ness in elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language.
In this he may be compared with Dr. Franklin; and indeed
his Common Sense was, for a while, believed to have been
written by Dr. Franklin.”139
And as he wrote Paine himself, “You must not be too much
elated and set up when I tell you my belief that you are the
only writer in America who can write better than your
obliged and obedient servant — Thomas Jefferson.”140
“I am in hopes,” he wrote Paine in 1801, “you will find us
returned generally to sentiments worthy of former times. In
these it will be your glory to have steadily laboured and
with as much effect a,s any man living.”141
136 Writings, IV, 222 and 21G.
137 Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth, London, 1759. See the
chapter entitled “Stars”.
138 Writings, III, 135.
139 Jefferson’s Works, ed. Ford, X, 183.
140 Quoted in D. E. Wheller’s Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, I, 327.
141 Jefferson’s Works, VIII, 19, and proudly quoted by Paine himself, Writings,
III, 428.
Clark — Literary Theories of Thomas Paine .
339
And in the attainment of this superlative “glory”, Paine was
guided by literary theories which, if by no means ideal, at least
bore the test of practice. For he commanded the attention of
half a million readers, vigorously stirring them to contemplate
the political, religious, and social doctrines which helped to call
into being the American and French Revolutions as well as
many humanitarian movements of later days, doctrines force¬
fully and clearly presented in a style which served as a trusty
tool and was occasionally not without elements of beauty.
,
THE IDEA OF PROGRESS IN
LOCKSLEY HALL
Robert K. Richardson
Beloit College
Since Tennyson published his Locksley Hall in 1842, its popu¬
larity has paralleled the vogue of its dominant concept, the
‘idea of progress/ and may, in large measure, be ascribed to the
poem’s reflection of that vogue.1 So familiar have its lines be¬
come as almost to require apology for their quotation. Yet,
even in the face of the face of the publication by the late
Professor Bury, some eleven years gone by, of The Idea of Prog -
ress, an Inquiry Into Its Origin and Groivth,2 it is probable that
few readers of the poem realize the degree in which its remark¬
able stanzas, directly, or by easy implication, are the legitimate
and authentic product of the entire historical evolution of the
factors essential to the idea ; embody in a way possible only to
verse that emotional element which would appear also a pre¬
requisite of the idea; and suggest, by their presentation of the
necessary components of the concept, its adequate definition.
1 Tennyson was accustomed deliberately to adapt his art to its age. Cf. Eliza¬
beth Luther Cary: Tennyson: His Homes, His Friends, and His Work, 47-48:
“Mr. Pater . wrote in his essay on ‘Style’: ‘English, for a quarter of a cen¬
tury past, has been assimilating the phraseology of pictorial art ; for half a cen¬
tury, the phraseology of the great German metaphysical movement of eighty
years ago ; in part, also, the language of mystical theology : and none but pedants
will regret a great consequent increase of its resources. For many years to come
its enterprise may well lie in the naturalization of the vocabulary of science, so
only it be under the eye of a sensitive scholarship — a liberal naturalization of the
ideas of science too, for, after all, the chief stimulus of good style is to possess
a full, rich, complex material to grapple with.’
Tennyson did precisely this, bending his nineteenth-century intellect to the task
of naturalizing scientific and metaphysical ideas and their phraseology, in a most
unprecedented fashion. This adaptation of his art to his age constituted, perhaps,
his chief claim to originality. His mind was not, like Browning’s, a quarry of na¬
tive marble ; it was rather a mint, receiving and giving current value to ore of a
thousand mines. He anticipated, in his dreams and visions, subjects that were
presently to be chief interests with the public, with much of the instinct that
serves the true journalist who makes an art of his profession.”
Cf. Thomas R. Lounsbury, The Life and Times of Tennyson [ From 1809 — 1850 L
ft. 439-445.
2 J. B. Bury, op. cit., London, 1921.
342 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Historical Evolution of the Idea of Progress
And, first, for the evolution and integration of the component
elements of the idea.
The notion of progress, in Tennyson or elsewhere, owes rela¬
tively little to classical antiquity. Both the thought and feeling
of the ancients were unfavorable to the rise of such an idea.
A philosophy of progress is a philosophy of flux and, despite
notable exceptions, the tendency of antiquity was to view
changelessness and stability as superior to their opposites.
Philosophy, law, and religion were in this accordant. “Inas¬
much as philosophers only are able to grasp the eternal and un¬
changeable, ” asserts the Platonic Socrates, “and those who
wander in the region of the many and variable are not philoso¬
phers, I must ask you which of the two classes should be the
rulers of our State?”3 “As laid down in the Institutes of Jus¬
tinian,” writes Dean Pound, “the precepts of law are three:
to live honorably, not to injure another, to give to everyone his
due. What the interests of another are which one is not to in¬
jure, what constitutes anyone’s due which is to be given him,
are questions left to the traditional and authoritative social or¬
ganization.”4 And a famous text of St. Paul, not now much
preached upon, is “for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am,
therewith to be content.”5
Other features of the thought and life of antiquity adverse to
the rise of a theory of human progress were classical notions
as to repetitive cycles of existence, personal or cosmic;6 con¬
tempt for commerce and labor as baunistic;7 absence of thrill-
evoking invention; the ascetic resignation of Roman imperial
times; and emphasis on necessity and fate. The rational and
3 The Republic , VI, 484, B (Jowett’s tr.), Cf. Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts , V, 2:
“How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome
or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquility.” (Long’s tr., 2nd ed., 106.)
Cf. Plotinus on the “eternal peace” of the “Intellect” or, as Dean Inge translates,
the “Spiritual World” ( Plotini Enneades, ed. Creuzer and Moser, Paris, 1855, V,
Bk. 1, iv, p. 301, col. 1, 11. 4-6).
4 Roscoe Pound, The Spirit of the Common Law, 86.
6 Phil., IV, 11, and cf. I Tim., VI. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, I, Pref., “Glorio-
sissimam civitatem Dei sive in hoc temporum cursu . sive in ilia stabilitate
sedis aeternae” (ed. Dombart, Leipzig, 1863, I, 3: and passim, indefinitely). Vid.,
also, Lewis Mumford, The Story of Utopias, New York, 1922.
6 Cf. Plato, Republic, X ; Augustine, De Civ, Dei, ed. cit., XII, 11, 13, 17 ; Virgil,
Ecloga IV, 11. 5-7, 34-36. But for an opposite use of this material to Virgil’s, cf.
Shelley, final chorus of the Hellas.
7 Cf. Plato, Republic , II, 371, C; III, 415, A.
Richardson — The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall. 343
emotional appreciation of enormous times and spaces, so agree¬
able to the development of a sense of progress, was also foreign
to the classic mind. The Greek temple is
The one thing finished in this hasty world,
Forever finished,
soliloquizes Lowell in The Cathedral and, as Spengler points
out, its architecture is entirely one which draws the interest of
the spectator to its inner point, the confining cella, — not one
which, like Gothic, lures the worshipper from the within to the
without and from the below to the above. Greek mathematics
are as timeless as Greek architecture. Whereas “We conceive
of things as they become and behave, as function ” and have
thus arrived, says Spengler, at “dynamics, analytical geometry”
and finally “to the Differential Calculus,” “in Greek mathe¬
matics time figures not at all.”8 “Classical man formed no image
of a world in progress.”9
Antiquity did, on the other hand, make one important contri¬
bution to the idea of progress: it conceived and to a notable
degree embodied the unity of man. Such an idea was acceptable
alike to the Stoic philosopher, the Christian missionary, and the
Roman official :10 and it is an idea needful to the rise of a notion
of progress as implying the cooperation of all peoples in the
task of advancement incident to a blending of their respective
contributions. The unity of man appears in such lines of Locks¬
ley Hall as :
(1) Saw the vision of the world , and all the wonder that would be.
[6fs]
(2) Men , my brothers, men the workers.
(3) In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the World.
Tennyson was to strike the note more clearly, if possible, in the
8 Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West, tr., I, 15 ; 15, n. 1 ; and passim.
9 Ibid., I, 15, Cf. I, 14—15; 134, n. 1; 254; 133. The conception of infinity, help¬
ful to the idea of progress, was to the Greek abhorrent : cf. Plato and Plotinus,
passim.
10 Cf. W. Windelband, Hist, of Philosophy, tr., 2nd, ed., 176-178; Bryce, Studies
in History and Jurisprudence, 'Essay XI, The Law of Nature, 570 ff. Annals of
Tacitus, ed. Furneaux, Bk. XI, 23, 24, and Appendix I (Claudius on the enlarge¬
ment of the Senate). Aeneid, Bk. VI, 11. 847-853. Ephesians, II, ll-III, 7.
It ought, perhaps, to be added that Pythagorean and Platonic mathematical
emphasis was not without influence in the Copernican and Cartesian revolutions :
vid. J. H. Randall, The Making of the Modern Mind, 227 ff.
844 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition of
1862, 11 but it is very plainly in Lockley Hall none the less.
The Middle Ages, like Antiquity, brought to completeness but
one element needed for the final and classic form12 of the idea
of progress : a sense of the continuity of history. This element
appears in the following lines of Locksley Hall:
(1) nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science and the long result of time ;
When the centuries behind me like a peacful land reposed.™
(2) Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to
point .
(3) Yet I doubt not thro * the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process of the
suns.
(4) I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.
Most influential in laying the foundations of the notion of
historic continuity was Augustine of Hippo. In most regards
the Fathers and their successors stood for ideas quite as op-
11 “Uplift a thousand voices full and sweet,
“In this wide hall with earth’s invention stored,
“And praise the invisible universal Lord,
“Who lets once more in peace the nations meet,
“Where Science, Art, and Labour have outpour’d
“Their myriad horns of plenty at our feet.
“O ye, the wise who think, the wise who reign,
“From growing commerce loose her latest chain,
“Till each man find his own in all men’s good,
“And all men work in noble brotherhood,
“Breaking their mailed fleets and armed towers,
“And ruling by obeying Nature’s powers,
“And gathering all the fruits of earth and crown’d with all her flowers.”
With this should be compared the excerpt from the speech of the Prince
Consort at the Exhibition of 1851, given by Bury, op. cit., 330 : “that great end to
which indeed all history points — the realization of the unity of mankind.”
12 This, in effect, means the French form of the doctrine as distinguished from
various German variations. Vid. Bury, op. cit., ch. XIII.
13 The attitude of the typical Englishman toward change, supported by a vast
amount of English historical precedent, is shared by Tennyson and must have
helped him the more easily to face such a difficulty in the way of a doctrine of
continuity as was offered by the problem of “the Dark Ages.” Of. the poems You
ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease ( ca . 1833, and published 1842) and Love thou thy
land, with love far-brought (ca. 1833, published 1842). In the latter poem, for
example, is the significant verse :
“So let the change which comes be free
“To ingroove itself with that which flies,
“And work, a joint of state, that plies
“Its office, moved with sympathy.”
Tennyson is one who watches “what main-currents draw the years” (ibid.).
Richardson — The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall. 345
posed to any thought of progress as had been the classical ideas
just mentioned: for an other-worldly interpretation of reality
and of the goals of living, for a catastrophic world’s end, for
supernatural interventions, for a gospel of original sin.14 On
the other hand, Augustine attacks the doctrines of cycles; and
history, in connection with the drama of salvation, the strife of
the two Cities, is accorded meaning, wholeness, and continuity.15
It was not less advantageous for the rise of an idea of progress
that the mediaeval view of the nature of history was necessarily
connected, through Church and Holy Roman Empire, with the
previous, and almost as essential, doctrine of the unity of man.
In the Methodus ad Faeilem Historiarum Cognitionem of
Bodin (1566) the classical and mediaeval contributions have
combined into a doctrine whereby history falls into three stages,
during which, respectively, the peoples of the South-East con¬
tribute religion to the common fund, those of the Mediterranean
gifts of practical sagacity, and those of the North aptitude in
war and inventive skill.16 By the middle of the eighteenth cen¬
tury so thoroughly adopted is the conception of continuity that
Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Turgot are seeking the laws de¬
termining its course : from which point the path is short to the
sociological theories of Saint-Simon, August-Comte. and Karl
Marx.17
14 De Civ. Dei, ed. Dombart, 1863, VII, Pref. : Multum magna res agitur, cum
vera et vere sancta divinitas, quamvis ab ea nobis etiam huic, quam nunc
gerimus, fragilitati necessaria subsidia praebeantur, non tamen propter mortalis
vitae transitorium vaporem, sed propter vitam beatam, quae non nisi aeterna est
quaerenda et colenda praedicatur. Cf., also, IX, 15 and Bk. XIX, which is partic¬
ularly pessimistic, passim, Cf., also, the Prologue of the eighth book of Otto of
Freising’s chronicle of The Two Cities (tr. C. C. Mierow, ed. Evans and Knapp,
1928), and Introduction, 75 ff.
15 Cf. Augustine, op. cit., XII, 11, 13, 17, 20: as, also, Otto of Freising.
16 Bury, op, cit., 38.
17 Ibid., 144-146, 151-152, 153-158. On Montesquieu and Voltaire, cf. Eduard
Fueter, Geschichte der Neueren Historiographie (1911), 384: “Es war erstens
nicht von geringerer Bedeutung, dass Montesquieu viele Neuerungen im Sinne der
Aufklarung, die Voltaire in die Geschichtschreibung einftihrte, mit dem Gewichte
seines Namens untersttitzte. So die Erweiterung des Geschichtskreises fiber die
ganze Erde hin, so vor allem die Ablehnung der theologischen Geschichtsbetracht-
ung in jeder Form. Montesquieu und Voltaire wichen oft voreinander ab ; aber
darin waren sie beide einig, dass sie historische Vorgange ausschliesslich aus
natiirlichen Ursachen erklarten.” Of Voltaire Fueter remarks (op. cit., 354) :
“Sein Jahrhundert [i. e., Louis XIV’s] ist das erste Werk, das die annalistische
Gliederung, ja die ausserlich chronologische Einreihung ftberhaupt aufgibt. Zum
ersten Male werden die geschichtlichen Ereignisse nach ihrem inneren Zusam-
menhange, nicht bloss nach der Gleichzeitigkeit zu ordnen versucht. Zum ersten
Male wird der gesamte Leben eines Staates dargestellt.” The very table of con¬
tents of VEsprit des Lois exudes the notion of natural law underlying historical
346 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
The other essential components of the idea of progress, what¬
ever their remoter origins, mature this side of the Middle Ages.
They are six in number and, like their predecessors, are repre¬
sented in Locksley Hall.
1. An ethically accepted this-worldliness.
2. Confidence in human reason.
3. Development and acceptance of scientific aim and
method.
4. Increase of inventions.
5. Acceptance as available for human advancement of a
vast and indefinite future, the movement tending to be
conceived as accelerative.
6. Inclusion within the term “progress” of political and
social ameliorations as well as of enhancement of knowl¬
edge and technique.
By an ethically accepted this-worldliness is meant a this-
worldliness so firmly held, and almost so unconsciously, as to be
taken for granted and unsubject to serious ethical or theological
criticism. It is represented in Locksley Hall, not only by a plot
in which the disappointed lover seeks to drown his grief in life’s
practical business rather than in any ascetic or transcendental
fashion, but by the following specific lines :
(1) When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:
When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the vision of the world , and all the wonder that would be.
(2) Men, my brothers, men the workers . :
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they
shall do.
(3) Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of
change.
This last a line, it is fair to say, which would have found small
favor with Plato !
The origins of this friendly attitude toward the Here-and-
Now are, of course, and properly, associated with the Renais¬
sance. One instinctively thinks of the circles of Lorenzo and of
Florence, of the egoisms and worse of Benvenuto, of the experi¬
mentations and surmises of Leonardo, of the tales of Boccaccio,
and of Petrarch’s love of fame and Laura. But Dante, too, had
process, and notably the life and nature of the state: note particularly Bks. 14,
15, 16, 18, 20.
Richardson — The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall. 347
vowed his beloved fame, and kept the vow; and before Dante,
even back in the twelfth century, students had been singing
songs beside which “Here's to good old Yale” were a gospel-
hymn.18 In view of many considerations, of fabliaux , of chan¬
sons d’aventure, and of early classical revivals, one hardly knows
to-day whether to ask: “Was there a Renaissance?” or “Was
there a Middle Age?”
In reality, however, the basic source of the overthrow of the
dominance of other-worldliness would appear to have been the
revival of the foreign commerce of western Europe incident to
the growing stability of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the
unbroken mercantile connections of Venice with Constantinople,
the revival of the Flanders trade through the new mart of
Bruges in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and the rise — prob¬
ably based on sheer surplusage of servile population- — of a
professional mercantile class throughout central western Europe
in the tenth century. Members of this class, of servile origin
but, de facto , free by reason of sheer untraceability, might settle,
for example, outside the fortified “burg,” in their forisburgus,
their faubourg , which soon became the bourg, and thus create
a bourgeois class. As a type of this new “third estate” Pirenne
mentions the mercantile period of the life of St. Godric of Fin-
chale, of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.19
Curiously enough, this mercantile movement, eyed askance by
the Church, so this-worldly in all its associations and conse¬
quences, received its final impetus precisely from, the Crusades
which, in their ultimate motivations were among the most per¬
fect examples of mediaeval renunciation and transcendentalism !
It remained, however, for the rationalistic and mathematically
minded revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
to administer the coup de grace to the dominance of any other-
18 Cf. Boris I. Jarcho : Die Vorlaufer des G-olias, in Speculum, III, no. 4, Oct.
1928, 523 ff., as also Prof. Rand’s note, ibid., 595. Examples of verse, in Haskins,
The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, 181 ff. Cf., also, James Westfall
Thompson, The Last Pagan, stanza XXXI, p. 49 ( Presidential Address Before
the Chicago Literary Club, Forty -Third Year, Oct. 9 th, 1916. Chicago Literary-
Club, 1917). The poem translated by Prof. Thompson is that of a 13th century
admirer of Lucretius. Ibid., 18, 24-26.
19 Pirenne, Medieval Cities, Their Origins and the Revival of Trade, 120 ff. Of
Godric the author remarks: “The quest of profit guided all his actions and in him
can be easily recognized that famous ‘capitalistic spirit’ ( spiritus capitalist icus)
which some would have us believe dates only from the Renaissance .... It is not
employing too modern an expression to say that the profits he realized were put
to work as fast as possible to augment his revolving capital.”
348 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
worldliness, either of the traditional Catholic or of the Protest¬
ant type.20
The second post-mediaeval factor in the idea of progress is
confidence in the human reason. This item may not be specific¬
ally mentioned in Locksley Hall, but it is implicit in its emo¬
tional expression and is clearly apparent through such a line as
“Science moves, but sloiuly slowly, creeping on from point to
point.”21
The mediaevalist thinks at once of the Sic et Non of twelfth
century Abelard, or of the Concordantia Discordantium Cano -
num of the same epoch, or of the analytical and synthetical
Summa of Aquinas.22 These, after all, are in the main critical
treatments of previous authorities : and though these, and other
monuments of scholastic thought, doubtless trained and sharp¬
ened the human mind and led to the rationalistic freedom of a
Valla and an Erasmus, even such freedom was soon threatened
by a new authority, antiquity itself. Against this new foe Bodin
protested in his above mentioned Methodus . In behalf of the
rationalistic powers of the moderns he appealed alike to the
light thrown by them upon phenomena inadequately explained
by the ancients, and to such discoveries as the compass, gun¬
powder and the printing press. Bodin found a supporter in
Le Roy.23 Particularly hostile to undue reverence for antiquity
was Lord Bacon. In the very preface of The Great Instauration
he writes of the wisdom derivable from the Greeks that “it can
talk, but it cannot generate; for it is fruitful of controversies
but barren of works.”24
But of the seventeenth century, the critical and decisive cen¬
tury for the rise of the idea of progress, Descartes is, with re¬
spect to that idea, the central figure : and of the Cartesian view¬
point the supremacy of the human reason is the very key. The
conception appears in the first sentences of the Discourse on
20 Cf. Randall, op. cit., chs. IX, et seq.
21 Cf, too, such a protest as the line : “ Cursed be the sickly forms that err from
honest Nature’s rule l” wherein “ Nature ” seems equivalent to Reason as in Pope’s
“True wit is nature to advantage dress’d.” On the other hand it may be roman¬
tically used, or be merely ambiguous.
22 Cf., also, such a writer as Dante. At the beginning of the De Monarchia he
tells us that he is striving “to establish truths unattempted by others,” (op. cit.,
tr. Aurelia Henry, I, 1) ; but his dependence on Aristotle is constant, and it re¬
mains for Marsiglio and Machiavelli really to get a new standpoint.
23 Bury, op. cit., 40-41, 44-49.
24 The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, Ellis and Heath, IV (1883), 14.
Richardson — The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall . 349
Method (1637) : “Good sense is, of all things among men, the
most equally distributed ; for every one thinks himself so abun¬
dantly provided with it, that those even who are the most diffi¬
cult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger
measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this
it is not likely that all are mistaken: the conviction is rather
to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of
distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is
called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men ; and
that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise
from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than
others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along
different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects.
For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough ; the prime
requisite is rightly to apply it.”25 In the fourth book of the Dis¬
course the idea is epigrammatically summarized : “For, in fine,
whether awake or asleep, we ought never to allow ourselves to
be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the evidence of
cur reason.”26 The mindedness of Descartes was enthroned
throughout the eighteenth century, and by 1789 it had, with a
daring unknown to the master, optimistically and light-heart¬
edly brought all institutions to the bar of reason and produced
the French Revolution, of which we so largely are the children,
even a Tennyson.
The next two constituants of the progress-idea as above
enumerated are the development of scientific aim and method,
and the increase of inventions — thrilling inventions, we should
perhaps have added! Each of these factors is inextricably as¬
sociated with the other, and both are cradled in the rising confi¬
dence in human reason. The lines involving these two matters
in the poem are as follows :
(1) Nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science.
(2) Men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they
shall do.”
(3) For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the ivonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails.
25 Descartes, op. cit., Everyman ed., 3.
26 Ibid., 32; cf., also, 22-24.
350 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters ,
Pilots of the purple twilight , dropping down with costly bales ;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly
dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing
warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro ' the thunder -
storm.
(4) Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of
change.
-—this last quotation in view of the circumstances of its writing
which were those of Tennyson’s first railroad ride.27
Space and common sense forbid discussion of the rise of
theoretical and applied science in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries : but it is clear that in the above excerpts are involved
the aims and methodology of Bacon and Descartes: of Galileo
and Kepler and Newton: the utilitarianism of the Novum Or¬
ganon, ,28 and its application in the Industrial Revolution. Any¬
thing dreamed of in Bacon’s New Atlantis or contemplated in
the cogitations of the Royal Society of 1660 had been far sur¬
passed by 1842. And only the following year Punch was to pub¬
lish a cartoon entitled The Aerial Steam Carriage, with an ex¬
planatory text prophesying a first line to India, “the carriages
leaving the top of the Monument, Fish Street Hill, every morn-
27 Notes to Macmillan edition., 1920, p. 901, note to p. 100, line 22: “When I
went by the first train from Liverpool to Manchester (1830), I thought that the
wheels ran in a groove. It was a black night, and there was such a vast crowd at
the station that we could not see the wheels. Then I made this line.”
28 Passages indicated by Bury are as follows : Aphorisms Concerning the Inter¬
pretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man, Bk. I, lxxxi (in Novum Organon) :
this includes the passage: “And if by chance there be one who seeks after truth
in earnest, yet even he will propose to himself such a kind of truth as shall yield
satisfaction to the mind and understanding in rendering causes for things long
since discovered, and not the truth which shall lead to new assurance of works
and new lights of axiums.” ( Works of Francis Bacon , ed. Spedding, etc., IV
[1883], 79-80.) Also, ibid., Bk. I, iii, p. 47. To these may be added ciii, p. 96.
Bury also indicates the highly basic passage of the De Aug mentis Scientiarum,
VII, 1 : “Ego certe . et in iis quae nunc edo et in iis quae in posterum meditor
dignitatem ingenii et nominis mei (si qua sit) saepius sciens et volens projicio,
dum commodis humanis inserviam. . .’’(ibid., I [1879], 714.)
The same period which was to witness the triumph of utilitarianism as illus¬
trated in the Great Exposition of 1851 and as connected with the triumph of
laissez-faire and Free Trade, saw a combination between the utilitarianism of
Free Trade and the international peace movement of the time. The combination
in Locksley Hall of emphases on science and invention on the one side, and on
peace and international movements on the other, is thoroughly typical of the
period. Vid. Bury, op. cit ., 330, and A. C. F. Beales, The History of Peace, 1931,
69-70.
Richardson~The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall . 351
mg, and taking five minutes at the summit of the Great Pyra¬
mid, for refreshments, and to allow the passengers a short time
to stretch their legs.” This picture was to be reproduced in the
same magazine toward the close of 1931, incident to the estab¬
lishment of Air Mail Service to the Cape.29
Necessary to the rise of a general presumption of progress is
not only a series of notable applications of science to human
advantage, but the acceptance as available for human improve¬
ment of a vast and indefinite future : and if the process come to
be deemed accelerative, so much the better. Locksley Hall as¬
sumes such an indefinite future, though its suggestion of
acceleration seems but slight. The lines noted are as follows :
(1) That which they have done but earnest of the things that they
shall do:
For I dipt into the future , far as human eye could see ,
Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.
(2) Yet I doubt not thro ’ the ages one increasing purpose runs ,
And the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process of the
suns.
(3) Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us
range,
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of
change.
In this connection, also, may properly be cited the lines in the
poem entitled The Day Dream , in a part of the poem published
in 1842 :
For we are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
The first of these two lines might well be a direct translation of
the Eighty-fourth Aphorism of the First Book of the Novum
Organon: Mundi enim senium et grandaevitas pro antiquitate
vere habenda sunt ; quae temporibus nostris tribui debent, non
juniori aetati mundi, qualis apud antiquos fuit.30 It is to be
29 Punch, Dec. 16, 1931. The appearance of the contraptions pictured is highly
similar to that of the modern aeroplane. Service to the Cape was established
Dec. 9, 1931.
30 Works of Francis Bacon, ed. cit., I, 190. Cf also, The Making of Man , writ¬
ten late in Tennyson’s life and published in 1892.
“Where is one that born of woman, altogether can escape
“From the lower world within him, moods of tiger, or of ape?
“Man as yet is being made, and ere the crowning Age of ages,
“Shall not aeon after aeon pass and touch him into shape?
“All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and fade
352 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
noted, however, that whereas Bacon means that we are “an¬
cients” because we have had the real experience conferred by
lapse of time, Tennyson, as shown by the unquoted context,
holds that we are “ancients” because, like the men of old, we
too are standing only at the portals of an indefinite future, and
of great change and progress.
For the most part the pioneers of what was to crystallize into
a doctrine of progress and human perfectibility were still too
much under the influence of eschatological considerations to lay
great stress on a future;31 but forty-eight years after the No¬
vum Organon , Gianville, in a book defending the Royal Society
and glorifying its scientific achievement since Bacon’s time,
declares that its utilitarian mission must be attained by ‘insen¬
sible degrees,’ and that “we must seek and gather, observe and
examine, and lay up in bank for the ages that come after.”
Gianville, therefore, assumes a vast futurity.32 Twenty years
32 Ibid., 94. Material in single quotation marks, Bury’s : in double, Glanville’s
as quoted by Bury, from Plus Ultra .
this side of Gianville, Fontenelle, in his Digression on the An¬
cients and Moderns (1688), first lays down in its completeness
what was to become the general doctrine of the fathers of the
French Revolution: that mankind will never degenerate nor
enter a second childhood and that progress and knowledge de¬
velop independently of the follies or misfortunes of particular
individuals.33 With 1770 begins the still augmenting series of
“Propliet-eyes may catch a glory slowly gaining on the shade,
“Till the peoples all are one, and all their voices blend in choric
“Hallelujah to the Maker ‘It is finish’d. Man is made.’ ”
Cf., also, The Dawn, similarly written and published (2nd verse) :
“Red of the Dawn !
“Godless fury of peoples, and Christless frolic of kings,
“And the bolt of war dashing down upon
cities and blazing farms,
“For Babylon was a child new-born, and
Rome was a babe in arms,
“And London and Paris and all the rest
are as yet but in leading strings.”
For a very general treatment, vid. William Clark Gordon, The Social Ideals of
Alfred Tennyson as Related to his Time, Un. of Chicago Press, 1906. In addition
to the two above poems, Mr. Gordon calls attention to the four stages of history
in The Holy Grail, represented in the sculpture at Camelot :
“In the lowest beasts are slaying men,
“And in the second men are slaying beasts,
“And on the third are warriors, perfect men,
“And on the fourth are men with growing wings.”
31 Bury, op. cit., 57-59, 90, 94, 97.
33 Bury, op. cit., 109-110, 162-163. Fontenelle was, however, devoid of a theory
of evolution, held that most men would always be fools, and had no dreams of
social improvement (ibid., 110-111).
Richardson — The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall. 353
Utopias, fictitious or attempted, not confined like Plato’s or
Bacon’s to contemporary space, near or remote, but frequently
imagined in the future.34 That of Bellamy may serve as a type.
Among English poets perfectibility’s choicest product is
Shelley, in whom are blended the Platonism of antiquity, the
chivalry of the Middle Ages, and the humanitarianism of the
Revolution.
Tennyson’s doctrine of the “one increasing purpose” and the
widening of men’s thoughts “with the process of the suns” may,
to some, suggest the accelerative character of progress. If
Tennyson did have this in mind he was presenting a doctrine
laid down by Turgot in an unrealized plan for a treatment of
universal history35 and by Condorcet who, in his Sketch of a
Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, had in¬
dicated that the study of history enables man both to determine
and to accelerate his progress.36
Lastly, so far as regards the intellectual factors logically es¬
sential to the evolution of the idea of progress, Locksley Hall
includes, not only the conception of enlargements of knowledge
and improvements of technique, but also the tenet of an indefi¬
nite amelioration of political and social conditions. Pertinent
lines are as follows :
(1) Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of
youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!
(2) Saw the heavens fill with commerce.
(3) Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle flags
were furVd
In the Parliament of man , the Federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretfid realm in
awe ,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
The topics specifically mentioned are harmful social conven¬
tions, international trade (“free trade”), international organi¬
zation for peace, and the rule of politically competent majority
opinion. These few topics may be held to stand for the many,
34 Ibid., ch. X. Cf. Mumford, Story of Utopias.
35 Bury, op. cit., 157.
36 Bury, op. cit., 211, using the 1795 edition. Cf. the translation: “ Outlines of an
Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind,” Philadelphia, 1796, 11 :
"From these observations on what man has heretofore been, and what he is at
present, we shall be led to the means of securing and of accelerating the still
further progress, of which, from his nature, we may indulge the hope.”
354 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
and what is explicit in the second Locksley Hall may be deemed
implicit in the first.
In all these matters Tennyson represents tendencies long de¬
veloping. Bury points out that it was an Englishman, George
Hakewill, who, in a pedantic and now long forgotten folio, of
1627, introduced into the “Quarrel of the Ancients and Mod¬
erns” and thus indirectly into the idea of progress the matters
of moral and social amelioration :37 but that it remained for the
humanitarian Abbe de Saint-Pierre to make “progress towards
social perfection” a definitive and integral part of the theory
of unlimited progress.38 The abbe was a typically cheerful Car¬
tesian, eternally propounding programs of reform, in short, a
kind of French, seventeenth century, for the time-being less
influential, Jeremy Bentham. In his Project of Henry the Great
to Render Peace Perpetual, Explained by the Abbe de Saint -
Pierre he was a notable forerunner of current internation¬
alism,39 and, in general, marked the transition from mere Car-
tesion rationalism to Encyclopaedic and Revolutionary humani-
tarianism.40 The influence of Rousseau counted heavily, of
course, on the same side of the balance. Supremely typical,
however, of the programs of the humanitarian progressivists is
that of Condorcet in the work above noted. It is reserved for
treatment in connection with the definition of the idea of
progress.
In England Tennyson had been preceded by such representa¬
tives of this phase of the general movement as Priestly, Godwin,
Shelley, and others, — not including Bentham, who, for all his
humanitarianism and utilitarianism, took small stock in the
French school of rights and perfectibility.41 Later the doctrine
of improvement by legislation, shared by Bentham with the
illuminationists generally, passed into the various schools of
English and Continental socialism represented by such names
as Owen, Saint-Simon and Comte. The Communist Manifesto
was not to be written and published till early in 1848 and no
—
37 Bury, op. cit., 88-89.
38 Ibid., 128.
39 Bury, op. cit ., ch. VI, in toto. A. V. Dicey, Lectures on the Relation Between
Law and Public Opinion in England During the Nineteenth Century , 2nd ed.,
Lectures VI. Cf. Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully, V (London,
1778, tr.), Bk XXX, containing the plan of Henry IV.
40 Bury, ut sup.
41 Id., op. cit., 230. Dicey, ut sup.
Richardson — The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall . 355
English translation of the Manifesto appeared before 1850.42
Saint-Simon died in 1825, but not till after he had revived the
Abbe de Saint-Pierre’s idea of the abolition of war through the
creation of what was practically a United States of Europe.
“Here,” remarks Bury, “is the germ of the idea of a ‘Parliament
of Man.’ ”43
Placed in respect to the pacifistic and internationalists move¬
ments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Locksley Hall
was published after the great British and American Peace So¬
cieties had been founded in 1816 and 1828, respectively— the
American society, however, representing the amalgamation of
societies the earliest of which slightly antedated any British
society;44 one year after the death of the notable American
peace promoter William Ladd;45 and at the beginning of that
definite cooperation between the peace and free trade propagan¬
das, reflected in the poem, and historically embodied in the joint
councils and labors of Bright, Cobden, and Richard.46 Ladd’s
masterpiece, Essay on a Congress of Nations, appeared the
same year.47 The series of international Peace Congresses was
to begin the following year and to terminate in 1851.48 It was
not till 1849 that Victor Hugo, another great poet of peace and
progress, was to preside at the Paris Peace Congress ;49 in which
year, too, Cobden was to introduce into the House of Commons
his memorable motion “that the time was ripe for the govern¬
ment to enter into communications with foreign governments
for the establishment of a system of arbitration throughout the
world.”50
Such are the chief components of the idea of progress as they
have historically evolved and as they have found expression in
Locksley Hall . Quite a list of ancillary and subordinate concepts
might be formulated, as also of counter currents and attitudes.51
Such a list would, for example, include sundry German meta-
42 Historical Readings in Nineteenth Century Thought, ed. Hall and Beller, 92.
43 Bury, op. cit., 285.
44 A. C. P. Beales, The History of Peace (1931), 46, 63.
45 Ibid., 64, Ladd died April 9, 1841.
46 Ibid., 57, and passim. Vid. n. 28, sup., at end.
« Ibid., 62.
48 Ibid., ch. IV.
« Ibid., 78-80.
80 Ibid., 77-78.
61 For example, the regressiveness of Rousseau’s Discours sur VOrigine de
VInegalite Parmi les Hommes.
356 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
physical theories.52 None the less, Tennyson has, consciously or
unconsciously, grasped all the absolutely essential features of
the idea of progress as that has been dynamic in the behaviour
of the European and the American, and has combined them
within the span of a comparatively short poem.
Locksley Hall and the Emotional Elements Connected
with the Idea of Progress
The idea of progress belongs to that order of ideas which, like
patriotism, or humanitarianism, or utilitarianism, or Christi¬
anity, is so suffused with feeling as to produce life-long dedica¬
tions and even martyrdom. The lines of Locksley Hall are cor¬
respondingly emotional: they are full of “wild pulsation/’
“yearning for the large excitement,” and ‘leapings’ of the spirit.
Tennyson was conscious of this for in Locksley Hall Sixty Years
After (1886), he selects for deprecating quotation the
Forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change,
— only, this time, the lines read :
Gone the cry of ‘Forward, Forward/ lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.
But emotions have roots as well as have ideas. Sometimes
they go deeper than ideas. And by emotions is meant not only
thrills but whole mental atmospheres, characteristic of long
periods of time, the common temperaments of untold numbers
of people. Such are nationalism, or socialism, or legalism (as
applied to Rome), or aestheticism (as in the case of Greek devo¬
tion to the ideal of meden agan, or chivalry (as applied to the
respective middle ages of Western Europe or Japan). Thus it
may well be that the emotion connected with the idea of prog¬
ress is a very cause of the idea, and that this emotion is itself
a large part of some mindedness, some ethos, some Anschauung,
some unconscious, destiny-shaping mental force characteristic
of those western stocks whose seventeenth and eighteenth cen¬
turies indubitably gave birth to progress as idea.
62 The following are matters of the auxiliary types suggested : providence and
progress ; freedom of the will and progress ; the views of Leibnitz, Herder, Kant,
Hegel, and others ; progress and happiness ; spiral progress ; astronomy and prog¬
ress ; standards for measuring progress ; is human welfare the prime considera¬
tion in a theory of progress ; etc. etc. Cf. Bury, op. cit ch. XIII.
Richardson — The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall. 357
It has already been suggested, following Spengler, that the
ethos of classical man was the spirit of the confined, the finite,
and the present : it is now suggested, in agreement with Speng¬
ler, that the esprit and point of view of the peoples who took the
torch from Greek and Roman, were those of time, the infinite,
and the soul. “Save us from the tyranny of the near and the
little” was the burden of a recent pastoral prayer,53 and perhaps
the pastor prayed like a true barbarian !
James Russell Lowell catches the antithesis in The Cathedral.
After the lines in part above quoted:
The Grecian gluts me with its perfectness,
Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained,
The one thing finished in this hasty world,
there follows a rhapsody on the old cathedral, which happened
to be Chartres, but which might have been any of a hundred
others :
But ah! this other, this that never ends ,
Still climbing , luring fancy still to climb ,
As full of morals half -divined as life,
Graceful, grotesque, with ever new surprise.
I looked, and owned myself a happy Goth.
. ‘Wo Grecian drop
Rebukes these veins that leap with kindred thrill,
After long exile, to the mother-tongue .”
The Cambridge poet recognizes his kinship with the “happy
Goth” whose works spoke the same “mother-tongue” of fancy,
aspiration, and of what Glanville calls plus ultra.5*
For Spengler this same imaginative, longing, adventurous,
beyond-seeking life of the Middle Ages55 is the life that still
pulsates in modern western man. Even the product of the
Renaissance, in literature, painting, sculpture and architecture,
is at bottom the output of the same spirit, warped and pseudo-
morphosed by a revived and trammeling classicism. The lines
underscored in a college student’s copy of George Herbert Pal¬
mer’s The Glory of the Imperfect speak this same ‘mother-
53 First Congregational Church, Beloit, Wis., Dec. 30, 1928.
54 The “mother-tongue” is a playful reference to a preceding scene at the inn.
For this matter of ethos, vid. Spengler, op. cit., passim. And cf. Goethe’s “prime
phenomenon” ( Bielchowsky, The Life of Goethe, tr. Wm. Cooper, III [1908], ch.
Ill, re the Urpflanze, etc., and 377, n. 16).
85 This is not to deny the place of custom in mediaeval life.
358 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
tongue:’ “For in the lives of us all there should be a divine
discontent, — not devilish discontent, but divine discontent, — a
consciousness that life may be larger than we have yet attained,
that we are to press beyond what we have reached, that joy lies
in the future, in that which has not been found, rather than in
the realized present
If then, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the new
astronomy, the new mathematics, and the new utilitarian and
experimental science, gave lethal blows — as they did — to the
mediaeval schema of life and salvation, leaving man isolated in,
and from, the universe on his tiny globe, what more natural,
granting this spirit of infinitude within the western peoples,
than that it should seek outlet in the indefinite improvement of
human conditions, no longer within the flowery meads of Para¬
dise,56 but within the garden of the Here-and-Now, of the only
world left to it by unaided, utilitarian, skeptical reason?
It is suggested, therefore, that the emotion of progress, tell¬
ingly embodied in Locksley Hall, is Tennyson’s expression of the
age-long and destiny-fixing, though sub-conscious urge of the
western stocks, deflected from orthodox Catholic and Protestant
other-worldliness of outlet, to expression through rationalism,
scientific utilitarianism, and humanitarianism.57
Locksley Hall and the Definition of Progress
Locksley Hall contains no formal or explicit definition of the
idea of progress: but such a definition is there for any reader
who will be at the pains to resynthesize the component elements
of the idea as embodied in the poem. Such a definition would
be something like the following: the idea of progress is the re¬
cently arisen, and emotionally colored and facilitated, belief
that mankind, of necessity, has slowly moved, is moving, and
will continue to move, for a period of exceeding great and inde¬
finite duration, to a condition of general welfare.58
66 Of La Chanson de Roland, 11. 1854-1856, 2196-2197 (ed. T. A. Jenkins, 1924).
67 Amiel’s Journal (tr. Mrs. Humphrey Ward) is full of this thought of daemon,
fatum, destiny, providence, nature and time, appointed phases, unfathomable sub¬
stance, life, inner genius, mission, primitive disposition. Vid. I, 94-95 ; 111 ; 102 ;
129 ; 98. (2nd ed.)
A vast emotional urge becomes associated with the idea of progress on the
humanitarian side from Jesus and the Hebrew prophets : but this is an auxiliary
and ancillary emotionalism, not to be confused with the hypothetical type of
progress-urge described in the text. Cf. such English humanitarians as Southey
and Kingsley.
68 Cf. Bury, op. cit., 2-5.
Richardson— The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall. 359
The question reasonably remains : what are the sorts of goods
implied by the definition as conducive to “general welfare?”
The Courts of the United States are said occasionally to ar¬
rive at the true sense of a statute by noting the debates incident
to its enactment ; and perhaps the above definition may be eluci¬
dated from the expressed programs of those ultimately respon¬
sible for its formulation, notably the thinkers and reformers
whose labors caught the attention and aroused the emotional
interest of the poet. Let Condorcet serve as spokesman.
Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet,
wrote his already mentioned work on the Progress of the
Human Mind while hiding from Robespierre in 1793— a fact in
itself illustrative of the emotional dynamic of the idea. The
following is a general list of the improvements appointed for
his tenth, and last, historical epoch, the Future.
The first group relates to the abolition of inequality between
nations. Attainment of this aim includes or involves: the end
of the slave trade; the dedication of the more enlightened na¬
tions to the welfare of the backward ones (as, in principle, in
our “mandates”) ; free trade and the abolition of chartered,
monopolistic trading companies (with reference to the Dutch
spice trade, or, more generally, to what we call “economic im¬
perialism”) ; the ending of war; the creation of leagues of
nations ; the elimination of what, to him, was superstitious mis¬
sionary work; and the collapse of the religions of the Orient.
He expresses himself as encouraged with regard to this pro¬
gram by the hold already gained by the ideas of the Revolution
upon enlightened Europe !
Condorcet’s second group of betterments deals with the
progress of equality within the nations severally. He antici¬
pates, so far as natural causes allow, the relative extinction of
inequalities of wealth, of education, and of those incident to the
difference in circumstance between those whose security rests
on permanent capital and those whose incomes end at death — -
the salaried man and wage-earner. All these matters he dis¬
cusses in the spirit of our own time. Various interesting auxili¬
ary topics are treated in this general connection: mass-educa¬
tion ; life-insurance ; acceleration of scientific development
incident to increasing power of generalization; labor-saving
machinery; intensive agriculture; increase of leisure; restric-
360 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
tion of population; a more exact political and ethical termi¬
nology; extension of morality by sound legislation; equality of
the sexes; a universal scientific language — programs familiar
to us all.
The third group of reforms pertains to the improvement of
the human organism itself. In this connection are discussed
diminution of extremes of poverty and wealth ; improved medi¬
cal practice, especially in the treatment of contagious disease;
diatetics ; increase of longevity ; eugenics.59
How close was Condorcet’s thinking to our own is amply
illustrated by an article in the Winter Number of The Yale
Review , 1929, entitled Medicine in Our Changing World.60 This
article indicates that “the advancement of society” “depends on
six important factors,” enumerated as follows :
“The securing of new knowledge by discovery, invention,
and research.”
“Unification of knowledge and the understanding of the
interrelation of its parts.”
“The development of adequate means for establishing con¬
tinuity in knowledge.”
“The physical and mental effectiveness of the individual.”
“Continued betterment of economic and political organi¬
sation.”
“Enlargement of the fundamental or basic capacity of the
individual.”
In this short passage are the souls, not only of Condorcet, but of
Bacon, of Descartes, and of all the illuminists and humanitarians
of the generations finally condensed into the French Revolu¬
tion. “Have these things,” says the idea of progress, as defined,
“and you shall have welfare !”
The implications of the definition, the question of the relation
between progress and happiness,61 and the problem of what may
have been Tennyson’s subsequent attitude toward the idea, do
not fall within the scope of this paper. Whatever might be said
in these regards, it may fairly, at least, be claimed for Locksley
Hall that it is a magnificent embodiment of the factors his-
69 For criticism of Condorcet’s program, vid . Amiel’s Journal , ut cit., I, 92-93.
60 The Yale Review, vol. XVIII, No. 2, 344 (art. by Morris Fishbein, quoting
and paraphrasing Dr. John C. Merriam of the Carnegie Institution).
61 Bury’s definition is as follows : “This idea means that civilization has moved,
is moving, and will move in a desireable direction.” (Op. cit., 2.)
Richardson — The Idea of Progress In Locksley Hall. 361
torically and logically inherent in the idea of progress; of the
emotional and mental atmosphere so vitally connected with the
idea; and, by implication and inference, of the definition of the
idea as producible by a generalization based on its several com¬
ponents.
SHAKESPEARE’S USE OF ENGLISH AND FOREIGN
ELEMENTS IN THE SETTING OF MUCH ADO
ABOUT NOTHING
Julia Grace Wales
I
Introduction
We find in the critics1 three main views of Shakespeare’s use
of Italy: that it is to convey a real sense of Italy, that it is to
serve as a mere vague romantic background favorable to all
kinds of adventure, that it is only a disguise for an English
setting. Which of these views, if any, applies to Shakespeare’s
use of elements of setting in Much Ado?2
The story is Italian in origin. It is found in Bandello’s novel
of Don Timbreo di Cardona and Fenicia, daughter of Lionato
di Lionati; a variant occurs in the story told by Dalinda in
Harington’s translation of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso . These
are easily accessible3 and have been many times analyzed. It is
not necessary to review them here.
1 For example in Sarrazin, Miss Janet Spens, Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch, T. F.
Ordish, etc.
2 As I have elsewhere tried to show (see “Shakespeare’s Use of English and
Foreign Elements in the Setting of The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, Wisconsin
Academy, vol. 27 (1932), pp. 85-126), it is the second of these views that best
applies to The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The background of Romeo and Juliet
is the Italy of an old poem, seen in the light not only of the far away but of the
long ago. The Italy of The Merchant of Venice, on the other hand, though seen
romantically in a blaze of Renaissance splendor, is a contemporary foreign land
of which the returned traveller has much to tell. That of Othello is a place and a
condition wherein terrible crimes could happen and monstrous types of character
could develop ; the scene presenting not only high lights but deep shadows — the
sinister side of a sophisticated civilization.
3 See H. H. Furness, Variorum, pp. 295 ff. The window episode is of course a
more or less stock situation. Winifred Smith ( The Gommedia delVArte, New York,
1912, p. 12) notes that the Zanni would sometimes “dress himself in a gown
exactly like that of the heroine or her maid and so cause either terror or con¬
fusion”. Compare on this general influence of Italian comedy two very important
studies by Professor O. J. Campbell : “ Love’s Labour’s Lost Restudied” and “The
Two Gentlemen of Verona and Italian Comedy”, in Studies in Shakespeare,
Milton, and Donne, by members of the English Department of the University of
Michigan, New York, 1925. See further, Kathleen M. Lea: “The Bibliography of
the Commedia dell’ Arte: The Miscellanies of the Comici and Virtuosi.” The
Library, June, 1930.
864 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters.
The possibility of another Italian source has been shown, by
Miss M. A. Scott,4 in the fact that there are at least very striking
parallels in idea and expression between many of the Benedick-
Beatrice passages in the play and certain passages in Castig-
li one’s Book of the Courtier, first published in English in the
year 1561. To Miss Scott’s valuable article we shall return in
our discussion of the characters.
It is held by some critics that a lost play probably intervened
between Much Ado and the original sources.5 On this inter¬
mediate form of the story we can only speculate; but the evi¬
dence that it existed is strong enough to prevent us from
drawing any hard and fast conclusions about Shakespeare’s
adaptation of his raw material. It seems probable, however,
that Shakespeare did himself have the task of combining the
Hero and the Beatrice material into one play and that he added
a comedy of low life of his own invention. Hence, so far as our
present knowledge extends, the problem of fusion and the mode
of solving that problem are essentially Shakespeare’s. Nor can
it be out of place to note the parallels between these earlier
sources that we have and the play as it stands, whenever these
parallels serve to set in relief any aspects of Shakespeare’s
treatment of background.
The material, whatever its immediate source, is of several
kinds : comedy of high life, comedy of low life, and something
almost approaching tragedy. The given characters and the
given story present refractory elements, not easy to render truly
dramatic. Shakespeare, according to his usual method, develops
the characters within the given action, and by realizing a set¬
ting, attempts to lend harmony of tone to the piece as a whole.
II
Difficult Elements in Character and Action
In order to see what the difficulties are, let us first turn briefly
to those scenes in which the consistency of all four characters
4 M. A. Scott, “The Book of the Courtyer : A Possible Source of Benedick and
Beatrice”, P. M. L. A. XVI (1901), p. 491 ff.
5 Furness feels sure there was a play modeled on Bandello. He thinks it fairly
certain that Shakespeare did not know Bandello or Belief orest (Preface to the
Variorum edition, p. xxi). See also his discussion of Ayrer’s Die Schoene Phaenicia
and the extracts from Ayrer which he gives, Variorum, pp. 329-337. It has been
pointed out that Ayrer introduces a comedy of low life. The resemblances to
Shakespeare, however, are most general and slight.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing
365
having prototypes in Bandello’s story — Hero, Claudio, Don
Pedro, and Lionato — can be most clearly tested.
In Act III, Scene ii, Don John comes to Claudio and Don
Pedro with his slanderous story. Claudio’s suspicion is first
roused in this scene but not until near the end of it. His first
questions “Who, Hero?” . “Disloyal?” are not suspicious,
merely sharp and alert. He shows no emotion but listens atten¬
tively. “May this be so?” is wondering rather than dismayed.
“If I see any thing tonight why I should not marry her tomor¬
row, in the congregation, where I should wed, there will I
shame her.” This does not mean that he is already believing the
slander. On the contrary a moment’s reflection has assured him
that it is false. He speaks indignantly, though not so much at
the insult to Hero as at the insult to himself. He is thinking of
himself throughout the scene. “0 mischief strangely thwart¬
ing”, his last speech in the scene, is the only one that need be
read as showing incipient doubt.
Don Pedro doubts from the beginning not Hero, but his
brother. The Arden Edition (Boston, 1902) gives this com¬
ment : “This is the only scene in which Don Pedro speaks to his
brother. The curtness of his replies is in marked contrast to
the Bastard’s clumsy assumption of civility.” The words “You
know he does” interrupting Don John’s question to Claudio
“Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?” show Don
Pedro’s doubt of his brother’s motive. When Claudio exclaims
“May this be so?” Don Pedro says quickly and firmly, having
arrived at conviction by rapid thought, “I will not think it.”
When Claudio threatens vengeance if the unbelievable thing be
true, Don Pedro adds, “And as I wooed for thee to obtain her,
I will join with thee to disgrace her.” But by this he may mean
to imply only that no proof will be found. Further, the conclud¬
ing exclamation “0 day untowardly turned” necessarily implies
not the slightest doubt but only dismay that the harmony of the
occasion has been thus broken in upon. But even with all care
taken in the acting to slow the psychological movement,
Claudio’s change of mind is swift enough to tax our credulity.
The church scene arouses mingled feelings in the critics, who
are torn between a sense on the one hand of its all but tragic
power in isolation, and on the other of its improbability and the
difficulty of harmonizing it with the tone of the play as a whole.
Professor Stoll’s view here seems on the whole the most tenable,
366 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
that the story is here unrealized because essentially unrealiz¬
able,6 that the demand for a good theatrical scene at this point
has been allowed to over-ride any interest in character. As I have
elsewhere tried to show,7 we need not conclude, however, that,
because at such junctures Shakespeare often fails in consistency
of character, he was therefore not greatly interested in char¬
acter. From the body of his plays as a whole, we have at least
as much reason to infer that, despite the theatrical demands
under which he worked as a playwright, Shakespeare was in¬
tensely interested in character. In the present play his char¬
acters have already become too real for his plot. Had they been
less real we could have accepted this extravagant action without
incredulity; as it is, we tend to check, not by conventions of
melodrama, but by life ; and hence a sense of discrepancy. Even
on the theory of a colossal and vindictive egotism could Claudio
have brought himself to perpetrate the church scene? Would
not his egotism have been better served by a less conspicuous
mode of annulling his betrothal? In view of the marriage cus¬
toms assumed in the play, his consequently slight knowledge of
his betrothed, and his restive egotism, Claudio’s loss of faith
in Hero seems less strange than that he should have chosen so
public a way to get free of the entanglement.
The modern reader is even more scandalized at Leonato’s
swift desertion of his daughter’s cause. But here again the un¬
likelihood does not seem so great as it would in a modern play.
Moreover, Leonato is fussy, half in his dotage, egotistical, quite
ignorant of his daughter’s character, easily suspicious, highly
suggestible, and concerned chiefly for his own dignity and that
of his house. He succumbs promptly to Claudio’s accusation, the
testimony of the Prince, and the absurd evidence of Don John.
Doubt having once entered his mind, the failure of a somewhat
belated attempt to establish an alibi seems to him final proof.
He betrays the hope that Hero is dead, the one escape for her
and her family from imminent disgrace. The friar’s question
“Yea, wherefore should she not?” brings out a flood of egotism
and self-pity, which shows, though some previous pride in
Hero, little affection for her. Just as easily, Leonato swings to
6 E. E. Stoll, Shakespearean Studies , Historical and Comparative in Method,
New York, 1927, p. 109.
7 “Character and Action in Shakespeare : A Consideration of some Skeptical
Views”, University of Wisconsin Studies, No. 18, 1923.
Wales — -The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 367
the opposite state of mind under the reassuring suggestions of
the friar. He is ready to avenge Hero. Then he yields entirely
to the friar’s direction :
Being that I flow in grief.
The smallest twine may lead me.
Don Pedro’s part in the church scene is very slight. He says as
little as he can. He is merciless, it is true, but keenly regretful.
And he does not share Claudio’s self-righteous harshness. “The
grieved count” does Claudio far more than justice. Don Pedro
believes the slander and feels to blame for having pushed the
match. In the readiness of Don Pedro to be deceived and in the
readiness of Claudio to denounce publicly are the chief improb¬
abilities of the scene. That Leonato and Claudio are easy vic¬
tims is, in view of their temperaments, less surprising.8 The
fact is that the reality of the church scene lies chiefly in the
reality of the character of Beatrice.9 It is Beatrice who in¬
stantly apprehends it in its every aspect, and in whom its pathos
is transmuted into the motive of strenuous action.
The first scene of Act V presents almost as many difficulties.
Leonato is indulging violently in grief. Antonio, who can hardly
find opportunity to get in a word, is counselling self-control and
concentration on practical expedients. Leonato objects to any
philosophy that urges patience:
I will be flesh and blood;
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods
And made a push at chance and sufferance.
This presentation of Leonato is a clever device to keep the
action in the realm of comedy. We are not allowed to have too
much sympathy with him. His grief— -but not his cause of
8 The Adventures of Don Sebastian, King of Portugal , printed at London, 1603,
contains the names of Sebastian, Prosper©, Alonso, Don Pedro, Antonio, Don John.
It contains also a story of a shoemaker whose daughter bore a son to Don John,
natural son to the King of Portugal. The daughter (Ines) lived chaste the rest
of her life, but her father who had “reviled her with most opprobrious words and
beat her out of his doors openly” never forgave her and did not allow her to be
buried in the family vault. Leonato’s rage with Hero had no doubt plenty of
parallels, despite the fact that in the story of Penicia (Bandello) the father of
the accused girl takes a kindly attitude to his daughter and does not doubt her
innocence. See Harleian Miscellany (1808), vol. II, p. 386.
0 See Variorum, p. 390, the account of Helen Paucit’s Beatrice, especially her
“kill Claudio” ; also Ellen Terry’s, p. 392.
368 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
grief — is given a certain absurdity. Moreover, as Benedick and
Beatrice at the end of the church scene amused us but were not
amused themselves and hence kept an aspect of seriousness
before our minds, so the scene of Leonato and Antonio is meant
to be at once funny and grave. When Claudio and Bon Pedro
enter, our sympathies remain with the old men. The scene is
not always played to permit this, but it should be so played.
This is evident from Don Pedro’s words :
Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.
Leonato’s excitability is not wholly comic to the Prince. Nor
is it wholly comic to Claudio.10 Claudio is on the defensive, how-
ever, because not at ease in his own mind. “Who wrongs him?”
he brusquely demands, unconsciously laying his hand on his
sword. This movement Leonato notices.
Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword.
I fear thee not.
Claudio is smitten with a compunction that does him credit and
at once apologizes:
Marry, beshrew my hand
If it should give your age such cause of fear.
In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.
Leonato, quite unjustly, interprets the speech as a jeer at his
own age and weakness, and replies with a challenge to light,
concluding his arraignment with the words :
I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;
Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
And she lies buried with her ancestors;
0, in a tomb where never scandal slept,
Save this of hers, framed by thy villainy !
10 Andrew Lang says of this scene : “He [Claudio] is, perhaps, more absolutely
intolerable when he fleers and jests at the anger of Leonato than even when he
denounces Hero, making her a sacrifice to the vanity of his jealousy.” Variorum,
p. 362.
Wetz, however, takes a somewhat different view : “And, after all, Claudio is not
so merry as his detractors would have it appear. Neither he nor Don Pedro is
easy in mind when he sees the consequences of his conduct, and the suffering of
the two old men. Yet, since they believe themselves to have acted rightly, they do
not yield to their uneasiness, but try to laugh it off. Their jests do not come from
their hearts, as is hinted in the words with which Claudio greets Benedick : ‘We
have been up and down to seek thee ; for we are high-proof melancholy and would
fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou- not use thy wit?’ ” Variorum , p. 383.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 369
“My villainy ?” cries Claudio, exasperated, and Don Pedro
intervenes,
You say not right, old man.
But Leonato is thereby stung to new threats, in which he is
joined with equal violence by Antonio. Their helpless senile
rage with the younger men is given a comic aspect and was no
doubt meant to amuse the audience. But that it was not, even
to a contemporary audience, wholly comic is clear from Don
Pedro’s dignified interposition.
Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.
My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death :
But, on my honour, she was charged with nothing
But what was true and very full of proof.
The brief scene with Benedick which immediately follows is
also at once serious and comic. Claudio, still uncomfortable,
begins by blustering,
We had like to have had our noses snapped off
by two old men without teeth.
Don Pedro’s words may be read as slightly apologetic for
Claudio’s. “Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too
young for them.” Benedick agrees : “In a false quarrel there is
no true valour.” Claudio is sincere when he says, “We are high-
proof melancholy and would fain have it beaten away.”
Benedick is in no mood for even a pretence of jesting. He is
in fact pale with anger. Claudio’s bravado is curtly thrust
aside. Don Pedro, set upon avoiding further unpleasantness for
Claudio, does his best to distract Benedick’s attention with
jesting about Beatrice. But the old gibes have lost their power,
and Benedick, having thrown down his challenge, sternly re¬
peats his accusation :
You have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady.
The most incredible words in the scene are spoken by Don
Pedro, in a humorous context, “The old man’s daughter told us
all.” But at least he avoids the name of Hero, and the speech
has somewhat the effect of a gruesome slip of memory such as
may in real life momentarily befall one who is trying to bring
about a return to the commonplace after some tragic disaster.
Probably, however, they are an oversight on the part of Shakes-
370 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters,
peare, who, with the audience, knows, though Don Pedro does
not, that Hero is alive, and that the whole situation is less tragic
than it appears.11
“He is in earnest,” says Don Pedro gravely to Claudio as
Benedick goes out.
They attribute the challenge to the influence of Beatrice and
will not take it seriously; but, as Wetz has pointed out,12 their
hearts are not necessarily in their jesting. In the next scene,
when the facts come out, Don Pedro’s words are grave enough :
Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?
And Claudio answers,
I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.
Thus it is important to observe that a serious note runs
through the first scene of Act V. To play it as wholly comic,
to make Don Pedro and Claudio merely lighthearted, is to
render the scene intolerably jarring. It is primarily comedy —
true. But it is largely genuine drama as well. There is a very
definite and by no means wholly unsuccessful attempt at mo¬
tivation and unification. The task of the actors is not easy, but
neither is it impossible. They must emphasize not only wit
combat and comic irony but also the real rage and mortification
of the old men, the real indignation of Benedick, the real dis¬
comfort of Claudio (mingled of compunction and caddish self-
defense), and the real pity and uneasiness of Don Pedro, whose
instincts are always kindly.
Let us now turn to the characters that Shakespeare has added
(whether from his own invention or some other source) to
those given in Bandello.
Of the comic reality of the watch much has been written and
we need not dwell on it here. As we shall see, this reality pre¬
sents its own difficulties when we try to form a unified impres¬
sion of locality. But on another count the comic reality of this
group has added incalculably to the unity of the piece. For it
has helped to make the villains ridiculous. In fact the villains
are throughout essentially comic characters. In the source the
friend is the treacherous foe; the motive is jealousy; villainy is
a serious instead of a comic element. In Much Ado About Noth-
11 Here we may compare the scene of the musicians in Romeo and Juliet , which
as Professor J. P. A. Pyre has pointed out, serves to remind us that Juliet is not
dead.
12 Cf. note 10.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 371
mg the absurdity of the villains is increased by the motiveless
nature of the crime. Don John is actuated only by the desire
to make others as uncomfortable as himself, and to feed his
egotism by a sense of power over the destinies of those whom he
unpleasantly perceives to be better and happier than he. J. C.
Smith says on this point :
At the root of Don John’s misanthropy lies the consciousness
of the stain on his birth, of which he still is perversely proud.
He has no social equals; he herds with his inferiors. . . ,13 Don
John, like la go, is ready to give himself reasons for his
malice.14
True, Shakespeare had never heard of an “inferiority complex”.
Neither, perhaps, had his critic at the time of writing. The
latter, however, calls in contemporary evidence of some such
spring of human action, in Bacon’s Essay IX, “Of Envy”. The
passage is also quoted by Furness;15 “For he that cannot pos¬
sibly mend his owne case, will doe what he can to impaire an¬
other s.”
The motive in Spenser’s version is similar;
He either enuying my toward good,
Or of himselfe to treason ill disposd.18
Thus, in this play, the familiar motif of melancholy is brought
out not in the hero or the hero’s friend, but in the person of
the chief villain. Don John is “out of measure sad”. His words
are lofty, sententious, and sour. He fancies himself in the role
of one enveloped in gloom, and more than Jaques, is whole¬
heartedly a poseur. Conrade admires him as Verges admires
Dogberry, and plays up to his humor. Borachio’s roguery is
less mixed with pose. He is lively, active, ingenious, conscience¬
less, full of a relatively innocent joy of life and action. He even
enters with a certain enthusiasm into the business of repentance
at the end.
Bora. If you would know your wronger, look on me.
Leon. Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill’d
Mine innocent child?
Bora. Yea, even I alone.
13 Arden Edition, Boston, 1902, p. 86.
14 Ibid., p. 87.
15 Variorum , p. 18.
16 Variorum, p. 308. Bandello uses the phrase, not of Girondo, but of his ac¬
complice, “a young courtier, a man of little account, to whom evil was more
pleasing than good.” Variorum, p. 313.
372 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
In the second act, Beatrice has noticed with amusement the
sombre air of Don John:
Beatrice . How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see
him but I am heart-burned an hour after.
Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition.
Beatrice. He were an excellent man that were made just in
the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an
image, and says nothing; and the other too like my lady’s
eldest son, evermore tattling.
The truth is that we are not to fear these villains, nor even,
exactly, to loathe them; but chiefly to be amused at the comic
discrepancy between their absurdities and the seriousness with
which they admire their own villainy. “You are both sure and
will assist me?” asks Don John darkly; to which Conrade and
Borachio reply with zest, “To the death, my lord.”
I first gathered this impression of Don John from an amateur
performance of the play given by students of Westfield College,
the University of London. The student who acted the part of
Don John had shortly before taken the part of the villain in a
mock tragedy. She employed the same general method with
great effect in playing Don John. The laugh raised by her first
lines, “I thank you, I am not of many words, but I thank you,”
recognized Don John the egotist, taking himself so seriously
that he cannot be taken seriously by any one else. Kreyssig
says: “Compound of envy as he is, Don John amuses us more
than he terrifies us, for Shakespeare has denied him the one
characteristic that could produce the latter effect. He cannot
possibly feign.”17 It is not his envy that is amusing in Don
John, however, but the sense of superiority with which he “com¬
pensates” for it by enjoying his own gloom. Most of the critics
appear to take him seriously. He was acted as “complex”,
“plausible”, and “sinister” in the performance described in the
Variorum , pp. 391-2. Obviously to make the villains comic is
partly to dissolve the difficulty of the incongruous tragic ele¬
ment.
On the character of Beatrice and Benedick we shall make no
attempt to offer fresh observations or to review the critical ma¬
terial as a whole. It is enough to note one contrast in critical
view that is significant for our purpose. There has been a
17 Variorum, p. 49.
Wales - — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing
373
tendency to find Beatrice and Benedick characteristically Eng¬
lish types. Brander Matthews says :
Shakespeare has also laid the scene of a story in an alleged
Sicily, but his Beatrice and his Benedick are quite as English
as his Dogberry and Verges. Shakespere and Moliere both of
them reproduced character they knew at first hand, and made
no vain effort after local color; neither of them fatigued him¬
self in an idle endeavour to step off his own shadow.18
The essentially English note, if it is here, may very well have
crept in without Shakespeare’s conscious knowledge and hence
in itself proves nothing as to whether he meant to make the
characters English or Italian. Nor does the fact that they are
serious at heart prove them English. Seriousness and morality
existed and were known to exist in Italy as well as in England.
Perhaps, however, we discern an English national character¬
istic not shared in the same degree or at least in the same form
by other races, in the deliberate masking of sentiment behind
wit, in the almost morbid fear of being caught taking oneself
seriously, in the self-conscious dislike of seeming self-conscious
which characterize Benedick and Beatrice and which cause the
comic clash between them.
On the other hand, one critic finds their origin and inspira¬
tion essentially Italian. Professor M. A. Scott has, as we have
already noted, worked out a careful parallel between the wit
combats of Beatrice and Benedick and those of Signor Gaspare
Pallavicino and the Lady Emilia Pia :
Leaving Lyly’s artificial style out of account it is no dis¬
paragement of Shakespere and not overpraise of Castiglione,
to say, that up to the time of Much Ado Shakespere had done
nothing in dialogue that can be compared to the freedom and
ease and grace of the conversazioni of II Cortegiano. The
Italians, taking the dialogue as a literary form from the an¬
cients, had cultivated it until they were masters of dramatic
colloquy, not indeed in their plays, but precisely in such
courtly conversations as “Castilion’s Courtier and Guazzo his
dialogues”.19
Among the most suggestive passages from The Courtyer
cited in the article are the following :
1S Moliere, His Life and Times, London, 1910, p. 186.
19 M. A. Scott, “The Book of the Courtyer : A Possible Source of Benedick and
Beatrice”, P. M. L. A. XVI (1901), p. 491.
374 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , cmd Letters .
And as they were now passing out at the great chambre
dorre, the Lord Generali tourned hym to the Dutches, and
said: Madam, to take up the variance beetweene the Lord
Gaspar and the Lord Julian, (as to whether women could
attain to the heavenly love or not,) we will assemble this
night with the judge sooner than we did yesterdaye.
The Lady Emilia answered: Upon condicion, that in case
my Lord Gaspar wyll accuse women, and geve them, as his
wont is, some false reporte, he wil also put us in suretye to
stand to triall, for I recken him a waveringe starter. (365) 20
Nowe the Lord Gaspar Pallavicino answered here smilinge:
You to confirme your judgement with reason, alleage unto me
women’s doinges, which for the most part are voide of al
reason ....
Here manie began and in maner all, to speake againste
the Lord Gaspar, but the Dutchesse made them all to houlde
their peace. Afterward she said smilinge: If the yll which
you speake of women were not so farr wide from the truth,
that in speakinge it, it hurteth and shameth rather the
speaker than them, I would suffer you to be answered. (144) 21
Women neede no defendoure againste an accuser of so
small authoritie. Therefore let the Lord Gaspar alone in this
his froward opinion, risen more because he could never finde
woman that was willynge to loke upon him, then for anye
want that is in women. (179) 22
Many other similarities are noted in the article, for instance :
Among other parallelisms of thought, I would recall that the
Lord Gaspare’s subject for the dialogue is the ideal woman,
what virtues she must have, and what faults may be over¬
looked in her. Benedick (II.3) actually enumerates the
graces a woman must have to come into his grace.23
Miss Scott thus sums up her conclusions:24
First, that Benedick and Beatrice are plainly of Italian ori¬
gin; in Italian literature the Lady Emilia is first seen in the
Lady Pampinea, of the Decamerone.
20 Ibid., pp. 492-3. (The pages given above refer to The Book of the Courtier ,
London, 1900, The Tudor Translations). To be compared of course, as Miss Scott
points out, with Much Ado, I. i. 167 : “Do you question me, as an honest man
should do”, etc.
21 Ibid.,v. 493.
22 Ibid., p. 493. To be compared, as Miss Scott points out, with Much Ado, I. i.
121 : “Is it possible Disdain should die”, etc.
23 Ibid., p. 498.
™Ibid„ pp. 501-2.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing
375
Second, that they do not belong to Hero’s story in Bandello,
and fit into it loosely in Shakespere, precisely as if they did
not belong to any story.
Third, that in Much Ado they are both detached persons,
they have just “growed”, precisely as the Lord Gaspare and
the Lady Emilia appear in the Courtyer.
Fourth, that a comparison between the play and the dialogue
shows remarkable coincidences in character, in action, in en¬
vironment, in thought, and in language.
Fifth, that the very vividness of the representation is due to
the fact that Benedick and Beatrice were originally real per¬
sons, the Lord Gaspare Pallavicino and the Lady Emilia Pia,
of II Cortegiano.
The fifth conclusion seems to me weak. They are in this re¬
spect twice removed from reality. Shakespeare probably had
other real people more or less in mind. We are perhaps within
safe limits in saying that Beatrice and Benedick represent an
essentially English version of what was once an Italian ideal.
In relation to our main problem of the welding of English and
Italian elements, one more character must be mentioned, the
friar. As has often been pointed out, the friar is typical of
Shakespeare’s ecclesiastics, benevolent, ingenious, managing, not
too scrupulous about the facts. Iiis advice,
Maintain a mourning ostentation;
And on your family’s old monument
Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites
That appertain unto a burial,
takes us back at once, away from gay country houses in England
or elsewhere, to the atmosphere of old Italian cities, to sombre
pageants and monuments, imprisoned ladies, broken hearts.
Hero is to be spirited away, to
some reclusive and religious life,
Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.
It is with this change in the music that the spell of Italy is again
suddenly cast over us. The friar’s words have woven it. And he
is a very astute psychologist (whether or not the modern critic
will allow Shakespeare to be one) , for he foretells to a nicety the
waning of Claudio’s anger and the beginning of a softer frame
of mind.
So will it fare with Claudio :
When he shall hear she died upon his words,
376 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
The idea, of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination,
And every lovely organ of her life
Shall come apparell’d in more precious habit,
More moving-delicate and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
Than when she lived indeed.
To the problem of English and Italian elements in relation to
character we shall return in our discussion of the setting.
Ill
The Setting
From the foregoing analysis it is evident that this play is con¬
structed of very diverse elements, that action and dialogue are
often difficult to realize dramatically, and that the problem of
unity of effect is unusually great. Do what we will with the more
incongruous aspects, improbabilities remain. We must bear in
mind the fact repeatedly stressed by Mr. Stoll that the Eliza¬
bethans were satisfied to apprehend the action scene by scene
with much less care than have we for the logical connection of
the whole. On the other hand let us not forget that the desire
for an illusion and a sustained illusion is essentially the same
in the human mind of all time, however varying in the modes
of its satisfaction. Probably Elizabethan play-goers differed
from ourselves not in that they cared less for a sustained illu¬
sion, but in that they sustained their illusion more easily than
we, with less effort to test by reference to actuality. Yet even
they were not wholly irresponsible to fact, and even the Eliza¬
bethan playwright must assimilate his materials as far as he
can and make them credible to the common imagination. Hence,
for the present play, the paramount importance of setting and
atmosphere as a solvent.
Before we examine the details of setting, let us return to
Bandello, to see what actual suggestions of place his version of
the story has to offer.
Don Timbreo is advised to ambush himself ‘bn the ruins over
against the garden”. A bit of description follows :
Now there abutted upon these ruins a face of Messer
Lionato’s house, wherein there was an old saloon, whose win¬
dows stood open day and night, and there Fenicia was by-
times used to show herself, for that from that quarter the
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 377
beauty of the garden was better to be enjoyed; but Messer
Lionato and his family abode in the other part of the palace,
which was ancient and very great and might have sufficed
for a prince’s court, not to say a gentlemen’s household.25
The window scene is not without vividness :
Half an hour before the appointed time he [Don Timbreo]
went to hide himself in that ruined place, on such wise that
he might very well see whoso passed there, himseeming yet
impossible that Fencia should have yielded herself unto
another. . . .
The night was not very dark but execeeding still, and pres¬
ently he heard the noise of coming feet and eke some broken
word or two. By and by he saw the three pass and recog¬
nized the youth who had that morning advertised him, but
could not recall the faces of the other twain. As they
passed before him, he heard the perfumed one, him who
played the lover, say to him who bore the ladder, “Look thou
set the ladder featly to the window, so it make no noise, for,
when we were last here, my lady Fenicia told me that thou
lettest it fall over-heavily. Do all adroitly and quietly”....
The three, then, coming under Messer Lionato’s windows,
on the side aforesaid, set the ladder very softly against the
balcony, and he who played the lover climbed up by it and en¬
tered the house, as if he had intelligence within.
When Don Timbreo’s envoy arrives to break oft the match,
he finds Lionato “walking in the saloon, against dinner should
be ready”,26 the ladies of the household being seated at their
embroidery. After the supposed death of Fenicia, there is men¬
tion of a village three miles from Messina, where Lionato and
the two young men hear mass at the church. We then have a
hint of another interior. They betake themselves into a saloon
“magnificently arrayed with Alexandrian arras and carpets”.27
The story itself is sombre. A political background is sug¬
gested with elements of war and violence. Nevertheless the
action is framed in with festivities.
King Pedro held his court many days in Palermo on right
royal and magnificent wise and made high festival for the
acquisition of the island.
King Charles comes by sea, and a sea battle takes place.
25 Variorum, p. 314.
20 Variorum, p. 315.
27 Ibid., p. 323.
378 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
In the end King Pedro defeated King Charles . . . after which
... he removed with his whole court to Messina.28
Here “he held a right royal court and all was joy and gladness
for the gotten victory, j oustings being made and balls holden
daily. . ”
At the end of the story “when the joyous company returned
from the country house to Messina to celebrate the nuptials,
they were met on the way by all the gentlemen and gentle¬
women of the city .... and an innumerable company of knights
and gentlemen led by the King’s son ; at the entrance to the city
the King himself with the Queen met them, and rode to the
royal palace, the King between Messer Lionato and Don Tim-
breo, the Queen between Fenicia and Belfiore. 'There they
dined sumptuously and after dinner, Don Timbreo . . . recounted
. . . the whole history of his loves; which done, they fell to
dancing and the King kept open court all that week.’ ”29
In Harington’s Ariosto30 the hints of setting are of the
slightest. Though the scene is in Scotland, the climate suggests
Italy. The princess has changed her bedroom because of the
heat :
Who us’d to other chambers to resort
In summer time, and this for heat to leave.
There are a few other details of setting.
. . . this window standeth out of sight,
Where none do come by day nor yet by night. . . .
Some ruin’d houses stood oppos’d direct
Against the window where he doth ascend.
There is a northern forest near at hand, a remote castle toward
which Dalinda is dispatched, and a nunnery to which she ulti¬
mately goes.
Such are the meagre suggestions of locality in the antecedent
material so far as we know it. The play, in contrast, offers a
wealth of realistic details. How far are these English? How
far Italian? How far common to England and Italy?
28 Variorum , p. 311.
29 Variorum , p. 326.
80 See Variorum } pp. 296-307, for the significant passages.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 379
The names have been studied by Elze, Sullivan, and others.31
Furness notes the changes in names from the novel. To
abandon the “pretty and suitable” name of Fenicia seems to
him evidence that Shakespeare did not know Bandello. The
coloring afforded by the names of people in the play is indis¬
tinct, though in the main Italian.32 Place names add little help ;
for the specific allusions to place are notably few. Claudio is a
young Florentine. He has an uncle “here in Messina”.33 Signior
Benedick is “of Padua”. He is doomed to matrimony “if cupid
have not spend all his quiver in Venice”.34 He is “the only man
of Italy” . . . and “goes foremost in report through Italy”.35
31 Of Borachio Elze says, “Whether or not it be derived from bora a kind of
snake or borra loquacity or boraccia , a canteen, it bears a bad sense, as its term¬
ination accio indicates ; and Shakespeare uses it with a full knowledge of that
meaning just as he uses Trinculo, in the Tempest.” Jahrbuch, XV, 255, quoted in
Variorum, p. 2. Cf. Edward Sullivan, “Shakespeare in Italy”, The Nineteenth
Century, Vol. LXXXIII, p. 323 : “ The Dramatis Personae, with one exception,
show no great effort on Shakespeare’s part to distinguish their nationality,
although the source of the plot is believed to be Italian. The exception referred
to is Borachio, which I fancy was taken from Pettie’s Guazzo, where we find —
‘give it to Cavallero Bottazzo to fill his Boracho withall.’ The nearest approach
to actual Italian is the reference of Beatrice to Benedick under the name of
‘Signor Montanto’ (I. i), but montanto was ‘a fencing term, or a big two-handed
sword suggesting a braggart', and so does not carry us very far. There are other
distinct recollections here and there of The Civil Conversation, and also, as Pro¬
fessor Mary Scott suggests, of Hoby’s Cortegiano, both English works. And so,
tried by the test of Italian knowledge disclosed in the play, it looks as if Much
Ado should go back to an earlier date than 1600, and should really come before
both The Merchant and Romeo [Not, it seems to me, a necessary inference.
J. G. W.]
A footnote on this passage is as follows: “ Civil Conversation, Bk. IV. 188. The
word means ‘drinking cup’. Note the addition of an i for the purpose of making
it a name, as in other cases in Shakespeare. Some other names of Italian forma¬
tion, suggesting peculiarity of character, as in the case of Borachio, in other
plays, are Gratiano ( Merchant ) translated by Florio as ‘a self-conceited fellow in
a play or comedie’ ; Gobbo, ‘hunch-back’ ; Fest£, ‘Merryman’, and Trinculo,
‘tipler’, from Italian trincare.”
32 The Arden editor observes that “the names of the gentlefolk as usual are (or
might be) Italian; the maids and the constables are plain English.” [We might
conclude from this fact that the scenes of low life are to be imagined in England,
the scenes of high life in Italy. But such a formula is, as we shall see, too simple.
J. G. W.]
33 1. i. 18.
34 1. i. 274. See Clare Howard, English Travellers of the Renaissance, 1914, pp.
54—55. “Then, too, the scholar diversified his labours by excursions to Venice, in
one of those passenger boats which plied daily from Padua, of which was said
‘that the boat shall bee drowned, when it carries neither Monke, nor Student, nor
Curtesan. . .the passengers being for the most part of these kinds.’ [Quoted from
Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary, etc., Glasgow ed. 1907, i. 159.] ... .In the outlandish
mixture of nations swarming at Venice, a student could spend all day watching
mountebanks, and bloody street fights, and processions.”
35 III. i. 92, 97.
380 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
Don Pedro is of Arragon and is to “go toward Arragon” after
Claudio’s marriage.36 Hero’s gown is worth ten of the Duchess
of Milan’s.37
On the other hand, even fewer details are unmistakably Eng¬
lish.
Allusions to climate are, if anything, northern in color.
Leonato. You will never run mad, niece.
Beatrice. No, not till a hot January.38
And, in the same scene :
There’s her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury,
exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the
last of December.39
Benedick accuses Beatrice of saying that he is “duller than a
great thaw”.40
There are religious references some of which suggest a partly
Puritanized England rather than Catholic Italy, some of which
reflect the older faith. If Beatrice does not marry, some gentle¬
man will “scape a predestinate scratched face”.41 Benedick was
“ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty”. He will
die in his opinion “at the stake”.42 We hear of the devil, the
door-keeper of hell;43 and Saint Peter directing well-behaved
maids and bachelors to their seats in heaven;44 of the clerk’s
lesponses in church.45 The married man must “sigh away
Sundays”.46 Benedick would not marry Beatrice though she
“were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he
transgressed.”47 He finds her “the infernal Ate in good ap¬
parel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for
certainly while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell
as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose because they
would go thither.”48
36 III. ii. 2.
37 III. iv. 23.
38 I. i. 93, 94.
39 1. i. 192-5.
49 II. i. 251.
41 1. i. 135.
42 I. i. 235-7.
43 II. i. 44.
44 II. i. 50.
45 II. i. 110-114.
46 1. i. 204.
47 II. i. 258-9.
48 II. i. 263-267.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 381
The scenes in which appear Dogberry and Verges and the
Watch, afford not only English names but English details
of setting. Here we have familiarly to do with Hugh Oat¬
cake,49 George Seacoal — who can read and write — and his
pen and ink-horn,50 the Watch with their bills and lan¬
terns,51 the alehouses,52 streets, and gaol,53 drunken loiter¬
ers,54 thieves,55 the penthouse sheltering the intriguers from
the drizzling rain;56 the church-bench where the watch sit
dozing until two o’clock, when they can go home to bed;57
the sexton and his stool and cushion;58 and we are reminded
of other sights and sounds of every day — baaing lambs,59 bleat¬
ing calves,60 crying children,61 “Pharoah’s soldiers in the reechy
painting”, “the god Bel’s priests in the old church window”,
“the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry.”62
There are a number of allusions to sports and pastimes most
of them English in suggestion, when considered separately,
though a few reflect customs naturalized from the Continent.
Beatrice says of Benedick, “He set up his bills here in Messina
and challenged cupid at the flight; and my uncle’s fool, reading
the challenge, subscribed for cupid, and challenged him at the
bird-bolt.”63 We hear later that Cupid is a hare-finder.64
Claudio is as melancholy as a “lodge in a warren”.65 He calls
Benedick the kid fox.66 Beatrice would rather hear her dog
bark at a crow than a man swear he loves her.67 Benedick would
that his horse had the speed of Beatrice’s tongue “and so good
49 III. iii. 11. See the extensive annotations on these passages, in the Variorum,
largely quoted from Grace Latham’s study “The Petty Constable : his Duties and
Difficulties in Shakespeare’s Day”, Jahrbuch XXXII, pp. 133-148.
III. iii. 12 ; III. v. 63.
« III. iii. 25, 44, 191.
“ III. iii. 45.
63 III. v. 64.
04 III. iii. 45-51.
63 III. iii. 53-6.
30 III. iii. 110.
« III. iii. 95-96.
58 IV. ii. 2.
69 III. iii. 75.
09 III. iii. 76.
61 III. iii. 69-74.
62 III. iii. 142-146.
63 1. i. 39-42.
04 1. i. 186.
05 II. i. 221.
06 II. iii. 45.
0T I. i. 132.
382 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.
a continuer”.68 Beatrice retorts, “You always end with a jade's
trick. I know you of old.”69 Mention is made of bugle and bald-
rick,70 the recheat or blast for calling the hounds when the
hunt was over.71 The successful archer, after shooting at a cat
in a basket, is clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.72
Beatrice “runs like a lapwing .... close by the ground ;”73 her
spirits are “as coy and wild as haggerds of the rock.”74 She is
“limed” (caught with bird-lime) .75 Her resolve to yield to
Benedick’s suit carries on the same figure, “taming my wild
heart to thy loving hand”.76 “Stalk on,” says one of the con¬
spirators, “the fowl sits.” And again, “Bait the hook well ; this
fish will bite.”77
Besides archery, riding, and hunting, we have mention of
tennis balls, fencer’s foils, dice, music, the lute, the drum and
the fife, the tabor and the pipe, dancing, the Scotch jig, the
measure, and the cinque pace.78 Most of these enter by way of
allusion only. One pastime, the masque, appears as an element
of the action. The scene is the hall after supper. Leonato,
Beatrice, Antonio, and Hero have been talking together : the
revellers enter, and “all put on their masques”.79 From the
dialogues that follow, however, it is not clear that any of the
ladies are masked. Hence the frolic is probably of the nature
of a masque proper, rather than a masked ball in which all are
disguised.
Dr. J. W. Cunliffe has shown that masques, though somewhat
similar to the English ^disguises”, were of Italian origin, and
were in the sixteenth century associated with Italy. He defines
the masque thus :
The masque was an evening entertainment in which the
chief performers were masked courtiers, accompanied by
torchbearers, all in costumes appropriate to the device pre¬
sented : the elements of song and dialogue were developed
68 1, i. 143.
60 I. i. 144.
70 I. i. 245.
’*1. i. 243.
72 1. i. 259-61.
73 III. i. 24-25.
74 III. i. 35-36.
75 III. i. 104.
78 III. i. 112.
77 II. iii. 95, 114.
78 II. i. 73-81.
79 II, i.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 383
later, the original nucleus being dances and conversation with
spectators selected by the masquers.80
He cites examples of the use of the masque in Italy in the four¬
teenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
T. F. Crane81 notes in Whetstone’s Heytameron of Civil Dis¬
courses, “ ‘The device of the second night’s Mask’ “After sup¬
per five of the gentlemen withdrew, and about 9 o’clock re¬
entered in disguise, a concert preceding them. The dresses of
the musicians, the torch-bearers, and the maskers are fully
described.”
Many current ideas and interests come in by the way. Bea¬
trice has — or rather implies that she has not— some of her good
wit out of The Hundred Merry Tales .82 She was born under a
dancing star. A classical allusion is given a homely turn : “She
would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft
his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall
find her the infernal Ate in good apparel.”83 The current in¬
terest in the Antipodes comes out here, as in many other plays
of the time. Benedick will “fetch you a tooth-picker now from
the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s
foot ; fetch you a hair off the great Cham’s beard ; do you any
embassage to the Pigmies, rather than hold three words’ con¬
ference with this harpy.”84 Such allusions may very well be
associated with a characteristically British interest in non-
European lands such as crops up in English literature since the
days when knights were glad for the sake of their ladies to
Go hoodies to the drye see,
And come hoom by the Carrenare.
It is no more English than Italian in spirit, however. Marco
Polo’s adventures belong to Venice, and were translated into
English by Frampton in 1579.85 And the many books of travel
so “The Prototypes of the Masque and Dumb Show”, P. M. L. A., 1907, p. 146.
81 Italian Social Customs of the Sixteenth Century (1920), p. 514.
82 II. i. 135.
82 II. i. 261-3.
84 II. i. 273-280.
85 The actual source of the reference matters for our purpose less than its con¬
notation. The footnote in the New Hudson edition reads thus: ‘‘In the Maunde-
ville cycle of legend Prester (Presbyter, Priest) John was a mythical Christian
ruler of the Par East. In later stories he was of Abyssinia, ‘from the red sea
almost to the Aethiopike Occean’. ‘The great Cham’ (or Caan of Cathaya, the
Khan of Tartary) also belongs to the Maundeville legendary matter. Near his
realms was the ‘land of Pigmie’, where are men ‘of little stature, for they are but
three spans long’. — Voiage and Travaile of Syr John Maundeville.”
384 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters.
and geography which fascinated the Elizabethans were, so far
as the Orient is concerned, largely of Italian origin. M. A.
Scott86 describes some eighteen books of voyages and discovery
translated from Italian into English between the years 1555
and 1607.87
The lines of the play abound in miscellaneous pictures of
every-day life and affairs: the canker rose in the hedge,88 the
lover wearing willow,89 the usurer’s chain,90 the lieutenant’s
scarf,91 the ballad-maker’s pen,92 the prince’s jester,93 the pesti¬
lence,94 the “young squarer” that will “make a voyage to the
devil”,95 the honest drover selling bullocks,96 the blind man
beating the post because the boy stole his meat,97 “the hurt fowl
creeping into sedges”,98 “the school-boy who, being overjoyed
with finding a bird’s nest, shows it to his companion and he
steals it”,99 an oak with one green leaf,100 a great thaw,101
a wild creature “trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with
a clog”.102
Many are the allusions to dress and fashion. Benedick (ac¬
cording to Beatrice) “wears his faith but as the fashion of his
hat; it ever changes with the next block.”103 Don Pedro says
teasingly of Benedick,
88 English Translations from the Italian, New York, 1916.
87 Compare the material in Botero : A long account of the Great Cham, com¬
prising war between Great Cham, and Prester John, extent of empire of Great
Cham, descriptions of his palace at Xaindu, revenue, forces, government, descrip¬
tion of the appearance of the people: pp. 142-150. A separate account of Prester
John, pp. 212-220 : his territory, character of people, government, revenue, rela¬
tions with neighboring states. See Giovanni Botero, The Travellers Breviat, or An
historicall description of the most famous King domes in the World. Translated
into English. London, 1601.
88 1. iii. 28.
88 II. i. 194.
80 II. i. 197.
81 II. i. 198.
«I. i. 25 4.
83 II. i. 251.
84 II. iii. 85.
85 I. i. 82-3.
86 II. i. 202.
97 II. i. 205-7.
88 II. i. 209.
99 II. i. 229-31.
109 II. i. 247.
101 II. i. 251.
102 1. iii. 34.
103 1. i. 76.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 385
There Is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy
that he hath to strange disguises ; as, to be a Dutchman today,
a Frenchman tomorrow, or in the shape of two countries at
once, as a German from the waist downwards, all slops, and
a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet.104
We hear also that he brushes his hat “a mornings”, and “looks
younger that he did, by the loss of a beard”, “the old ornament
of his cheek” having already “stuffed tennis balls”. He has even
taken to cosmetics.105 Benedick draws a figure of speech from
the tailor: “The body of your discourse is sometime guarded
with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on
neither.” 106
In Act III, scene iv, Margaret and Hero, in Hero's apartment,
discuss clothes with zest:
Margaret. Troth, I think your other rabato were better.
Hero. No, pray thee, good Meg, I’ll wear this. . . .
Margaret . I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair
were a thought browner; and your gown’s a most rare fash¬
ion, i’ faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan’s gown that they
praise so.
Hero. O, that exceeds, they say.
Margaret. By my troth, ’s but a night-gown in respect of
yours: cloth o’ gold, down sleeves, side sleeves, and skirts,
round underborne with a bluish tinsel : but for a fine, quaint,
graceful and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on’t.
Boulting quotes Bandello:107
What shall we say of the magnificence of the ladies of Milan,
their dresses covered with wrought gold, so many trimmings,
embroideries, laces and precious jewels, so that when a dame
goes forth from her door it reminds one of the 4 Ascension’ at
Venice?
The scene of Much Ado is given reality by references to the
house and grounds108 and the outward business of hospitality.
304 III. ii. I have not undertaken extensive annotations on the subject of dress.
Ample materials are, of course, available. See Shakespeare’s England, II, xix,
and bibliography. English fashions were extensively borrowed from the Con¬
tinent ; hence the subject has little significance for the present purpose.
III. ii. 45—51.
306 1. i. 287-291.
307 1. Nov. 9. See Woman in Italy (1910), p. 219.
308 See Shakespeare’s England (1916), II, XVII (Architecture) and II, XX (The
Home), with Bibliographies. See also Bacon’s Essay Of Building. He gives an
account of a palace as it should be, hall, chapel, kitchens, butteries, panteries,
towers, and stairways ; outer and inner courts, galleries, rooms for summer and
winter, “imbowed windows”, cloisters and arches, grotto, fountain, terraces and
garden.
386 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
A perfumer, smoking a musty room, whips behind the arras as
he hears voices approaching.109 We hear of a great supper,
first in preparation, than in progress. A note in the Arden
Edition calls attention to the second scene of Act I as a “short
bustling scene” to be compared with the fifth scene of Act I in
Romeo and Juliet. The two old men, Leonato and Antonio are
gossiping for a moment about hospitable arrangements. An¬
tonio’s son is providing the music. Leonato is glad to have
Antonio’s help “this busy time”. The scene suggests the mani¬
fold activities of a large household engaged in providing com¬
fort for many guests, all of whom are bent on pleasure and
absorbed in their own interests and intrigues. Apparently
Leonato and Antonio have adjoining estates. In Antonio’s
orchard Claudio and Don Pedro have been overheard talking
in a “thick-pleached alley”.
Ordish, in his chapter on “Nature and London”110 has pre¬
sented much interesting material on the gardens of London
derived from Stow’s Survey (1598) and from Gerard’s Herball
(1597) :
The garden of the Elizabethan London house contributed
largely to the garniture of the living rooms within. In place
of carpets and of some accessories which to us appear to be
indispensable, the floors were strewn with rushes, with
branches, and with flowers; nosegays filled the corners which
are occupied with various ornaments in modern chambers.
Herbs, sprays, and branches were carefully preserved for
winter use; in summer flowers were the chief ornament, and
on ceremonial occasions the chambers were strewn with them.
We may compare Bacon, Of Gardens:
For the side grounds, you are to fill them with variety of
alleys, private, to give a full shade, some of them, whereso¬
ever the sun be. You are to frame some of them likewise for
shelter, that when the wind blows sharp you may walk as in
a gallery: and those alleys must be likewise hedged at both
ends, to keep out the wind; and these closer alleys must be
ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because of going wet.
In Leonato’s orchard after supper we find Benedick saunter¬
ing. He sends back his boy to get a book left in his chamber
109 I. iii.
119 Shakespeare's London (1904), Chapter III, pp. 93-4.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 387
window.111 Hearing Claudio and Don Pedro approaching, he
conceals himself in the arbor. The schemers are attended by a
musician who sings and withdraws. Claudio, Don Pedro, and
Leonato, walking up and down the garden path, then work
their will upon the unsuspecting Benedick. The same setting,
elaborated in description, is used for the deception of Beatrice.
Hero’s words to Margaret convey the very spirit of gardens :
. bid her steal into the pleached bower
Where honey-suckles, ripen’d by the sun,
Forbid the sun to enter; like favourites,
Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
Against that power that bred it. Then will she hide her,
To listen to our purpose.
Margaret runs to the house on her mission.
Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace the alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick.
. Now begin;
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.
Ursula’s reply is in the same strain.
The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
Is couched in the woodbine coverture.112
IV
The Use of the Elements of Setting
in Relation to the Total Effect
The mass of detail which we have examined cannot be called
either distinctly English or distinctly Italian; and whether its
111 II. iii. 3. Aymer Vallance in Art in England during the Elizabethan and
Stuart Periods (1908), pp. 66, 68, gives a description of windows in Elizabethan
houses. The windows had small lead-set panes, and not much stained glass. “. . .
for the medieval art consecrated as it was primarily to the service of the church,
received for all intents and purposes its death-warrant in the Reformation.
Thenceforward, although there might be occasional demand still for armorial sub¬
jects for domestic purposes, no such magnificent series of heraldic glass as the
Perpendicular windows at Ockwells, in Berkshire, was ever produced. .. .Much
ingenuity. . .was exercised in devising different designs in ornamental lead glazing
with plain glass.” [Through such a window, perhaps, the light fell on Benedick’s
book before he left it open on the window seat. J. G. W. ]
112 III. i. 7-11, 15-17, 24-26, 26-30.
388 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
effect is predominantly one or the other depends largely on its
associations and hence on the outline which it is used to fill in.
Now, are the relatively few foreign allusions in the play meant
to direct the imagination to some region abroad, or are they
only a flimsy disguise? Is the real direction in the English asso¬
ciations of hospitality and the homely activities of the watch?
The question cannot be answered dogmatically. Yet it seems
probable that the imagination of the Elizabethan spectator
would be less impeded by thinking in the main of a distant city
than by thinking in the main of England ; and for this reason —
that the unfamiliar element is the more consciously arresting
to the imagination, and the familiar is more easily taken for
granted.
On either hypothesis, most of the detail merely makes for
reality, not in the narrow sense of local realism, but in the
larger sense of having solidity and tangibility to the imagina¬
tion. The editor of the Arden edition has already been quoted
on the usefulness of the “short bustling scenes” in creating
an illusion of real life. In other connections he emphasizes the
same effect of “depth” and the method of producing it.
This trait of his [Shakespeare’s] has been called “epic”. He
likes, so far as the conditions of his art allow, to set out his
action on a background. We seem to have known his charac¬
ters a long time. Here, for instance [Act I, Scene i], we
gather that Benedick has been in Messina before, and has
crossed swords with Beatrice.113
Again, on the incorrect versions given by Antonio and Borachio
of Claudio’s confidences to the Prince he says :
Shakespeare had noted that no two repprts of an occurrence
are, as a rule, precisely the same, unless by collusion. Cf.
Othello, i.3.5—
“But though they jump not on a just account,
As in these cases, where the aim reports,
’Tis oft with difference. ...”
These little discrepancies, like the two views in a stereoscope,
help to create that sense of solidity of which Shakespeare is
the greatest master.114
333 Arden Edition, Boston, 1901, p. 75. It is fair to note, however, that other
critics have attributed this passage to the out-cropping of an older version of the
play.
114 IUd., p. 84.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 389
The whole episode of Dogberry and Verges contributes to the
effect of reality and “diffuses an air of settled English security
in which tragedy cannot breathe”.115
Much has been written on the English color of these episodes.
Ordish says, “The humours of the watch are wholly Eliza¬
bethan, possibly a burlesque on the Statutes of the Streets,
imprinted 1595. There is a tradition that the prototype of Dog¬
berry was a citizen of Cornhill . If the original of Dogberry
were actually associated with Cornhill, it was probably in con¬
nection with the ‘Tun upon CornhilF — the city prison for ‘night-
walkers and other suspicious persons', in the words of Stow.”116
He cites a letter of Lord Burghley from the Domestic State
Papers, 1586, showing that “the watch had, in fact, become a
byword for pompous stupidity”.117
C. A. Brown, on the other hand, declares almost passionately :
The scene of Much ado about Nothing is at Messina. If Dog¬
berry and Verges should be pronounced nothing else than the
constables of the night in London, before the new police was
established, I can assert that I have seen those very officers
in Italy, France and Russia; and doubtless they are to be
found at Constantinople, — unless among the Turks there are
no petty dogs in office, at once self-sufficient, pompous, and
ignorant. Nothing in this Sicilian comedy is of a contra¬
dictory nature.118
Thus we see that even these scenes, in isolation more readily
thought of as English, are capable of being imagined as part of
a foreign picture by one who approaches them with the thought
of Messina strongly in mind. The fact remains that most of
the critics see them as English. The question is of course not
how we can see them now but how Shakespeare and his audi¬
ence saw them. In visualizing a scene as in accepting persons
and incidents the Elizabethan was no doubt more uncritically
open to suggestion than we and better able to do imaginatively
as he was told. And no doubt he cared comparatively little
where he found himself so that the story went forward. No
doubt if he was in London at one moment, he could almost as
easily be in Messina the next. Hence even if the low comedy
115 Arden Edition, p. xviii.
116 Shakespeare's London, p. 189.
111 Ibid., pp. 190-191. Cf. p. 30 above, note.
118 Shakespeare's Autobiographical Poems, London, 1838, p. 111.
390 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
characters with their English names do somewhat come out of
the picture, any argument for the localizing of the main action
in a foreign setting remains practically unchanged.
Still as we have pointed out in relation to character and
action, even for the Elizabethan the more unity of effect the
better. One way of patching and mending, of putting new
cloth on old garments and weaving a darn until it looks like
embroidery is to use lyrical elements. We have already noticed
in the church scene the value of the friar’s words, which
wove a spell over us as of an incantation. In the last act the
scene before the monument is perhaps meant to perform the
same office. It is suggested by the source.119
At eventide Messer Lionato and his wife and kinsfolk, clad
all in black, escorted the coffin to the church, making such a
show of extreme grief as if they had in very deed followed
their daughter’s body to the tomb .... The coffin was accord¬
ingly interred, with general mourning of the whole city, and
thereover was set a monument of stone, emblazoned with the
ensigns of the Lionati ....
The epitaph is in verse. The later scene in which the young
men visit the church contains little description.
The two gentlemen, then, alone entered the church, where
they found no one, and Girando carried Timbreo to the chapel
where was the pretended tomb. There he fell on his knees
before the tomb and unsheathing a poniard, etc.
The scene in the play is in the spirit of the novel, remote and
romantic. It concludes with a transition from torch-light to
daylight.
Good morrow, master; put your torches out.
The wolves have prey’d; and look, the gentle day,
Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.
No doubt these transitions were more effective for the Eliza¬
bethan than for us. We are more susceptible to the influence of
the garden scenes, which together with the manifold sugges¬
tions of the hospitality of a country house, already dealt with,
contribute more than does any other device to an enveloping
atmosphere and to the fusion of the diverse elements of the
action.
339 See Variorum , pp. 318-320.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 391
Instead of this very general setting, Shakespeare, had he
chosen could perhaps have given us a more realistic picture of
Messina, although the following accounts of Sicily were not
available in print at the time the play was written.
Hoby says of Messina :
There is in this towne on of the fairest portes in Europe,
standing as well for the Levant and all those quarters as for
the Ponent. The towne standethe sumwhat upon the side of a
hill, betwext the hill and the port. Upon the hill there are
two or three faire castles, kept by Spaniardes. Yt is more
in length© than in breadethe. The cheffest thing for an-
tiquitie I sawe there, were the heades of Scipio and Hannibal
when they were yong menn, in stone .... These remaine
straightlie kept in the towne house of Messina, and not to bee
seene, withowt yt be for friendshippe, to straungers. For a
new worke and that not finisshed at my being there, I saw a
fountaine of verie white marble graven with the storie of
Acteon and suche other, by on Giovan Angelo, a florentine,
which to my eyes is on of the fairest peece of worke that
ever I sawe. This fountain was appointed to be sett uppe
before the hige churche where there is on old on alreadie.
Here is an old palaice belonging unto the Kings of Sicilia,
and now most part of it is built a new from the groound.120
In his description of Sicily Hoby contrives to produce an
atmosphere of clear air, shining sea and pleasant havens,
marshes, plains, castles, snow-capped mountains, gushing
streams, ancient ruins,-— not unlike the atmosphere of the Win¬
ter's Tale,
George Sandys121 enumerates the striking features of Mes¬
sina : It lies between a bay and hills, “strongly walled, and forti¬
fied about with bulwarks’'. He mentions the strong citadel, the
castle of Gonsage, beautiful buildings, statues, fountains of
fresh water, the ruins of an old aqueduct, the viceroy’s palace
“surrounded with delightful gardens and orchards”, the admir¬
able haven, the “High Lanterne”, etc. “The better sort are
Spanish in attire, and the meanest artificers wife is clothed in
silke: whereof an infinite quantity is made by the worme, and
120 A BooTce of the Travaile and Lief of Thomas Hoby, The Camden Miscellany,
Vol. x. p. 44. Written 1547-64. First published 1902. See also pp. 45-49. As has
often been pointed out, the main action of the Winter’s Tale is by Shakespeare
moved from Bohemia to Sicily (he reverses the two scenes as given in Pandosto ),
though the pastoral scene of Act IV has therefore to be placed in Bohemia.
121 A relation of a Journey begun An. Dom. 1610 containing a description of ...
the Remote Parts of Italy, London, 1615. Book IV, pp. 245, 246.
392 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters .
a part thereof wrought into stuff es (but rudely) by the work¬
man.' ” Thieves are very common. “In their private revenges,
no night doth passe without murder.” The following vivid
scene could hardly have been described to Shakespeare without
inspiring some allusion in a drama of his having Messina for a
background.
Every evening they solace themselves along the Marine (a
place left throughout between the Citie wall and the haven)
the men on horsebacke, and the women in large Carosses,
being drawne with the slowest procession. There is to be
seene the pride and beauties of the Citie. There have they
their playhouses, where the parts of women are acted by
women, and too naturally passionated: which they forbeare
not to frequent upon Sundays. The Duke of Osuna their new
Vice-roy was here daily expected; for whom a sumptuous
landing place was made, and that but to continue for a day.
Even if such information was to be had, by word of mouth or
otherwise, when Shakespeare was writing Much Ado, it may
very well have been inconvenient to collect it at the moment.
In any case Messina was a less familiar hunting ground to the
popular imagination than the cities of Northern Italy, and
nothing would be gained by trying to present it in detail.
Shakespeare chooses to avoid suggesting any background of city
life. By presenting a great house that might be a country house,
hints of what might be village life, an atmosphere of hospi¬
tality,122 of festivities and pleasure gardens, he is able to absorb
a tragic situation into what is as a whole one of the most
cheerful of his plays.
Nor is this enveloping atmosphere entirely a matter of place.
It is contributed to by the characters. J. S. Smith says of the
witty talk of Beatrice in the first scene of the second act, “every
line breathes that atmosphere of gaiety which emanates espe¬
cially from Beatrice, and in which the play moves for the next
122 For the use of hospitality and the setting of a country house, compare the
scenes laid in Gloucestershire in Henry IV. Madden has utilized these in com¬
bination with the Induction of The Taming of The Shrew to inspire his charming
picture of Elizabethan country life in the historical fantasy The Diary of Master
William Silence. For details more objectively given of what these Elizabethan
houses were like, see Shakespeare's England, II, Chapters XVII, XX. See also
Greene’s History of the English People, New York, Illustrated edition of 1895, II.
pp. 790-797. The literature of the period abounds in pictures and suggestions of
this life. Compare for example Sidney’s Arcadia, edited by Feuillerat, Cam¬
bridge, 1912, p. 12.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 393
two acts.”123 And here is, perhaps, the chief value of Miss
Scott’s study of Much Ado About Nothing in relation to II Corte-
giano. One passage presented in this study seems to give the
very spirit of Beatrice and her surroundings.
In introducing her [The Lady Emilia Pia], it is said that
she had such a lively wit and judgment that she “seemed the
maistresse and ringe leader of all the companye, and that
everye manne at her receyed understandinge and courage.
There wras then to be hearde pleasaunte communication and
merye conceytes, and in every mannes countenance a manne
myght perceyve peyncted a lovynge jocundenesse. So that
thys house truelye might well be called the verye mansion
place of Myrth and Joye.124
Thus it is not only in detailed parallels that the significance of
this resemblance is found. What it shows is an interest, in
England, in witty, urbane, and sophisticated society, and the
association of its ideals with an Italian setting. Nor, as Miss
Scott has herself briefly indicated,125 is it to Castiglione alone
that we may look for the inspiration in England of this kind
of interest. In her invaluable English Translations from the
Italian,126 Miss Scott gives an account of some twenty books on
manners and morals translated from Italian into English be¬
tween 1561 and 1607.
In his very full study of these and other books of the kind,
T. F. Crane127 summarizes their characteristics and tendencies
and their influence in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.
An interesting feature of the material presented by Crane is
the relation of the various elements, story, setting, dialogue,
social ideals. Crane shows how the debate or tenzon is presently
related to the frame stories, little tales being told to illustrate a
point. In the Italian frame stories, the setting is usually a
garden ; in Castiglione it is a palace. In Castiglione and the sub¬
sequent books on manners and morals, the frame and the ideas
123 Arden Edition, p. 87.
124 M. A. Scott, “ The Boole of the Gourtyer : A Possible Source of Benedick and
Beatrice”, P. M. L. A. XVI (1901), p. 499.
125 P. M. L. A. XVI (1901), p. 475.
126 Boston, 1916, pp. 445-482.
12T Thomas Frederick Crane, Italian Social Customs of the Sixteenth Century,
Yale U. Press, 1920. Cf. Edward Sullivan, “A Forgotten Volume in Shakespeare’s
Library” [Pettie’s trans. of Guazzo], Nineteenth Century, vol. 55, Feb. 1904, pp.
267-277.
394 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
expand and become the main consideration. In these books of
manners and morals three things are stressed, sprightly and
cultivated conversation, a suitable setting, highly conscious
social ideals.
Crane gives a chapter on the influence of such books in Eng¬
land. Of Robert Greene he says:128
When one who is familiar with this branch of Italian litera¬
ture reads Greene he seems to be perusing a translation from
the Italian, but when he seeks the original he can discover no
single work that Greene has used. Like the other Eliza¬
bethan writer [writers?] he has so fully assimilated his ma¬
terial that his works have an original worth.
Crane quotes Koeppel on Whetstone's Heptameron of Civil
Discourses.
Koeppel’s concluding remarks (Studien zur Geschichte der
Italienischen Novelle, p. 34.) on this work [Whetstone’s] are
worthy of quotation. . . .“We see in the spirit of Whetstone,
whom we can regard as the typical representative of a nu¬
merous class of Elizabethan writers, the confluence of differ¬
ent streams of culture. Evident is the influence of the Italian
Decameron and the French Heptameron, but Whetstone’s
work differs in an important manner from these two novels
with frames. In them the picture in the frame predominates,
in Whetstone the frame itself. He has, like Tilney, and very
probably influenced by Tilney, taken as his model the Courtier
of Castiglione, which he mentions among the books of his
Philoxenus : ‘for Government and Civil behaviours he read
Plutarches Moralles; Guevaraes Dial of Princes; the Courtier
of Count Baldazar Castillio.’ Whetstone brings his circle be¬
fore us not in the open air as Boccaccio and the Queen of
Navarre, but in a splendid palace, like Castiglione. From
Castiglione, who offers moral-didactic conversations with
brief illustrative stories, Whetstone learned the introduction
of the extensive frame. Whetstone also took as the models
of his individual characters the figures of the Italian com¬
pany: as in Castiglione the wife of the master of the house,
the Duchess of Urbino, so in Whetstone Aurelia, the sister of
the host, is the centre of the circle. Doctor Mossenigo has
inherited the woman-hating disposition of Signior Gaspare
Palavicino and the English author’s ladies have been to
school to the ready Signora Emilia Pia. As in Castiglione,
at the end of the second and the beginning of the third book,
128 Chapter XI, p. 528.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 395
so in Whetstone on the fourth day, the question whether
woman is as perfect a being as man is fully discussed.”129
Characteristic of the independence of the English treatment
of this kind of frame story is Lodowick Bryskett’s version130 of
Cinthio’s Three Dialogues; he sets his version in a dialogue
among friends of his own, introducing Spenser among others.
For our purpose, the settings of these books are interesting.
In Greene’s Morando the setting is in part in a garden.131 In
Farewell to Folly it is “a graunge place by scituation melan-
cholie, as seated in the middest of a thicket.”132 In Tilney’s
Flower of Friendships, the scene is a garden. There is a direct
reference to Italian associations : Don Pedro
“remembered how Boccace and Countie Baltizar with others
recounted many proper deuises for exercise,” which “were
used in the courts of Italie, and some much like them are
practised at this day in the English court, wherein is not
only delectable, but pleasure ioyned with profite and exercise
of the wyt.”
They discuss the virtues of the matrimonial estate.
. . . after dinner they went into an arbour in the garden — “it
might be called a terrestrial Paradise”; the benches “were
trimly set with camamile and dasies”.133
Whetstone’s setting is a country house in winter :
The author relates that in the “dead season”, winter, his
affairs sent him into a country far from home and unknown
to him; having travelled on Christmas eve through a forest,
and gone astray, he came to a stately palace where everyone
was feasting indoors. A servant with his lord’s welcome in¬
vited him to alight and w^alk in, which after some excuses
he did. An interesting description of the screen of the great
hall, and of another great chamber is given. The lord (he
was brought up in the French court and was a Protestant)
met him in the hall and led him into “a faire great chamber”,
where he found many gentlemen and ladies. Declaring him¬
self an Englishman, the lord broke out into a eulogy of the
“Mayden Queene” and begged him to stay. He was led to a
129 Crane, footnote, pp. 520—521.
130 See Miss Scott’s description of this hook (no. 390 in her list of English
translations from the Italian), pp. 476-478.
131 See Crane, p. 525.
132 Crane, p. 526.
133 Crane, p. 507.
396 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters.
bed-chamber and afterwards to supper, where many other
foreigners were present. After supper, a cake being cut and
distributed to select a king or queen, the lot fell to Madame
Aurelia, sister to the lord of the palace, to be queen of the
Christmas pleasures.134
This remote influence of the Italian frame story, an influence
quite possibly unconscious to the playwright, if it exists at all —
may also throw light on the structure of Much Ado and the rela¬
tion of the two stories. Miss Scott does not — so far as I can
find — note that we have here not so much two stories inter¬
woven as one story set back within the other on a somewhat
“different plane of reality”.135 There has been some difference
of opinion among the critics as to which is main plot in this play
and which underplot. Brander Matthews finds the story of
Benedick and Beatrice the main plot :
It is for this direct appeal [Beatrice’s “Kill Claudio”] to
Benedick’s affection for Beatrice that the carefully com¬
pounded plot has been built up. The vulnerable elements of
the play are all in the Hero-Claudio episodes.133
Crane has noted the variety of emphasis in the Italian works
which he presents. Sometimes the frame is frame merely and
the stories are all-important. Sometimes the stories are mere
illustrations. Half way between these extremes we can imagine
a type in which although the two are not on the same plane of
reality, they might get something like equal emphasis. And
this, we may say, approaches the situation in Much Ado About
Nothing.
Thus the most important foreign elements of Much Ado may
be of a vague and elusive kind ; and may be in the association of
a romantic Italian story, a merry war of wits, gaiety of atmo¬
sphere, and charm of setting. We do not wish to press the point
too far. The influence of the Italian social ideal was too diffused
in England to be a matter of deliberate imitation on Shake-
134 Crane, p. 512.
135 A phrase given me by a friend to whom I was talking of this theory in rela¬
tion to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This conception of planes of reality — little
plays written within plays varying in technique, to be compared, perhaps, to re¬
mote and close-up views in the cinema — seems to me to have an important bear¬
ing on several plays, notably A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of
the Shrew. In a study of these two plays I hope to develop the idea further.
136 Brander Matthews, Shakespeare as a Playwright , New York, 1913, p. 154.
Wales — The Setting of Much Ado About Nothing 397
speare’s part. Moreover he has, as usual, recreated his materi¬
als, giving them both a national and an individual quality.
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, on the other hand, has this to say
of the Italianate quality of Much Ado:
Actually it is the most Italianate play in the canon, and
actually the closest to the spirit of the Renaissance. Nay,
that spirit — -so peculiar in essence and so volatile — permeates
the whole piece and exhales from it. The characters can all
speak ‘by the book’.
He quotes from A. R. Walkley ( Playhouse Impressions ,
1892) the comment
But life and letters do not sum up the Renaissance; they
must be completed by a touch of the lurid — Benvenuto must
cut Pompeo’s throat as well as carve in silver — and so we
get our third impression. This is an impression of somber
melodrama, Italian treachery, the intrusion of Mephisto-
pheles into the Kermesse, which the dramatist has provided
for us in the intrigue of Don John and Borachio . . . . Can I
register a fourth impression? Yes; in the strange manner of
Claudio’s wooing— behind a mask, and in the person of his
prince— I like to fancy a premonition of the theater of Hugo
and Musset. And when Claudio consents to wed a veiled lady
whom he has never seen, he is the direct ancestor of Don
Cesar de Bazan. Thus here are the Elizabethan and the ro¬
mantic epoch brought together. One might go on to a fifthly
or fifteenthly — all merging at last into one composite picture
of the multifarious, seething, fermenting life, the polychro¬
matic phantasmagoria of the Renaissance. Like some quaint
book of the time, with a quaint title, some Hypnerotomachia
Poliphili, or like some vast crowded canvas of the time — the
great marriage piece, say, of Veronese in the Salon Carre of
the Louvre — Much Ado About Nothing is an Inn of Strange
Meetings.137
Leonato’s house is not the gorgeous and remote palace of the
Italian frame story. It is more homely and more real, furnished
with familiar objects. And the wit of Beatrice and Benedick
is not conventionalized but has the energy and buoyant high
spirits of a comparatively young and happy people.138 Yet this
setting is adequate — -more than adequate. Like a deep, ornate
137 Quoted by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his Introduction to the play (1923).
C. U. Press, pp. xxiv-v.
338 In this comment I am influenced by a lecture of Professor R. E. N. Dodge of
the University of Wisconsin.
398 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters .
frame for a very small picture, it has distracted our attention
from the central incident itself. It is not for Hero’s story, but
for the diversified human interest of Leonato’s house party that
we read Much Ado About Nothing.
Thus the emphasis is upon the house as a great house, the
garden as a garden, upon hospitality, gaiety, wit, conversation.
This place is primarily “neither of England nor of Italy”. For
it is of England and Italy. It is “of civilization”.139 But it is
still called Messina — thought of and imagined as Messina. Only
by a gradual shifting of values, leaving out of the unintelligible,
filling in of the congruous, similar to the whole rejection, ac¬
ceptance, recreation of the foreign ideal, has the scene perhaps
come unconsciously to be domesticated nearer home. We are
told that the place is Messina and we believe it, since there is
nothing definite in the play to turn back the original direction
given to our fancy. Yet, on the other hand, as Elizabethan
spectators, we know little of Messina to conflict with another
tendency of the imagination, to weave the fabric of the un¬
known out of threads of the known. A house of Messina shall
be built — unless we are told otherwise — of English stone and
mortar and belong nonetheless in a distant land. In the home¬
lier comedy scenes, perhaps, we forget for a moment that we
are not at home ; the characters come out among us and are of
ourselves. For the rest, all is in the picture, at its distance,
fairly well in focus and of a piece, foreign for all we know to
the contrary. And yet, the modern reader, with his own history
and geography duly pigeon-holed, has to acknowledge that,
despite its Italian sources, and irrespective perhaps of Shake¬
speare’s intention and the consciousness of his spectators, the
piece as a whole, in character, setting, atmosphere, and general
tone, is far more English than it is Italian.
139 I am indebted to a lecture of Professor J. F. A. Pyre, of the University of
Wisconsin, for this idea, applied by him in general to the diffusion of Italian
culture in England. Compare the words of Erasmus, quoted by Einstein ( The
Italian Renaissance in England, p. 44) : “Mihi Italus est quisque probe doctus est
etiamsi fit apud Juvernos natus.”
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY
Sixty-second Annual Meeting, 1932
The sixty-second annual meeting of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,
Arts and Letters was held, in joint session with the Wisconsin Archeolog¬
ical Society and the Midwest Museums Conference, at the Public Museum,
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Friday and Saturday, April 8 and 9, 1932. The
following papers were presented:
Friday morning. S. A. Barrett: Address of welcome; Stephen Kliman:
The use of sodium silicate as a mounting medium; J. K. Conklin: Some
museum photographic methods; John B. MacHarg: Museum bulletin
boards; Alton K. Fischer: The museum as a public utility; J. G. Gregory:
Museum origins in Milwaukee; C. E. Brown: The George Washington
exhibit of the State Historical Museum; Mrs. Ruth J. Shuttleworth :
“Little George and his Hatchet” (a Madison poem, 1854) ; R. P. Gray:
Folk songs and ballads; H. R. Rich: Aquatic leaf-cutting beetles of Wis¬
consin; T. E. B. Pope: An unusual occurrence of the alder fly; H. W.
Mossman: What is a, red squirrel; H. W. Mossman: Prenatal and post¬
natal development of the thirteen-striped spermophile ; L. J. Cole: The
effects of light periodicity on the reproductive cycle of the mourning dove ;
J. A. Bradley and H. W. Mossman: The behavior of captive spermophiles
in the presence of a bull snake; J. A. Bradley and H. W. Mossman: Ac¬
cidentally induced color changes in chipmunks; 0. L. Kowalke: On the
stoppage of sewer laterals by roots; Louis Kahlenberg and R. N. Traxler:
The osmotic permeability of living plant membranes; N. C. Fassett:
Notes on some plants of Wisconsin.
Friday afternoon . J. B. MacHarg: Locating Lincoln’s haunts at New
Salem; R. K. Richardson: Tennyson as an exponent of the idea of prog¬
ress; T. T. Brown: Sieur Charles de Langlade, bravest of the brave;
Ernst Yoss: Dutch colonies in northern Germany during the Middle Ages,
(by title) ; Lorraine C. Brown: Wisconsin hobby riders; Anton Sohrweide:
The origin and distribution of copper artifacts; George Overton: What a
season may bring forth; C. E. Brown: A sheet copper bird effigy orna¬
ment; E. L. Miloslavich : Arrow-head injuries of the spinal column in
American Indians; L. F. Graber: An environmental study of the injury
of grasses by white grubs in southern Wisconsin; S. C. Wadmond: The
Quercus ellipsoidalis— Quercus coccinea complex; L. R. Wilson: The classi¬
fication of North American Lycopodiums on spore characters; H. V. Tru¬
man: Some fossil pollens from the Gibraltar Bluff peat bog; Albert M.
Fuller: The occurrence of natural hybrids in our native orchids; M. L.
Clikeman: The classification of Gymnosperms according to their pollen
grains; G. H. Conant: Butyl alcohol as a fixative in plant histology; J. F.
Groves: Demonstration material for teaching botany; E. R. Miller: The
snowfall of Wisconsin.
Special lectures on Friday : Rev. 0. W. Smith: High Mountains; Dr. R.
Bagg: Yesterday and Today in South America.
400 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts , and Letters .
Saturday morning: E. J. Dornfeld: Variability in Haploa; H. R. Rich:
Modernizing mollusk exhibits; T. E. B. Pope: Value of an economic fish¬
ery exhibit; E. G. Wolff: Fire-arms and museums; Charlotte Partridge:
Children’s classes at the Layton Art Gallery; Eugene Boardman: En¬
graved ostrich egg-shell of North Africa; E. L. Miloslavich: Anomalies of
the epistropheus in two Indian skeletons; Ira Edwards: Creating an out¬
door museum; Gilbert Raasch: Special problems of a university museum;
H. D. Squires: Strike slip faulting in the Acadian Appalachians; Rachel
Mary Campbell: Wisconsin Biographies.
A tea for the members of the three societies was held at Milwaukee-
Downer College on Saturday afternoon in the Greene Memorial Museum.
The annual business meeting of the Academy was held in the Lecture
Hall of the Public Museum at 5:30 Friday afternoon, April 8. The secre¬
tary presented the following report on membership, as of April 6, 1932:
honorary members, 3; life members, 14; corresponding members, 12; ac¬
tive members, 342; total, 371. Membership losses during the year: de¬
ceased, 7; resigned, 24; dropped for non-payment, 12; dropped for loss of
address, 8. The names of fourteen new members were presented and unan¬
imously elected. This, added to the 54 new members elected during the
year by council action, brought the total of new members for the year to
68. The complete list follows: Rudolph J. Allgeier, Elda Anderson, Ira L.
Baldwin, Glenn J. Baker, A. L. Barker, E. F. Barta, Dorothy Bauch,
Harry Beckman, Joseph C. Bock, E. L. Bolender, P. N. Butler, J. O.
Carbys, W. J. Carson, Frank H. Coleman, Frances E. Colien, R. E. Davies,
Dolores Dohr, E. J. Dornfeld, Lucile Evans, M. Fernan-Nunez, Amelia
C. Ford, Oscar Gram, Wallace B. Grange, E. J. Graul, Alvin Grether, John
Grill, Ella Hanawalt, Ralph Hile, Earl A. Helgeson, George Klak, H. O.
Lathrop, Huber A. Ludwig, Kenneth L. Mahony, M. J. McKeough, G. D.
McLaughlin, E. J. Menge, Otto Mortenson, Merna Miller, R. G. Mills, Sobey
Okuyama, Carroll W. Osgood, Henry Otterson, Aleida J. Peters, Mary
Edith Pinney, F. W. Ray, August C. Rehwaldt, Chapman Reynolds, Lillian
Scheuber, E. M. Searls, Alfred Senn, Elmer L. Sevringhaus, R. G.
Shands, Robert R. Shrock, Theodore L. Squier, H. D. Squires, Marian
E. Stark, George Town, Julia Grace Wales, Ruth Wallerstein, R. G. Wash¬
burn, Mrs. George Wettengel, Russell Whitaker, Helen C. White, Wallace
L. Wilgus, A. D. Winspear, Harold R. Wolfe, Richard Woltereck, Agnes
Zeimet. The following members were elected to corresponding member¬
ship: E. F. Chandler, Milton R. Gutsch, S. J. Holmes, W. S. Naylor, and
O. B. Zimmerman. The treasurer’s report, as of March 31, 1932, was pre¬
sented as follows:
Receipts
Balance in State Treasury, April 9, 1931 . $1955.08
State appropriation for the year 1931-32 . 1000.00
Dues received from members . 439.55
Annual allowance from A. A. A. S . 109.00
Reprints sold to authors . 108.32
Publications sold to public . 44.36
Total receipts . $3656.31
Proceedings of the Academy
401
Disbursements
Printing of VoL 26 of Transactions . . . .$1028.17
Reprints for VoL 26 of Transactions . . . 370.87
Engraving for VoL 27 of Transactions . . . 418.72
Other printing (programs, announcements, etc.) ....... 64.13
Secretary’s salary for the year . . 200.00
Postage . . . . . . 76.00
Express . . . . . 2.08
Refund to R. H. Whitbeck on reprints . . . 17.95
Total disbursements . . . . . . . . $2177.92
Balance on deposit, March 31, 1932 . . . 1478.39
Total . . . . . . $3656.31
Endowment Fund
Trust agreement, Central Wisconsin Trust Co . . .$1000.00
City of Madison bonds . . . 1000.00
Chapman block bonds (Madison) . 400.00
Commonwealth Telephone Co. bonds . . 400.00
Wisconsin Power and Light Co. bonds . . 200.00
Capitol Square Realty Co. bonds (Madison) . . 200.00
Cash on hand . . . . . . . 62.10
Total assets . . . . $3262.10
The auditing committee, consisting of Professor Chancey Juday and
Dr. T. E. B. Pope, reported that it had examined the accounts of the
treasurer and found them to be correct. The annual dinner of the Acad¬
emy was held at the Hotel Schroeder, with about forty-five people in
attendance.
The following are the members of the Academy who have died during
the past year:
David Starr Jordan, Sept. 17, 1931.
George B. Merrick, April 21. 1931.
Charles E. Monroe, May 12, 1931.
M. V. O’Shea, Jan. 14, 1932.
E. T. Owen, Nov. 9, 1931.
L. H. Pammel, Mar. 23, 1931.
F. J. Turner, Mar. 15, 1932.
Lowell E. Noland,
Secretary-Treasurer.
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V