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TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

WISCONSIN ACADEMY

OF SCIENCES, ARTS

AND LETTERS

Volume 74, 1986

Funds for this issue of the Transactions

have been provided by

the Elizabeth F. McCoy Memorial Fund

Co-editors

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Copyright © 1986

Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters.

Manufactured in United States of America.

All Rights Reserved.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE

WISCONSIN ACADEMY

Established 1870

Volume 74, 1986

THE MINK RIVER— A FRESHWATER ESTUARY 1

Janet R. Keough

PLEISTOCENE CARIBOU IN CENTRAL WISCONSIN 12

Charles A. Long

TECHNOLOGY, INSTITUTIONS, GLOBAL ECONOMY 14

AND WORLD PEACE

Peter Dorner

“THE MAN WHO LIVED AMONG THE CANNIBALS”: 19

MELVILLE IN MILWAUKEE

Thomas Pribek

SIMULATION IN LANDSCAPE PLANNING AND DESIGN: 27

THE ART OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION

Bruce H. Murray and Charles S. Law

WOMAN AS EROS-ROSE IN GERTRUDE STEIN’S TENDER BUTTONS 34

AND CONTEMPORANEOUS PORTRAITS

Doris T. Wight

ASPECTS OF MORALITY IN THE MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE AGES 41

John Holzaepfel

POPULATION ECOLOGY OF ROCK DOVES IN A SMALL CITY 50

James Krakowski and Neil F. Payne

IDENTIFICATION OF WISCONSIN CATFISHES (ICTALURIDAE): 58

A KEY BASED ON PECTORAL FIN SPINES

Weldon Paruch

SOME MODERN IDEAS IN ANCIENT INDIA 63

K. S. N. Rao

ALLUSIONS TO THE AENEID IN PARADISE LOST , 70

BOOKS XI AND XII

John Banschbach

PRODUCTIVITY OF RACCOONS IN SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN 75

Neil F. Payne and David A. Root

HISTORICAL CHANGES IN WATER QUALITY AND BIOTA OF 81

DEVILS LAKE, SAUK COUNTY, 1866-1985

Richard A. Lillie and John W. Mason

SUPPLEMENTAL DISTRIBUTION RECORDS FOR 105

WISCONSIN TERRESTRIAL GASTROPODS

Joan P. Jass

THE UNUSUAL AND THE EERIE IN AARON BOHROD’S 108

EARLY PAINTINGS: 1933-1939

Carole Singer

HAWTHORNE * S ENOCH: PROPHETIC IRONY IN THE SCARLET LETTER 122

Henry J. Lindborg

A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE MACROBENTHOS OF 126

WAVE-SWEPT AND PROTECTED SITES ON THE LAKE MICHIGAN

SHORELINE AT TOFT POINT NATURAL AREA, WISCONSIN

Glenn Metzler and Paul E. Sager

SEASONAL MOVEMENTS OF WHITE-TAILED DEER ON 133

DECLINING HABITATS IN CENTRAL WISCONSIN

Robert K. Murphy, John R. Cary, Raymond K. Anderson and Neil F. Payne

NEW DISTRIBUTIONAL RECORDS FOR WISCONSIN 138

AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES

Philip A. Cochran and John D. Lyons

FOREST FLOOR BIOMASS AND NUTRIENTS IN RED MAPLE 142

(Acer rubrum L.) STANDS OF WISCONSIN AND MICHIGAN

James E. Johnson, Carl L. Haag and David E. Goetsch

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P>;

THE MINK RIVER — A FRESHWATER ESTUARY

Janet R. Keough

Center for Great Lakes Studies

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Abstract

The Mink River Estuary is one of the few remaining natural wetlands along

the Lake Michigan coastal zone. The river flows through a bedrock valley across the

Door Co., Wisconsin, peninsula. Surficial materials forming its watershed are

glacial and post-glacial, mainly shoreline material placed during higher levels of

Lake Michigan.

The dynamics of Lake Michigan play an important role in the control of wet¬

land plant communities. Most expand and contract as the lake level falls and rises

over the long-term. Lake seiches cause the water in the wetlands to flow upstream

and downstream in both a daily and hourly cycle, generating a persistent gradient

between the alkaline headwater springs and more neutral lake.

Land use adjacent to the river has changed little since presettlement, although

the upland forest in the surrounding watershed has been largely replaced by farm

fields. The estuary consists of several vegetation types. The deep marsh and shallow

marsh types are inhabited by communities of few species, owing to disturbance by

long-term changes in lake water level. The wet meadow, shrub carr, and lowland

forest types are more diverse, largely because they are more protected from extreme

water level change by elevation and, in the case of wet meadow species, by the

development of hummocks by Carex stricta. Peak above- and below-ground

biomass found in herbaceous wetland communities in 1981 are presented. Perennial

species peak in August, while annuals peak in September; most below-ground

accumulation peaks in September.

Introduction

The U.S. shoreline of the Great Lakes is

nearly 4000 miles in length. Wetlands occupy

only a small proportion of the coastal

region; 1370 coastal wetlands, comprising an

area of 466 square miles, have been iden¬

tified (Herdendorf et al. 1981). Approx¬

imately 30% of U.S. Great Lake wetlands

occur adjacent to Lake Michigan. Many

rivers that flow into the Great Lakes were

once associated with wetland areas; most of

these are now either heavily disturbed or

have been destroyed by urban development.

Curtis did not recognize Great Lakes coastal

wetlands as a community type in his Vegeta¬

tion of Wisconsin (1959). In recent years,

there have been a number of descriptive

studies of wetlands along the Lower Great

Lakes (Williamson 1979, Brant and Herden¬

dorf 1972, Fahselt 1981, Hanink 1979,

Herdendorf et al. 1981, Jaworski and

Raphael 1976, Mudroch 1981, Geis, 1985,

Geis and Kee 1977, Stuckey 1971, 1975,

LeMay and Mulamoottil 1980, Farney and

Bookhout 1982, and Ruta 1981). The few

studies of Wisconsin coastal wetlands deal

primarily with those along Green Bay

(Bosley 1976, 1978, Harris et al. 1977,

Hewlett 1974, and Roznik 1978).

The Mink River supports one of the best

of the remaining Lake Michigan coastal

wetlands. Located near the tip of the

Wisconsin Door County Peninsula, the

Mink River flows southeastward into

1

2

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

Fig. 1. Location of the Mink River on the Door

County, Wisconsin, peninsula.

Rowley Bay of Lake Michigan (Figure 1).

The watershed lies in Liberty Grove Town¬

ship (T32N, R28 and 29E). In this paper, I

will describe the physical setting of the Mink

River wetlands and the vegetation types pres¬

ent and their dynamic relationship with Lake

Michigan.

Topography and Geology

Rowley Bay and the Mink River lie in a

bedrock valley that extends across the Door

peninsula from Green Bay to Lake Michigan

(Kowalke 1946). During the Algonquin

period, when the level of Lake Michigan was

higher, the valley formed a strait connecting

Green Bay to Lake Michigan from Ellison

Bay to Rowley Bay. The underlying bedrock

is Silurian Niagara dolomite; as elsewhere in

the Door Peninsula, this formation dips to

the southeast, and forms the primary aqui¬

fer. A wide portion of the river, “Rogers

Lake,” may represent a natural depression

in the bedrock or an area eroded by the

channel before descending into Lake Mich¬

igan. Bedrock is within four feet of the sur¬

face near Ellison Bay and outcrops in the

upland around the Mink River. The upland

is covered by Pleistocene drift and shoreline

deposits. Most of the region was inundated

by post-Pleistocene stages of Lake Michi¬

gan, resulting in permeable deposits of sand

and gravel along the west side of the river

(Sherrill 1978). Thwaites and Bertrand

(1957) and Kowalke (1946) suggested that

the uplands to the northeast and southwest

of the river were islands in Lake Algonquin,

a higher stage of Lake Michigan. A shoreline

formed by Glacial Lake Algonquin

(11,000-12,000 yr BP) has been found along

Rowley Bay in Newport State Park at

approximately 75 feet above present lake

level. A Glacial Lake Nipissing shoreline

(3,500-6,000 yr BP) occurs 21 feet above

present level (Frelich 1979, Dorr and

Eschmann 1977). The ancient beach ridges

evident in the landscape around Rowley Bay

were Lake Nipissing beaches. The marsh

along the Mink River is underlain by alluvial

fine sand, silt and clay and organic material.

Fig. 2. Topography of the area surrounding the Mink

River. Contour interval is 10 feet. Stippled areas repre¬

sent open water and lakeshore boundaries.

1986]

Keough—Mink River Estuary

3

These fine grey sediments and the sandy soils

of the surrounding area were probably

deposited during this post-glacial lake stage.

Declining lake level and land rebound have

raised the old beaches and also separated the

Mink River watershed from Green Bay (Fig¬

ure 2).

Hydrology

Hydrologic aspects of the watershed are

the most important factors contributing to

the character of the Mink River wetland.

There are three primary sources of water:

precipitation, groundwater springs, and

Lake Michigan. Surface runoff from the

small watershed is limited by lowland forest

vegetation.

Springs located in the lowland forest sur¬

rounding the marsh discharge into the

Fig. 3. Mean annual level of Lake Michigan,

1935-1981 (from N.O.A.A. 1981).

wetland creeks throughout the year. Springs

also emerge within the wetland; these have

been observed as open pools in February sur¬

rounded by the snow-covered marsh.

Weathered limestone is exposed at the bot¬

tom of the headwater springs, attesting to

their origin in the bedrock aquifer.

The channels connecting the headwater

springs to the river appear well entrenched in

the substrate. A review of past aerial

photographs (1938, 1952, 1962, 1967, 1974,

1978) indicates that location of the channels

has not changed appreciably in almost 50

years. Sherrill (1978) suggested that the drift

overlying the bedrock around and under the

Mink River is shallow. The main channel of

the Mink River forms a distinct and ap¬

parently unchanging bend as it flows near an

upland bedrock knoll. Although most of the

depression containing the river and wetland

appears to have been filled by lake sediments

and beach deposits, the channel forms sug¬

gest bedrock control of the major channels.

Rainfall is moderate; the NOAA station

on nearby Washington Island records an

average annual precipitation of 29 inches.

Approximately half of this amount falls dur¬

ing the growing season.

Precipitation and spring flow vary little

from year to year. However, Lake Michigan

plays a dominant role in wetland dynamics.

The level of the lake has varied widely in

historic time (Figure 3). Aerial photographs

May 21 May 22 May 23

Fig. 4. Measurement of water level fluctuation in one of the headwater creeks, approximately 100 meters from a

bedrock spring, taken between May 21-23, 1983. While the amplitude varies, the period is constant throughout the ice-

free season.

4

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

taken since 1938 show that during periods of

high lake levels, the open water area of the

river and marsh increased along the entire

length of the river. In alternating periods

when the lake level was low, the wetland

communities expanded into the open water.

Seiche activity originating in the lake

results in water moving upstream and then

downstream daily; superimposed is another

mode in which water moves up and down the

river in approximately an hourly cycle. An

example of seiche activity is shown in Figure

4; this measurement was made with a water

level recorder located upstream of Rogers

Lake in one of the headwater creeks. Fluc¬

tuations at the mouth of the River are typi¬

cally between 10 an 30 cm in magnitude, and

occasionally much larger following high

winds. Both seiche modes cause the water to

rise and fall throughout the wetland,

throughout the ice-free season. This results

in mixing between the highly alkaline water

discharging from the headwater springs and

the water from Lake Michigan that is driven

upstream. Water samples have been col¬

lected during all ice-free seasons; an example

of the chemical gradient found along the

length of the Mink River is illustrated in

Figure 5. Specific conductance and alkalinity

Fig. 5. Evidence of a chemical gradient along the

Mink River channel. The X-axis is a series of sample sta¬

tions along the length of the river, from a headwater

spring and creek (left) through the river channel (center)

to Rowley Bay (right). Specific conductance and alka¬

linity both decrease along the river.

range from 475 to 275 mmhos/cm and 260 to

110 mg/1 respectively; this pattern is main¬

tained from the time of ice-melt in spring

through the time when the bay and river sur¬

faces freeze in winter. Based on these seiche

movements and the chemical gradient, the

Mink River may be considered a true estu¬

ary.

Land Use

The Door Peninsula has had a relatively

long history of human activity. Initially, In¬

dian tribes moving up and down the lake-

shore probably used the area around the

Mink River for encampments. There was a

more permanent village on the south side of

the bay, but it is not clear whether this was a

Winnebago or Potawotami tribe. Logging

removed most of the upland forest cover

during the late 1800’s. White cedar in the

lowland forest was also harvested for both

lumber and cedar oil; an oil-distilling factory

was located near Rowley Bay. There was

LOWLAND FOREST

NORTHERN MESIC FOREST

El

□

DRY- MES 1C FORES T

BOREAL FOREST

NORTHERN MESIC FOREST with ASPEN and BIRC

Fig. 6. A map of the presettlement forest in the area of

the Mink River (derived from Findley, 1976 and per¬

sonal communication). Emergent marsh is not mapped.

Vegetation types follow Curtis (1959).

1986]

Keough—Mink River Estuary

5

considerable land speculation during this

period as well; much of the Mink River basin

was platted and some lots sold, although no

development occurred. Farms were cleared

in portions of the Mink River watershed, as

everywhere in the Door Peninsula (Holand,

1959). Thus, the Mink River wetland is not

surrounded by a pristine landscape; yet, for

the most part, the vegetation surrounding

the wetland and river is similar to that before

settlement. The township including the Mink

River was surveyed in 1835. A map of the

forest vegetation has been derived from

Findley (1976 and personal comm) and from

the General Land Office Survey Notes

(Figure 6). Although most of the upland

forest has been replaced by open fields and

orchards, a northern wet forest, dominated

by white cedar and tamarack with some

black ash, still borders the river (Figure 7).

Wit Orchard Farmland

Fig. 7. A map of present land use in the Mink River

watershed; note that the areas adjacent to Ellison Bay

and Green Bay are not included here.

An excellent northern mesic forest stand oc¬

cupies the land just north of Rowley Bay.

Present Vegetation

The emergent marsh along the Mink River

is the most dynamic feature of the watershed

vegetation. Lake level controls the succes¬

sion of wetland communities along the Mink

River. The marsh has contracted and ex¬

panded as Lake Michigan has risen and

fallen. The plant communities present at a

given time are the result of the opposing

forces of community development and of

disturbance. The extent of dominant com¬

munities in 1981 is illustrated in Figure 8.

During the 1980 and 1981 growing

seasons, the emergent communities were

Fig. 8. A map of the vegetation of the Mink River

estuary, as found in 1981-1982. Vegetation types are:

SH, shrub carr; W, wet meadow; shallow marsh domi¬

nated by Carex (SM) and Phragmites (P); deep marsh

dominated by Scirpus (SC), Zizania (Z), Sparganium

(SP), and Typha (T).

6

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

Table 1. Plant species found in Mink River vegetation communities.

Nomenclature follows Gleason and Cronquist (1963).

1986]

Keough — Mink River Estuary

7

sampled, and observations were made of

submergent species (species are listed in

Table 1). Estimates of biomass were made

using samples of above- and below-ground

material harvested in each community every

month during the two growing seasons. Peak

biomass values from that period are pre¬

sented in Table 2, and each community is

described below.

Deep Marsh

The deep marsh complex occurs adjacent

to channels of the Mink River. Several

species form this community type, but

seldom do more than two or three occur

together. For example, Sparganium eurycar -

pum forms monotypic stands near the river

mouth and in patches on mud flats in

“Rogers Lake.” Occasionally, a few in¬

dividuals of Sagittaria latifoiia are inter¬

mixed with Sparganium, Zizania aquatica is

found in monotypic stands on mudflats.

Zizania populations fluctuate widely from

year to year; dense populations are found

only during years when mudflats are exposed

or near the water surface. For example, in

1982, the level of Lake Michigan was 6

inches lower than in 1981 . Mud flats were ex¬

posed in Rogers Lake, and supported more

numerous and dense Zizania populations

than the previous year.

Scirpus validus occurs over a wide range

of water level conditions. This species forms

monotypic stands on shallow organic mud¬

flats around Rogers Lake. With Sagittaria

latifoiia , it forms two-species stands along

the Mink River channel. A tall form, pro¬

bably a hybrid with S. acutus (Galen Smith,

pers. comm), grows with Eleocharis smallii

around the edge of Rowley Bay. Scirpus

americanus also forms monotypic stands in

deep water in the open bay, where the

populations are exposed to wind and waves.

Typha angustifolia also forms single species

Table 2. Peak biomass of emergent herbaceous communities of the Mink River estuary in 1981 .

Month of peak biomass occurrence is indicated.

8

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

stands along the Mink River channels and in

Rogers Lake.

Shallow Marsh

This type includes two species associa¬

tions. An even mixture of Carex aquatilis

and C. prairea forms extensive meadows

that fringe the spring-fed channels upstream.

These are the only two species in most of the

area; along the channel-marsh interface,

they mingle with Typha lati folia, Phragmites

australis , Scirpus validus , Calamagrostis

canadensis and Carex stricta. Phragmites

australis is found to be dominant in exten¬

sive clones within the area of the Carex

aquatilis-prairea community. This species

forms a complete canopy with individuals of

the two Carex species as a sparce understory.

P. australis is common in disturbed wetland

sites in Wisconsin, but in the Mink River

shallow marsh there is little evidence of

human disturbance. However, Phragmites

may have invaded the wetland after a distur¬

bance, such as a fire during a dry period of

low lake level. The reason for its continued

persistence is not known.

Wet Meadow

A wet meadow community dominated by

Carex stricta and Calamagrostis canadensis

borders the entire marsh. This community is

the most diverse wetland type around the

Mink River and includes several carices and

other forbs (Table 1). Some of these, in¬

cluding Calamagrostis , Campanula apari-

noides, and Lobelia kalmii, are modal in fen

communities in Wisconsin (Curtis, 1959).

Wet meadow borders swamp forest and

shrub carr, and is often invaded by woody

species (Salix spp. Cornus stolonifera, Thuja

occidentals, Spiraea alba). Dead woody

stems are frequently found, evidence of past

invasion thwarted by periods of high water.

Review of early aerial photographs sug¬

gests that this community may be resistant to

long-term fluctuations in water level. The

co-dominants, Calamagrostis canadensis

and Carex stricta, occupy tall (up to 50 cm)

hummocks formed by the latter, often sur¬

rounded by shallow standing water. These

hummocks may provide a habitat that is not

appreciably affected by changes in water

level, or may permit development of propa-

gules over a wide range of elevations above

water. Substrate cores were taken in all

wetland populations. Except in cores from

the wet meadow, all of the present plant

communities were underlain by remains of

different species. Sedge and grass roots and

rhizomes were found within and under the

hummocks, suggesting that, while other

communities were shifting with time and en¬

vironmental conditions, the wet meadow has

been persistant. Pieces of wood were occa¬

sionally found in cores, indicating tem¬

porary invasion by trees and shrubs.

Shrub Carr

The interface between the marsh and the

surrounding upland is inhabited by a mix¬

ture of small trees, shrubs, and herbaceous

wetland species, forming a shrub carr com¬

munity that expands and contracts with the

changing lake level. Species such as Cornus

stolonifera, Spiraea alba, Alnus rugosa and

seedlings of Thuja occidentals, Larix

laricina, Acer spicatum, and Salix spp. in¬

vade the wet meadow during drier periods.

Dead stems indicate the return of high water.

This appears to be a temporary community,

as long as occasional periods of high water

conditions continue to occur. With a drastic

long-term lowering of water level, this com¬

munity would probably develop into low¬

land forest.

Lowland Forest

A lowland swamp community surrounds

most of the Mink River marsh. Thuja occi¬

dentals is dominant, but there are signifi¬

cant numbers of Betula lutea and B. papyrif-

era, Fraxinus nigra, Larix laricina, Populus

deltoides, Acer spicatum, and Abies balsa-

mea. The importance of each varies greatly

and is probably dependent on stand history

and hydrology. This lowland forest has been

1986]

Keough — Mink River Estuary

9

disturbed by logging and by natural events.

The latter are evidenced by much wind throw

and root upheaval, resulting from flooding,

storms, and ice activity. This forest com¬

munity has largely protected the river and

wetland from human disturbance by virtue

of the wet organic soil and dense vegetation.

Wetland Community Biomass

During the 1981 growing season, biomass

samples were collected monthly from the

major emergent vegetation types. These are

presented as peak above-ground and below¬

ground biomass estimates (Table 2). Shrub

carr, swamp forest, and Scirpus americanus

communities were not sampled. Submergent

vegetation also was not sampled because, in

general, individuals occur in small patches

amid emergent plants, and because represen¬

tative sites could not be identified. The areal

extent of each community is a highly dy¬

namic parameter that will vary from year to

year as the communities expand and contract

in response to lake level changes. The extent

of each of these communities was estimated

in 1981 (Table 2).

Peak biomass alone is not adequate to

represent relative vegetation importance,

however. Zizania aquatica is an example of

an annual plant in which a cohort of seeds

develops simultaneously, all flowering and

setting seed at roughly the same time. Peren¬

nial species, on the other hand, develop

rhizomatous ramets continuously during the

growing season; examples of these are

Eleocharis palustris, Scirpus validus, and

Sparganium eurycarpum ; some of these,

such as Sparganium and Typha angustifolia,

exhibit synchronous flowering and seed set

as well. Stem death may occur throughout

the growing season; this is evident within the

Scirpus populations upstream from Rowley

Bay. Often, peak above-ground and below¬

ground biomass did not occur during the

same month. Those populations that peaked

in September also had seeds maturing at that

time. In other communities, stems and leaves

were senescent by September. Most rhizo¬

matous species develop storage material and

over-wintering buds in the fall. Nonetheless,

measurements of peak biomass permit com¬

parison between communities and provide

estimates of the maximum amount of pro¬

duction available to the system food web.

The wet-meadow community produced

the largest peak biomass and had the greatest

areal extent. This is intriguing in light of the

apparent stability of this association. Much

litter is present throughout the year, sug¬

gesting that production does not immedi¬

ately enter the food web, and that this is a

zone of accumulation. The shallow marsh

community also seems to accumulate litter.

The above-ground biomass of deep water

communities is lost over winter, presumably

broken up and removed by ice action, spring

runoff and high water. Rafts of Scirpus

stems are found along the beaches in spring;

however, the amount and distribution of an¬

nual dead biomass through the river and bay

is not known. The fate of production from

other deep marsh species, whether by

decomposition or outflow, is also unknown.

Discussion

The Mink River estuary is one of only a

few Lake Michigan coastal wetlands that

have not been significantly influenced by

human activity. As such, it provides an op¬

portunity to learn how plant and animal

communities and individual species adapt

and function in the coastal zone. The Mink

River estuary, like other coastal wetlands, is

subjected to various degrees of natural

disturbance — principally changes in water

level, but also massive ice movement and

wave and wind activity. The low diversity of

most plant communities in Rowley Bay and

along the Mink River suggests that this site

may be subject to more than average distur¬

bance. The deep water communities experi¬

ence the largest long-term changes in water

level, as well as substantial wave action.

Natural disturbance is sufficiently intense

and frequent that there is not enough time

for the development of diverse communities.

10

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

More protected communities, such as the

wet meadow around the edge of the wetland,

are more species-rich. The wet meadow com¬

munity develops on and around Carexstricta

hummocks; this topographic diversity,

located higher in the watershed, permits the

establishment of more species. Keddy and

Reznicek (1985) suggested that the zonation

of communities may be related to the posi¬

tion of maximum and minimum high water.

They suggest that certain communities — wet

meadow and shallow marsh— -depend upon

periodically exposed substrate for seed

establishment. This appears to be so in the

Mink River system; only those species that

can survive by reproducing vegetatively per¬

sist in deep water. Zizania aquatica requires

mudflat conditions in spring to germinate.

Woody species on the shrub carr do not

establish on hummocks, but in the low spots

on the wet meadow. They are repeatedly

killed by high water. Regeneration of such

communities seems to be in phase with the

cycle of low water conditions in Lake

Michigan.

Little is known about the food web

associated with Lake Michigan coastal

wetlands. Harris et al. (1977) and Roznik

(1978) have suggested that certain birds may

respond to the dynamic structure of these

emergent plant communities as water level

changes from year to year. Furthermore, lit¬

tle is known about how the chemical gradi¬

ent along the river may influence the

distribution of aquatic plants or animals.

Many intriguing questions can be raised con¬

cerning long-term fluctuations in biomass

production by the various plant commu¬

nities, as well as the fate of biomass and its

contribution to the food web of the river and

bay. Much can be learned about the adapta¬

tions of organisms in such a frequently dis¬

turbed coastal environment. Examples in¬

clude the adaptations to long-term water

level fluctuations by Carex stricta and

Calamagrostis canadensis , by species of Scir-

pus (S. americanum, S. acutus, and S.

validus ), and by Zizania aquatica. While

some coastal wetlands have been protected

as natural reserves and are recognized as in¬

cluding unusual species associations or

unique habitats, many biological and physi¬

cal dynamics are still waiting to be explored.

Acknowledgements

Forest Stearns is gratefully acknowledged

for support and encouragement during the

entire course of this study, and, with Glenn

Guntenspergen, offered many helpful sug¬

gestions on the manuscript. Many thanks are

due the faculty and staff of the U.W. Center

for Great Lakes Studies, whose equipment

and expertise made the field work possible.

U.W. -Green Bay generously provided lodg¬

ing at Toft Point, under the administration

of Keith White. Field assistance was pro¬

vided by many persons, the most persistent

of whom included Joyce Witebsky, Glenn

Guntenspergen, and Steve Kroeger. Peter

Salamun and Margaret Summerfield helped

with identification of submergent species.

The study was supported by a grant from the

Wisconsin Coastal Management Program to

Forest Stearns and by the Raymond Hatcher

Fund through the U.W. -Milwaukee Botany

Department. This is Contribution 289, U.W.

Center for Great Lakes Studies.

References Cited

Bosley, T. R. 1976. Green Bay’s west shore

coastal wetlands: a history of change. M.S.

Thesis. University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. 92

pp.

Bosley, T. R. 1978. Loss of wetlands on the west

shore of Green Bay. Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci.,

Arts and Lett. 66:235-245.

Brant, R. A. and C. E. Herdendorf. 1972.

Delineation of Great Lakes estuaries. In Proc.

15th Conf. Great Lakes Research., I. A. G. L.

R., Ann Arbor, MI. pp. 710-718.

Curtis, J. T. 1959. Vegetation of Wisconsin.

University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.

657 pp.

Dorr, J. A. Jr. and D. F. Eschman. 1977.

Geology of Michigan. University of Michigan

Press, Ann Arbor. 475 pp.

Fahselt, D. and M. A. Maun. 1980. A quan-

1986]

Keough — Mink River Estuary

11

titative study of the shoreline marsh com¬

munities along Lake Huron in Ontario. Can. J.

Plant Sci. 60:669-678.

Farney, R. A. and T. A. Bookhout. 1982. Vege¬

tation changes in a Lake Erie marsh (Winous

Point, Ottawa County, Ohio) during high

water years. Ohio Acad. Sci. 82:103-107.

Frelich, F. T. 1979. Vascular plants of Newport

State Park, Wisconsin. Wisconsin Dept.

Natural Resources, Research Report No. 100.

Madison, WI. 34 pp.

Findley, R. W. 1976. Original vegetation cover of

Wisconsin. Map. USDA Forest Service, North

Central Experiment Station, St. Paul, MN. 1 p.

Geis, J. W. 1985. Environmental influences on

the distribution and composition of wetlands in

the Great Lakes basin. In Prince, H. and F. M.

D’ltri, Eds. Coastal Wetlands. Lewis Publ.,

Chelsea, ML pp 15-32.

Geis, J. W. and J. L. Kee. 1977. Coastal wetlands

along Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River in

Jefferson County, New York. State Univ. of

New York, Inst, of Environmental Program

Affairs, Syracuse, N.Y. 130 pp.

Gleason, H. A. and A. Cronquist. 1963. Manual

of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United

States and Adjacent Canada. Van Nostrand

Co., New York. 810 pp.

Hanick, M. S. 1979. Wetland loss and coastal

land use changes in Monroe Co., Michigan.

1912-1975. MS Thesis. Eastern Michigan

University, Ypsilanti, MI. 118 pp.

Harris, H. J., T. R. Bosley, and F. D. Roznik.

1977. Green Bay’s coastal wetlands— a picture

of dynamic change. In DeWitt, C. B. and

E. Soloway, Eds. Wetlands. Ecology, Values,

and Impacts. Proceedings Waubesa Confer¬

ence, Madison, WI. pp 337-358.

Herdendorf, C. E., S. M. Hartley, and M. D.

Barnes. 1981. Fish and wildlife resources of the

Great Lakes coastal wetlands within the United

States. Vol. I. Overview. Report No.

FWS/OBS-8 1 /o2-V 1 . U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service. Washington, D.C. 469 pp.

Holand, H. 1959. Old Peninsula Days. Twayne

Publishers, New York. 425 pp.

Hewlett, G. F. 1974. The rooted vegetation of

West Green Bay with reference to environmen¬

tal change. MS Thesis. Syracuse Univ., Syra¬

cuse, N.Y. 213 pp.

Jaworski, E. and C. N. Raphael. 1976. Modifica¬

tion of coastal wetlands in southeastern

Michigan and management alternatives. Mich¬

igan Academician 8(3):303-317.

Keddy, P. A. and A. A. Reznicek. 1985. Vegeta¬

tion dynamics, buried seeds, and water level

fluctuations on the shorelines of the Great

Lakes. In Prince, H. and F. M. D’ltri, Eds.

Coastal Wetlands. Lewis Publ. pp 33-58.

Kowalke, O. L. 1946. Highest abandoned beach

ridges in northern Door County, Wisconsin.

Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts and Lett. 38:293-

298.

LeMay, M. and G. Mulamoottil. 1980. A limno¬

logical survey of eight waterfront marshes. Ur¬

ban Ecology 5:55-67.

Mudroch, A. 1981. A study of selected Great

Lakes coastal marshes. Scientific Series #122.

Nat. Water Res. Inst., Inland Waters Direc¬

torate, Burlington, Ontario. 44 pp.

N.O.A.A. 1981. Hydrograph of monthly mean

levels of the Great Lakes. U.S. Dept. Com¬

merce, Washington, D.C. 1 p.

Roznik, F. D. 1978. Response of the yellow¬

headed blackbird to vegetation and water level

changes in the coastal marshes of Green Bay.

MS Thesis. Univ. Wisconsin-Green Bay. 99 pp.

Ruta, P. J. 1981. Littoral macrophyte com¬

munities of the St. Lawrence River, New York.

MS Thesis. SUNY College Environ. Sci. For.,

Syracuse, NY. 153 pp.

Sherrill, M. G. 1978. Geology and groundwater

in Door County, Wisconsin, with emphasis on

contamination potentials in the Silurian

dolomite. Water Supply Paper 2047. U.S.

Geol. Survey and Wisconsin Dept. Nat. Re¬

sources, Madison, WI. 38 pp.

Stuckey, R. L. 1971. Changes of vascular aquatic

plants during 70 years in Put-In-Bay Harbor,

Lake Erie, Ohio. Ohio J. Science. 71:321-342.

Stuckey, R. L. 1975. A floristic analysis of the

vascular plants of a marsh at Perry’s Victory

Monument, Lake Erie. Michigan Botanist 14:

144-166.

Thwaites, F. T. and K. Bertrand. 1957.

Pleistocene geology of the Door Peninsula,

Wisconsin. Geol. Soc. Amer. Bull. 68:831-880.

Williamson, B. B. 1979. The wetlands of Dickin¬

son Island, St. Clair Co., Michigan and its

response to water level fluctuations. MS

Thesis, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsi¬

lanti, MI. 96 pp.

PLEISTOCENE CARIBOU IN CENTRAL WISCONSIN

Charles A. Long

Department of Biology

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

In the summer of 1985, Jack and Mona

Zelienka found an antler while excavating

their peat bog 6 miles southeast of Coloma,

on County JJ in the township of Richford,

Waushara County, Wisconsin. The antler

was stained and heavy with mineral replace¬

ment, obviously of great age, broken at all

distal aspects (during excavation), and was

shed from a Late Pleistocene caribou

(Rangifer tarandus). The bog, which had

been previously excavated 10 to 12 feet in

some places to create a pond, was deepened

to nearly 30 feet. Subsequently the antler

was discovered in the excavated sediments of

marl and peat; its depth in the peat was

estimated at between 12 and 25 feet. The bog

is sited near the proposed Ice Age Trail along

the Wisconsin terminal moraine in Cary

drift. This is the first record of the caribou

from central Wisconsin, and one of but a

few for the state.

The antler (all in one piece) consists of a

brow tine (or “shovel”) with tip broken

away (length 153 mm); a main beam approx-

Fig. 1. Antler of caribou excavated from peat in Richford Township, Waushara County, Wisconsin.

12

1986]

Long — Caribou in Central Wisconsin

13

imately 625 mm measured to the terminal

palmate expansion, broken off and hollow;

from the burr about 150 mm to the base of

the first palmate tine; and along the beam

260 mm beyond to the next and opposite tine

(entirely broken away). The length from tip

of brow tine to the broken expansion is

approximately 700 mm. The first palmate

tine on the main beam measured 350 mm

from the beam to the deepest notch of the

palm, which was 205 mm across. Its greatest

length was 392 mm. The diameter of the

ovate base, shed from the pedicel, is about

42 to 47.5 mm in diameter, and of the burr

approximately 61.5 mm (see Fig. 1).

Never common in Wisconsin and Upper

Michigan in historic times, caribou wan¬

dered into these areas from muskeg habitats

in nearby Minnesota and Ontario. A. W.

Schorger (1942) reviewed the records and

reports of caribou, listing several from the

Upper Peninsula of Michigan and question¬

able ones for the Brule area in northwest

Wisconsin, probably escaped animals from

the Pierce estate. Among prehistoric bones

found in Polk County, also northwest Wis¬

consin, a few were reported as caribou (Eddy

and Jenks, 1935).

The caribou apparently wandered into

lower Michigan after the Wisconsin glacier

receded. Specimens were dated at 11,200 and

5,870 ±200 years BP. Baker (1983) suggests

that historical records represent the wood¬

land caribou, whereas the prehistoric cari¬

bou were of a larger Arctic form (but the

woodland caribou is a large form). Sub¬

specific characters are hardly obvious in

broken and fragmentary remains of antlers.

Even the sex is impossible to know. Banfield

(1974) and other Canadian workers con¬

sidered all the large woodland caribou to

belong to one subspecies, R. t. caribou.

Apparently all the caribou in Wisconsin

belonged to this species and descended from

the same stock.

The antler herein described is slightly

smaller but very similar in form to that

figured by West (1978) from southeast Wis¬

consin. The nearest of his records is approx¬

imately 150 km southeastward, in Sheboy¬

gan County. The other is from Wauwatosa,

near Milwaukee.

West (1978) assigned his specimens to Late

Pleistocene age, one antler dated by its

sediments to about 12,500 years BP. In sum¬

mary, all known prehistoric caribou from

Wisconsin are scattered along the front of

the Wisconsinan moraines in Polk, Wau¬

shara and Sheboygan counties, and near

Milwaukee. I acknowledge with thanks the

cooperation of both of the Zelienkas.

Literature Cited

Baker, R. H. 1983. Michigan mammals.

Michigan State Univ. Press and Wayne State

Press, Detroit, Michigan. 642 pp., illus.

Banfield, A. W. F. 1974. The mammals of Can¬

ada. Univ. Toronto Press, Toronto. 438 pp.

Eddy, S. and A. E. Jenks. 1935. A kitchen

midden with bones of extinct animals in the

Upper Lakes area. Science, 81(2109):535.

Schorger, A. W. 1942. Extinct and endangered

mammals and birds of the Upper Great Lakes

Region. Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts and Lett.

34:23-44.

West, R. M. 1978. Late Pleistocene (Wiscon¬

sinan) caribou from southeastern Wisconsin.

Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts and Lett. 66:

50-53.

TECHNOLOGY, INSTITUTIONS, GLOBAL ECONOMY

AND WORLD PEACE

Peter Dorner

Dean of International Studies and Programs

University of Wisconsin-Madison

It seems quite natural for creative human

beings to invent or modify techniques for

satisfying their changing needs and wants. In

this process and over time, the concept of

what constitutes a natural resource changes

with changing human aims, objectives and

ambitions. What constitutes a resource in

human terms is indeed a function of knowl¬

edge and technique. Only a little more than a

century ago petroleum near the surface was

considered a nuisance; today it is referred to

as black gold. The moon was a romantic

symbol and outer space a void throughout

most of history; today both are becoming

highly prized resources. The changing view

of resources brought about by new knowl¬

edge, new techniques and new wants often

leads to conflict. New or modified human

institutions are required to manage these

conflicts and to keep them from destroying

the community.

Changing techniques and scientifically ad¬

vanced technologies, like new resources,

often require a redefinition of the political

unit that makes public policy. In the more or

less self-sufficient Wisconsin farming com¬

munities of 100 years ago, where the major

source of power and transport was the horse,

local communities could set the rules. But

with the coming of the automobile, a hodge¬

podge of local rules and regulations proved

chaotic. The building of roads, the registra¬

tion and licensing of both vehicles and

drivers, the handling and sale of gasoline,

the responsible and safe use of these power¬

ful “horse-less carriages,’ * etc., required a

new set of institutions and a larger political

unit to make public rules. The State of Wis¬

consin had to get involved in these policies.

Neighboring states had to coordinate their

policies on a number of issues and still other

policies had to be set at the national (federal)

level. The airplane created still more com¬

plex problems, and commercial air travel

could not function today without at least

minimal international rules and proce¬

dures— for example a common language for

international air traffic controllers and

common safety and security procedures.

As I look at our national experience over

the past 50 years or so, within my own life¬

time, it seems that our policy response to

problems created by ever changing technol¬

ogies and new resources has moved from

local to state to federal levels. I think this

shift has been mostly the result of three

factors: (1) Technology made the local

community an inappropriate political unit

for policy, thus the regulatory powers of

government have shifted from the states to

the federal level. One good example is in the

regulation and control of the increasing

number of complex chemical compounds

used in many production processes. (2) Our

large internal common market made policy

at the state level an ineffective instrument

for various forms of market intervention —

e.g. farm policy, product safety, labor

legislation, setting and monitoring stan¬

dards, etc. These too are related to techno¬

logical innovation resulting in an ever

increasing labor mobility and a changing

market structure of the economy. (3) Institu¬

tions at the state and local level have at times

failed to protect equally the individual rights

guaranteed by the federal constitution and so

various questions of social, economic, and

civil rights were appealed at the federal level.

14

1986]

Dorner— Global Economy and World Peace

15

The role of the federal government and

our interpretation of appropriate action

under the constitution also gets re-defined,

especially in times of crisis. Our view of the

appropriate role of the federal government

in economic planning and intervention in the

economy of the 1930s, or its role in defining

and protecting the civil rights of all citizens

in the 1950s and 1960s, are good examples of

such re-definition.

I wish to emphasize that it is the level at

which policy is formulated that has shifted

to the more comprehensive political unit.

Managing the consequences of powerful

technology and avoiding chaos through

relative uniformity of rules must be

addressed by policy at this higher level.

Implementation, of course, may remain at

the local level. And I certainly do not

minimize the very important, creative and

experimental nature of state and local

governments in tackling problems and

setting patterns for action later taken and

made applicable at the federal level. This has

been a common pattern throughout our his¬

tory. One of the areas in which we see this

local experimentation operating today is in

the variety of community land trusts, public

development corporations and collective

property rights institutions. I also admit to

the likelihood of decentralization in the

private economy and even new prospects of

cottage industry based on the computer as

suggested by Alan Toeffler in The Third

Wave. Yet while this may be one impact of

computers, their increasing power and

complexity and potential for misuse is also

bringing more federal concern and control.

This interacting process outlined earlier —

new wants, new knowledge, new techniques,

new resources, new conflicts, new policies,

new institutions, and yet additional new

wants, etc. — is not new. What has changed

and what is relatively new is the power and

scope of our modern technologies. The con¬

sequences of many modern technologies

cannot be confined to local communities,

and in many cases cannot even be confined

to the political units called nations. Ours is a

world, says Harlan Cleveland,

“where science, which has always been tran¬

sitional, keeps inventing inherently global

technologies— for weather observations, mili¬

tary reconnaissance, telecommunications, data

processing, resource sensing, and orbital in¬

dustry. As a result ... we find ourselves mov¬

ing beyond concepts of national ownership,

sovereignty and citizenship to ideas such as the

global commons, the international monitoring

of global risks, and ‘the common heritage of

mankind’” (Cleveland, 1985).

We live now in a world of increasing eco¬

nomic interdependence among nations

whose institutions remain geared to address¬

ing problems within their own national

boundaries. But the scope and reach of

global technology has consequences beyond

the control of these national institutions.

Despite the size of its economy and its

sophisticated science, the United States is

tied into this web of interdependence just as

other nations are. We can no longer with¬

draw from the world and return to the isola¬

tionist ideology of a century ago, nor can we

dominate the world, a role more or less dic¬

tated to us by circumstances for 20 years

after World War II.

The US now depends on foreign sources

for more than half of its supply of 15

minerals crucial for our industrial and post¬

industrial technologies. For 8 of these

minerals, import dependence runs between

80 and 100 percent. Oil production within

the US is not likely to see a major spurt and

we will probably become increasingly depen¬

dent on oil imports. Our agriculture and

parts of our manufacturing industry depend

heavily on foreign markets.

One important change in the world

economy has been the dramatic increase in

world wide trade. The dependence of the US

economy on international trade tripled in the

period 1965-1979. A corollary of this

increased trade is an economy less amenable

16

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

to direction by domestic economic policies.

These last twenty years, concludes

G. Edward Schuh,

“have been a period in which the economic

integration of the international economy has

far outdistanced its political integration. In

fact, we have witnessed a successive break¬

down and growing irrelevance of international

institutions at the very time that our respective

economies have become increasingly inte¬

grated. Domestic economic policies have less

and less relevance in today’s world, and do

little more than create suspicion and lack of

confidence in national governments since their

policies do less and less what they say they

will” (Schuh, 1985).

“No nation/ * concludes Harlan Cleve¬

land, “controls even that central symbol of

national independence, the value of its

money; inflation and recession are both

transnational.”

Perhaps the closest we have come to a

really transnational institution with power to

enforce its decisions is the increasingly

complex multi-national corporation. Al¬

though they have been much criticized for

some of their international practices, often

appropriately, it is almost impossible to

conceive of the world economy functioning

without them. One-fifth of the world’s gross

product is created by these multi-nationals —

more of them based in the US than anywhere

else. In many commodities, world trade is

dominated by the multi-nationals, and a

large part of registered international trade is

indeed the internal transactions of these

international companies. With cheap and

rapid transportation and instant communi¬

cation, these large multi-national corpora¬

tions have the capacity quickly to shift

capital, technology and management all over

the world. Is it any wonder that national

policies do less and less of what they say they

will?

Strong economic interdependencies, how¬

ever, are not the only global ties among

nations. Another major consequence of

modern technologies is their environmental

impact. More and more species are threat¬

ened with extinction. The burning of greater

amounts of fossil fuels and widespread

deforestation in various parts of the world

raises the C02 content of the atmosphere.

Acid rain and dying forests are not confined

to the areas where the sulfur compounds

enter the atmosphere.

Of course, the most powerful and poten¬

tially destructive technologies of all are

nuclear weapons. This has led many to re¬

evaluate the meaning of “national secur¬

ity”— concluding that such security is not

likely to be found in more weaponry of

increasingly devastating power. There is,

says Thomas Wilson,

“an unavoidable nexus between the security of

a nation and the state of the planet; there is a

connecting link between the peace of nations

and the integrity of natural systems; there is a

critical relationship between international

order and ecological balance. Indeed, the

threat to the security of nations today is much

more easily comprehended from an ecological

than from a military perspective. This point is

made with great force by the . . . ‘Nuclear

Winter Study’” (Wilson, 1985).

Modern science and technology have

brought new possibilities for global (and

indeed extra-global) actions and impacts.

The reach and power of some of these tech¬

nologies have consequences that cannot be

contained in national decision-making

systems. The human drive to “control

nature for human purposes” must itself be

controlled to avoid the potential widespread

destruction of natural systems, without

which human life would be impossible. The

international institutions thus far created are

not yet capable of dealing constructively

with the global problems that modern

science and technology have borne.

My comments should not be interpreted as

being in any way anti-science or anti-tech¬

nology. The earth’s 4-5 billion people and

the many yet to be added before world

population levels off (even with the best of

efforts and the use of new technologies)

cannot be fed without continued develop¬

ments in science and technology. Nor can

1986]

Dorner — Global Economy and World Peace

17

critical soils and fragile environments be

protected and preserved without new scien¬

tific knowledge and its well-designed techno¬

logical application. These must be selective

developments, to be sure. All that is new and

all that is possible is not necessarily de¬

sirable. We must by all means give as much

public policy and institutional attention to

alleviating the negative socio-economic and

environmental consequences of technolog¬

ical developments as we do to the fostering

and the diffusion of new technologies. Sci¬

ence and technology have negative conse¬

quences as well as positive ones. But those

negative consequences are likely to call for

more research, new knowledge and addi¬

tional developments in technology.

In view of these urgent global problems,

national policies often seem petty and

contradictory. Said Saudi Prince Sultan

Saud as he looked out the window of the

space shuttle Discovery, “Looking at it from

here, the troubles all over the world and not

just the Middle East look very strange as you

see the boundaries and borderlines dis¬

appearing. I think lots of people who are

involved in causing most of these problems

ought to come up here and take a look.”

Must we wait for world government

before any progress can be made in con¬

trolling these potentially destructive trends?

We should recognize that some progress has

been made on a variety of issues. Inter¬

national need not always be global and in¬

volve all nation states. In several areas na¬

tions in a particular region are working

together on common problems. In other

regions, of course, adjoining nations are at

war. We are not very far along the path of

creating appropriate institutions and

enforcement powers to control some of the

threatening consequences of the new tech¬

nologies. In a view that’s probably over op¬

timistic, Thomas Wilson (1985) concludes:

“If national security is dependent upon world

security ... if there is no other way to save our

own outstretched necks — then the imperative

drive of national interest in national security

impels governments not toward divisive and

hostile behavior but toward cooperative and

collaborative behavior in world affairs,

whether they like each other or not.’’

There is an urgent need for new institu¬

tional forms to deal with the complex issues

threatening the global economy and environ¬

ment. Fashioning such transnational institu¬

tions would be more easily accomplished in a

world at peace rather than a world of sus¬

picious and warring nations. Individual na¬

tions, especially the biggest and the most

powerful, must seek cooperation and accom¬

modation rather than threats and confronta¬

tion, dialogue and debate rather than ac¬

cusations and denunciations.

As educators, we must recognize that

many issues can no longer be kept in separ¬

ate compartments for domestic and inter¬

national solution. Most major domestic

policies of the United States have significant

effects on almost every other nation. What

the United States is able to do, or wants to

do, also depends increasingly on the acts and

policies of other countries. That is what

interdependence means. Educators at all

levels must be aware of the fact that in a

democratic system where people are the

ultimate policy makers, individual citizens

must be taught to understand these com¬

plexities. And elected officials must be able

to comprehend these issues so they can help

educate the public and provide the informed

judgments required for sound policies.

In analyzing the need for institutional

change to resolve domestic conflicts and

attempt to make private, individual action

consistent with the larger public purpose, the

late John R. Commons, Wisconsin’s great

institutional economist, suggested that it is

quite reasonable to expect that individual

action is intended to serve individual goals

and purposes. The real question, however, is

whether individual action also furthers, or at

least does not conflict with, the larger public

purposes, or whether it serves only private

purposes (Commons, 1924). We might para¬

phrase Commons and suggest that individual

18

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

nations today must see their own policies in a

similar light: it is not a question of whether

their policies should serve their own national

purposes, that must be taken for granted.

But the real question is whether national

policies also advance, or at least do not

conflict with, the broader international

public purposes. In our increasingly inter¬

dependent world, self interest must be re¬

evaluated constantly. Following a course of

narrow self interest, whether at the indi¬

vidual level or that of the nation state can be

self defeating and destructive.

We must learn to extend our sense of

community to peoples in far away places

with customs and beliefs quite different

from our own. Extending and identifying

our self-interest within ever-widening

contexts is a basic ingredient of human

history. For most people the nation state was

the latest of these extensions. But these

urgent global issues now require that we

extend our empathy to other people around

the world. Achieving this is the fundamental

role of new institutions. This, of course,

requires a positive effort on all our parts to

understand other peoples and their cultures,

their languages, their history and their

aspirations.

We are born into a world of going con¬

cerns and established institutions. We

essentially inherit a system and take its

governing institutions pretty much for

granted. Most of us do not get involved in

creating new institutions. At best we help to

reshape the ones we inherited, and then

usually only marginally. Creating new trans¬

national institutions to deal with truly global

issues, whose rules and procedures provide

mutual benefits and mutual restraints for the

weak as well as for the powerful will be an

immense task. We must not underestimate

the difficulties involved. But neither can we

withdraw and fail to address these issues — in

our schools, at our universities, in political

debates.

It does, perhaps, call for a new type of

citizenship, where the responsibilities of

citizenship are defined in a broader context.

We must be ever conscious not only of the

lives and the needs of other humans on this

space ship earth— this global village. We

must also be increasingly sensitive to the

protection of the natural systems which

sustain us. In closing, I should like to quote

from a 1922 book by L. P. Jacks entitled

Constructive Citizenship.

We human beings are apt to think our race the

only object in creation that really matters. We

have developed a kind of class-consciousness

in presence of the universe. The human race is

all-important in its own eyes: nature is there to

be ruled by us; her forces are meant to turn

our wheels; her materials to be exploited for

our enrichment; her laws to provide for our

comfort; and the very stars in their courses

must be yoked to our wagons. We have still to

learn that the human race is tolerated in the

universe only on strict conditions of good

behavior. If we neglect our citizenship there,

or think that we can play fast and loose with

the laws that are written there, laws that were

not voted into existence by us, those other

citizenships will come to grief. This human

class-consciousness in presence of the rest of

the universe is not a good thing. It is a

dangerous thing. Unless we bear that in mind,

our study of the rights and duties of the citizen

is not worthwhile (Jacks, 1922).

References

Cleveland, Harlan (1985), “The Passing of Re¬

moteness,” HHH Institute Newsletter, Univer¬

sity of Minnesota, May, Volume 8, No. 1 .

Commons, John R. (1924). Legal Foundations of

Capitalism , MacMillin Company (republished

in 1957 by University of Wisconsin Press).

Jacks, L. P. (1922). Constructive Citizenship,

London: Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd.

Schuh, G. Edward (1985). “The International

Capital Market as a Source of Instability in In¬

ternational Commodity Markets,” paper given

at the XIX International Conference of

Agricultural Economists, August 26-Septem-

ber 4, 1985, Malaga Spain.

Wilson, Thomas W. Jr. (1985). “The Global

Environment and The Quest for Peace: A

Revolution In The Scale of Things,” Social

Education, March.

“THE MAN WHO LIVED AMONG THE CANNIBALS”:

MELVILLE IN MILWAUKEE

Thomas Pribek

Department of English

University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse

Early in 1886, after years of literary

silence, Herman Melville began writing his

last book, Billy Budd. He died five years

later, virtually unnoticed, because many

people believed that he had died years

before. In fact, in twenty years of employ¬

ment as customs’ Inspector for the Port of

New York Melville continued to write but

published only a small volume of Civil War

poems for public sale. He also wrote Clare l

and another volume of poetry, both printed

in limited editions for his family and friends.

Therefore, the final phase of Melville’s

public literary career— and his last work in

prose before Billy Budd — was a brief at¬

tempt at lecturing, during which he once

toured the Midwest and spoke in Milwaukee.

Melville met with decidedly-mixed success

over these years, 1857-60, and it became

clear to him that he would not make much

money, nor would he revive his popularity as

the author of adventure and travel narra¬

tives. The lecture tours were really his last

efforts to maintain a career as a popular

writer, and their ultimate failure probably

accounted for his decision not to make a

prose romance out of his last adventure, his

trip to the Holy Land in 1856-57, but the

philosophical poem Clarel , written for in¬

timate acquaintances. His first lecture was

“Statues in Rome,” adapted from this trip;

his last was called “Traveling.”

Ironically, his nearest success on stage

went back to the beginning of his career. The

lecture he delivered in Milwaukee and else¬

where his second year on speaking tour was

“The South Seas,” actually fitting the

reputation he worked so hard to overcome as

“the man who lived among the cannibals,”

as he summarized his reputation in a letter to

Nathaniel Hawthorne.1 It became certain,

finally, that he could not appeal to audiences

as an entertainer, like the reigning stage star

Bayard Taylor and the later star, Twain, nor

could he be accepted as a philosopher or

social commentator, like the reigning sage of

New England Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Melville spoke in Milwaukee on February

25, 1859. By the time he appeared there, a

late stop during the second lecture tour, he

was working much harder to please local

crowds than most critics have assumed.2 His

subject, content, and delivery were

calculated for stage success. However, the

Milwaukee performance was fairly typical in

its dubious outcome. In books, Melville

could be risque, impudent, even raucous.

However, this character he found only

through literary personae; Melville in person

was urbane, often subdued, even shy and un¬

comfortable among strangers. He lacked

Twain’s talent for embodying his literary

characters. Melville in person was usually a

New England gentleman who remembered

his genteel roots. (With the possible excep¬

tions of James Fenimore Cooper, James

Russell Lowell, and Emerson, Melville had

more claim to New England gentry than

any of the prominent nineteenth-century

writers.)3

Melville was thirty-seven when he decided

to try lecturing, thirty-nine by the time he

appeared in Milwaukee. He had been a

writer for thirteen years and a farmer, too,

for half that time; but now, with a chronic

back problem that would plague him the rest

of his life, he was forced to rely almost en¬

tirely on his father-in-law to support his

family. Normally active and independent,

Melville was irritated by the prospect of a

19

20

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

sedentary life and family charity. He had

already realized what many other writers

more salable than he had found: few people

could earn a living as an author, but several

supported themselves writing and giving live

appearances, by traveling the lyceum circuit.

Melville was now unusually pressed for

money. He was overdrawn on his accounts

with publishers. One publisher of two recent

books had gone out of business and was sell¬

ing its plates, and another had lost its stock

of some earlier books in a warehouse fire.

Melville had nothing new ready for sale,

having just returned from his trip to the

Holy Land. A series of lectures seemed a

practical venture for turning his recent ex¬

cursion into something immediately profit¬

able. So Melville wrote “Statues in Rome,”

an analysis of the philosophy of art, with an

added dose of gossip and personal anec¬

dotes. He knew the subject would attract lit¬

tle interest in itself.4

This first lecture, delivered through the

1857-58 lecture season (the winter months),

generally received poor reviews. It was not a

shrewd choice of topic for one whose forte

was tale-telling rather than descriptive or

critical analysis; moreover, reviewers gener¬

ally agreed that Melville’s delivery was

rather dry. He had hoped for publicity to

generate invitations and was thus disap¬

pointed. In addition, the reviewers tended to

focus on characterizing the man who lived

with the cannibals, rather than the author of

a piece of statuary. Audiences preferred a

glimpse of an entertaining personality,

rather than a systematic analysis of works of

art which they could not see before them.

Nonetheless, he was sufficiently encouraged,

and paid, to plan a second season in a more

business-like manner. He began a correspon¬

dence to arrange a professional circuit from

New England, into the Southern states, and

through the Midwest, rather than waiting for

invitations.5

An old family friend, William E. Cramer,

editor and owner of the Milwaukee Daily

Wisconsin , undertook the local publicity and

might even have suggested Melville to the

Young Men’s Association, which sponsored

the Milwaukee appearance. Melville spoke in

Albany Hall, appropriately named to sug¬

gest that the city’s cultural tastes were as

refined as those of an eastern city, and

Cramer appealed to civic pride, pointing out

in advance notices that a well-attended lec¬

ture “always gives a stranger a good impres¬

sion of the intellectual culture of the city.’’6

Melville had a promising field before him

in Milwaukee in 1859; the city was growing

and its affluent citizens eager to show their

interest in things cultural. The Young Men’s

Association was composed, like many sim¬

ilarly-named groups in the Midwest and

across Wisconsin, of business and profes¬

sional men who were accumulating a library,

presenting lectures and debates, and offering

educational courses from a variety of cul¬

tural topics. A Young Men’s Association or

Young Men’s Library Association existed in

Beloit, Columbus, Fond du Lac, Janesville,

Kenosha, LaCrosse, Madison, Oshkosh,

Portage, Racine, Sheboygan, Watertown,

Waukesha, and Waupun. They shared the

name and corresponded on arranging pro¬

grams, although they had no state- wide

organization.7

In the 1850s, lyceums grew faster in the

Midwest than any other part of the country

and continued their popularity into the Civil

War years. Chicago, Sheboygan, and

Milwaukee were among the best stops for a

speaker; the cities usually drew large crowds

and offered good money — $50 a night was

standard in eastern cities but only a few such

stops existed in the West. Bayard Taylor

once wrote from Milwaukee, “The people

are infatuated. If I lecture next winter, I can

spend three months in the West and have

engagements for every night.’’ This was

Taylor’s impression in 1854, when Milwau¬

kee also heard such speakers as Emerson,

Horace Mann, and Horace Greeley.8

Nonetheless, the midwestern audience was

a somewhat difficult one for New Englanders.

Newspaper reviewers were antagonistic

1986]

Pribek — Melville in Milwaukee

21

toward any Easterner who showed the slight¬

est trace of snobbery or disrespect for the

culture of the West; in addition, the charac¬

ter of midwestern audiences and their expec¬

tations sharply differed from those in New

England. The Young Men’s Associations at¬

tracted people with social expectations and

pretensions, but these lyceum organizations

in the West belonged to a second phase of

the movement and lacked its original New

England roots in the drive for popular

literacy and free public education. By the

standards of the time, Wisconsin had al¬

ready accomplished such improvements in

its first decade of statehood. Consequently,

audiences in this state and others in the

Midwest demanded as much entertainment

as edification and were generally unreceptive

to speakers who appeared as though they

wanted to “school” the audience.9

For instance, Cramer’s paper pointed out

that Melville’s lecture was “entertaining”

and “ also instructive” (emphasis added),

suggesting the educational material was

secondary. Cramer wrote that Melville “lay

open a field of adventure and wanderings to

which one rarely has his attention called”

(emphasis added). Melville found out that

reviewers were quick to bristle at the suspi¬

cion that they were being patronized or

treated like uneducated backwoodsmen.

Milwaukee’s literacy was accomplished in

part by German immigration, half the city

by 1860. The German population in partic¬

ular regarded itself as better educated and

cultivated than other nationalities, including

the native Americans, and very much re¬

sented being considered a pioneer settle¬

ment.10

When Melville first published south-sea

adventures like Typee and Omoo , he had

been accused of romantic exaggeration of

the exotic island life. His new lecture on

“The South Seas,” however, now brought

occasional complaints among midwestern re¬

viewers that he was rehearsing well known

material which any library could yield. For

once, Melville found himself accused of a

want of originality and a failure to be suffi¬

ciently exotic and entertaining.11 The

Milwaukee Daily Free Democrat , for in¬

stance, commented, “On the whole, we

think there are few who knew much more

about the South Seas, after he concluded,

than before he began.” Melville had said

that this lecture was not to be a personal

narrative — “a great mistake,” said the

paper, “for had he stated some of the scenes

which he had passed through himself, and

thereby invested his lecture with some life,

instead of telling us what the primary

geographies told us in our schooldays, he

would have created a better impression in

Milwaukee.”

The starting time for Melville’s lecture was

moved up a half-hour so that Albany Hall

could offer a held-over performance of

Father Kemp’s Old Folks Concert Troupe, a

costumed choir and orchestra with a variety

of sacred and patriotic music. The choir

alone numbered thirty-seven people; the

group was billed as “The Largest Concert

Troupe in the World.” Melville was in com¬

petition with a musical extravaganza, and

although the auditorium was reserved for

him, he was obliged to defer to the more

popular show. In fact, the newspaper adver¬

tisements for performances at Albany Hall

and elsewhere indicate a demand for drama

and musical entertainment. Other selections

in the winter season included a “Grand Mas¬

querade Ball” and “St. David’s Vocal and

Instrumental Concert.” Melville’s competi¬

tion on February 25th at Johnson’s Athen-

eum was selections from The Merchant of

Venice and Rob Roy. The Atheneum was

also booked for Uncle Tom's Cabin , partly a

musical on stage, and Ten Nights in a Bar¬

room , starring the popular cracker-barrel

comedian “Yankee” Locke. Such variety

acts of the lyceum stage have been called

“prevaudeville.”12

The advance publicity for Melville’s lec¬

ture billed him as the author of Typee, his

first book of south-sea adventure — not as

the author of any metaphysical allegories,

22

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

like Mardi and Moby-Dick , that were not

selling now. Cramer had specifically re¬

minded people that Melville had lived with

cannibals and experienced episodes beyond

the wonders of imagination. He did have ex¬

actly the kind of material that might keep an

audience spell bound. Bayard Taylor was

due in town for the Young Men’s Associa¬

tion the next week, and his stage personality

suggests what the audience preferred.

Taylor, popular as a world traveler, wore

costumes of places he described; his best

known outfit was a pseudo-arab costume

complete with scimitar. He avoided being a

moral observer and spiced up his lectures

with exotic-sounding poetry. He avoided us¬

ing a script and the appearance of delivering

a packaged performance. The Daily Wiscon¬

sin called his manner “enthusiastic” and

“eloquent,” noting his handsomeness made

him popular particularly with the ladies. He

spoke in Milwaukee on “Life at the North,”

travelogues being among the most popular

stage programs. Taylor had accompanied

Commodore Matthew Perry in the Pacific

and had also some claim to being an expert

on far- western islands. Taylor was willing to

make money as a specimen from unknown

parts of the world, an entertainer with

adventure stories.13 However, Melville, as

everyone knew, had lived with cannibals and

had experiences as wild as anything that

Taylor might describe.

Nevertheless, Melville could not compete

as a comparable entertainer, although he did

make certain efforts to please his audience.

He announced that this lecture was not to be

an intellectual argument, but a collection of

facts and impressions without a theme. Even

his choice of material was a concession to

popular taste. However, Melville’s Pacific

travels were fifteen years old and his

memory less vivid than Taylor’s. Melville

had outgrown his former character. So he

did not put all his material into the form of a

personal narrative and actually opened with

a summary of literary references on the

South Seas and geographical information

before recounting any of the “exceptional

phenomena” that his audience had come

for — indeed, was led to believe they would

get, according to the advance publicity. In

fact, there was little on cannibalism and no

lewdness. Melville did attempt to appeal to

the audience taste for the exotic and sensa¬

tional with description of the bizarre “devil¬

fish,” the art of tattooing, and a sly

reference to the “awful ceremony” of the

taboo, a subject he said that he could not

reveal in such a proper atmosphere as this,

although it contained strangeness transcend¬

ing the wildest romances of Mrs. Radcliffe.

He spoke about Free Lovers, Mormons, and

various utopian societies seeking asylums, all

objects of public curiosity at the time.14 He

recounted an anecdote of meeting a Pro¬

fessor of Moral Philosophy who had aban¬

doned civilized life for the sylvan retreat of

the islands and three wives, the kind of

sailor’s yarn that the reviewers could ques¬

tion (in good nature) and appreciate for its

romantic sentiments; overstepping the

bounds of the probable and decent might be

dubious history and morality, but good

theater. He even worked in a reference to the

Newall House, a stylish Milwaukee hotel, to

contrast primitive culture to civilized society.

Imagine, he said, a bare-limbed savage with

awful tattoos appearing at such a proper

place; this image might appeal to civic pride,

and, at the same time, the touch of titillation

made good theater.

On the whole, however, Melville was

“packaged” more obviously than an au¬

dience would desire. For instance, one at¬

tempt at describing sea colors, which

reviewers noted, has a consciously rhetorical

and literary style. Here is Melville’s text, in

an exaggerated gothic style with allusions to

the Bible and Paradise Lost:

I have been in a whaleboat at midnight when,

having lost the ship, we would keep steering

through the lonely night for her, while the sea

that weltered by us would present the pallid

look of the face of a corpse, and lit by its spec¬

tral gleam we men in the boats showed to each

1986]

Pribek — Melville in Milwaukee

23

other like so many weather-beaten ghosts.

Then to mark Leviathan come wallowing

along, dashing the pale sea into sparkling

cascades of fire, showering it all over till the

monster would look like Milton’s Satan,

riding the flame billows of the infernal world.

We [theater audience] might fill night after

night with that fertile theme . . . and tell of the

adventurous sailors. (165-66)15

However, Melville dropped the scene for

that night and had nothing marvelous to

develop from such supernatural portent. He

made no real effort at suspense and delivered

the description without any spontaneity or

sensationalism in which the audience might

participate. The Daily Free Democrat thus

complained that Melville offered few il¬

lustrations beyond general comments, cut

short the personal anecdotes, and then gave

“word-painting” rather than anecdotes with

“any inherent or thrilling interest.”

Melville was most emphatically himself in

an ironic passage criticizing missionary work

as personal gain, jingoism and colonialism,

and Emersonian optimism:

[T]he result of civilization, at the Sandwich

Islands and elsewhere, is found productive to

the civilizers, destructive to the civilizees. It is

said to be compensation — a very philosophical

word; but it appears to be very much on the

principle of the old game, “You lose, I win”:

good philosophy for the winner. (179)

Although he announced no theme to his lec¬

ture, Melville had an explicit message: leave

the islands alone. He told his audience that

Americans should have no pretensions of

civilizing other people until they civilized

themselves. He meant no particular criticism

of his audience here, although such a remark

was ill-placed in Milwaukee, especially

before people who subscribed to a lecture

program chosen to represent a highly-

refined, established culture, and who were

also drawn to hear Melville by Cramer’s ad¬

vice that they show interest in intellectual

offerings. As in the reference to the Newall

House, Milwaukeeans wanted to be compli¬

mented for their civilization. They may

indeed have come principally for entertain¬

ment; however, they were not going to ap¬

plaud heartily for someone who would lift

the veil only slightly upon the voluptuary life

of the South Seas they imagined, and who

then told them that they had no right to

gawk upon the rest from any superior per¬

spective. Bayard Taylor encouraged audi¬

ences to imagine themselves in foreign lands;

Melville told them to stay home and civilize

themselves.

In the words of Cramer’s review in the

Daily Wisconsin , adventurers had “no

right” to interfere with existing cultures. The

United States should leave Hawaii alone and

thus keep it from “the demoralizing associa¬

tions of modern civilization.” Even Cramer,

who was determined to be sympathetic to

Melville in his paper, did not comment on

the sentiments his friend expressed. He

would not criticize him, but Cramer could

hardly tell the civilized people of Milwaukee

that they were no better than naked savages

and that the tattooed Polynesian would be as

amused by the elegant functions in the

Newall House as its patrons would be by

him. Cramer did little more than summarize

the lecture after some opening impressions

of Melville as a speaker. He wrote favorably

of Melville and his delivery, endorsing the

lecture as a whole, but avoiding specific sup¬

port for the themes.

The Daily Free Democrat had no restraint;

the audience would have preferred, it said,

“personal reminiscences ... to such bom¬

bast.” So, “The lecture was attentively

listened to,” noted the reporter, “but the ap¬

preciation of it, we think, was testified by

the limited applause at the close. The

Association, we think, received more profit

from the lecture than the audience.” The

snide remark that the audience had not got¬

ten its money’s worth was about the worst

judgment a reviewer could pronounce. Peo¬

ple were not going to quibble too much

about a speaker’s sentiments, so long as the

speaker was entertaining. For this one ob-

24

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

server, at least, Melville had not passed the

crucial test. The Daily Free Democrat said

Melville had a “large audience . . . perhaps

the most of whom were disappointed in the

lecturer.” He gave “a literary effort below

mediocrity, unless he intended it as a

reading. In fact, it seemed as though he had

one of his romances before him, and had

selected the most uninteresting passages to

read for our edification.” The audience

listened “attentively,” according to this

report; however, newspapers invariably

complimented local audiences so, sometimes

the greater to criticize an uninteresting

speaker. “[S]o general were his remarks that

they failed to create much interest in the

minds of hearers,” the paper said.

The Daily Sentinel agreed that Melville

had “an unusually large audience” to hear

him talk about the beauties of the tropics “in

his own inimitable way.” The Sentinel of¬

fered little actual review and principally

summarized the lecture, as the Daily

Wisconsin had done. Only the hostile Daily

Free Democrat undertook a critique rather

than a summary. Although the Sentinel

would appear to have approved of Melville

by its comment on his “inimitable” style,

the compliment is hardly hearty and even

has a certain irony. Familiarity with the

idiom of newspaper reviewing in the nine¬

teenth century suggests that the term was

something of a cliche; it was often used in

advance publicity in place of anything more

precise, and in a review, it may mean only

that the reviewer had not really observed

anything remarkable. “As a lecturer,” the

reporter noted, “Mr. Melville sustains the

idea we have formed of him in ‘Typeer’ [sic],

a soft voluptuous ease is the predominant

characteristic. . . . [T]he same drowsy

enchantment that makes his writings so

fascinating radiates from the speaker.” The

Sentinel's reviewer might have been a subtle

reader of Melville, if indeed he had read

Melville, for few critics would have called

Typee “drowsy enchantment.” The book

actually had been accused of lewdness, Mun-

chausenism, and trumped-up criticism of

colonial missionaries. Moreover, Melville

read his new material from a script— only

the Daily Free Democrat was unhappy for

this— but, even though the Sentinel did not

register any criticism of its own, its report of

Melville’s subdued manner was not generally

an endorsement of stage skill. Audiences

usually preferred a more animated speaker.

In a sense, the Sentinel had called Melville

“bookish,” a term the Daily Free Democrat

used as sharp criticism.

Cramer’s review in his own paper was the

only solidly-complimentary one that Melville

received. The Daily Wisconsin, in fact, said

a “very large and appreciative audience”

heard Melville, although it did not judge the

applause, as the Daily Free Democrat had

done. The Daily Wisconsin denied that Mel¬

ville read a “stilted lecture” nor indulged in

“rhetorical flights,” but instead spoke in

“delicious literary languor . . . graceful and

musical.” Melville was not one for stage

theatrics, but instead spoke “as one would

like to sit down to a club room, and with the

blue smoke of a meerschaum gracefully curl¬

ing and floating away . . . dream for hours,

even till the night wore away.” Cramer’s

simile was appropriate; in fact, Melville was

generally best in intimate surroundings.

Albany Hall seated about 800 people. The

actual attendance can only be estimated — all

papers called it “large”— but despite the

Daily Free Democrat's insinuation about the

Young Men’s Association profiting at the

audience’s expense, the receipts do not sug¬

gest a tremendously successful booking or a

capacity crowd. The Association actually

lost money on the particular performance.

The ledger records $50.45 received at the

door, $50 for Melville’s fee, and another

$29.50 for expenses. The door receipts do

not include subscribers to the season lecture

program, but there is no estimate of exactly

how many members attended. Ticket prices

were 25<P, the standard charge for stage per-

1986]

Pribek— Melville in Milwaukee

25

formances (Father Kemp’s Troupe charged

the same). At any rate, the “large” crowd

did not draw enough from the public to meet

expenses for the performance. A “large”

audience was another standard comment in

reviews and might often mean no more than

an average crowd. For instance, the Sentinel

specifically said that Father Kemp’s con¬

certs were “fully attended. . . . The Hall will

be hardly large enough to hold all who wish

to hear them,” the paper predicted. The

Daily Wisconsin complained that ladies were

forced to stand.16

So, it is doubtful if Melville had anywhere

near a full house. The Young Men’s Associa¬

tion did not renew its invitation to Melville

when he expressed interest in performing a

third season. Melville did get bookings the

next year in the East but received almost no

response from places on his midwestern

tour. Melville was not cut out to offer the

kind of entertainment which inspired enthu¬

siastic reviewers and return crowds, who had

plenty of top-name talent to choose from.

By estimates, Melville was only the sixth

most popular of ten speakers on the Associa¬

tion’s 1858-59 program in Milwaukee. 17

Cramer’s review in the Daily Wisconsin

was favorable; the Sentinel's was essentially

noncommittal; the Daily Free Democrat's

was hostile. The Daily Wisconsin and

Sentinel put Melville on page one; the Daily

Free Democrat put him back on page three.

All told, Melville did comparatively well in

Milwaukee. He also appeared in Chicago,

Rockford, and Quincy, Illinois, but got few

good reviews, most observers agreeing that

he had no distinctive stage personality,

seemed too rehearsed, and spoke too softly.

The eastern reviewers had been generally

favorable about “The South Seas,” but

there was, ultimately, little encouragement

for trying the midwestern states again.

Melville only performed in ten cities during

the 1858-59 season, and although he made

more money than he had the year before in

sixteen cities and was apparently becoming

more comfortable on stage, he had not done

well enough to expect a new career as a

lecturer — particularly if he had to rely on

pleasing western audiences. In Michigan,

Bayard Taylor wrote a parody of “The

Raven,” comparing the bird’s “nevermore”

and the student’s vain efforts to escape, to

fans and agents with speaking invitations

rapping at his chamber door and allowing

him sleep “nevermore.” Melville had no

such troubles to complain of. 18

In addition, Melville had not managed to

generate any new demand for the once-

popular south sea narratives. He was already

working on poetry in the summer of 1859,

and, without much enthusiasm, looking into

possibilities for publishing a first volume of

verse. He also prepared a third lecture, as a

more practical venture. However, to cancel

his debts to his father-in-law, which Melville

had been accumulating ever since his mar¬

riage, he agreed to deed his farm property to

his wife, amounting to an admission of his

failure as head-of-family and provider. The

consensus among the family — Herman’s

too, probably, though he resisted it — was

that he would have to find steady work and

give up uncertain literary pursuits. He ap¬

proved of efforts to find him a political ap¬

pointment, although he did not actively pur¬

sue one.19

Lecturing was still his only immediate

source of income, but his third season was

the least profitable of all. Melville was so

outwardly depressed and physically weak

that family members suggested a vacation at

sea again in 1860, as they had the year before

he tried lecturing. He planned to go through

the South Seas again; ironically, he became

sea sick on the voyage out— the only time

this had ever happened to him — and he cut

short the voyage. When he landed in San

Francisco, he decided to go home immedi¬

ately. In fact, Melville received an invitation

to read there, which he declined, although he

had manuscripts with him.20 By coincidence,

Melville’s final realization that he would

26

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

have to stay home and work at some routine

came just before Mark Twain first lighted

out for the western territories and began to

find an idiom for himself as a world traveler

and writer.

Melville’s difficulties as a popular writer

have been exaggerated and romanticized. He

never was as much the deliberate outcast as

some readers have thought; he never was an

Edgar Allan Poe or Charles Baudelaire,

writing what he thought profound to spite a

public who never could appreciate him.21

Even Melville’s most critically-condemned

and publicly-ignored books, Pierre and The

Confidence-Man, were disappointments be¬

cause he had thought that they would sell.

Melville did not imagine himself essentially

at odds with the bourgeois reading public,

although he did finally realize that what

talent he had as a writer would never make

him rich or even provide a sole means of sup¬

port. His lecturing, like his last romances,

was a disappointment to Melville because he

believed that it might work. But he found

out, once again, that he did not have what it

took to please the crowd.

Notes

1 See letter to Hawthorne in Moby -Dick, ed. Harrison

Hayford and Hershel Parker (New York: Norton, 1967)

556-60.

2 Merrell R. Davis, “Melville’s Midwestern Lecture

Tour, 1859,’’ Philological Quarterly 20 (1941): 57, sug¬

gests that Melville’s South Sea lecture lacked spontane¬

ity because he had no fresh observations on his ex¬

periences; and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., Melville as

Lecturer (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1957) 100-01,

121-23, believes that Melville “was thoroughly tired” of

trying to rework the popular subject and, furthermore,

had “grown alien to mid-century America.”

3 See comments from his cousin Henry Gansevoort in

Jay Leyda, The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of

Herman Melville, 1819-1891, 2 vols. (1951; rpt. New

York: Gordian Press, 1969) 2: 600-01; Alfred Kazin,

An American Procession: The Major American Writers

from 1830 to 1930— The Crucial Century (New York:

Knopf, 1984) 131-60; and Sealts 61.

4 Leon Howard, Herman Melville: A Biography

(Berkeley: U of California P, 1951) 21 1 , 256-57.

5 Howard 258-60; and Sealts 58.

6 Newspaper reviews are taken from the collections of

the State Historical Society, Madison.

7 See Ralph M. Aderman, “When Herman Melville

Lectured Here,” Historical Messenger 9.2 (1953): 3;

Carl Bode, The American Lyceum: Town Meeting of

the Mind (1956; rpt. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP,

1968) 174-75; and John C. Colson, ‘“Public Spirit’ at

Work: Philanthropy and Pubic Libraries in Nineteenth-

Century Wisconsin,” Wisconsin Magazine of History

59.3 (1976): 192-209.

8 Bode 168, 175.

9 Bode 98, 166-68; Davis 52-53; and Sealts 61, 83-84.

10 Kathleen Warnes, “Milwaukee: The German

Athens in America, 1835-1920,” Wisconsin Academy of

Sciences, Arts, and Letters Symposium and Conference,

Wausau, 25 April 1986. None of the German-language

papers in Milwaukee reviewed Melville.

1 1 See Sealts 73-74, 94.

12 Richard Nelson Current, Wisconsin: A Bicenten¬

nial History (New York: Norton, 1977) 147.

13 See Bode 217-19.

14 Sealts 64.

15 The full text of “The South Seas” is reconstructed

by Sealts (155-80). Page references for passages quoted

in the test of this essay are contained in parentheses.

16 Davis 47; Leyda 603; and Sealts 76, 93.

17 Howard 261.

18 Bode 218-19; and Sealts 92-93, 99-100.

19 Howard 262-67.

20 Howard 267-69.

21 Kazin calls Melville a “captive to the commercial

capital,” New York City (137), and recalls that Sam

Melville, the “Mad Bomber” killed at Attica State Cor¬

rectional Facility in 1971, took his name for Herman,

whom he identified with revolution (158). In addition,

Edwin Haviland Miller, Melville (New York: Persea,

1975) 295, says that Melville could not resign himself to

giving audiences what they wanted.

SIMULATION IN LANDSCAPE PLANNING AND DESIGN:

THE ART OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION

Bruce H. Murray and Charles S. Law

Department of Landscape Architecture

University of Wisconsin-Madison

This paper examines the subject of visual

representation in landscape planning and

design by subdividing the subject into several

related sub-topics including its relationship

to environmental impact assessment and

contemporary problem-solving, the benefits

associated with simulation use and how that

has led to the development of a simulation

course at the University of Wisconsin.

A Brief History

Throughout history man has used visual

representations such as drawings, paintings

and three-dimensional objects to simulate

visual modifications to his world. Some of

the earliest simulations used by environmen¬

tal planners and designers were pottery

models built during the 1st and 2nd centuries

AD in China. These miniature representa¬

tions illustrating ornate wall and roof details

were used to guide the wooden architecture

of the time.1 Other early simulations in¬

cluded maps, plans, sections, elevations,

sketches and perspective drawings — tech¬

niques that are still in much use today. An

early development by the landscape architect

Humphrey Repton used illustrations hinged

in such a way that both existing and pro¬

posed environmental conditions could be

displayed at the same time. This technique

using “slides” of proposed improvements

could be flipped up to cover only those parts

of the landscape to be changed. Repton

believed this provided a far more effective

means than maps or plans to help clients

visualize the effects of environmental

changes.2 Similar overlay techniques are in

wide spread use today and serve as the basis

for much of the work produced by planners

and designers.

Early techniques like Repton’ s slides

which were dependent upon pen and ink,

pencil, and watercolors were subsequently

augmented by photography as a tool for

visual representation. Initially in the nine¬

teenth century, on-site eye-level photog¬

raphy became popular and later with the ad¬

vent of World War II, aerial photography

became available and gained widespread use.

More recent advancements including the use

of photo-mosaic and stereo-pair photog¬

raphy have greatly facilitated large scale

analysis of land areas for design and plan¬

ning.

Recent technological developments have

made new visual tools available to land plan¬

ners and designers including movies, video

and computers for analysis and communica¬

tion. On the horizon are the use of highly

realistic computer-generated animations

similar to those used in many recent “box

office” hits.

This discussion might lead one to believe

that there is an ever increasing reliance on

the use of visual simulations in landscape

planning and design. Such a conclusion

would be only partly true. As noted, the

practice of landscape planning and design

has always relied on the use of simulations

although it is now adopting the use of more

sophisticated technological innovations.

The growing use of more complex and

sophisticated simulation techniques in land¬

scape architectural practice and research

poses a new set of challenges for profes¬

sionals. These include keeping abreast of

new developments and understanding their

strengths and weaknesses, limitations and

opportunities, and knowing where to inte¬

grate them into the design and planning pro¬

cess.

27

28

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

Simulation and Environmental

Impact Assessment

One of the most important single actions

that has been devised to elevate the im¬

portance of environmental management and

visual simulation in this country, was enact¬

ment of Public Law 91-190, the National En¬

vironmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969.

The purposes of this legislation were:

“To declare a national policy which will

encourage productive and enjoyable harmony

between man and his environment; to promote

efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage

to the environment and biosphere and stimu¬

late the health and welfare of man; to enrich

the understanding of the ecological systems

and national resources important to the

Nation; and to establish a Council on

Environmental Quality. (42U.S.C. 4321). ”3

But what does this have to do with visual

simulation?

The Act goes on into additional detail as

exemplified in the next excerpt:

“(b) in order to carry out the policy set

forth in this Act, it is the continuing respon¬

sibility of the Federal Government to use all

practical means, consistent with other essen¬

tial considerations of national policy, to im¬

prove and coordinate Federal plans, func¬

tions, programs, and resources to the end that

the nation may—

(2) assure for all Americans safe, healthful,

productive and esthetically and culturally

pleasing surroundings;’’4

The responsibility for carrying out this

mandate at the Federal level is stipulated in

Sec. 102 of the act as follows:

“Sec. 102

(A) Utilize a systematic interdisciplinary ap¬

proach which will insure the integrated use

of natural and social sciences and the en¬

vironmental design arts in planning and in

decision making which may have an impact

on man’s environment.’’5

The scope and purpose of NEPA extends

beyond an analysis of the impact of proposed

actions upon “esthetically and culturally

pleasing surroundings.”

One Federal agency that has taken this

responsibility of exploring the area of visual

impact seriously is the Bureau of Land

Management, Division of Recreation and

Cultural Resources. In 1980, a well illus¬

trated report was published under the title

VISUAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

PROGRAM.6 Whereas the document deals

with the broader subject of visual resource

management, one section is devoted entirely

to “VISUAL SIMULATION TECH¬

NIQUES.’ ’ Several visual simulation tech¬

niques are described and illustrated and

focus on such projects as highways, dams,

power plants, and overhead transmission

line structures to mention a few. In addition

to these subjects, illustrations of various

techniques have been provided as concrete

examples of the effectiveness of various

techniques to simulate proposed actions of

various types of landscape conditions.

The leadership that was provided at the

national level through enactment of NEPA

was echoed by various states including

Wisconsin. In 1971, Assembly Bill 875 was

enacted and became known as the Wisconsin

Environmental Policy Act (WEPA). Upon

reading WEPA, the reader is struck by the

similarities in purposes and language with

NEPA. Whereas NEPA mandates environ¬

mental impact assessment by Federal agen¬

cies, WEPA focuses upon the mandate of

conducting environmental impact assess¬

ments on certain specified actions that could

have deleterious affects upon the environ¬

ment of Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, the administration of

WEPA has not been accompanied by consis¬

tent applications of visual simulations as a

means of evaluating the acceptability of cer¬

tain visual impacts that accompany develop¬

mental actions in Wisconsin.

The Role of Simulation in Contemporary

Problem-Solving in Wisconsin

A number of recent case studies illustrate

the usefulness of visual simulations in envi¬

ronmental decision-making. These applica-

1986]

Murray and Law— Landscape Planning and Design

29

Fig. la. A typical streetscene in a Wisconsin Community.

Fig. lb. Three-dimensional model simulating proposed streetscene changes.

30

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

tions range in scope across political levels

and the variety of available simulation tech¬

niques.

Wausau Sign Ordinance—

Hand-drawn simulations were recently

developed for use by a grassroots organiza¬

tion in Wausau, Wisconsin to illustrate the

impact of a proposed sign ordinance. From

35 mm slides of several urban streetscapes,

illustrations of the existing scenes without

signage were generated. Two drawings were

then superimposed on the original illustra¬

tions; one depicting existing sign conditions,

the other showing the changes necessary to

comply with the proposed ordinance. This

technique provided a quick and efficient

means for illustrating the effects of the pro¬

posed mandate.

UW Band Practice Facility—

As part of a University of Wisconsin class

exercise, landscape architecture students pre¬

pared three-dimensional simulation models

to provide design recommendations for a

proposed university band practice shelter.

This proposed facility, to be built in an area

providing unobstructed views to the border¬

ing lake and along a notable segment of

Madison’s Park and Pleasure Drive system

requires a design that is responsive to the

area’s character and sensitive features.

Again working from 35 mm slides of the

area, a stage-set apparatus was built in which

several scale models of proposed design solu¬

tions for the practice facility were placed.

This combination of elements provided an

opportunity to evaluate the models in terms

of position, form, color, and texture against

the “backdrop” of the existing context. As a

result an exhaustive list of design recommen¬

dations were tested, evaluated and estab¬

lished before any construction took place.

Community Applications —

In the Fall of 1985, fourteen students in

Landscape Architecture focused upon down¬

town Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. In this ad¬

vanced design studio, the project scope en¬

compassed social-demographic considera¬

tions, development of a land-use and open-

space master plan and analysis and design of

retail structures in the downtown district.

Detailed elevation drawings, depicting how

the appearance of each building could be im¬

proved, were created by the students.

An outgrowth of this project was a large

model representing recommended improve¬

ments for each building in the four block

area of the downtown (Fig la,b). The model,

representing each of the eight blockfaces,

was elevated to shoulder height, so that peo¬

ple could move through the model and ex¬

perience how the downtown would look if

recommendations were implemented. The

model was also video taped by placing the

video camera on a cart with the operator,

and moving the cart through the space be¬

tween each block of the model to represent

the dynamics of driving through the down¬

town.

Overhead Transmission Lines —

Several years ago, B. Murray and

B. Niemann (Professor, U.W. Madison, De¬

partment of Landscape Architecture) pro¬

vided testimony concerning whether over¬

head transmission lines should be con¬

structed in the vicinity of the Cross Plains

unit of the National Ice Age Reserve (the

Reserve). Among the numerous exhibits

used were illustrations depicting the visual

impact associated with overhead lines. Util¬

izing photographs of the site, with wood

poles in place, including installed insulators,

the electric lines were rendered in the

photograph. This simulation served to il¬

lustrate how overhead transmission lines

would alter views to and from the Reserve

from certain vantage points within and

around the Reserve. Graphite pencils were

used to illustrate the variegated play of light

on the surface of the lines. At certain times

during the afternoon, light would be re¬

flected from the lines creating white lines

against a darker background of land and

1986]

Murray and Law— Landscape Planning and Design

31

Fig. 2b. Computer-generated image simulating proposed building changes.

32

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

vegetation thereby increasing the visibility of

overhead lines. The utility was subsequently

required to place the lines underground in

order to preserve the visual quality of the

Reserve.

UW Emission Control Facility —

To illustrate the effectiveness of dynamic

simulations in environmental planning, com¬

puter generated graphics were used to il¬

lustrate the addition of an emissions control

system to an existing heating plant on the

University of Wisconsin campus (Fig 2a, b).

These images provide the viewer with the op¬

portunity to quickly add or subtract the pro¬

posed addition to a plan, elevation or per¬

spective view of the present structure. In ad¬

dition, the computer images could be rotated

to give the viewer the impression of “walk¬

ing” around the structure. Such a dramatic

technique not only serves the viewer with a

vicarious experience of the setting but gives

the designer the capability to quickly

manipulate and evaluate several alternative

solutions.

Benefits of Visual Simulation

While the reasons for using visual simula¬

tions and some of the past and present uses

have been discussed, little has been said

about the benefits derived from such work.

The principle objective associated with

simulation use is the ability to evaluate alter¬

native futures and proposed actions. For ex¬

ample, what will the environment look like,

what will be the relationship of spaces, and

what materials, colors, and textures should

be used to complement the existing land¬

scape?

Simulation is intended to provide valid,

reliable, and useful information about the

visual landscape to those who manage the

environment, who promulgate and imple¬

ment policy, and who plan and design

physical changes in the environment. In

other words, simulation is intended to pro¬

vide information to improve the quality of

decision-making with reference to envi¬

ronmental management as well as to change

and modification. Simulation can also help

identify and specify problems that will

emerge that might otherwise be ignored or

misunderstood. It can provide information

based on empirical data rather than on

guesses and intuition, thus providing an em¬

pirical basis for the establishment of new ap¬

proaches to environmental planning, man¬

agement and design.

Whenever growth occurs, environmental

modification will occur. Hundreds of

thousands of new environments are changed

or created each year, ranging from indi¬

vidual housing developments to clearcutting

on the National Forests. Evaluating all such

environments after alteration would be an

enormous costly and inefficient undertak¬

ing. One way to gain a better understanding

of the impact of these changes on our visual

environment is through simulation. Simula¬

tion studies provide a means for assessing

the nature of the environmental impact

before a project begins. This information

makes it possible to modify, fine-tune, or

abandon the proposal before any irreversible

action takes place. Thus, simulation pro¬

vides a cost-efficient means to evaluate a

range of solutions and their associated costs.

Simulation can also be used to improve

communication problems between and

among participants involved in the design/

planning process and enhance public partici¬

pation by facilitating heightened under¬

standing of potential impacts. In many

cases, simulation is perceived as an integral

part of the planning/design process. There

are several reasons for this. First, it provides

an early opportunity for interested parties to

participate directly in the design/planning

process. Second, it gives the user the ability

to utilize the simulated options as an educa¬

tional tool, informing clients as to what is

possible and how the solution is responsive

to the project objectives— -that is, to their

needs and wishes. And third, it gives both

1986]

Murray and Law — Landscape Planning and Design

33

the client and the designer/planner an op¬

portunity to explore the meanings each

derives from the several options.

Visual Simulation Course:

Theory and Practice

It is apparent from the preceding sections

that public policy legislation and review has

resulted in the creation of instruments that

require an analysis of environmental, eco¬

nomic and social impacts as a prerequisite

for granting authority to proceed with cer¬

tain types of development. It is also evident

that visual simulation has been and is being

incorporated into some decision-making

issues. Lastly, the point has been made that

benefits are derived from carrying out visual

simulations that may either stand alone or

accompany other aspects of environmental

impact assessment. If one can accept the

relevance of visual simulation, a cogent

question requiring an answer is “how are in¬

dividuals prepared to perform visual simula¬

tions through public and private entities and

for many different types of clients?” Univer¬

sities can provide an important resource for

advancing the science of visual simulation.

One response can be found in the Depart¬

ment of Landscape Architecture at the Uni¬

versity of Wiscon sin - M adison . In the Spring

of 1986, a course entitled “Visual Simula¬

tion in Landscape Planning and Design”

was offered for the first time. The purpose

of this required course is to involve graduate

students in the ethical, theoretical and prac¬

tical dimensions of the art and science of

visual simulation.

Conclusion

The profession of landscape planning and

design is experiencing the growing use of

more complex and sophisticated techniques

for visual representation. As more tech¬

niques are developed and refined, landscape

simulation will continue to be used as a

means for evaluating the visual effects of

human-altered environments. At present,

however, the administration of public pol¬

icies requiring visual impact evaluations

such as NEPA and WEPA are not accom¬

panied by the consistent use of simulations.

This poses a new set of challenges for plan¬

ning and design professionals. In response,

the Department of Landscape Architecture

at the University of Wisconsin has intro¬

duced a new course designed to help prepare

and inform students about the advantages

and potential pitfalls associated with visual

simulation work. The authors believe it is

evident from the case studies reported that

the University has established a solid foun¬

dation in this important area in the educa¬

tion of future landscape planners and de¬

signers.

Notes

1 Norwich, J. J. 1979. Great Architecture of the

World . New York: Bonanza Books.

2 Goode, P. 1984. Humphrey Repton. Landscape

Planner: Avant la lettre. Landscape Architecture.

74(l):54-56.

3 National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Visual Resource Management Program. 1980. U.S.

Government Printing Office: 0-302-993.

WOMAN AS EROS-ROSE IN GERTRUDE STEIN’S TENDER BUTTONS

AND CONTEMPORANEOUS PORTRAITS

Doris T. Wight

Baraboo, Wisconsin

As the blind glass of the opening still-life

of Tender Buttons , 1 Gertrude Stein presents

herself like the Greek seer Tiresias. She is

our prophet, our Sibyl. And like Tiresias and

the typical Sibyl, she is of ambiguous sex.

While clearly female physically in real life,

Stein thinks of herself as male in the great

poetry of her 1913 Tender Buttons— one of

the keys to this work that many baffled

readers have missed. Earlier, in fact, in

Stein’s lesbian-autobiographical novel

Things As They Are , Adele/Stein actually

exclaims at one point,

“I always did thank God I wasn’t born a

woman.”

In “Objects,” the second section of the

triad “Objects,” “Food,” and “Rooms”

that comprise Tender Buttons , Stein intends

to view simultaneously, both subjectively

and objectively, the world “out there.”

Understandably, things nameable emerge on

her writing tablet in a complicated form.

One half of Stein partakes of, yet criticizes,

the hard handsome glory of the male spirit

dominant in the second still-life of Tender

Buttons, GLAZED GLITTER. But Stein’s

second half feels the debasement, yet soft

sensual appeal of the female, seen in anthro¬

pomorphic, dualistic thinking as matter

itself, and objectified in A SUBSTANCE IN

A CUSHION, the third still-life of “Ob¬

jects.”

Characteristically, while the Sibyl takes an

intellectual stance, she is not sexless; instead,

knowing herself erotically drawn to women

rather than to men, she comes into the posi¬

tion of Sappho. And the Sapphic passion —

in Gertrude Stein’s case her desire for Alice

Toklas — is one of the ecstatic messages

expressed cryptically in the tiny exploding

still-lifes and in similar imagistic passages

within the more abstract meditations of

Tender Buttons. For while the sheer poetry

of WATER RAINING, A PETTICOAT,

RED ROSES, A SOUND, and multitudes of

other little poetic bursts can be interpreted in

a single dimension as statements about Prag¬

matic philosophy, often they also present

fleeting insights into the charms of the

female human being; and these erotic pre¬

occupations emerge in phrases, lines,

sentences, paragraphs, everywhere, just as

Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams

found human desire all-pervasive in the

human unconscious. And if Gertrude Stein,

Sibyl and Sappho both, thus mixed abstract

philosophy with concrete poetry, it was

inevitable. For Stein’s chief endeavor in

writing Tender Buttons was to effect a

reconciliation between the competing claims

within her of thinking and feeling, of the

dualism in her own subjective being that she

projects onto the shifting external objects of

her contemplation.

To study Gertrude Stein’s imagery pre¬

senting woman as aesthetic object in Tender

Buttons I will for the moment concentrate,

with grossly simplified poetic analysis, on a

single poem, one that seems among the least

obscure and is certainly among the most

charming.

A PETTICOAT

A light white, a disgrace, an ink spot, a rosy

charm. (471)

There happen to be exactly 17 syllables

here, as in the Japanese haiku, if one counts

the title as part of the poem— which of

course one does not do in haiku, since haiku

usually lack titles. What is important is that,

like haiku, Stein’s poem uses the juxtaposi-

34

1986]

Wight— Woman As Eros-Rose

35

tion of ideas and the connotations of words

to create the message, rather than cause-and-

effect logic. At first glance A PETTICOAT

appears to promise a series of qualities

defining a woman’s undergarment, but a

second look shows a certain light-hearted

confusion— for an ink spot is not typical of

petticoats! An ink spot is a sign of soiling,

however, casting a blight on the white purity

of the woman’s intimate apparel, and per¬

haps by association, therefore, with the

virtue of the woman’s body beneath the

petticoat too? Or is the implication that

using ink, perhaps writing or the profession

of a writer, damages a woman’s femininity,

signified by her rosily charming undergar¬

ments? The poem insists that some disgrace

is involved in petticoats, or at least in one of

these items. There is clearly what one almost

always has in Stein: a riddle, a mystery-

even an implied narrative.

From a strictly external view, the poem

has the air of a perfect little song. The

accented syllables of the title A PETT'I-

COAT' and of the last phrase “a ro'sy

charm'” are identical, as are the intervening

three phrases, “a light' white'” and “a

dis ' -grace'” and “an ink' spot'” so that

the whole can be thought of as either linear

or circular, or both. And when finally the

lost pattern of the title comes back in the

final phrase, we breathe a sigh, fulfilled by

the perfection. Assonance working behind

the scenes along with alliteration gives the

flounces needed to create the pretty petti¬

coat.

Of course there is much more to A

PETTICOAT than mere sound-charm. The

sound-charm (magical incantation?) reflects

the sense charm, ready to be fathomed. A

petticoat is a little, light thing, a “female”

thing as opposed to a big heavy garment like

a male’s overcoat; it is, moreover, an under¬

garment, an appropriate metapor for the

more protected sex. Read in the context of

its surrounding poems in Tender Buttons ,

AN UMBRELLA (an object which also

flares out roundedly) and A WAIST (here

described as gliding in slim charm like a

star), the femininity of the petticoat is

strengthened all the more.

A PETTICOAT begins with the phrase

“A light white.” What is the meaning here?

The allusion may be to difference itself, with

the reader’s attention drawn to the fact that

“white” is not merely an abstract idea, but

exists in many different particular white

things. Or perhaps as she often does, Stein is

transferring a word or part of a word from

its own place to another; and if she is using

such a device here, “a light white” might be

“a white light,” perhaps a spotlight, or just

a white dot or spot to contrast with the third

phrase of this still-life, “an ink spot.” As it

happens, the still-life directly preceding A

PETTICOAT ends with the word “dot.”

Such trails, like the fact that the poem

directly following also contains the word

“disgrace,” must be followed as one

unwinds Stein’s twisting threads. Some

appear less significant than others, but there

is no avoiding the all-pervading color

symbolism of Tender Buttons.

Returning to the idea of different shades

of white, we might discover “cream” as one

of the possibilities. Cream is not pure

blazing white, but a yellowish-white color; it

happens to be one of Stein’s code- words for

the delightful and fulfilling life. Associations

with cream — milk, ice cream, custard, cows,

the country, meadows, milking stools, even

roast beef (the cow cooked) in Stein’s writing

signify hedonistic pleasure, both sexual and

gustatory ecstasy: the joys of living. Hedon¬

ism and delicate, flippant joy in hedonism

were expressed to perfection by writers in

Stein’s favorite period in English literature.

Robert Herrick also wrote of petticoats2 and

the disgrace of “a sweet disorder in the

dress.” Stein’s vocabulary in A PETTI¬

COAT, both in word and thought, is inter¬

estingly similar to Herrick’s, and his telling

young women to gather rosebuds while they

may in “To the Virgins to Make Much of

Time” reminds one of Stein’s virgin in IN

BETWEEN, which deepens the erotic level

36

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

of A PETTICOAT (brackets below give my

suggested reading):

IN BETWEEN

In between a place and candy is a narrow

foot-path that shows more mounting than

anything, so much really that a calling

meaning a bolster measured a whole thing

with that. A virgin a whole virgin is judged

made and so between curves and outlines and

real seasons and more out glasses and a

perfectly unprecedented arrangement between

old ladies and mild colds there is no satin

wood shining. (472)

[“In between a place’’ (place of delight;

also, place is a chime for “Alice) “and candy’’

(the sweet of desire) “is a narrow foot-path’’

(a difficult place to travel) “that shows more

mounting’’ (reference to mounting excite¬

ment, or mounting as taking a sexual position)

“than anything. . . .’’ The “bolster’’ can be

“the bold sister”; also, might be an age

reference to Gertrude and Alice, several of

which occur within Tender Buttons, whom

Gertrude alludes to as “yellow” or “mellow”

or as “mutton” rather than lambs in

MUTTON; this poem in fact ends on the age

question, with allusion to Gertrude and

Alice’s “perfectly unprecedented arrange¬

ment,” which differs from one made between

“old ladies” (sexually cold, presumably) and

the hotter one between women like Stein and

Toklas as “mild colds” (only mildly olds). “A

whole virgin” (an intact virgin) is judged

“made” (maid; also, made a virgin, but “un¬

done” voluntarily). Stein plays throughout

with the idea of “wholeness,” “holeness,”

and perhaps even “holiness” and “evil” if the

“satin” in the last phrase is Satan.]

Another suggestive little scene, here of

intercourse and its aftermath, occurs in RED

ROSES, the poem directly preceding IN

BETWEEN:

A cool red rose and a pink cut pink, a

collapse and a sold hole, a little less hot. (472)

[Something “red” (code word for woman,

with the “something” here her private part;

could also refer to male’s organ) that was

“cool” (not stimulated) “rose” (became

excited and swelled; if male organ, became

erect) while “a pink” (one person’s pink part,

lips or nipple or finger-“pinkie” or private

part) “cut” (inserted itself into) “pink”

(another’s intimate body part). There was a

collapsing (emission and/or deflation), and

“as for the old hole, it was a little less hot

after that”; or there may even be an obscene

reference to “old ass hole.” (I will not go into

matter here, but Stein matches Joyce’s early

scene in Ulysses that shows Leopold Bloom

performing his bowel functions with her

Tender Buttons poems A BROWN and A

PAPER.]

The poem that follows IN BETWEEN and

RED ROSES is called COLORED HATS,

and may be one of the clearest references in

Tender Buttons to the trip to Spain that

Stein and Toklas took as Gertrude ran away

from the strained situation with Leo at their

apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus and tried to

decide what to do.3 Avila was one of the

places that Stein and Toklas visited and

loved, and Avila is a place that happens to be

famous for its colored hats. In Avila Camilo

Jos6 Cela writes

In the regions of Barco de Avila,

Piedrahita, Hoyocasero — and occasionally in

the city itself — we can still sometimes see

women wearing the pleasing gorra of curled

straw. It is a tall helmet-like hat adorned with

different coloured wools ... of material

coloured according to a woman’s condition. If

she is a spinster the material is green, red for a

married woman and black for a widow. It is

curious to notice how often in their dress we

see Castilian women wearing some adherence

to colours indicating virginity, married state

or widowhood. . . .4

With this in mind, one reads Stein’s

COLORED HATS with new understanding,

finding in the poem meaningful references to

women’s married-state conditions like preg¬

nancy (“broad stomachs”) and childbirth

(“the least thing is lightening”) and to their

virginity-associated conditions like menstru¬

ation (“custard whole”). One even sees a

reference in COLORED HATS to the virgin

“Saint Teresa, the “Little Flower” who is

1986]

Wight— Woman As Eros-Rose

37

everywhere worshipped in Avila, as well as a

jocular reference to Louisa May Alcott’s

virginal Little Women and perhaps even to

Pearl, the sinning Puritan Hester Prynne’s

bastard child. (In this quotation my inter¬

pretations occur within the quoted poem

itself, enclosed in brackets. To making read¬

ing easier, Stein’s own words are italicized.)

COLORED HATS

Colored hats are necessary to show that

curls [“girls,” indicated by a rhyming word

and also by association of “girls” and

“curls”] are worn [worn out, exhausted —

what Stein had observed as a medical student

helping to deliver babies] by an addition of

blank spaces [extra spaces, thus pregnancy],

this makes the difference between single lines

[virgin’s lines] and broad stomachs, the least

thing [the baby] is lightening [makes the

mother weigh less when it is born], the least

thing makes a little flower [a little flow-er of

water and blood, as well as a little flower or

bud-baby, one saintly like St. Teresa] and a

big delay [de-lay, pun of the lengthy laying-in

process of birth] a big delay that makes more

nurses than little women [children, virgins,

also women little again after childbirth] really

[materially, factually] little women. So clean is

a light that nearly all of it shows pearls and

little ways [weighs, weights, reference to mat¬

ter] . A large hat is tall and me and all custard

whole. (473)

The allusion to children in COLORED

HATS, the little things that lighten broad

stomachs, is repeated two poems later in A

LITTLE CALLED PAULINE, where Stein

announces that a ‘Tittle” (a baby) called

by any name whatsoever “shows” (signifies)

1) mothers (half-rhyme with “shudders”),

2) udders (perfect rhyme with “shudders”),

3) shudders (literal quivers in Stein, who

while assisting in the delivery of babies as

part of her medical training had been so

appalled at the process of childbirth):

A LITTLE CALLED PAULINE

A little called anything shows shudders. . . .

(473)

To return however, to the comparative

innocence of PETTICOAT. Besides fem¬

ininity, A PETTICOAT features another

important Stein theme: her writing. This is

the idea behind “an ink spot” (both pubic

hair and “ink’s pot”) which leads ultimately

to the relief of “a rosy charm.” Alluring in

her saucy undergarments, Miss Alice Toklas

is a light white or white light beacon. She is

also a disgrace if the world sees her as what

she is, Gertrude’s lesbian lover.

To support this contention and my inter¬

pretation of the petticoat poem, let us look

at female figures in the portraits written at

the same time of Tender Buttons. In many of

these portraits Alice Toklas5 is the heroine

who comes to “save” Gertrude by her loving

support and her erotic charms which awaken

Stein to the poetry of life. Naturally, images

of woman as eros-rose, Beauty, are more

indirect in Stein’s Tender Buttons, which

seeks to personify through objects, than in

her portraits, which attempt to render living

people. The images of erotic woman in the

portraits, while still disguised through obfus¬

cating language, should be relatively easy to

fathom, but for many critics this has not

been the case, and many do not locate Alice

Toklas behind all the multiple-image tempt¬

resses “Susie Asado” and “Preciosilla” and

as the fellow gypsy with Gertrude Stein in

“A Sweet Tail (Gypsies).” Richard Bridg¬

man even discounts Carl Van Vechten’s sug¬

gestion that the famous flamenco dancer la

Argentina was one of the female images

behind these portraits.6 Similarly, other

excellent critics such as Marjorie Perloff in

The Poetics of Indeterminacy,1 James

Mellow in Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein &

Company ,8 and Wendy Steiner in Exact

Resemblance to Exact Resemblance: The

Literary Portraiture of Gertrude Stein,9 all

appear confounded because there may have

been more than one dancer seen by Gertrude

and Alice in their wanderings in Spain when

the portraits were written, or for other

overly-specific reasons. However, if one

38

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

allows that multiple, ambiguous identifica¬

tions are true, but that behind them all is

invariably the figure of Alice Toklas, every¬

thing falls into place, and one can relax and

attend to Stein’s experiments in these por¬

traits and in Tender Buttons, where Ger¬

trude Stein tried in words, like her Cubist

friends in their medium, paint, to render the

rhythms, sounds, shapes, colors of the

external world.

In “Susie Asado” Stein gives us, in one

erotically pulsing woman, a nursery rhyme

tea hostess, a chirping bird, a Japanese

geisha, a Spanish dancer clicking her heels

down in a silvery-lit Madrid night spot or

“cellar,” a witch from MacBeth, an incubus

riding a victim, Alice Toklas as Gertrude’s

“sweetie” or “Sweet T[oklas]” serving tea

at 27 rue de Fleurus, and many other

versions of all the beckoning desirability of

Nature seen as female Being. Here in its

entirety, with selective decodings, is “Susie

Asado,” wherein Stein presents one of her

most vivid images of woman as enchantress,

yet combines this with a possible philosophic

questioning about the nature of matter and

even a suggested solution to the problem of

human suffering (again, brackets are my

hints on a reading, and to aid the reader I

have italicized Stein’s own words):

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

Susie [Jewsy, choosey, choose me] Asado

[as I do].

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.

Susie Asado [Mikado, the Japanese

geisha reference].

A lean on the shoe [the Spanish dancer,

perhaps la Argentina] this means slips [lips]

slips hers [slippers].

When the ancient light grey is clean it is

yellow, it is a silver [“la Argentina,” “the

Silver one”] seller.

This is a please [request] this is a please

[appease], there are the saids to jelly [“jelly,”

a black jazz word referring to Jellyroll Morton

who played piano in a brothel, was a code

word for intercourse in Stein’s story in Three

Lives about a black girl named Melanctha;

also here are the jelly and the “he said, she

said’s” of the ladies’ tea party]. These are the

wets [wets, sweets] these say the sets to leave a

crown to Incy [inky] .

Incy is short for incubus.

A pot [pot, spot, belly] . ^4 pot is a beginning

of a rare bit [rarebit] of trees [cheese]. Trees

[also tease] tremble, the old vats are in bobbles

[bubbles, bubbling vats of Macbeth’s witches,

women as creators of magical brews] , bobbles

which shade [spade] and shove [shovel] and

render clean [rend her clear], render clean

must.

Drink pups [drink ups: kisses, suckings].

Drink pups drink pups [The doubling here,

as in other Steinian words and phrases and

lines, creates mutual participation] lease a

sash hold, see it shine and a bobolink [woman

as bird, a favorite Stein association] has pins.

It shows a nail [an “ale” as intoxicating

beverage brewed by witches; also an “ail,” a

pain of sentient desire].

What is a nail [“a nail” can be “an ail,” so

that Stein asks, “What is an ail?” or “What is

a feeling of pain? What is sensation?” These

are favorite questions of the Gertrude Stein

who studied philosophy with William James.

Also, these words may be read in another

Steinian way, as making a statement of defini¬

tion of the word “what,” or “matter, sub¬

stance.” Stein tells us in that way of reading

the sentence, “ ‘What’ is an ail,” meaning that

the philosophic questions concerning “what-

ness, substance,” are an ail, a painful prob¬

lem, for us humans].

What is a nail [Stein repeats her phrase,

underscoring her point, or forcing us to shift

ground, cubistically, to constantly new views

of the words’ possibilities. Stein could be

asking simply about a materially substantial

“nail” with a specific function, a pointed

object the purpose of which is to join sub¬

stances together]. A nail is unison [union;

Stein answers her own question, as she will

ultimately in Tender Buttons, by combining

intellectual meaning and sentient drives in

humans and all nature. The answer favors

unity, yet there are a plurality of strands being

united, not a dualistically conceived mutually-

exclusive spirit or matter. The solution is

Pragmatic, joyously sensual, celebrating eros

and woman]. Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet

tea [Stein ends by drinking the witches’

1986]

Wight— Woman As Eros-Rose

39

delicious poison offered by her bewitching

Alice]. (549)

“Preciosilla” is another rhythmic marvel,

ending with the same dark-skinned

(“toasted’*) Susie, Gertrude’s “Jewsie” (her

pet name for Alice), her “precious silly,”

again her favorite “cream” dish or dessert

after she has told brother Leo, now no

longer a member of the household but an

unwelcome guest, to “Go”:

. . . diamonds white, diamonds bright,

diamonds in the in the light, diamonds light

diamonds door diamonds hanging to be four,

two four, all before, this bean, lessly, all most,

a best, willow, vest, a green guest, guest, go go

go go go go, go. Go go. Not guessed. Go go.

Toasted susie is my ice-cream. (551)

The dancer in the companion portrait to

“Susie Asado,” “Preciosilla,” does more

than dance. Bait, Preciosilla’s clothes are

torn off, and she is urged towards a “single

mingle,” union, in the third paragraph:

“Bait, bait, tore, tore her clothes toward it,

toward a bit to ward a sit, sit down in, in

vacant surely lots, a single mingle, bait and

wet . . .” (550)

This is obscene, as is the title of “A Sweet

Tail (Gypsies)” obscene. And again in “A

Sweet Tail” there is depicted what can be

construed as an explicit scene of intercourse

between two women (“curves”). “Hold in

that curl [girl] with a good man,” Stein tells

herself, assuming the male point of view,

and teasing herself and us with all sorts of

jokes and puns and meaningful suggestions

involving holes in cheese, and pinnings, and

a petticoat beloved, whom she urges to

“come”; the portrait of the wandering

lovers embracing even ends with the “dear

noise” of orgasmic bliss:

Curves. Hold in the coat [goat, go at]. . . .

Hold in that curl [girl] with a good man. Hold

[hole] in cheese. ... A cool brake [“break”

with Leo, again the invisible third party] . . .

Come a little cheese \please]. Come in to sun

with holy pin [hole leaping] and have the petti¬

coat to say [save] the day ... a dear noise [an

orgiastic moan, an “Adear” or “Ada(r)”

noise, Ada being a code name for Alice in

Stein's writing]. (571-74)

Whether as the synecdochic petticoat who

brings rosy charm at last to a disgraced Ger¬

trude; or as the “Ada” who inspired Ger¬

trude to write a loving portrayal of herself in

Stein’s very first portrait; or as the “she”

who comes bringing salvation to Gertrude in

the revelatory portrait “Two: Gertrude Stein

and Her Brother,” which documents Ger¬

trude’s and brother Leo’s falling-out; or as

the glittering dancer “Susie Asado” or

“Preciosilla”; or as Gertrude’s fellow

expatriate in Spain, one of the pair of Wan¬

dering Jews in “A Sweet Tail (Gypsies)”— in

whatever shape or form she assumes, always

behind Stein’s Sapphic and Sibyllic images

of women at the time of Tender Buttons and

the companion portraits blooms the eros-

rose Alice Toklas.

Notes

1 See Tender Buttons in Selected Writings of Gertrude

Stein ed. by Carl Van Vechten, New York: Random

House, 1962, 459-509. An excellent preliminary analysis

of Tender Buttons can be found in Richard Bridgman’s

Gertrude Stein in Pieces. New York: Oxford University

Press, 1970. To understand the thinking of Gertrude

Stein, however, one should read William James’ Prag¬

matism along with Tender Buttons, for the philosophy

of James, Stein’s teacher at Radcliffe, colors her

thought throughout. One of the best articles on Tender

Buttons is Neal Schmitz’s “Gertrude Stein as Post-

Modernist: the rhetoric of Tender Buttons,” Journal of

Modern Literature, 3 (1974), 1203-1218.

2 Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder” in The Literature

of England, 5th ed. 1, Ed. George K. Anderson &

William E. Buckler. Chicago: Scott Foresman & Co.

1958. 1007.

A sweet disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness. . . .

A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat. . . .

Like Stein, Herrick is suggestively fond of feasting

with cream and other goodies. In “The Wake” (an

annual parish festival) he urges his beloved to “Come,

Anthea, let us two/Go to feast, as others do,” for

“Tarts and custards, creams and cakes, /Are the junkets

still at wakes ...” 1005-6.

40

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

The inclusion of this note on a poet from English

literature gives me the opportunity to point out how

deep were Stein’s knowledge of, and love for, this

literature and the English language itself, which is why I

chose to cite a large historical compilation rather than

merely a volume of Robert Herrick’s poetry. Stein read

avidly and constantly in English literature, and the

riddles of early English literature, in fact, provide one

key to Stein’s writing style, as do the classical rhetorical

devices found so abundantly in Stein’s particular pas¬

sion, Shakespeare.

Stein’s language experiments, it is true, usually follow

thoughts metonymically rather than metaphorically,

and so she often does the opposite of what medieval

allegorists and nineteenth century Symbolists did.

Understanding this is one of the keys to understanding

Stein’s writing. Study of Roman Jakobson’s article on

Aphasia is helpful here: see “Two Aspects of Language

and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances” in Funda¬

mentals of Language » The Hague, 1956, 55-82, and the

use to which David Lodge puts this material in “The

Language of Modernist Fiction: Metaphor and Meton¬

ymy” in Modernism 1890-1930. Middlesex, England,

Penguin Books Ltd., 1976. In the end, Stein avails

herself of a multitude of possibilities of thought and

language extension, and to read her one must adopt an

elastic approach.

3 Carl Van Vechten, Two: Gertrude Stein and Her

Brother and Other Early Portraits 1908-1912. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1951.

4 Barcelona-Madrid : Editorial Noguer, S.A., 5th ed.,

1964, 26.

5 Van Vechton’s Selected Writings contains several of

the Toklas portraits to which I will refer, “Susie

Asado,” “Preciosilla,” and “A Sweet Tail (Gypsies).”

6 Bridgman, 138.

7 Perloff, Marjorie. “Poetry as Word System: The

Art of Gertrude Stein.” The Poetics of Indeterminacy.

New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981.

8 Mellow, James R. Charmed Circle, Gertrude Stein

& Company. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974.

9 Steiner, Wendy. Exact Resemblance to Exact Re¬

semblance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.

ASPECTS OF MORALITY IN THE MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE AGES

John Holzaepfel

Madison , Wisconsin

I

For discipline has no more open pathway to the mind than through the ear.

Boethius, De institutione musica

In his classic study of medieval aesthetics,

Edgar de Bruyne identifies St. Augustine as

the principal source of transmission of Bib¬

lically-oriented aesthetics for the Middle

Ages.1 In the fervor of faith following his

conversion, Augustine himself formulated

several unprecedented aesthetic theories. His

abundant writings about music lead to C. J.

Perl’s conclusion that, for Augustine,

music communicates a knowledge about God,

indeed the very knowing of God, and more¬

over, as becomes clear from the manner of

expression, it mediates this knowledge more

clearly, more directly, than could words by

themselves.2

This “very knowing of God” is a process

involving the interrelation of sound and

time, and the regard of the mind toward that

interrelation. Thus does the regard — the

modes of perception and response — in turn

constitute a significant measure of the

morality of any culture; the following is a

study of that regard in the Middle Ages.

The numerical aspect is the most well-

known. The Greek view of the relation

between music and numbers, attested to by

numerous writers of antiquity,3 can be seen

through Lewis Rowell’s neat summation:

To the Greek mind, the experience of

musical rhythm was an outward manifestation

of man’s biological rhythms and the proper

proportions of the world of forms he

inhabited. For rhythm to work its effects upon

man, it must be intelligible to his sense

perception ...» and his apprehension of

rhythms required him to form mental images

that resembled the sounds he perceived. In this

way he was brought into tune with the world

of external forms in a totally balanced, har¬

monious, mental and physical state.4

The mental imagery was number and

proportion, as Pythagoras had discovered.

But it should be emphasized that rhythm was

meant not only as pulse and metre. To the

Greeks, music was primarily verse, and

rhythm connected music with language.5

This aesthetic, “mathematics incarnate in

physical form,”6 was transmitted to the

Middle Ages through the enormous influ¬

ence of the Timaeus of Plato (specifically, in

the commentary on it written in the 3rd cen¬

tury by Chalcidius) and— more importantly

for music — through the writings of Boeth¬

ius. Boethius asserted the superiority of the

speculative over the practical in music — the

superiority of musica disciplina , as it was by

this time known, over musica sonora. This

division was partly the result of an attempt

by Boethius’ contemporary Cassiodorus to

distinguish the liberal arts (numerous in

Greek antiquity, reduced to seven by

Martianus Capella in his Marriage of

Mercury and Philology) by designating those

dealing with human affairs (the trivium of

grammar, logic or dialectic, and rhetoric) as

artes, the remainder (the numerically-related

quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music

and astronomy) as disciplinae. All of the

artes liberates were in antiquity originally

known as propaideumata , and affinities had

41

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existed between them.7 Indeed, Boethius

himself, in his last work, has Philosophy call

upon:

. . . the sweet persuasiveness of rhetoric, which

can only be kept on the right path if it does not

swerve from our precepts, and if it harmon¬

izes, now in a lighter, now in a graver mood

with the music native to our halls.8

But there is little doubt that, in Cassiodorus’

terminology, the trivium was seen as

inferior, artes triviales — primarily utilitarian

and “wholly propaedeutic” themselves to

the abstract speculation afforded by the

quadrivium. 9

Boethius, through a tripartite division of

musica into mundana (the music of the

spheres), Humana (that of both the body and

the soul), and instrumental is (the sound),

reinforced this hierarchy, elevating it

(perhaps unintentionally) to an aesthetic

principle that dominates both the theory and

aesthetics of music throughout the Middle

Ages. The appeal was to the mind, to ratio,

through number and the properties of num¬

ber, through the medieval belief that the

mind could perceive images of a Divine

Order in an otherwise terrifying and mean¬

ingless universe. These images (and all things

and ideas were, in the Timaean account,

only images: diversities proceeding from an

essential unity) could be subjected to

speculation (from speculum, mirror) by

deducing numerical proportions in them — a

wholly interior activity of the intellect — and

subsequently reflect some aspect of nature’s

manner of operation within Divine Order.

The speculum showed how things act when

they thus belong to a type.

However, problems arise when we try to

determine any kind of comprehensive corres¬

pondence between this view of music and the

influence it had on both the thought and

action of the Middle Ages. “Medieval theory

reduced the idea of beauty to that of per¬

fection, proportion, and splendor,” wrote

Huizinga.10 It is not at all certain that

medieval practice did so. Huizinga goes on,

many treatises on the aesthetics of music were

written, but these treatises, constructed

according to the musical theories of antiquity,

which were no longer understood, teach us

little about the way in which the men of the

Middle Ages really enjoyed music . . .n

We need not acquiesce in Huizinga’s harsh

conclusion that “substituting for beauty the

notions of measure, order, and appropriate¬

ness offered a very defective explanation of

it,”12 in order to see one thing clearly: the

aesthetic record is but part of the reality of

the medieval musical experience.

One problem is that the aesthetic record

reflects, in the main, the concerns of the

Church: “Musical sensation was immedi¬

ately absorbed in religious feeling.”13 This

originated with Augustine, himself acutely

sensitive to the aural enticement of music, of

the “peril of pleasure.”

Yet when it befalls me to be more moved with

the voice than the words sung, I confess to

have sinned penally, and then had rather not

hear music.14

Augustine’s solution to this moral dilemma

was to make of music a metaphor for com¬

munication with God. In the Middle Ages,

the emotions were seen as the effects of the

senses on the mind, and the senses were

lowest in the structure of the mental facul¬

ties, to be superintended by imagination,

reason, and intelligence. And Denis the

Carthusian, also aware of the emotional

effects of music, was reduced, in an age of

increasing Christian domination, to describ¬

ing them in terms of sin. 15 Christian doctrine

was more secure when it could absorb

musica sonora into musica disciplina.

The Greeks had done this too. Sachs wrote

that the scholars of antiquity attempted to

classify melodies (which originated in

improvisation, with little or no thought

given to such representations as vibration

ratios), calling this classification “a sham

legalization of lawlessness,”16 one that

persisted into the Middle Ages, in the form

of the church modes. These modes were de-

1986]

Holzaepfel — Music of the Middle Ages

43

signed to house pre-existing chant melodies

(which “in notation look so neat and equal-

tempered”), and all modes relied on the

octave to delineate range; the melodies them¬

selves “had no octave at all or at best one

that served in a passing capacity.” 17

But doctrine is one thing, devotion

another. And if Carrolly Erickson is correct

in maintaining that religious devotion in the

Middle Ages “followed a rhythm of its own,

and did not correspond in any direct way to

the maturing of ecclesiastical institutions or

to the political victories or defeats of the

church,”18 the capacity of the written record

to account for the relation of music to

morality is even further reduced.

Another problem quickly follows: the

overwhelming proportion of extant medieval

art is Church art. In fact, musica sacra is all

that survives of early medieval music, al¬

though Sachs asserted that secular song was

both socially and politically more important

in the daily life of the time. 19 So the question

finally turns into an old one: how much do

the treatises have to do with the moral

concepts and conduct of their time? If a

connection existed between music and

morality, even a unity such as obtained

between morality and science (through the

links of grammar and poetry), it must be

looked for beyond the realm of number, in

other modes through which the mind per¬

ceives and represents the world.

II

Sight is often deceived, hearing serves as guarantee.

Ambrose of Milan, Commentary on St. Luke

Two historical events unique to the Middle

Ages can help bring the problems into focus.

One event was musical: the advent of

polyphony in a musical tradition which until

the ninth century had been exclusively

monodic. “The invention of polyphony was

undoubtedly the most significant event in the

history of Western music,” Richard Hoppin

flatly and rightly declares.20

The other event, which preceded poly¬

phony (indeed, made it possible), was the

advent of musical notation. As part of a

larger process involving a gradual shift in the

orientation of the medieval mind from a pre¬

literate, predominantly oral-aural mentality

to a predominantly literate-visualist one, this

phenomenon was cultural in a more compre¬

hensive way. Both can be examined in the

light of the other great theory of music

handed down by the Greeks, the doctrine of

ethos, described by Aristotle in the Politics:

. . . melodies themselves ... do contain imita¬

tions of character . . . with the rhythms the

situation is the same. . . . From all this it is

clear that music is capable of creating a

particular quality of character in the soul. . . .

There also seems to be a close relation of some

sort between the soul and harmoniai and

rhythms, which is why many wise men say

either that the soul is a harmonia or that it

contains one.21

If melodies imitate character, notation imi¬

tates melodies; sight imitates sound. What

was the origin of music-writing?

The medieval belief, persistent in sub¬

sequent eras, was formed by the Gregorian

legend during the Carolingian Renaissance.

Leo Treitler has facilitated understanding

how this legend succeeded in its purpose, by

drawing a parallel with the modern view of

musical invention and transmission:

A corpus of music has originated in a

certain time and place and through the agency

of a particular person [in the one view,

Gregory I receiving chant melodies from the

dove; in the other, the composer writing under

the guidance of divine inspiration]. At the

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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

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moment of its origin it is written down. The

repertory has spread through a transmission

that has left a multiplicity of versions [ in the

one view, varying mss. of the same chant

melody; in the other, differing copies and edi¬

tions of the same work]. After some time it is

observed that the versions do not agree with

one another. This is interpreted as the conse¬

quence of a process of corruption, and an

editorial enterprise is undertaken to restore

and establish the original. As standard for the

enterprise a source closest to the point of

origin, an original version is sought [in the one

view, through the efforts of Charlemagne and

Alcuin, in the other, through the efforts of the

Urtextherausgeber] . 22

But Treitler argues that the original

purpose of music-writing was descriptive.

The earliest extant examples of proto¬

notation appear to consist of punctuation

signs borrowed from script writing placed in

relation to the chant text so as to show the

singer where to pause, lengthen a word or

syllable, inflect the voice, etc., all in relation

to a previously known melody. They were

visual aids to the memory of sounds, sup¬

porting the “performance of a text already

known and accepted.” The later diagram¬

matic notation of the anonymous musica

enchiriadis and the musica disciplina of

Aurelian of Redme, both dating from the

ninth century, display evidence of the

earliest attempts to actually picture the

sound-space of a melody by placing both the

notation symbol (the neume) and the text

syllable at points in space corresponding to

the pitch location of the melody.23

The Gregorian legend was a tool of policy

in the ecclesiastical history of the Holy

Roman Empire, a tool used in the Carolin-

gian literacy campaign. “The script culture

that the Carolingians created is the general

background against which the foundation of

a notational practice becomes understand¬

able.”24 The campaign itself was theological,

the liberal arts now serving in toto as

propaedeutic to the understanding of the

Scriptures. In a realm whose governing was

obstructed by numerous vernacular varieties

of Latin, to say nothing of native Germanic,

Frankish, Slavic, even non-Indo-European

dialects, a uniform and standard repertory

of chant melodies offered a persuasive, even

seductive means to solve the political prob¬

lem of polyglottism. Codifying the melodies

by encasing them in the eight church modes

narrowed the tonal unorthodoxy. The estab¬

lishment of standardized Latin as the

language of the Roman Church was brought

about in large part through music- writing, a

process that made its first appearances about

fifty years after the beginning of Charle¬

magne’s campaign. “The occidental nota¬

tional system is par excellence a control

system,” wrote Charles Seeger, a statement

that is applicable on several levels, musical,

cultural, political — and thus moral.25

But control is not the end of the matter.

The evolution of the word from symbol to

fact (the former an ancient, even prehistoric

awareness inherited by the Middle Ages, the

latter wholly foreign to the medieval mind,

familiar enough to the modern) can be found

condensed in subsequent developments of

medieval music notation:

The idea of a control system is just the right

way to think about the role of notation in an

oral performing tradition. Yet there is a point

beyond which controls operate so closely and

so constantly that the notation becomes in

actuality a system of direct representation

rather than of controls. When it functions that

way, notation has realized an ideal that was

expressed by writers on music . . . from

Carolingian times to the thirteenth century—

for [57c] explicit notations that could be read

off by performers coming to them cold, for

prescriptive rather than descriptive notations.

. . . When writing is conceived in the light of a

complete equivalence between uttered [or

sung] sound and written sign it can function

as an autonomous mode of direct communica¬

tion, and no longer just as an aid to memory.

26

Polyphony had undoubtedly been in the

air. It should be emphasized at this point

1986]

Holzaepfel— Music of the Middle Ages

45

that it is evident, from their manner of

discussion, that authors of the early treatises

on polyphony— Regino of Priim, Hucbald,

and the anonymous author(s) of the musica

and scholia enchiriadis — were describing

something that had existed in practice for

some time. Poor ensemble is as eternal as

Divine Order, and in a group performance

of monody this heterophony, to use the

modern euphemism, must frequently have

hinted at the possibilities inherent in inten¬

tional divergence. The medieval belief that

some of the mysteries of nature could not be

understood by the intellect alone is reflected

in a question asked in the musica enchiriadis:

why do certain tones sound well in combina¬

tion, while others do not? A speculative

answer is offered, one which, in its deference

to the past, typifies the medieval spirit and

connects both parts of the Greek tradition:

There are several writings of the ancients in

which it is convincingly shown . . . that the

same numerical proportions by which differ¬

ent tones sound together in consonance also

determine the way of life, the behavior of the

human body, and the harmony of the uni¬

verse.27

Now, Bukofzer could say, “polyphony

deserves to be called the image of universal

harmony rather than monody.”28

Polyphony— the deliberate simultanaiety

of two or more musical lines— signalled an

incorporation of the plurality of the world of

sound into an unprecedentedly complex and

powerful symbolic of harmony. The ancient

belief in this symbolic became audible.

Horizontal and vertical truth, never re¬

garded by the Middle Ages as contradictory

or dualistic, could be heard. “The discipline

of music,” Cassiodorus had written earlier,

is diffused through all the actions of our life.

. . . Musical science is the discipline which

treats of numbers in their relation to those

things which are found in sounds.29

Polyphony was not just a new dimension to

this, but a fusion: musica disciplina become

musica sonora.

Or confusion? In medieval grammatical

and philosophical usage, one sometimes

meant the other, i.e., con/fusion seen as

“coming together” or “intertwining.”

Polyphony could appeal to the imagination,

through the construction of images (here,

consonances) reflecting order, and to the

intellect— ratio— through numerical porpor-

tion. But its impact on the aural sense was

the most perplexing and the most dangerous.

The medieval concept of the psyche was of a

tripartite mind: “The recollective faculty is

placed at the rear [of the head], the

speculative power is foremost, and reason

exercises its power at the center.”30 Sound

infiltrates the first two on its way to the

memory, from which it is then often impos¬

sible to eradicate. Polyphonic sounds in the

memory could be activated — relocated from

sense outward through reason to specula¬

tion, where they could reflect the harmony

of the mind with the external world from

which they came. As the temptation grew to

make polyphony more complex and sophisti¬

cated, so did ideas of order, ideas of music

and time.

Ill

Music reveals, beyond the manifestations of the senses,

the inner will that arouses them.

Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea

It is useful to here reiterate that the tradition, improvisation, and non-intellec-

invention and performance of early medieval tualism.”31 The foundations of music, then,

music were oral, and relied “on memory, were not sacred/political — the Church

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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

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merely appropriated practice— but sacred/

societal, or more accurately, sacred/ com¬

munal; the heritage stems from the tribal

era,32 a world of sound and memory but not

yet of order. Noise, writes Jacques Attali, is

a source of power. “It is sounds and their

arrangements that fashion societies. With

noise is born disorder and its opposite: the

world.”33 The evolution of order parallels

the development of consciousness, and here

we must briefly turn to the affinities between

music and rhetoric.

All human culture was . . . initially rhetorical

in the sense that before the introduction of

writing all culture was oral. This means not

merely that all verbal communication — there

are obviously other kinds of communication—

was oral, effectively limited to sound, but also

that the economy of thought was oral.

So writes Walter Ong in his essay on

Rhetoric and the Origins of Consciousness.34

This economy is a result of the nature of

sound. It is not just that sound was an essen¬

tial means of communication and survival in

oral cultures. Sound is unique among the

senses in that it is polysemous. Its signals

embody multiple meanings, are susceptible

to multiple interpretations, because sound,

unlike the signals to the other senses,

presents itself not in sequence but in simul¬

taneity. Furthermore, since “hearing can not

eliminate selectively — there is no aural

equivalent of averting one’s face or eyes,”35

of spitting out, of withdrawing touch-

sound is inescapable.

Rather than trying to make distinctions,

rhetoric unifies, by working “through the

imagination, which euphemizes actuality

through hyperbole and antithesis.”36 In

music, actualities are hyperbolized as well.

The perception of sustained and repeated

sounds, both macro- and microcosmic, were

fashioned into images of order. This order,

rhythm, became sacred when one could sub¬

mit to it in return for protection (from the

threat represented in the multiplicity of the

sound-world) and security (which became

belief and eventually, knowledge). In this

way music is linked as semiotics with the

rhetoric Ong claims “clearly occupies an

intermediary stage between the unconscious

and the conscious.”37

Sachs provocatively suggested that rhythm

“played no essential role in the music of

ancient and medieval Europe,” substantiat¬

ing this by pointing to the almost total

absence of percussion instruments in both

Antiquity and the Middle Ages. And

Johannes de Grocheo, writing ca. 1300,

stated that no monody (sacred or secular)

was it a precise mensurata ,38 Rhythm was a

necessity only in terms of the dance. But

dance, being of the flesh, was inferior to

song, which, carrying the Word, was at least

potentially of the spirit.

Nonetheless, “the major new preoccupa¬

tion of composers and theorists of music in

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries [was] the

coordination of time, a newly recognized

dimension for musical ordering,” writes

Treitler. “The regulation of two or more

voices in respect of both pitch and time

created a new level of complexity. It called

for decisions to be made in advance”— de¬

cisions now in the hands of the composer —

“and communicated, through notation” —

now a set of instructions which restricted

improvisation and were to become more and

more specific— “to performers. The effect

of this was a tendency to fix music, both

conceptually” — ideas of what music was and

what it could be used for — “and nota-

tionally — not for canonical reasons”— these

were beginning to lose, ever so gradually,

their validity— “or initially for aesthetic

ones” — these would be noticed later — “but

primarily for practical purposes.”39

But why regulation, and why the tendency

to fix? The Timaean universe created by God

was one of perfect, perpetual, harmonious,

circular motion. If in the medieval mind

morality was a process of subservience, of

submission, of self-imposition, why the

growing need to control the external world

of sound? Perhaps it was not to facilitate

1986]

Holzaepfel — Music of the Middle Ages

47

finding one’s place in the Divine Plan, not

another allegory of world harmony, but a

symptom of the soul in disharmony.

The major change in the mind of man . . .

which distinguishes the Middle Ages from

antiquity and which caused the fundamental

reconstruction of man’s basic concepts and

attitudes is centered around the act of re¬

directing the path of causality.40

Redirection began with the birth of

Christianity, “God’s personal entry into his¬

tory,’’41 and the consequent concept of

linear time. This concept generated the

medieval distinction between vertical and

horizontal truth, allegory and typology, and

originated with Augustine. Augustine pre¬

sented his discovery of the relation of time to

memory in the eleventh chapter of the Con¬

fessions:

I am about to repeat a Psalm that I know.

Before I begin, my expectation is extended

over the whole; but when I have begun, how

much soever of it I shall separate off into the

past, is extended along my memory; thus the

life of this action of mine is divided between

my memory as to what I have repeated, and

expectation as to what I am about to repeat;

but “consideration” is present with me, that

through it what was future, may be conveyed

over, so as to become past. Which the more it

is done again and again, so much the more the

expectation being shortened, is the memory

enlarged; till the whole expectation be at

length exhausted, when that whole action

being ended, shall have passed into memory.

And this which takes place in the whole

Psalm, the same takes place in each several

portion of it, and each several syllable; the

same holds in that larger action, whereof this

Psalm may be a part; the same holds in the

whole life of man, whereof all the actions of

man are parts; the same holds through the

whole age of the sons of men, whereof all the

lives of men are parts.42

In chapter 12, Augustine distinguishes

between sound and music; “a tune is a

formed sound.” Time is the sine qua non of

one becoming the other:

... for we do not first in time utter formless

sounds without singing, and subsequently

adapt or fashion them into the form of a

chant, as wood or silver, whereof a chest or

vessel is fashioned. For such materials do by

time also precede the forms of the things made

of them, but in singing it is not so; for when it

is sung, its sound is heard; for there is not first

a formless sound, which is afterwards formed

into a chant. For each sound, so soon as

made, passeth away, nor canst thou find

ought to recall, and by art to compose. So

then the chant is concentrated in its sound.43

Memory of events creates the awareness of

time. Time in turn is the vehicle of sound

and music. For sound to become music, it

must do so at the time it exists; it cannot be

refashioned. It must be fashioned entirely

within the present , its own presence . “But

the present, should it always be present, and

never pass into time past, verily it should not

be time, but eternity.”44 Music is thus an

intermittent glimpse (hearing, really) of

eternity, passing in and out of existence with

time. But why is the present not always

present?

Here we may turn to Augustine’s earlier

De musica libra sex , to the final book, in

comparison with which the first five were

“child’s play.”45 We return to the realm of

musica speculativa , of numerical propor¬

tion. Augustine posits a level of numbers,

and traces them upwards, each level evoking

a new layer of consciousness: hearing

through the reacting numbers, recognition

through the memorial, pronunciation

(singing?) through the advancing, delight

through the judicial, appraisal through “still

others, and in accordance with these more

hidden numbers we bring another judgment

on this delight, a kind of judgment on the

judicial numbers.”46 Then we find a new,

Augustinian insight:

And, if we have been right in our judgment,

the very sense of delight could not have been

favorable to equal intervals and rejected

perturbed ones, unless it itself were imbued

with numbers; then, too, the reason laid upon

48

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

this delight cannot at all judge of the numbers

it has under it, without more powerful num¬

bers.47

This, O’Connell believes, implies that

reacting numbers— embodying sound— are

at the bottom of a cascade of numbers pro¬

ceeding from God, and that the even deeper

implication, therefore, “is that the

intelligible is, quite literally, a ‘remembered’

world, one of which the soul is literally re¬

minded, to which it needs to be recalled.”48

That the experience of time is a reflection

of the soul’s fall from grace is an idea that

recurs in the Confessions. After discussing

the memorial-temporal relation and apply¬

ing it to the whole life of mankind, Augus¬

tine adds, “but because Thy loving-kindness

is better than all lives, behold, my life is but

a distraction.”49

Plotinus had written that the soul passes

from an original, timeless state into motion,

and that “time moved with it.”50 Being in

time means motion in time. It is a fallen

condition; we have been “sewn into the

order” of time as a consequence.51 In the

Augustinian meaning, the original sin was

tripartite: through 1) curiosity, the soul was

seduced into 2) “carnal concupiscence,”

which, by detouring the soul’s attention to

the body, results in 3) neglect of the soul’s

true master, God.52 Original sin was the

result of what Plotinus called the element of

“restlessly active nature” contained in the

soul;53 the world of time is the punishment

for that sin by prolonging it. The world we

perceive through the lower levels of numbers

is a product of our morality.54

But morality, as the Middle Ages knew, is

in use, specificially, in bene utendo. The

mind could be freed from time by using

time. Had human nature remained obedient,

it “should have no such connections as are

contingent on birth and death.”55 The

implication could not be more clear: time

and sin are coeternal. Through the use of

time to transcend time, music could com¬

municate the very knowing of God. Truth,

the Middle Ages also knew, depended on the

accuracy of reproduction of an idea.

Notes

1 de Bruyne, Edgar, The Esthetics of the Middle

Ages, trans. E. B. Hennessy. New York: Frederick

Ungar, 1969. p.44.

2 Perl, Carl Johann, “Augustine and Music,”

Musical Quarterly, XLI, 4 (October 1955), 507.

3 Strunk, Oliver, Source Readings in Music History.

New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1950. pp. 3-56.

4 Rowell, Lewis, “Time in the Musical Consciousness

of Old High Civilizations — East and West,” in The

Study of Time, III, ed. J. T. Fraser, N. Lawrence and

D. Park. New York: Springer- Ver lag (1978) 606.

5 Georgiades, Thrasybulos, Music and Language.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. p. 4.

6 de Bruyne, op. cit, p. 48.

7 Kresteff, Assen D., “ Musica Disciplina and Musica

Sonora ,” Journal of Research in Music Education, X, 1

(Spring, 1962), 13.

8 Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy , trans.

S. J. Trester. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1923.21-25.

9 Kresteff, p. 18.

10 Huizinga, J. The Waning of the Middle Ages.

Garden City: Doubleday and Co., n.d. (originally publ.

1924) p.267.

11 ibid., p. 268.

12 ibid., p. 269.

13 ibid., p. 267.

14 Augustine, Confessions, trans. E. B. Pusey. New

York: Pocket Books, 1951. p. 202.

15 Huizinga, pp. 267-68.

16 Sachs, Curt, “Primitive and Medieval Music: A

Parallel,” Journal of the American Musicological

Society, XIII (1960), 44.

17 ibid., p. 46.

11 Erickson, Carrolly, The Medieval Vision. New

York: Oxford University Press, 1976. p. 66.

19 Ibid., p. 43. For another viewpoint on the relations

between Church, music, and medieval life, see

Huizinga, pp. 250-51.

20 Hoppin, Richard, Medieval Music. New York:

W. W. Norton and Co., 1978. p. 186.

21 Barker, Andrew, ed., Greek Musical Writings, v.I.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. pp.

175-76. Elsewhere, Barker elaborates Sach’s issue of the

“sham legalization of lawlessness:” “The harmoniai

are treated as theoretical abstractions of melodic

sequences occurring in actual tunes . . . rather than as

scalar structures consciously adopted by the musicians

themselves to form a predetermined framework for

their melodies.” (ibid. , p. 28 In)

22 Treitler, Leo, “Homer and Gregory: The Trans-

1986]

Holzaepfel — Music of the Middle Ages

49

mission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant,” Musical

Quarterly , LX, 3 (July 1974), 341-42.

23 Treitler, ibid., p. 342, and “Reading and Singing:

on the genesis of occidental music-writing,” Early

Music History 4, ed. Iain Fenlon, Cambridge: Cam¬

bridge University Press, 1984, pp. 141-53 and passim .

Note especially, in the latter article, Treitler ’s observa¬

tion that the concept of music as language is a “topos

that runs through the medieval theoretical literature as

the fundamental principle of musical structure.” (p.

146)

24 , “Reading and Singing,” p. 141.

25 Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend

(1972), pp. 825-29, cited in Treitler, “Oral, Written,

and Literate Process in the Transmission of Medieval

Music,” Speculum, 56, 3 (1981) 488.

26 Treitler, “Oral, Written, and Literate Process in

the transmission of Medieval Music,” Speculum, 56, 3

(1981), pp. 489-90.

27 musica enchiriadis, ed. Martin Gerbert in

Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica medii aevi (St. Blasien,

1784, I, 172), cited in Bukofzer, “Speculative Thinking

in Medieval Music,” Speculum, XVII, 2 (April 1942)

174.

28 Bukofzer, ibid., p. 174.

29 Strunk, p. 88. Compare this with the definition

proposed by Webern, paraphrasing Goethe: “Music is

natural law related to the sense of hearing.” (The Path

to the New Music, Bryn Mawr, 1963, p. 11)

30 Bernardus Silvestris, Cosmographia, trans.

W. Wetherbee. New York: Columbia University Press,

1973. p. 123.

31 Sachs, p. 44.

32 ibid .

33 Attali, Jacques, Noise, trans. B. Massumi. Min¬

neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. p. 6. On

noise as disorder, cf . Kubler, George, The Shape of

Time, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962. p. 20.

“All substantial signals can be regarded both as

transmission and as initial commotions.”

34 Ong, Walter, S. J. Rhetoric, Romance, and

Technology , Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971.

P-2.

35 Ong, Walter, S. J. The Presence of the Word, New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1967, p. 130.

36 Gilbert Durand, Les Structures anthropologiques

de Timaginaire (Paris, 1960), cited in Ong, Rhetoric,

Romance, and Technology , p. 13.

37 Ong, ibid. pp. 11-12.

38 Sachs, p. 46.

39 Treitler, “Oral, Written, and Literate Process,”

pp. 490-91.

40 Kresteff, p. 20.

41 Ong, The Presence of the Word, p. 11.

42 Augustine, pp. 236-37.

43 ibid., pp. 264-65.

44 ibid., p. 224.

45 De Musica, VI, cited in O’Connell, Robert J., S.J.

Art and the Christian Intelligence in St. Augustine.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978. p. 66.

46 De Musica, VI, cited in Perl, p. 503.

47 ibid., p. 504.

48 O’Connell, pp. 66-68, 70-71.

49 Augustine, p. 237.

50 Ennead, III, 7, “On Eternity and Time,” cited in

O’Connell, p. 79.

51 De Musica, VI, 30, cited in O’Connell, p. 75.

52 De Musica, IV, op. cit., p. 74.

53 Ennead, op. cit.

54 O’Connell, p. 84.

55 De Vera Religione, 88. cited in O’Connell, p. 89.

POPULATION ECOLOGY OF ROCK DOVES IN A SMALL CITY

James Krakowski

College of Natural Resources

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

and

Neil F. Payne

College of Natural Resources

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

Abstract:

We studied population dynamics of rock doves (Columba livia) in Stevens

Point, Wisconsin from June 1976 through September 1977. A relatively stationary

population of about 900 rock doves used 112 roosting sites within the city. Eight

communal roosts contained 70% of the population. Rock doves nesting in com¬

munal roosts may be more productive than pairs nesting on houses. Annual incre¬

ment was estimated at 43%, but mortality and dispersal rates were balancing. Rock

doves were relatively healthy; the only zoonosis was Chlamydia , found in 21% of

103 blood samples. Rock doves were considered a nuisance by 37% of 1,299

households interviewed. The rock dove population should be managed by reducing

the number of large roosts and adopting procedures to reduce food sources.

Introduction

Rock doves (feral pigeons) can be found in

almost every urban area in North America,

and are controversial in most. Large concen¬

trations can cause health hazards (Scott

1964), noise, aircraft threats (Solman 1974,

and economic loss (Murton et al. 1972a). By

contrast, they are beneficial scavengers, and

the only large wild bird readily viewed in

downtown areas (Scott 1961). Most efforts

to reduce the population size of rock doves

have temporary effect until the population

recovers through recruitment (Scott 1961,

Murton et al. 1972a). This study was in¬

itiated in response to complaints of nuisance

rock doves. It examines recruitment, nesting

locations, movement patterns to food and

water, and nuisance status of rock doves in a

typical midwestern city to identify weak

ecological links which might be exploited for

population control.

Study Area

The city of Stevens Point in Portage

County, central Wisconsin, contains 24,000

people in an area of 29 km2. Most houses

and business establishments within the inner

core of the city were built between 1870 and

1930. Architectural designs include Italia-

nate, Victorian, Neoclassical Revival,

Prairie, and Southwest Bungalow. Churches

are of the Gothic style with domes showing

Polish influence. Suitable rock dove roosting

and nesting habitat results from the intricate

ornamentation, complex roof structure, ga¬

bles, and long over-hanging eaves of build¬

ings. Such architecture is typical of urban

areas in Wisconsin. Railroad cars transpor¬

ting grain are subject to spillage, and are

emptied and washed in Stevens Point, pro¬

viding rock doves with food. Winters are

severe, averaging 74 days/year when the

maximum temperature is 0°C or below.

Stevens Point averages 122 cm of snowfall/

year.

Methods

From June 1976 through September 1977

daily movements were observed with spot¬

ting scope and binoculars from high vantage

points. Nesting and roosting-site suitability

50

1986]

Krakowski and Payne— Rock Doves in a Small City

51

was identified by the number of rock doves

using the site, amount of overhead cover,

and nesting success after a season of obser¬

vation. Productivity of 15 house nest sites

and 2 church communal nest sites was com¬

pared during summer 1977.

Rock doves were live-trapped with a wood

frame drop net triggered by a pull-string, a

wood frame top-slotted drop-in trap, and

with a fish landing net used in the roosts at

night. Doves were banded, and marked with

color-coded patagial tags and spray paint on

wings to identify individuals and flocks.

Population density was identified by 2

types of monthly observations: doves were

counted in their roosting areas by night, and

at feeding and loafing sites by day. Flock

counts were most effective during winter,

when rock doves concentrated daily at loaf¬

ing areas, and few were on nests. Photo¬

graphs were used to facilitate counts of large

flocks. At intervals each month, daily obser¬

vations of movement patterns to food and

water were made from roofs of various

buildings within the city, and on ground near

roosting, nesting, staging, feeding, watering,

and loafing areas. During winter months,

local rural pigeon roosts were surveyed with

binoculars for marked dispersed urban rock

doves. Doves loaf on roofs of silos, barns,

and other buildings, especially on clear, cold

winter days. Requests were made through

the local newspaper for sightings of marked

rock doves outside of Stevens Point.

Blood samples and cloacal swabs were col¬

lected monthly and analyzed at cooperating

laboratories for the following zoonoses and

blood parasites: influenza, parainfluenza,

Newcastle disease, western equine encephali¬

tis, eastern equine encephalitis, St. Louis

equine encephalitis, California encephalitis,

chlamydiosis, histoplasmosis, blastomyco¬

sis, cryptococcosis, salmonella, Haemopro-

teus , Leucocytozoan , Plasmodium . Blood

was obtained through heart puncture with a

22 guage, 3.8-cm needle used with a 5 cc

vacutainer. All rock doves were returned

alive to the population.

Results

Nesting and Roosting Sites.— Most of the

112 nesting locations found were in the cen¬

tral part of the city where the older houses

and buildings are located. Eight large (<30

birds) nest sites accounted for 70% of

Stevens Point’s rock doves. These large nest

sites were higher than 6 m, protected from

the weather, and inaccessible to humans and

other animals.

Of 970 rock doves, 30% nested on 92

houses. These were older houses with eaves,

dormers, roof support brackets, or other

structures of a characteristic height, shape,

depth, and overhead coverage lacking on

newer houses in the city. A count of 502

houses with apparently suitable nesting

habitat in the community indicated that

12-15% of available nesting structures were

being used. Rock doves roosted mostly

under the dormer eaves and on the brackets.

Single pairs of rock doves occupied the

roost/nest niches of houses. Additional rock

doves roosting at the same site usually were

the pair’s most recent progeny. The mean

height from the ground of a house roost was

Table 1. Results of a survey of all Stevens Point

households with rock doves where the question, “Do

you believe pigeons are a nuisance?” was asked.

52

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

6.5 m. Selection by rock doves of aspect

TV =107) showed no distinct pattern, al¬

though they seemed to avoid west, north,

and south sides of houses.

A complete house-to-house survey of the

central (older) section of Stevens Point,

where rock doves occurred, was conducted

for locations of pigeon activity and to deter¬

mine if people considered rock doves a

nuisance. Of 1,299 people sampled, 58%

thought rock doves were not a nuisance

(Table 1).

Production. — We banded, marked, and

released 284 rock doves, including 56

juveniles, with patagial markers. We

monitored 281 nests (246 nests at 2 churches,

30 nests on 15 houses, 3 nests in trees, 2 nests

at a school).

During April-August 1977, 86% (N=10)

of the house-nesting rock doves nested on

the 15 houses studied intensively. House¬

nesting rock doves usually did not renest

(Table 2) or nest at all during a 5-month

period from late fall to early spring. Hatch¬

ing success of 281 nests observed throughout

the city was 71%. From 544 eggs laid, 288

rock doves (53%) fledged. During April-

August 1977, 70 house-nesting rock doves

fledged 37 young, or 53% of their popula¬

tion, compared to 104% for the 2 churches

studied (Table 2). The number of young pro¬

duced was different (P<0.01, a:2 = 9.47,

Table 2. Productivity of communal nest sites versus house sites in Stevens Point, WI, 1977.

“ Includes renests.

Table 3. Estimated productivity and annual increment for the Stevens Point, WI, pigeon population, 1977.

“ Average N pigeons at roost site.

* Communal roost productivity value of 1 .35 fledglings/nest and 3 nests/year.

c House roost productivity value of 1.23 fledglings/nest and 2 nests/year.

d Total young = nests x productivity value (b or c).

Nr -No (891 +669) -891

Annual Increment =

N;

1560

= 43 °7o

1986]

Krakowski and Payne— -Rock Doves in a Small City

53

df = 2) between the 15 house sites studied

and the communal nest sites in the 2

churches, but the number of fledglings/nest

was similar between 1 of the churches and

the houses (Table 2). On the 15 houses

studied intensively, at least 57% of the rock

doves were non-breeders (Table 2); on the 92

houses with rock doves, at least 28% of the

rock doves were non-breeders (Table 3). In

the 2 communal nest sites studied inten¬

sively, at least 28% of the rock doves were

non-breeders (Table 2); in the 5 communal

nest sites, at least 61% of the rock doves

were non-breeders (Table 3). Overall, 51%

of the rock doves in Stevens Point were non¬

breeders in 1977 (Table 3).

Although more nests were produced in the

1st nest attempt, nest success reached 71%

with the 3rd nest attempt (Table 4), of which

68% were started in June and July. First nest

attempts of the year were 81% successful

during April through July 1977. No eggs

were laid in December and January and no

young fledged in February.

The rock dove population was relatively

stable, fluctuating between 850 and 1,030

birds from May 1976 to August 1977, or

76-89 rock doves/km2 (Table 5). In August

1976, 66% of the population of rock doves

(7V=910) lived in communal nest sites, 32%

on houses, and 2% on other buildings. A

population decline in March 1977 followed a

very cold winter. A decline in May 1977

resulted from more rock doves (140) than

usual being shot by the Stevens Point Police

Department in response to complaints; the

effect on nesting is unknown.

Mortality and Dispersal— We estimated

an annual increment of 43% for the rock

dove population by expanding productivity

values obtained from known church and

house nest sites to the other nest sites in

Stevens Point (Table 3). From January

through August 1977, the mortality of 155

rock doves was accounted for. With an esti¬

mated production of 670 rock doves, 515

rock doves remained unaccounted for. Al¬

though the study period did not cover the

Table 4. Nest attempts of 64 pairs of rock doves at 2

churches and the fate of their 160 nests, Stevens

Point, WI, January-September 1977.

N nest attempts

° Nest mortality = number of nests abandoned or

destroyed before hatching and is part of the unsuc¬

cessful nests.

6 Successful nest = fledged at least 1 young.

Table 5. Monthly census of rock doves in

Stevens Point, WI.

last 4 months of 1977, data from the same

period in 1976 indicated that little mortality

occurred. We found only 8 dead rock doves

from September to December 1976. Much of

this mortality probably was caused by

human-related activities (i.e., shooting, trap¬

ping, road-kills). Such mortality was dif¬

ficult to monitor because some people shoot

and trapped rock doves secretly, and road-

kills often were picked up immediately by

the city sanitation crew. Dispersal, perhaps

to rural roosts, may have been high. No

marked rock doves were observed during 3

visits to adjacent rural roosts in winter

54

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

1976, and no one responded to newspaper

articles requesting sightings of marked rock

doves outside Stevens Point. However, in

1986, a student reported shooting a banded

rock dove in late 1977 at his rural farm

about 10 km from Stevens Point.

We found 4 rock doves killed by hawks, 1

by an owl, 10 by car collision, and 4 by

shooting. We found 4 adult and 88 juvenile

rock doves dead in the 2 church nest sites,

August 1976- August 1977, with a high of 14

dead juveniles in September 1976 and March

1977. Of 53 juveniles patagium-marked at

the 2 churches from May through August

1977, 43% were recaptured there at the end

of August 1977. Others were observed on

ledges outside the churches, on nearby

houses, and at communal nest sites down¬

town.

Tests for zoonoses produced positive re¬

sults only for Chlamydia , which occurred in

21% of 103 blood samples examined for it.

Of 224 blood smears examined for parasites,

3% contained 7 Haemoproteus and 1 sus¬

pected Plasmodium. These results reflect a

low incidence of parasites compared to other

studies (Table 6). No other zoonoses were

found in the 451 blood samples, 384 cloacal

swabs, and 15 fecal samples examined.

Movement to Food and Water.-— The Soo

Line railroad track area within Stevens

Point’s city limits was the main feeding area.

Most rock doves spent at least part of each

day there. After snow melt this source was

augmented by seeds and litter picked up in

an athletic field and throughout the city, but

the tracks were the main food source. Water

was obtained from pools on buildings after

precipitation and from the Wisconsin River.

The Wisconsin River was used more often

during summer.

Observations revealed the following daily

schedule for rock doves in Stevens Point

during summer:

Sunrise to 1 hour after— about Vs of the

city’s rock doves were feeding, courting,

and flying in the Soo Line track area.

Others were occupied with young and/or

eggs or loafed near the roost area.

Rest of morning— the rock doves were

back around the roost site or in its

general area. They loafed in the sun or

picked up food and grit nearby. Noon

through afternoon— the birds were back

at the Soo Line tracks, but not all at the

same time. During this period, small

groups (4-25) were constantly leaving and

flying into the area; only 150-300 birds

could ever be counted at any one time at

the railroad tracks. However, during this

period most of the city’s rock dove popu¬

lation visited the Soo Line track area as

the primary food source in the city, as

evidenced by color-coded patagial tags

and spray-painted wings.

One hour before sunset to sunset— the

rock doves were in or near the roosting

area, loafing or feeding.

Sunset— all rock doves were roosting.

During winter the schedule changed in

that the rock doves arrived at the tracks 3

hours after sunrise and left 3 hours before

sunset. They spent proportionally more of

Table 6. A comparison of various geographical locations for the incidence of

Haemoproteus columhae in rock doves.

N rock doves

% infection Sampled Location Authority

3.0 224 Stevens Point, WI This study

58.3 60 Henrico Co., VA Jochen 1962

82.2 — Honolulu, HA Kartman 1949

57.7 — Parana, Brazil Giovanni 1946

1986]

Krakowski and Payne — Rock Doves in a Small City

55

their time in the track area during winter

because it was their only food source and no

nesting occurred. Therefore, we saw larger

concentrations (500-800) at the tracks during

winter. Spring and fall were transitional

periods between the 2 schedules.

Discussion

Nesting and Roosting Sites.— Rock dove

roosting/nesting sites in Stevens Point were

characteristic of those in other urban areas

(Potts and Wolmendorf 1960, Scott 1961,

Woldow 1972). Feral rock doves are colonial

nesters like their ancestors which nest in

coastal caves (Gompertz 1957) and roost in

groups (Goodwin 1960). Rock doves in Ste¬

vens Point used only 12-15% of available

house roosts and all available communal

sites. Communal sites were crowded. House

sites may be marginal habitat for rock doves,

perhaps occupied by surplus or subordinate

birds from overcrowded communal sites, as

Murton et al. (1974) suggested.

We observed no seasonal preference of

nesting sites. Rock doves leave sites exposed

to cold weather winds (Woldow 1972), and

move to locations not facing prevailing

winds (Murton et al. 19726). The rock doves

of Stevens Point were observed to avoid

cold winter winds, seek shade during hot

summer days, seek sunlight during cold

winter days, and avoid the north and west

sides of houses which receive the harsh cold

winds of Wisconsin’s winters, and the south

side which was hot during nesting in sum¬

mer. Overhanging eaves of dormers and the

proximity of other houses apparently pro¬

vided enough protection from the weather

all year on some houses. Rock doves used

certain houses as loafing areas during winter

days; these houses had poorly insulated,

gently sloping roofs. Roofs too steep were

difficult to walk on. Poorly insulated roofs

radiated heat which reduced snow and per¬

haps warmed the rock doves.

Population Characteristics. —The relative

monthly stability of the rock dove popula¬

tion probably was due to a combination of

year-round availability of food and water,

relatively few breeders (49%), distributing

reproduction over a long time (9 mo.), and

probably high dispersal rates. The size of the

rock dove population (850-1030) in Stevens

Point may be related to the number of com¬

munal nest sites within the city, food avail¬

ability, and low incidence of parasites and

disease. Four large sites not intensively

studied in the downtown area were used by

300 rock doves, but only an estimated 18%

nested in what may have been generally un¬

suitable nesting habitat with few nest sites.

These sites also may have contained many

young-of-the-year from other sites; young

rock doves marked from the 2 churches were

seen at these sites.

Human-related activities probably were

the major mortality factors for adult rock

doves. Most of the increment of young birds

could not be accounted for later, and may

have dispersed outside the city or the popula¬

tion pressure may have forced subordinate

non-breeding adults to disperse. Because

many fledged young-of-the-year were forced

from their natural area by established adults,

they probably sustained higher mortality

than adults from shooting and trapping.

Fledging success in Stevens Point compared

favorably with that in Maryland (Schein

1954), England (Murton et al. 1972a), and

New Zealand (Dilks 1975) even though

weather extremes are greatest in Stevens

Point. Mortality of squabs may result from

exposure, disease, and sibling rivalry. Mur¬

ton and Clarke (1968) stated that the weak¬

ened condition of adults in late summer due

to moulting, rearing several clutches, and a

lack of food supplies caused higher nestling

deaths. The cold winters of Stevens Point

may eliminate rock doves that are weak or

subordinate. Weak birds which are often

chronic or subclinical disease carriers may

succumb with the added stress of weather.

Subordinate rock doves also may be culled

from the population by exposure to winter

weather.

The 2 church communal nest sites pro-

56

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

duced more young than the house sites partly

because rock doves prefer communal nest

sites; more rock doves are available to pro¬

duce more young there. The apparent dif¬

ference in the number of birds fledged prob¬

ably is due to most birds in the churches

nesting and many renesting. House nesting

birds laid only 1 clutch or did not nest during

a 5-month period. Murton et al. (1974)

stated that rock doves which could not estab¬

lish themselves at their natal area were sub¬

ordinate. Murton et al. (1974) also stated

that reproduction was best at the natal area.

Displaced rock doves from the Stevens Point

communal roosts therefore might not be as

successful.

Ready sources of food and water in

Stevens Point were available throughout the

year only a short distance from the nest sites.

Especially important is the availability of

food and water at the railroad tracks during

winter, when the ground is covered with

snow. The food that is eaten at the tracks is

supplemented by weed seeds found within

the city during spring and summer. Murton

et al. (1972a) stated that food directly af¬

fected the breeding success and size of a

population of rock doves in Manchester,

England. Ricklefs (1972) stated that the

number of clutches is an integral part of the

annual fecundity and depends in large part

on the length of the season that is suitable

for reproduction. Ricklefs (1972) also noted

that the long breeding season in rock doves is

attributed to their varied and flexible diet.

The results of the rock dove nuisance

survey and the complaints which led the city

of Stevens Point to invite and support our

study suggest that rock doves are a valued

wildlife resource, but that the density of 76

rock doves/km2 is too high. Public opinion

must be considered in management objec¬

tives. Efforts should be aimed at maintain¬

ing an acceptable population size by moni¬

toring and managing on an annual basis.

Temporary rock dove control, such as shoot¬

ing, trapping, drugging, poisoning, repel¬

lents, or destruction of nests and eggs, have

been tried in other cities with relatively little

success (Scott 1961) because they are short

term in effect. The public often is offended

by many of the temporary control measures

(Penn 1965). Some of these are of value

when used in conjunction with more perma¬

nent measures.

Control efforts should concentrate on nest

site elimination and prevention. These

methods offer permanent control and have

been part of successful rock dove control

programs (Potts and Wolmendorf 1960,

Scott 1961). In the case of Stevens Point, the

dependable source of food at the railroad

station was probably the key factor, especi¬

ally in winter, in maintaining the population

of rock doves at 76-89/km2. The daily prac¬

tice of washing out grain cars with hot water

provided a regular source of food, grit, and

water during these critical months. Reduc¬

tion of the rock dove population probably

would occur if the station could reduce the

spillage of grain atop grain cars and on the

tracks, and if it could wash the cars less

often, inside a building, or on top of a single

catch basin to which the birds were pre¬

vented access.

Acknowledgments

The city of Stevens Point and the Univer¬

sity of Wisconsin-Stevens Point provided

financial assistance. We also thank many

undergraduate and graduate students of the

University for assistance.

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banizing environment. Coop. Ext. Serv., Univ.

Massachusetts, Amherst.

Woldow, N. L. 1972. Studies on the reproductive

capacities of birds with a field study of the

feral rock dove, Columba livia, L., in the ur¬

ban environment. Ph.D. thesis, Rice Univ.,

Houston, TX. 169 pp.

IDENTIFICATION OF WISCONSIN CATFISHES (ICTALURID AE) :

A KEY BASED ON PECTORAL FIN SPINES

Weldon Paruch

West Bend , Wisconsin

Abstract

A key to the pectoral fin spines of the freshwater catfish of Wisconsin is pro¬

vided and these are compared with the spine characters as described from regions

adjacent to or near Wisconsin. The key is based upon the size, shape, and orienta¬

tion of the spines and the bony structures found on them.

Introduction

Identification of catfish species is not

always easy. Conventional means of identi¬

fication are such features as the number of

anal fin rays and the color of chin barbels,

which are not always conclusive since there is

considerable overlap between species. For

example:

Overlap of anal ray counts in the genus Ictalurus

(Slastenenko 1958, Pflieger 1975, Becker 1983).

analyzing pectoral fin spines alone, most

Wisconsin catfishes can be identified to

species.

Since pectoral fin spines are persistent

bony structures they are useful in providing

the biologist with an important tool for the

identification of badly decomposed speci¬

mens, skeletal materials, and food habits of

fish-eating birds, mammals, and reptiles.

Materials and Methods

The following key to the spines of the

ictalurids of Wisconsin is based upon the

observation of spines from 571 Ictalurus

melas, 102 Ictalurus natalis, 83 Ictalurus

nebulosus, 60 Ictalurus punctatus , 4 Pylo-

dictis olivaris , 145 Noturus gyrinus , 74

Noturus flavus, and 44 Noturus exilis.

Personal collections were made from the

Oconomowoc River and from the Wisconsin

River, but the principal source of specimens

was the Museum of Natural History at the

University of Wisconsin in Stevens Point.

In this study the right pectoral spine, while

held at right angles to the body was removed

flush with the body using a jeweler’s saw.

The portion of the spine removed included

the main shaft and its toothlike projections

(barbs). Fin tissue was thoroughly teased

from the spine with pins, razor, and forceps

using a 20X dissecting scope. Characteristics

of the ventral side of the spine were noted.

Occasionally bony material on the dorsal

side obscures size and shape of some barbs.

The bottom (ventral) side of the spine

often shows important distinguishable

features more readily than the top (dorsal)

side. This is particularly true near the base of

bullhead spines where bone on the dorsal

side often obscures detail. Hence all draw¬

ings of the right pectoral spine which follow

are made from the bottom (or ventral) side.

If one were to lay a fish upon its back with

the tail pointing away, the spine on the right

would be in the same position as the draw¬

ings in the key. Drawings of spines indicate

typical shape and average adult size.

58

1986]

Paruch— Identification of Wisconsin Catfishes

59

Terms used appear as follows:

posterior (trailing edge)

Results

Key to Spines of the Ictaluridae of Wisconsin

la. Barbs not present on posterior edge . 2

lb. Barbs present on posterior edge .... 3

2a. Anterior notches prominent, wide, and

deep, extending from tip at least half¬

way along shaft of spine. Surfaces of

the base half of spine smooth and un¬

furrowed.

3a. Barbs present on both posterior and

anterior edges.

FLATHEAD CATFISH

Pylodictis olivaris (Rafinesque)

posterior

STONE CAT

Noturus flavus Rafinesque

posterior

2b. Anterior notches, if present, are

delicate and short, and limited to near

tip. Both dorsal and ventral surfaces of

spine deeply furrowed.

TADPOLE MADTOM

Noturus gyrinus (Mitchell)

posterior

anterior

anterior

3b. Barbs present on posterior edge only 4

4a. Barb heights steadily decreasing from

tip of spine to base, showing consistent

strong inclination toward base.

CHANNEL CATFISH

Ictalurus punctatus (Rafinesque)

anterior

4b. Barb heights not steadily decreasing

from tip of spine to base some upright

or showing inclination away from the

base . 5

\ cm

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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

5a. Barb heights on posterior edge of spine

equal to or greater than one-half the

diameter of spine shaft at point of barb

attachment.

BROWN BULLHEAD

Ictalurus nebulosus (Lesueur)

7a. Barbs from tip to mid-spine similar in

size, shape, and spacing. Barbs not

pyramidal in shape (as an isosceles

triangle).

YELLOW BULLHEAD

Ictalurus natalis (Lesueur)

posterior

anterior

5b. Barb heights on posterior edge of spine

noticeably shorter than one-half the

diameter of spine shaft at point of barb

attachment . 6

6a. Anterior notches extending from tip at

least halfway along shaft of spine.

SLENDER MADTOM

Noturus exilis Nelson

posterior

anterior

l CYvx

6b. Anterior notches, when present,

limited to tip of spine . 7

posterior

7b. Barbs from tip to mid-spine not similar

in size, shape, and spacing. Barbs often

pyramidal in shape (as an isosceles

triangle).

BLACK BULLHEAD

Ictalurus melas (Rafinesque)

posterior

anterior

Discussion

Black Bullhead

The pectoral spines of the black bullhead

are the most variable of Wisconsin catfish

species, showing few consistent character¬

istics (see ill. under 7b of key). For this

species spines with weak barbs have been

reported from Illinois (Paloumpis 1963),

Missouri (Pflieger 1975), Canada (Scott and

Crossman 1973), Ohio (Trautman 1957),

and Wisconsin (Becker 1983). Illustrations

of black bullhead spines from Missouri,

Canada and Ohio are smooth edged, lacking

barbs.

According to Trautman, the spines of

many young and some small adults may be

“somewhat serrated.” In Illinois, Forbes

and Richardson (1920) reported that weak

teeth occur only in adults, and Paloumpis

(1963) has observed barbed spines at all ages.

All the Wisconsin black bullheads I exam¬

ined had barbs on the spines; however

Becker (pers. comm.) reported that some in-

1986]

Paruch — Identification of Wisconsin Catfishes

61

dividuals “may have only the faintest

resemblance to barbs.* ’ Although the barbs

in the drawing by Becker (1983, p. 145) are

less well defined than those I observed, their

small size and irregularity allow correct iden¬

tification to species using the above key.

Other characteristics of bullhead spines

that may be useful are the anterior serrations

and the anterior notch(es). The anterior edge

of the black bullhead spine is generally

smooth; however anterior serrations, when

present, are small and limited to the part of

the spine closest to the base (see ill. under 7b

in the key). The anterior notch(es) near the

tip of the spine appear(s) in Wisconsin black

bullheads although not well defined. This

characteristic has also been reported by

Paloumpis (1963) from Illinois.

Brown Bullhead

The barbs near the tip of the pectoral

spine of the brown bullhead point toward

the base, those in the middle are erect, and

the barbs near the base point toward the tip

(see ill. under 5a of key). Spines from Illinois

brown bullheads (Paloumpis 1963) are sim¬

ilarly described.

Brown bullhead spines as illustrated from

Missouri (Pflieger 1975), Ohio (Trautman

1957), and Wisconsin (Becker 1983) show

shorter barbs than those I observed in my

Wisconsin specimens. In Ohio (Trautman

1957) and Canada (Scott and Crossman

1973) brown bullhead spines exhibit several

short barbs near the base of the spine.

Yellow Bullhead

The barbs on the spines of the yellow

bullhead in Wisconsin tend to be smaller,

sharper, and more numerous than those of

the two preceding species (see ill. under 7a in

key). In Wisconsin specimens a few near the

base point toward the tip.

Pectoral spines of yellow bullheads from

Illinois (Paloumpis 1963), Canada (Scott

and Crossman 1973), and Ohio (Trautman

1957) are similar to those on Wisconsin fish.

It is noted however, that in individuals from

Canada and Ohio, the barbs at the base of

the pectoral spine were shown inclining

toward the base instead of toward the tip.

Apparently there is plasticity in the mor¬

phology of yellow bullhead pectoral spines

as observed from different parts of its range.

Despite this, such fish would key out cor¬

rectly with the instrument provided above.

Anterior notches and serrations in the

spine of the yellow bullhead are common as

they are in Illinois (Paloumpis 1963) but

their taxonomic use still needs determina¬

tion.

Channel Catfish

Barbs on the pectoral spine of Wisconsin

channel catfish incline toward the base with

barb heights decreasing from tip to base (see

ill. under 4a in key). This characteristic was

diagrammed in the key by Paloumpis (1963).

In Canada (Scott and Crossman 1973)

barbs were found to point in different direc¬

tions on different parts of the spine.

Flathead Catfish

Barbs on the pectoral spine of Wisconsin

flathead catfish are found along the anterior

edge of the spine (anterior barbs pointing

toward the base of the spine) and along its

posterior edge (posterior barbs pointing

toward the tip (see ill. under 3a of the key).

The barbs on the spine of a 24-year-old

specimen I examined were much reduced,

appearing as rounded nubs. Barbs on both

anterior and posterior edges may be im¬

bedded in the soft tissue of the fin beyond

the bony spine.

Stonecat

The characteristic pectoral spine of the

Wisconsin stonecat is illustrated under 2a in

the key. The anterior notches are sharp-

pointed and inclined toward the base. They

are — as Taylor (1969) describes — “recurved

hooks.” In Wisconsin the posterior edge of

the pectoral spine is smooth but Taylor finds

62

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

it “roughened or sometimes with a few

serrae behind.”

Illustrations of pectoral spines of stone-

cats from Canada (Scott and Crossman

1973) and Michigan (Taylor 1969) are similar

to Wisconsin specimens and can readily be

identified to species with the above key.

Tadpole Madtom

The pectoral spine of the tadpole madtom

is short, deeply furrowed on both dorsal and

ventral surfaces, lacks barbs, and the

anterior notches, if present, are delicate and

short (see ill. under 2b in key). Descriptions

of tadpole madtom spines from Ohio (Traut-

man 1957) and Canada (Scott and Crossman

1973) agree with my observations. Illustra¬

tions by Pflieger (1975) and Taylor (1969) of

pectoral spines from Missouri specimens

agree with my observtions and can easily be

identified to species with the above key.

Slender Madtom

The barbs on the pectoral spine of the

slender madtom in Wisconsin are generally

columnar, blunt-tipped, and occasionally

with flat tops having small projections (see

ill. under 6a in key). The barbs are generally

perpendicular to the shaft of the spine,

although some inclination of barbs is not

unusual. Often barbs close to the tip lean

toward the tip. Taylor (1969) also found

barbs “usually straight, but sometimes bent

outward or inward.’’

The distinct anterior notches or “retrorse

hooks” (Taylor 1969) extend from the tip at

least halfway toward the base of the spine.

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Dr. George C. Becker for

critical reading of the manuscript and for his

helpful suggestions.

Also, Sharon A. Paruch is to be thanked

for her work on the drawings.

Literature Cited

Becker, G. C. 1983. Fishes of Wisconsin. Univ.

of Wis. Press. 1052 pp.

Forbes, S. A. and R. E. Richardson. 1920. The

Fishes of Illinois. Ill. Nat. Hist. Surv. Bull. 3.

1-351.

Paloumpis, A. A. 1963. A key to the Illinois

species of Ictalurus (Class Pisces) based on

pectoral spines. Trans, of the Illinois Acad.

Sci. Vol. 56(3): 129-133.

Pflieger, W. L. 1975. The Fishes of Missouri.

Missouri Dept, of Conservation. 343 pp.

Scott, W. B. and E. J. Crossman. 1973. Fresh¬

water fishes of Canada. Fish. Res. Board

Canada, Ottawa. Bull. 184. 966 pp.

Slastenenko, E. P. 1958. The freshwater fishes of

Canada. Kiev Printers, Toronto. 383 pp.

Taylor, W. R. 1969. A revision of the catfish

genus Noturus Rafinesque with an analysis of

higher groups in the Ictaluridae. Smithsonian

Inst., U.S. Natl. Mus. Bull. 282. 315 pp.

Trautman, M. B. 1957. The fishes of Ohio. Ohio

State Univ. Press, Columbus, Ohio. 683 pp.

SOME MODERN IDEAS IN ANCIENT INDIA

K. S. N. Rao

Department of English

University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

Although the East is often referred to as

an ancient civilization and India recognized

as having had a great past, little is generally

known about Indians contribution to the

world. Some Western writers occasionally

turn lyrical when they speak of India’s

heritage and pour encomium about her

past,1 but there is often a noticeable reluc¬

tance among most Western writers to put In¬

dia before other countries in certain matters

where she has clearly excelled. It is not un¬

common for a Western Indologist to be ex¬

cited on first discovering India’s greatness in

some area and then cool off on second

thought. An excellent example is Max

Muller, who at first was excited but then

became critical.2 Ancient Indian achieve¬

ments were both great and varied, and while

it is impossible to go into a full discussion of

them in this essay, an attempt is made here

to recount and explain some of the modern

ideas which existed in ancient India.3

First and foremost, perhaps, it should be

noted that the word Arya comes from San¬

skrit, the ancient classical language of In¬

dia, and etymologically means “to till,”

while its literal meaning is “noble.” The

word abounds everywhere in India’s ancient

writings. According to Western scholars, the

Aryans came to India and settled by about

2,000 b.c. They developed the art of

agriculture and were the first in the world to

grow rice.4 They domesticated the cow and

got from it milk, butter, and ghee.5 As

civilization advanced, their predatorial

habits disappeared (though it has been

argued that they were never meat-eaters),

and they became vegetarians. They are sup¬

posed to have drunk soma6 (see Aldous Hux¬

ley’s The Brave New World for a reference

to this drink) and much later developed

panchamrita, a drink consisting of five in¬

gredients, used even today on festive and

religious days, probably a forerunner of the

modern punch.7 The swastika sign origi¬

nated in ancient India (and is still used on

religious and other important days), though

the symbol is reversed in the West. The word

swastika is itself a Sanskrit word and means

“the religiously good or auspicious.”

One of the most fascinating things our

ancestors imagined is space travel. Not only

do we have in the first epic, the Rdmdyana ,

an aerial car called Pushpaka that travels

from city to city, from country to country,

and from planet to planet but we have

descriptions of inter-planetary battles. What

is more strange, the plane is an automatic,

pilotless one. Elsewhere there is an account

of crafts used to travel on water, on land,

and in air — all in one craft — with some

specifications.8 In the same epic we have

flights by Hanuman and also building of

bridges across bays— for example, from In¬

dia to the island of Ceylon.

This epic abounds in the description of the

strange and the fantastic. There are, here,

weapons of war and destruction not imag¬

ined elsewhere till modern times. There are

descriptions of weapons, counter- weapons,

counter-counter weapons, and counter¬

counter-counter weapons, and so on.

There is, for example, the fire weapon

(A gnyeyastra), which the hero of one army

might release so as to burn down all that is

on the other side of the battle field, but

before fire envelopes the whole place (com¬

pare napalm or cluster bombs), the oppo¬

nent releases the water weapon (Varunastra)

putting out the fire while at the same time

trying to flood the other side of the bat¬

tlefield. But the hero quickly releases the

63

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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

Wind weapon (Vayuvyastra), which will

disperse the water, and so on. There are even

terrible world-destruction weapons and

missiles like the Aindrastra, Pashupatastra,

Vaishnavastra, and finally the ultimate

weapon, which can destroy the whole world,

Brahmastra. The last one is unstoppable ex¬

cept by the one who releases and knows how

to retrieve it before it hits the target. The

knowledge of these weapons is restricted to

the few who have been taught by a holy

preceptor and who have earned by merit

their secret and use. There is even in this epic

an instance of something like a chemical

weapon (sammohanastra), which makes the

victim lie helplessly foaming at his mouth.

As though this were not enough, we have

one instance in which the hero, Rama, uses a

straw to convert its atom into an atomic

weapon to destroy a demon attacking Sita,

the heroine.

There are strange beings, animals, and

birds, too, in this epic, which we come across

in the volume entitled the Forest Volume

(Aranya Parva) — mis-shaped animals,

animals with huge bodies but extended limbs

with which to scoop up their prey for food,

birds far bigger than the condor (Jathayu),

and later a demon looking like a hill (Kum-

bhakarna). The Ram ay ana also tells of the

Kingdom of the Apes with descriptions of

very advanced skills, organization, and

knowledge of sophisticated weapons, in¬

cluding some battles and skirmishes. There

are many, many noble thoughts, but one of

the thoughts that a successful politician of the

present day might remember is what Rama

the hero is told: A vast ha pujyate Rama,

shafiram na pujyate — it is the office one

holds that is worshipped, not his person. The

Ramayana also affirms a fantastic belief that

life sleeps in matter, breathes through

plants, speaks through animals, and is com¬

pletely conscious in man. The story of

Ahalya, who becomes a stone and rises from

it again, is astonishing in its foreshadowing

of the modern researchers’ finding life in the

deep sea, frozen antarctic, and hard rocks.

In the Bhagavatha the concept of cities

hanging in outer space appears. The story of

Tripurasura (the Three-City Demon), who

owns the city is a terrible story of a demon

who inflicts punishment on those whom he

does not like by descending with his entire

city and alighting on an earthly city! The

idea that a man in outer space is simply sus¬

pended is best illustrated by the story of

Trishanku, who tries to ascend to heaven

bodily and is rejected at heaven’s gate but is

stopped again by the sage Vishwamithra

with the result that the King Trishanku sim¬

ply is suspended in space! The famous Ten

Incarnation stories of Vishnu or the

Dashavatara stories are a remarkable set of

stories which affirm a variety of beliefs.

These incarnations of Vishnu, the Protector,

are believed to have happened in an order

which is fascinating for certain implications.

Vishnu is supposed to have come down to

earth at the request of the human belings,

age after age, to destroy evil and to uphold

righteousness in the following order: the

Great Fish; the Great Tortoise; the Great

Boar; the Great Half-Man and Half-Lion;

the Dwarf Man; Rama with an Axe; Rama,

the Great Archer; Krishna, the Diplomat;

the Compassionate Buddha; and finally

Kalki, although the very orthodox do not ac¬

cept the ninth one. Biological evolution is

clearly and simply illustrated by these in¬

carnations. Social evolution is illustrated by

the gradual advance of weapons of war and

destruction culminating in the most sophis¬

ticated ones mentioned earlier, which are

then followed by diplomacy as a means of

settling disputes and compassion as the

ultimate salvation of mankind. The stories,

moreover, affirm a cardinal principle of

Hinduism that God is realized by each being

at its own level and that God appears to dif¬

ferent people in different ways in different

ages and speaks in different tongues. In the

story of Rama with an Axe (Parashurama),

there is the affirmation of yet another idea —

that it is the father who is the true parent and

who passes on the heritage. For, when his

1986]

Rao — Modern Ideas in Ancient India

65

father, who suspects his wife of infidelity,

tells the son to kill his mother, the son

hesitates to carry out the behest of the father

but finally resolves his dilemma and decides

that it is the father who is the true parent.

The story of Balarama, the older brother of

Krishna, illustrates yet another modern idea.

When Kamsa, the demon, tries to kill all

babies because of the prophecy in heaven

that a certain baby will kill him and become

the king (reminiscent of Herod- Jesus story),

the embryo in the womb of Devaki is

transferred to another woman’s womb and

Krishna’s older brother is saved. Later on, of

course, Krishna is born, taken to a cow¬

herd’s house and is brought up there, and he

finally kills Kamsa. The story of embryonic

transfer dating back some 3,000 and more

years is astounding. The same work contains

the parallel of the story of Noah’s Ark—

with one difference. In the Indian story it is

not pairs of actual animals that are put in the

ark but the seeds of pairs, something that

can be more realistically accommodated in

an ark.

In the second epic, the Mahdbharata (the

longest ever to be composed by the human

mind— it has about 100,000 verses of 32

syllables each, and the epic is in 18 volumes),

we have even more modern ideas. For exam¬

ple, the story of Abhimanyu’s learning the

peculiar war strategy of Padmavyuha (of

organizing a battle army) when it was being

described by Krishna to his sister, Subhadra,

in whose womb the unborn Abhimanyu is

still resting, contains an extraordinary idea

of teaching a fetus and attests to an old In¬

dian belief that one’s education begins in the

womb and ends in the tomb. Again, the birth

of the Pandavas, the heroes of the epic, by

means of the power of the holy spirits of

gods invoked by Kunthi, (and her earlier

pregnancy while yet a virgin without human

intercourse) clearly foreshadows the story of

Christ’s birth. The way in which the 100

children are born to Gandhari (the idea of

humans coming out of eggs— not believed in

by the moderns till probably around the

beginning of the century — and of one split¬

ting up into 100) is certainly an astonishing

idea, however rudimentary it may be. The

Mahdbharata also contains a highly

developed code of warfare and of treating

enemies, including those who surrender.

Descriptions of fantastic war weapons repeat

themselves in this epic. There are also in¬

teresting descriptions of gambling and

wrestling matches — when we are back about

3,000 years in time. Karate, it must be

remembered, originated in India.9

Scattered in a number of places are other

fascinating ideas. Constantly we come across

the concept of Divya drishti, or literally

divine sight. What this means is that sages

and others who are advanced beings can tune

their minds and know what is happening,

has happened, or will happen — so long as

the frequency of their mind is in tune with

the thing about which they want to know.

Diamonds, cotton, rice, and peacocks

came originally from India. In fact, the

Golconda mines of the southern part of In¬

dia were the mines from which the world

received all its diamonds in ancient times.10

In the words of Basham, “India has con¬

ferred many practical blessings on the world

at large; notably rice, cotton, the sugar cane,

many spices, the domestic fowl, the game of

chess (p. 208), and, most important of all,

the decimal system of numeral notation, the

invention of an unknown Indian mathemati¬

cian early in the Christian era (p. 4951).’’ 11 It

was India and not the Arabs who invented

the so-called Arabic numerals. The myth of

Arabic invention has gone on too long.

There is incontrovertible evidence to prove

that India contributed these numerals and

the concept of zero to the world. Basham

pointedly mentions this fact:

The earliest inscription recording the date by a

system of nine digits and a zero, with place

notation for the tens and hundreds, comes

from Gujarat, and is dated A.D. 595. Soon

after this however, the new system had been

heard of in Syria (p. vi), and was being used as

far afield as Indo-China. Evidently the system

66

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

was in use among mathematicians some cen¬

turies before it was employed in inscriptions,

the scribes of which tended to be conservative

in their system of recording dates; in modern

Europe the cumbrous Roman system is still

sometimes used for the same purpose. The

name of the mathematician who devised the

simplified system of writing numerals is

unknown, but the earliest surviving mathe¬

matical texts — the anonymous “Bakshali

Manuscript,” which is a copy of the text of the

4th century a.d., and the terse Aryabhatiya of

Aryabhata, written in a.d. 499 — presuppose

it.

For long it was thought that the decimal

system of numerals was invented by the

Arabs, but this is certainly not the case. The

Arabs themselves called mathematics “the In¬

dian (Art)” ( hindisat ), and there is now no

doubt that the decimal notation, with other

mathematical lore, was learnt by the Muslim

world either through merchants trading with

the west coast of India, or through the Arabs

who conquered Sind in a.d. 712.

The debt of the Western world to India in

this respect cannot be overestimated. Most of

the great discoveries and inventions of which

Europe is so proud would have been impossi¬

ble without a developed system of mathe¬

matics, and this in turn would have been im¬

possible if Europe had been shackled by the

unwieldy system of Roman numerals. The un¬

known man who devised the new system was

from the world’s point of view, after the Bud¬

dha, the most important son of India. His

achievement, though easily taken for granted,

was the work of an analytical mind of the first

order, and he deserves much more honour

than he has so far received. 12

There is a question in the history of

mathematics asked about India: “When the

whole world was groping in darkness, what

did India contribute?” The answer is,

“Nothing.” This Nothing has been the most

important thing in the development of math¬

ematics. Again, Basham says,

“For x Aryabhata gave the usual modern ap¬

proximate value of 3.1416, expressed in the

form of a fraction 62832/20000. This value of

x, much more accurate than that of the

Greeks, was improved to nine places of

decimals by later Indian mathematicians. . . .

He [Bhaskara] also established mathematic¬

ally what had been recognized in Indian theol¬

ogy at least a millenium earlier, that infinity,

however divided, remains infinite, represented

by the equation -^r- ------ oo.”13

He also adds,

“Despite their inaccurate knowledge of

physiology, which was by no means inferior to

that of most ancient peoples, India evolved a

developed empirical surgery. The caesarian

was known, bone-setting reached a high

degree of skill, and plastic surgery was

developed far beyond anything known else¬

where at the time. Ancient Indian surgeons

were expert at the repair of noses, ears, and

lips, lost or injured in battle or by judicial

mutiliation.”14

The Oxford scholar MacDonell puts it

even more accurately: “In modern times

European surgery has borrowed the opera¬

tion of rhinoplasty, or the surgical forma¬

tion of artificial noses, from India, where

Englishmen became acquainted with the art

in the eighteenth century.”15 As for another

aspect of medicine, MacDonell holds, “The

Atharvaveda and the Sdtapatha Brdhmana

contain an exact enumeration of the bones

of the human skeleton.”16 Again, the same

scholar notes, “One of the Brahamanas [sic]

observes that the sun does not really rise or

set, but produces day and night on the earth

by revolving.”17 A little later he adds that

Aryabhata “maintained the daily rotation of

the earth round its axis, explaining the daily

rotation of the celestial sphere as only ap¬

parent.”18

A number of ideas connected with

language and literature arose in ancient In¬

dia. The oldest grammatical text dealing

especially with phonetics goes back to the

times even before the famous text of Panini

(4th-5th century b.c.), who by all accounts,

is the most celebrated grammarian that has

ever lived. His Ashtddhydyee records a work

which has never been equalled till recent

times. Says John Lyons, “The Indian gram-

1986]

Rao— Modern Ideas in Ancient India

67

matical tradition is not only independent of

the Greco-Roman but also earlier, more

diverse in its manifestations and in some

respects superior in its achievements.”19 He

adds, “Panini’s grammar of Sanskrit has

frequently been described from the point of

view of its exhaustivness ... its internal con¬

sistency and its economy of statement, as far

superior to any grammar of any language yet

written.”20 Indians were also the first to pro¬

duce indexes or Anukramanls21 since they

had to do so for the Rgveda. The first

systematically arranged dictionary, the

Amarakosha, was produced by Indians; it is

unique in its arrangement of nouns, putting

together all synonyms, in the form of verse

stanzas, which students learn by heart as

they would learn poetry. The Panchatantra,

a seminal influence on stories of many coun¬

tries of the world of ancient times, is indeed

a remarkable book. Its framing device, or

the frame story device, has been used subse¬

quently by a large number of writers in¬

cluding Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales. 22 It

influenced Arabian Nights stories, and Mac-

Donell says, quoting another source, “The

story of the migration of Indian fairy tales

from East to West is more wonderful and in¬

structive than many of those fairy tales

themselves.”23

About 4,000 years ago even as today, In¬

dians thought of ten directions— the eight

common ones plus up and down. We read

about the ten directions in the Rgveda, and

in the Ramdyana , the King is called

Dasharatha, one whose chariot can go un¬

challenged in any of the ten directions.

Similarly, in ancient times, as today, India

had thought of five elements constituting the

universe as well as the human body, these

being fire, earth, water, air, and space.

Without space, the fifth element, our bodies

would simply be one single block. Again,

there is a curious question asked in one of

ancient scriptures with a curious answer:

“What is this universe? From what does it

arise? Into what does it go?” “And the

answer is: In freedom it rises, in freedom it

rests, and into freedom it melts away.”24

One of the weapons used by Vishnu and

Krishna is called Chakra (wheel). When it is

released, it goes and kills the enemy and

comes back— a better version of the Austral¬

ian boomerang!

Indians have had their own way of com¬

puting time and their own calendar. They

also thought that time was differently

measured in different parts of the universe.

The Indian concept of time even today as in

ancient India is a circular one— not a linear

concept. They had imagined then, and im¬

agine now, that Brahman, the Creator goes

to sleep for eight billion years and then

wakes up again. In one of his television lec¬

tures Carl Sagan, the American scientist, has

pointed out how this computation of eight

billion years is very close to the scientific

calculation of the contraction of the

universe! One of the ancient philosophers,

Patanjali, is very modern and anticipates

modern science when he says, without postu¬

lating a creation, in his Yogasastra that life

comes into being when matter and life-force

come together. The use of a rosary, washing

of the feet of elders on religious occasions,

putting the sacred ash on one’s forehead

(especially among certain sub-groups of Hin¬

dus), and praying with folded hands (a form

of greeting — in contradistinction to shaking

hands in the West) have all existed for more

than 3,000 years in India and can be easily

documented.

In the composition of secular literature

also India was far advanced in ancient times.

India’s greatest, and not the first, dramatist,

Kalidasa, who has been much extolled by

English, German, and French writers lived in

the 5th century a.d. — eleven centuries before

Shakespeare. His dramas are complete with

plots containing a king, queen, and court

jester and all, and what is more, has a pro¬

logue, acts, scenes and epilogue (Shake¬

speare, it must be recalled, did not divide his

plays into scenes). India had drama theaters

built to exact specifications.25 In secular

literature ancient India was one of the

68

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

earliest civilizations to produce romances,

which are only one step from what is called

novels today. Dandin’s Dash kum arach ari ta

(6th century a.d.), Bana’s Kddambari (7th

century a.d.), and Subandhu’s Vasavadatta

(7th century a.d.) are great works of fiction.

Horrwitz says, “Bana has written the best

Sanskrit novel.”26 Today, the word kadam-

bari is used in three Indian languages (Kan¬

nada, Telugu, and Marathi) to mean “a

novel.” However, modern novels with all

their attention to individuals and with over¬

wrought emphasis on individuals’ feelings

and thoughts and the central importance of

man in the world could not have been pro¬

duced by ancient Indians, who regarded man

as merely a speck in a vast universe except

for his soul power. Only when the influence

of the West, with its Judeo-Christian tradi¬

tion and its belief in man as the center of the

universe, reached India did India produce

modern novels.27

One area in which ancient Indian custom

and modern Western practice are virtually

identical is in the area of teaching. Unlike

the modern Indian practice of professors’

lecturing to passive students, ancient India

chose to teach on an individual basis (each

student chose a teacher and the teacher

would have to accept him) and by means of

question-answer method. The earliest ex¬

amples of this practice are to be found in the

Upanishads, in which stories containing

some of the highest truths of India are found

to be taught in a dialogue fashion. The Pan-

chatantra illustrates the use of circular think¬

ing necessitated by the student’s constant

questions with the result that even before

one story is finished another must begin and

so on. Finally, ancient India had a passion

for analysis. Indians analyzed and analyzed,

and categorized and categorized. Till recent¬

ly, Indian children in grade school used to

learn by heart categories of various things —

those that exist in two’s, in three’s, in four’s

and so on. This analysis and categorization

was applied even to a passionate subject like

love, of which Vatsyayana’s Kdmasutra (The

Hindu Art of Love) is a redoubtable exam¬

ple. These are some of the modern ideas of

ancient India.

Notes

1 See, for example, the respected American Scholar

Arthur W. Ryder’s Introduction to his translations of

Kalidasa’s selected writings, Shakuntala and Other

Writings (New York: Dutton 1959). The book also car¬

ries the German poet Goethe’s exaltation of Kalidasa’s

Shakuntalam. Subsequently, he modelled his Faust

using a Prologue in the manner of Kalidasa. See also

Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens], Following

the Equator, in The Complete works of Mark Twain,

American Artists’ ed., 24 Vols (New York: Harper,

1925) 2:16-17, for a frank and mixed reaction.

2 When he gave his first lectures at Cambridge

University, Max Miiller was exultant and called the

Vedas “the first words the Aryan man spoke” and later

turned partly critical. Perhaps the following words from

Max Miiller give a flavour of is natural and spontaneous

initial reaction to the discovery of India’s greatness — a

reaction uninhibited by other considerations. “If I were

to look over the whole world to find out the country

most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and

beauty that nature can bestow— in some parts a very

paradise on earth — I should point to India. If I were

asked under what sky the human mind has most fully

developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply

pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has

found solutions of some of them which well deserve the

attention even of those who have studied Plato and

Kant — I should point to India. ...” Max Muller, India:

What Can It Teach Us? Ed. K. A. NTlakantha Sastry

2nd ed. (Delhi, India: Munshi Ram Manohar Lai, 1961)

6.

3 The term ancient India is used in this essay with the

commonly accepted meaning of referring to the period

from about 1,500 b.c. or 2,000 b.c. till about the 7th

century a.d.

4 See A. A. MacDonell, India's Past: A Survey of her

Literatures, Religions, Languages, and Antiquities.

Varanasi, India: Motilal Banarasidass, 1956, p. 7.

Originally published by Oxford University Press.

5 Ghee is melted butter oil, as it is called in America.

In a hot country at a time when refrigeration was

unknown, how astute it was of Indians some 4,000 years

ago to come up with an idea to preserve butter! Even to¬

day it is the same procedure followed by all in India.

6 Soma was a mildly intoxicating drink but sura was

the forbidden one. For an interesting study of the soma

plant, see R. Gordon Wasson Soma: Divine Mushroom

of Immortality (n.p.: Harcourt, n.d.) Printed in Italy.

7 E. Horrowitz says, “ Punch is an Indian beverage

consisting of ‘five’ ingredients.” See A Short History of

Indian Literature (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1907) 140,

f.n.

1986]

Rao— Modern Ideas in Ancient India

69

8 See The Hindu, a very highly respected and overly

cautious newspaper of India. “Aeronautics in the Vedic

Age,” Sunday 27 May 1973, the editorial page.

9 Karate originated in India, but some writers merely

recognize its strong influence on its development. See

The Oxford Companion to World Sports and Games ,

ed. John Arlott (London: Oxford UP, 1975) 562.

10 G. F. Herbert Smith, Gem-Stones and Their

Distinctive Characters, (London: Methuen, 1912) 137,

where he says, “The whole of the diamonds known in

ancient times were obtained from the so-called Gol-

conda mines in India.”

11 A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India: A

Survey of the Culture of the Indian Sub-continent

Before the Coming of the Muslims, (New York: Grove

Press, 1959)485.

12 Basham 495-496.

13 Basham 496. Ancient Indians had a creative

mathematical imagination, and they imagined vast

numbers of great magnitude. Jawaharlal Nehru gives

some interesting facts about this amazing conception of

stupendous numbers by Indians. Says he, “The time

and number sense of the ancient Indians was extraor¬

dinary. The Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Arabs had

apparently no terminology for denominations above the

thousand or at most the myriad (104= 10,000). In India

there were eighteen specific denominations (1018), and

there are even longer lists. In the story of Buddha’s early

education he is reported to have named denominations

up to 1050.

At the other end of the scale there was a minute divi¬

sion of time of which the smallest unit was approxi¬

mately one-seventh of a second, and the smallest lineal

measure is given as something which approximates to

1.3 x 7 10 inches. ... To them [Indians] the vast periods

of modern geology or the astronomical distances of the

stars would not have come as a surprise.” The Dis¬

covery of India (London: Meridian Books, 1951) 97-98.

14 Basham 499-500.

15 MacDonell 185.

16 MacDonell 180.

17 MacDonell 186. See also Nehru, The Discovery, 76,

where he says, “There is an odd and interesting passage

in one of the Upanishads (the Chhandogya): ‘The sun

never sets nor rises. When people think to themselves

the sun is setting he only changes about after reaching

the end of the day, and makes night below and day to

what is on the other side. Then when people think he

rises in the morning, he only shifts himself about after

reaching the end of the night, and makes day below and

night to what is on the other side. In fact he never does

set at all.’”.

18 MacDonell 190.

19 John Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics

(Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1971) 19.

20 Lyons 20.

21 MacDonell 19.

22 See W. F. Bryan and Germaine Dempster, eds..

Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

(New York: The Humanitties Press, 1958) 6.

23 MacDonell 126.

24 Nehru 74-75.

25 A. Berriedale Keith, The Sanskrit Drama: Its

Origin, Development, Theory, and Practice (London:

Oxford UP, 1970) 358-360.

26 Horrwitz 137.

27 It is the theory of this author that the form of

literature called novel today did not develop in India not

because Indians were preoccupied with the fantastic as

some have thought but because of their modesty about

themselves as human beings and their correct under¬

standing of their importance and place in the universe.

They did not make man the supreme creation, God’s

favourite, and centre of the universe. Such a mind can¬

not produce a novel, where sometimes the most trivial

thoughts of a character are delineated at length. Modern

novels give paramount importance to the individual in a

universe where the planet on which an individual lives is

itself of diminutive importance.

ALLUSIONS TO THE AENEID IN PARADISE LOST \

BOOKS XI AND XII

John Banschbach

Marian College

Fond du Lac

Of all of Milton’s works, the last two

books of Paradise Lost are among those

most roundly condemned. C. S. Lewis de¬

scribes them as a “grave structural flaw.”

According to Lewis, Milton “makes his last

two books into a brief outline of sacred

history from the Fall to the Last Day. Such

an untransmuted lump of futurity, coming

in a position so momentous for the struc¬

tural effect of the whole work, is inartistic.

And what makes it worse is that the actual

writing in this passage is curiously bad . . .

Again and again, as we read his account of

Abraham or of the Exodus or of the Pas¬

sion, we find ourselves saying, as Johnson

said of the ballad, ‘the story cannot possibly

be told in a manner that shall make less im¬

pression on the mind . . .’ If we stick to what

we know we must be content to say that

Milton’s talent temporarily failed him . . .

Perhaps Milton was in ill health. Perhaps be¬

ing old, he yielded to a natural, though

disastrous, impatience to get the work fin¬

ished” (129-130). This is not an isolated

opinion. Kenneth Muir (143) and E. M. W.

Tillyard (216, 246) both found the final

books of Paradise Lost to be inferior artis¬

tically to the rest of the poem. And Samuel

Johnson was, I suspect, responding especial¬

ly to the last two books when he said that,

while Paradise Lost is widely acknowledged

to be a great work, no one, coming to the

end of it, has ever wished it to be longer

(108).

My secondary purpose this afternoon is to

demonstrate, at least in one respect, the care

with which these books were fashioned, that

respect being the use of epic allusions. My

primary purpose, and the one that interests

me more, is to argue that, to the first readers

of Paradise Lost , the Aeneid was a guide,

and that in Books 11 and 12 of Paradise

Lost , Milton uses allusions to the Aeneid to

define the meaning and the peculiar merit of

his own epic.

As any annotated edition of Paradise Lost

makes clear, the poem is replete with allu¬

sions to epics, not only to Vergil and Homer,

but also to the later Italian epics of Dante,

Ariosto, and Tasso. Constant allusion to

other epics is part of the genre. The Aeneid is

filled with lines from Homer and from En¬

nius and Statius, Vergil’s predecessors in

Latin epic. Such allusions necessarily invite

comparison; Vergil is reputed to have said

that “it is easier to steal the club from Her¬

cules than to take a line from Homer” (Har¬

ding, 20). The point of such a risk is to claim

equality with, if not superiority to, the works

alluded to. The method is apparent in the

opening lines of Paradise Lost, where Milton

claims to pursue “things unattempted yet in

prose or rhyme” (1.16). Here Milton para¬

phrases the opening of Ariosto’s Orlando

Furioso: “At the same time I shall say of

Orlando something never said before in

prose or rhyme: that through love he became

frenzied and insane and not that man who

earlier was judged so wise.” Whatever we

think of the novelty Ariosto claims for his

subject, the obvious disparity between the

subject of Paradise Lost and Orlando

Furioso , revealed by this allusion, concisely

implies the superiority of Milton’s epic.

For many of Milton’s readers, “epic”

meant the Aeneid. According to Davis P.

Harding, Vergil’s “major works — the

Eclogues , the Georgies, and the Aeneid —

form what might be called the hard core of

the Renaissance grammarschool curriculum.

70

1986]

Banschbach—A lusions to the Aeneid

71

Of all the school authors, only Cicero was

studied with a comparable intensity. It is

probably not too much to say that Renais¬

sance schoolboys practically knew Virgil by

heart” (7). The first allusion to the Aeneid in

Book XI has the same purpose as the open¬

ing allusion to Orlando Furioso. The subject

of the comparison is the nature of deity.

When Adam and Eve pray for forgiveness,

... To heaven their prayers

Flew up, nor missed the way, by envious winds

Blown vagabond or frustrate ... (11.14-16)

The description here echoes Apollo's

response to Arruns' prayer in Book II of the

Aeneid:

Phoebus had heard, and in his heart he answered

Half of that prayer; the other half he scattered

To the swift winds. He granted this: that Arruns

Should strike Camilla down with sudden death;

But did not grant him safe return to his

Illustrious homeland. This last request

The tempests carried to the south winds.

(11.794-98)

The contrast between the two prayers is

sharp. Adam and Eve pray to God for par¬

don, and receive it. Arruns prays that he

might slay Camilla in battle, and that he

might return home safe. Apollo's response is

that both Camilla and Arruns die.

Just as obvious a claim to a superior deity

is Milton's use of augury in Book 11. After

Eve remarks to Adam that, even though they

are fallen, they might manage quite nicely in

the garden of Paradise, Adam notices that

the garden is changing:

Nigh in her sight

The bird of Jove, stooped from his airy tow’r,

Two birds of gayest plume before him drove.

(11.184-86)

In the Aeneid » the fate of swans pursued by

an eagle twice influences the course of

events. In Book 2, Venus uses the re¬

grouping of a scattered flock to persuade

Aeneas that his fleet, scattered by storm, has

gathered safely at Carthage, and that he can

find safety there also (2.393-401). In Book

12, a flock of swans attacks an eagle, forcing

it to drop its prey. Juturna uses this event to

persuade the Italians to break the truce and

attack Aeneas (244-265). Both Venus and

Juturna are divine, but their auguries are

misleading and disastrous for their human

audience. Juturna's counsel leads to the

defeat of the Italians and the death of her

brother, Turnus. Venus's counsel leads

Aeneas to Carthage, where he falls in love

with the queen, Dido, abandons his mission

of founding Rome, is rebuked by Jupiter

and so deserts Dido, who kills herself.

Adam, without divine help, draws the cor¬

rect conclusion, that their present situation is

not secure; if the sign is misleading, it is

misleading only in that it portends a worse

fate for Adam and Eve than in fact occurs.

Through prayer and augury, then, Milton re¬

minds us that the classical gods, in contrast

to the Christian God, are capricious, self-

serving, and deceptive.

Milton does not always use the classical

gods merely as obvious foils. At the begin¬

ning of Adam's vision, the archangel

Michael is twice associated with Venus, and

this association helps us to understand his

mission. The form in which Michael appears

is “solemn and sublime” (11.236):

over his lucid Arms

A military Vest of purple flow’d

His starry Helm unbuckl’d show’d him prime

In Manhood where Youth ended; by his side

As in a glistering Zodiac hung the Sword,

Satan’s dire dread, and in his hand the Spear.

(11.240-41,245-48)

Despite this militaristic and stern guise, the

first allusion associates Michael with a

resplendent Venus. Adam warns Eve that he

sees

From yonder blazing Cloud that veils the Hill

One of the heav’nly Host, and by his Gait

None of the meanest, some Great Potentate

Or of the Thrones above, such Majesty

Invests him coming. (1 1 .228-33)

72

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

When Venus appears to Aeneas to urge him

to Carthage, she has disguised herself as a

huntress, and Aeneas recognizes her as his

mother only as she leaves him:

When she turned,

Her neck was glittering with a rose brightness;

Her hair annointed with ambrosia,

Her head gave all a fragrance of the gods;

Her gown was long and to the ground; even

Her walk was sign enough she was a goddess.

(1.402-409)

This allusion, for all its apparent incongru¬

ity, significantly qualifies Michael’s role.

Although Venus refuses to grant Aeneas the

ordinary personal relationship between a son

and his mother that Aeneas desires, and

although Venus is in part motivated by her

rivalry with Juno, she is also undeniably

motivated by love for her son. Venus re¬

peatedly intercedes with Jupiter on behalf of

Aeneas and often herself gives Aeneas aid.

Michael obviously is the agent of God the

Father’s divine justice, but the association of

Michael with Venus makes us realize that

Michael is, for all his military and judicial

sternness, also the God the Son’s agent, also

the agent of divine, even parental love.

This is also the burden of the second allu¬

sion linking Michael and Venus. Having

ascended the highest hill in the garden.

Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed

Which that false fruit that promised clearer sight

Had bred; (11.412-14)

The allusion is to the fall of Troy. Aeneas

has seen Priam slain, the Trojan forces scat¬

tered, and, frenzied, he is about to kill

Helen, the cause of the Trojan War, whom

he has discovered hiding at Vesta’s altar.

Venus appears and prevents him:

‘And those to blame are not

the hated face of the Laconian woman,

the daughter of Tyndareos, or Paris:

it is the gods’ relentlessness, the gods’

that overturns these riches, tumbles Troy

from its high pinnacle. Look now — for I

shall tear away each cloud that cloaks your eyes

and clogs your human seeing, darkening

all things with its damp fog; you must not fear

the orders of your mother; do not doubt,

but carry out what she commands. For here,

where you see huge blocks ripped apart and

stones

torn free from stones and smoke that joins

with dust

in surges, Neptune shakes the walls, his giant

trident is tearing Troy from its foundations;

and here the first to hold the Scaean gates

is fiercest Juno; girt with iron, she

calls furiously to the fleet for more

Greek troops. Now turn and look: Tritonian

Pallas

is planted there; upon the tallest towers

she glares with her storm cloud and her grim

Gorgon.

And he who furnishes the Greeks with force

that favors and with spirit is the Father

himself, for he himself goads on the gods

against the Dardan weapons. Son, be quick

to flee, have done with fighting. I shall never

desert your side until I set you safe

upon your father’s threshold.’ So she spoke,

then hid herself within the night’s thick

shadows.

Ferocious forms appear — the fearful powers

of gods that are the enemies of Troy. (2.601-23)

This allusion has several functions. It

demonstrates once again the arbitrariness

and vindictiveness of the classical gods, yet it

demonstrates Venus’s love for her son, and

it thereby represents Michael’s mission not

as vindictive, but as just and loving. It is also

significant (and this is the reason for so ex¬

tended a quotation) for the understanding it

provides us of Adam. To that vision Aeneas

must submit and abandon Troy, and in do¬

ing so he takes the first step toward a new

identity, toward becoming the archetypal

Roman, pater Aeneas. That transformation

demands that Aeneas dedicate himself total¬

ly to the founding of the Roman empire and

to comply with the will of Jupiter. Conse¬

quently, that transformation demands that

Aeneas abandon his homeland, lose his wife,

deny his love for Dido and desert her, lose

his father, wage a prolonged war, unwilling¬

ly, against the Italians, and die in a military

1986]

Banschbach — Allusions to the Aeneid

73

camp, never, in fact, founding a city. It

demands the complete subjugation of his in¬

dividuality to the state. The vision that

Michael shows Adam separates him from the

garden of Paradise, not by its destruc¬

tiveness, but by its promise. In the course of

the vision Adam comes to an understanding

of his new identity, as father of a fallen race.

Also, like Aeneas, through the process of the

vision Adam is taught the role his descen¬

dants are to emulate. For Aeneas, it is

resignation to the will of the gods and self-

sacrifice for the good of the state. For Adam

it is spiritual discernment and trust in God,

for the sake of his descendants, but also (and

this is the key difference) for his own sake.

The significance of the vision of the gods

destroying Troy is underscored by a second

reference to it at the end of Paradise Lost .

This brings us to Eve, who has been sleeping

through much of Books 11 and 12. Allusions

to the Aeneid suggest that her re-appearance

is delayed, in part, to emphasize her impor¬

tance. Eve tells Adam:

Wearied I fell asleep. But now lead on;

In me is no delay; with thee to go,

Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,

Is to go hence unwilling. (12.614-16)

Her words are those of Anchises, the father

of Aeneas, who refused to flee Troy without

a sign from Jupiter. This was duly supplied:

No sooner had the old man spoken so

than sudden thunder crashed upon the left,

and through the shadows ran a shooting star,

its trail a torch of flooding light. (2.938-41)

Anchises declares:

Now my delay is done; I follow; where

you lead, I am. Gods of my homeland, save

my household, save my grandson. (2.701-03)

And what follows becomes one of the most

famous images of antiquity, Aeneas, fleeing

the flames of Troy, bearing his aged father

on his shoulders, holding his young son by

the hand. This image was especially cele¬

brated during the Roman Empire, for it ex¬

presses the devotion of youth, strength, and

military prowess to the service of empire and

of patriarchy. What is missing from this im¬

age is Aeneas’s wife, Creusa, who does not

escape Troy. She follows her husband, her

son, and her father-in-law as they flee, but

she becomes separated from them and is

killed. Eve, of course, leaves paradise with

Adam, and her association with Anchises

makes Adam’s and Eve’s final view of

Paradise an especially complex image:

They, looking back, all th’ eastern side beheld

Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,

Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate

With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.

(12.641-44)

This second allusion to the gods destroying

Troy reminds us again of the contrast be¬

tween classical and Christian gods, and

reminds us that separation from Paradise, as

from Troy, is a necessary step in the develop¬

ment of a new identity. The association of

Eve with Anchises defines further that new

identity, and especially distinguishes Para¬

dise Lost from the Aeneid , for it indicates

that the most important human relationship

is not father and son, but husband and wife.

Milton uses the Aeneid to define for the

reader the peculiar character of his epic. Ob¬

viously this discussion has not addressed the

opinion of C. S. Lewis that the writing in

Books 11 and 12 is “curiously bad,” nor

does it fully address the argument that the

final books of Paradise Lost necessarily

imply a decline in artistic power or reveal an

unseemly haste to finish writing the poem.

But it does demonstrate that, to the very end

of Paradise Lost , Milton invokes the Aeneid

as the standard by which to measure the

argument of his own epic. And that suggests

that Milton’s own confidence in his artistic

achievement had not diminished.

Notes

Ariosto, Orlando Furioso. Trans. Sir John Har¬

rington. Ed. Rudolf Gottfried. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1963.

Harding, Davis P. The Club of Hercules: Studies

74

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

in the Classical Background of Paradise Lost.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962.

Johnson, Samuel. Lives of the English Poets.

1925; repr. London: J. M. Dent, 1958.

Lewis, C. S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. 1942;

repr. New York: Oxford University Press,

1961.

Milton, John. Complete Poems and Major

Prose. Ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. Indianapolis:

Odyssey Press, 1957.

Muir, Kenneth. John Milton. 2nd ed. London:

Longmans, 1960.

Tillyard, E. M. W. Milton. Rev. ed. New York:

Barnes & Noble, 1967.

Virgil. The Aeneid. Trans. Allen Mandelbaum.

New York: Bantam, 1972.

PRODUCTIVITY OF RACCOONS IN SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN

Neil F. Payne

College of Natural Resources

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

and

David A. Root

College of Natural Resources

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

Abstract:

Age-specific reproduction was determined from 1,361 raccoon (Procyon lotor)

carcasses collected in southwestern Wisconsin during the 1978-79 and 1979-80 trap¬

ping season (about 15 October-31 January). Litter size averaged 3.71 young, with

32% pregnancy for yearlings (N= 32), and 91% pregnancy for older adults

(7V= 142). Age-specific litter size remained fairly constant. About 10% of the

juveniles (N= 100) harvested in October 1979 were born mid-May and mid-July.

Starvation and lack of subcutaneous fat reserves on 19 other juveniles suggested that

raccoons conceived later than the normal February through March mating period

may not survive a long winter in Wisconsin. Low testes weights, lack of sperm in

smears, and non-extrusible penis indicated that juvenile males in southwestern

Wisconsin are incapable of siring offspring. The sex ratio of juveniles (116M:100F)

favored males (P <0.05); the sex ratio of adults did not differ (96M:100F). Of the

known mortality, 98% was attributed to hunting (43%) and trapping (55%). The

harvest consisted of 65% juveniles, 13% yearlings, and 22% older adults. Maximum

longevity approached 10 years; few raccoons (5%) survived more than 5.5 years.

For about 30 years the Wisconsin Depart¬

ment of Natural Resources stocked raccoons

to increase the size of the population, with

no apparent success (Woehler 1957). Then,

during the 1960s the raccoon population in¬

creased to the point where during the 1970s

they caused damage to summer homes, agri¬

cultural crops, waterfowl nests (Woehler

1957), and young muskrat (Ondatra zibethi-

cus) populations (Dorney 1954). Concur¬

rently, interest in hunting and trapping rac¬

coons in Wisconsin increased due to increas¬

ing pelt values. Estimated fur purchases

ranged from 53,000 raccoon pelts in 1967 to

an average of over 94,600 pelts during the

following 10 years. Of 39 states reporting in

1976, Wisconsin ranked 4th in the harvest of

raccoons (Inter. Assoc. Game and Fish Con-

serv. Comm. 1977, unpubl. report). Such

trapping pressure led to the objective of this

study, which was to determine age-specific

reproduction of raccoons in southwestern

Wisconsin.

C. M. Pils, L. E. Nauman, and K. D. Hall

advised and reviewed the manuscript, T.

Zeisler computerized the data, and trappers,

hunters, and furbuyers supplied raccoon car¬

casses. The University of Wisconsin-Stevens

Point, and the Wisconsin Trappers Associa¬

tion provided financial support.

Study Area

Raccoon carcasses were collected within a

13-county region of southwestern Wiscon¬

sin. The region is characterized by open hills

with broad ridges in southern regions to

deeply incised valleys with narrow ridges in

the north (Hole 1977). Croplands are found

75

76

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

on ridge tops and valley floors; intervening

slopes are wooded.

Methods

Reproductive organs and upper mandibles

of 1,361 raccoons were collected during the

1978-79 and 1979-80 fall hunting and trap¬

ping seasons (about 15 October-31 January).

About 75% of the sample was collected from

cooperating furbuyers once/ week; the rest

was saved by trappers and hunters who were

instructed how to collect and store relevant

organs. Most raccoons (98%) were trapped

or shot, but road kills (2%) and 4 starved

animals also were reported. Relevant organs

were frozen for 2-3 months before analysis,

and after sex, date of capture, cause of

death, and county of kill were recorded.

Juvenile raccoons were distinguished from

adults by the presence of canine root apical

foramina (Grau et al. 1970), and aged to the

nearest half month by tooth replacement

patterns when possible (Montgomery 1964).

All remaining specimens were aged by count¬

ing cementum annuli of an upper 1st pre¬

molar (Grau et al. 1970), because we found

numerous accessory lines (Rice 1980) in up¬

per incisors or 4th premolars.

The penis was examined from each male

raccoon to determine if it could be extruded

through the prepubital orifice (Sanderson

1950, 1961). Testes with attached epididy¬

mides were weighed to the nearest 0. 1 g, and

smears from the cauda examined for pres¬

ence of spermatozoa. To reduce the bias in

testes weight caused by body size differ¬

ences, the average weight of each animal’s

testes (g) was divided by the greatest skull

length (mm) and multiplied by 100 (Payne et

al. 1966, Gipson et al. 1975).

Litter sizes were determined from placen¬

tal scar counts from the previous breeding

season (Johnson 1970). Females with turgid

uteri were not examined because estrus tends

to obscure the scars (Johnson 1970, Sander¬

son and Nalbandov 1973).

All raccoons aged at >1.5 years were

designated as adults; racoons <1.5 years as

juveniles; and those aged at 1.5 years old as

yearlings. Barren adults refer to female rac¬

coons that produced no offspring, either

through failure to mate, failure of eggs to be

fertilized, or loss of embryos before implan¬

tation or shortly thereafter, and without

evidence of pregnancy or placental scars in

the uterine horns.

Results

Reproduction

Males. — Average testes weights were

greater {P< 0.001) for adults than juveniles

for each month of collection and all months

combined. Testes of all 67 juveniles weighed

<3.4 g and showed no apparent weight

growth from October through January.

Testes of yearlings reached the adult weight

range (>7.3 g) by October or earlier. Only

4% of 67 juveniles had mature sperm in the

cauda epididymis; all 19 yearlings and 88%

of 42 older adults were reproductively active.

By December, all 14 adults and no juveniles

possessed mature sperm. The baculum could

be extruded through the prepubital orifice of

all 37 adults, but none of 40 juveniles exam¬

ined.

Females.— Of 214 adult females, 71% had

been pregnant (Table 1). Of the 62 females

showing no discernible evidence of placental

Table 1 . Age-specific litter size" and percentage

of barren females for raccoons

from southwestern Wisconsin, 1978-80.

“From placental scar counts.

1986]

Payne and Root — Productivity of Raccoons

77

scars (considered barren), 79% were year¬

lings, the rest older adults. Of 72 yearlings,

68% were barren, as compared to 9% of 142

older females.

The mean litter size of 152 females was

3.71 (range 1-7). The mean litter size of

yearlings (3.65) and older adults (3.72) did

not differ (P>0.05), the mean number of

young/yearling (1.17) was less {t = 9,

P<0.01, N= 152) than for older adult (3.38)

because pregnancy was 32% for yearlings

and 91% for others. Age-specific litter size

was fairly constant.

Late Litters. — Of 100 juvenile raccoons

collected in October 1979, 10% were con¬

ceived later than the mating season of late

January through mid-March in Wisconsin

(Jackson 1961). Ages assigned to them and 7

juveniles collected in November 1979 indi¬

cated that late litters were born between 15

July and mid-September and were conceived

from 15 May through mid- July (Table 2).

These raccoons, and 19 additional juveniles,

had no subcutaneous fat.

Sex Ratios

The overall sex ratio of 1,339 raccoons

collected during this study was 109M:100F

Table 2. Birth and conception dates of 12 raccoon

litters in southwestern Wisconsin, 1979.

“Determined by tooth replacement (Montgomery 1964).

bA 63 -day gestation period was assumed (Whitney and

Underwood 1952).

(52%). The sex ratio of 856 juvenile

raccoons (116M:100F) favored males

(X2 = 4.S3, P <0.05, 1 df); 483 adults were

nearly equally divided by sex (96M:100F,

P>0.05). Although the number of juvenile

males per 100 juvenile females harvested

monthly appeared higher than the number of

adult males per 100 adult females, there was

no significant difference (P >0.05).

Age Structure

Of 1,361 raccoons that were classified into

age groups, 65% were collected as juveniles,

13% as yearlings, and 22% as older adults.

Maximum longevity of males and females

approached 8 and 10 years, respectively,

although few raccoons (5%) survived more

than 5.5 years.

No differences were apparent when age

ratios were compared to method of capture

(P>0.05), but 86% of 22 raccoons killed by

vehicles were under 1 year old (Table 3). The

Table 3. Age composition of raccoons

from southwestern Wisconsin, 1978-80.

juvenile: adult ratio remained relatively con¬

stant through December but indicated that

there may be a greater percentage of adults

harvested in January.

Overall, 98% of known mortality resulted

from hunting (43%) and trapping (55%).

Road kills accounted for the remaining 2%.

Equal numbers of both sexes were harvested

by hunting and trapping.

Discussion

Reproduction

Testes of males from southwestern

Wisconsin do not reach adult size or produce

sperm until at least the end of the 1st year of

78

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

life, as suggested for North Dakota (Fritzell

1978) and Manitoba (Cowan 1973). Juvenile

males therefore probably contribute very lit¬

tle to the annual recruitment in southwestern

Wisconsin. However, most juvenile males in

Illinois are thought to sire most litters pro¬

duced from second ovulations (Sanderson

and Nalbandov 1973). Similarly, Johnson

(1970) found that most males have adult¬

sized testes during the 1st breeding season in

Alabama. The relatively short frost-free

season and the long cold winters in the

northern portion of the raccoon range may

retard the attainment of physical maturity

necessary for breeding during the 1st year of

life (Fritzell 1978).

Of 72 yearling female raccoons, 32%

bred, compared to 54% in Michigan

(Stuewer 1943a), 0% in Washington (Schef¬

fer 1950), 40% in Texas (Wood 1955), 9% in

Alabama (Johnson 1970), 41% in Manitoba

(Cowan 1973), 14% in North Dakota (Frit¬

zell 1978), 36-73% in Illinois (Sanderson and

Nalbandov 1973, Junge and Sanderson

1982, Fritzell et al. 1985), and 66% in

Missouri (Fritzell et al. 1985). Annual varia¬

tions in pregnancy rates was wider in year¬

lings (38-77%) than in adults (68%-96%) in

Illinois and Missouri (Fritzell et al. 1985).

Sanderson and Nalbandov (1973) concluded

that yearling females from Illinois either

conceive at the same time as adults during

their 1st estrus period or do not breed until

the next breeding season. Johnson (1970),

Cowan (1973), and Fritzel (1978) indicated

that yearlings conceive somewhat later in the

year than do adults. Two groups of females,

late-maturing juveniles and reovulating

adults, may be reproductively active

throughout most of the spring and summer

(Fritzel 1978). In southwestern Wisconsin,

about 10% of all juveniles harvested in Oc¬

tober 1979 resulted from late litters con¬

ceived from mid-May through mid-July, in¬

dicating that some females are ovulating in a

3-month period during the summer.

If adverse weather conditions prevent

early spring conceptions, litters from 2nd

ovulations are born in the fall (Steuwer

1943a, Berard 1952, Whitney and Under¬

wood 1952, Lehman 1968, Schneider et al.

1971). Sanderson and Nalbandov (1973)

noted that about 16% of the juvenile rac¬

coons purchased by furbuyers in the fall

following the abnormally severe spring

weather of 1960 in Illinois were born from

August through October. In Manitoba, 14%

of births were as late as the 1st week of

September (Cowan 1973). Fritzell et al.

(1985) observed 21-55% of yearlings and

22-55% of adults with 2 sets of placental

scars, at least 1 of which was unsuccessful

through resorption, abortion, or loss soon

after birth (Sanderson and Nalbandov 1983).

Females could ovulate again 1-6 months

later (Whitney and Underwood 1952,

Schneider et al. 1971, Sanderson and Nal¬

bandov 1973). About 10% of the raccoons

collected in October 1979 in southwestern

Wisconsin were juveniles conceived from

2nd ovulations from May through July.

Although deep snows during the normal rac¬

coon mating season in February may have

impeded the successful movement, location,

and mating of receptive raccoons during the

winter of 1978-79, the exact causes remain

unknown. Malnutrition and disease in win¬

ter adversely affected the success for 1st-

estrus matings in Manitoba (Cowan 1973),

and both were reported in southwestern Wis¬

consin.

If we consider the energy demands during

pregnancy, the 8-10 week nursing period,

and the lengthy female-young relationship

(Schneider et al. 1971, Fritzell 1977), late lit¬

ters would be especially maladaptive in the

severe winter climates in Wisconsin. Litters

produced in the milder environments of the

southern United States may be benefited by

2nd ovulation and fertile juvenile males, but

survival of juveniles whelped from late

breeding females would add little to the total

annual recruitment in Wisconsin. Our obser¬

vations of 4 starved juveniles and 19 others

lacking subcutaneous fat reserves suggests

that some young raccoons may not survive a

1986]

Payne and Root — Productivity of Raccoons

79

long and severe winter in Wisconsin. The

body weight of juveniles in Manitoba de¬

creased about 30% over winter, and winter

mortality was possibly as high as 60% for

this age class (Cowan 1973). Raccoons with¬

out placental scars weigh less than others

(Sanderson and Hubert 1981, Fritzell et al.

1985). Delayed maturity and larger litters in

northern latitudes apparently compensate

for recruitment from late breeding yearlings

in southern ranges; but age-specific litter size

is relativley static, contributing little to an¬

nual changes in recruitment (Fritzell et al.

1985).

Hunting and trapping accounted for 98%

of known human-related mortality of rac¬

coons in southwestern Wisconsin. Only 2%

of the raccoons reported were killed by

vehicles; although an unknown number of

road kills may go unreported, it appears that

this is not an important mortality factor.

Age Structure

Raccoon populations in northern states

have proportionately more juveniles and a

more rapid turnover rate than those in

southern areas (Johnson 1970). The 65%

juveniles collected in southwestern Wiscon¬

sin agrees with reports of juveniles ranging

from 41% to 70% of the harvest in northern

areas (Stuewer 1943 a,b, Sanderson 1951,

Llewellyn 1952, Fritzell et al. 1985), and

reflects differences in productivity, greater

mortality from severe winters, intensive

hunting and trapping pressure, and disease

noted in northern areas over southern rac¬

coon ranges (Johnson 1970). Variation in

pregnancy rates strongly affects annual

recruitment (Fritzell et al. 1985) because of

the high number of yearlings in the breeding

population.

Literature Cited

Berard, E. V. 1952. Evidence of a late birth for

the raccoon. J. Mammal. 33:247-248.

Cowan, W. F. 1973. Ecology and life history of

the raccoon ( Procyon lotor hirtus Nelson and

Goldman) in the northern part of its range.

Ph.D. Thesis, Univ. North Dakota, Grand

Forks, 161 pp.

Dorney, R. S. 1954. Ecology of marsh raccoons.

J. Wildl. Manage. 18:217-225.

Fritzell, E. K. 1977. Dissolution of raccoon sib¬

ling bonds. J. Mammal. 58:427-428.

. 1978. Reproduction of raccoons ( Proc¬

yon lotor) in North Dakota. Am. Midi. Nat.

100:253-256.

_ _ , G. F. Hubert, B. E. Meyer, and G. C.

Sanderson. 1985. Age-specific reproduction in

Illinois and Missouri raccoons. J. Wildl.

Manage. 49:901-905.

Gipson, P. S., I. K. Gipson, and J. A. Sealander.

1975. Reproductive biology of wild Canis

(Canidae) in Arkansas. J. Mammal. 56:

605-612.

Grau, G. A., G. C. Sanderson, and J. P. Rogers.

1970. Age determination of raccoons. J. Wildl.

Manage. 34:364-372.

Hole, F. D. 1977. Photo-mosaic soil map of

Wisconsin. Univ. Wisconsin Cartographic

Laboratory, Madison.

Jackson, H. H. T. 1961. Mammals of Wisconsin.

Univ. Wisconsin Press, Madison. 504 pp.

Johnson, A. S. 1970. Biology of the raccoon

(Procyon lotor varius Nelson and Goldman)

in Alabama. Alabama Agric. Exp. Stn., Bull.

402, Auburn Univ., Auburn. 148 pp.

Junge, R. E., and G. C. Sanderson. 1982. Age

related reproductive success of female rac¬

coons. J. Wildl. Manage. 46:527-529.

Lehman, L. E. 1968. September birth of raccoons

in Indiana. J. Mammal. 49:126-127.

Llewellyn, L. M. 1952. Geographic variation in

raccoon litter size. Presented at 8th Northeast.

Wildl. Conf., Jackson’s Mill, WV. Mimeogr. 7

PP-

Montgomery, G. G. 1964. Tooth eruption in pre¬

weaned raccoons. J. Wildl. Manage. 28:

582-584.

Payne, R. L., E. E. Provost, and D. F. Urbston.

1966. Delineation of the period of rut and

breeding season of a white-tailed deer popula¬

tion. Proc. Southeast Assoc. Game and Fish.

Comm. 20:130-137.

Rice, L. A. 1980. Influences of irregular dental

cementum layers on aging deer incisors. J.

Wildl. Manage. 44:266-268.

Sanderson, G. C. 1950. Methods of measuring

productivity in raccoons. J. Wildl. Manage.

14:389-402.

80

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

_ , and G. F. Hubert, Jr. 1981. Selected

demographic characteristics of Illinois

(U.S.A.) raccoons ( Procyon lotor ). Pages

487-513 in J. A. Chapman and D. Pursley, eds.

Proc. Worldwide Furbearer Conf., Frostburg,

MD.

_ . 1951. Breeding habits and a history of

the Missouri raccoon population from 1941 to

1948. Trans. North Am. Wildl. Conf. 16:

445-461.

_ 1961. Techniques for determining age of

raccoons. Illinois Nat. Hist. Surv. Biol. Notes

45. 16 pp.

_ , and A. V. Nalbandov. 1973. The repro¬

ductive cycle of the raccoon in Illinois. Illinois

Nat. Hist. Surv. Bull. 31:29-85.

Scheffer, V. B. 1950. Notes on the raccoon in

southwest Washington. J. Mammal. 31:

444-448.

Schneider, D. G., L. D. Mech, and J. R. Tester.

1971. Movements of female raccoons and their

young as determined by radio-tracking. Anim.

Behav. Monogr. 4. 43 pp.

Stuewer, F. W. 1943tf. Reproduction of raccoons

in Michigan. J. Wildl. Manage. 7:60-73.

_ 1943 b. Raccoons: their habits and

management in Michigan. Ecol. Monogr. 13:

203-257.

Whitney, L. F., and A. B. Underwood, 1952. The

raccoon. Practical Sci. Publ. Co., Orange, CT.

177 pp.

Woehler, E. E. 1957. How about raccoon stock¬

ing? Wisconsin Conserv. Bull. 22(4): 12-14.

Wood, J. E. 1955. Notes on reproduction and

rate of increase in raccoons in the post oak

region of Texas. J. Wildl. Manage. 19:409-410.

HISTORICAL CHANGES IN WATER QUALITY AND BIOTA OF

DEVILS LAKE, SAUK COUNTY, 1866-1985

Richard A. Lillie

and

John W. Mason

Bureau of Research

Department of Natural Resources

Madison

Abstract

Concerns have been expressed in recent years that the water quality of Devils

Lake may be deteriorating. As a result, water quality and biological studies of the

lake were initiated in 1981 to determine its status. Examination of historical and

recently collected physical and chemical data show considerable variation in some

parameters but no clear trends toward poorer conditions were found. However,

available historical data suggest changes in biological communities have occurred

which may indicate or could cause poorer water quality conditions. These changes

include (1) alteration of the aquatic plant community brought about by the invasion

of Eurasian milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum), (2) a change in fish population com¬

position and relative abundance, and (3) an increase in phytoplankton biomass at

certain times of the year. Interrelationships between these biotic changes and their

possible effects on the water quality of Devils Lake are discussed.

Introduction

As a scenic and recreational resource,

Devils Lake (Devils Lake State Park, Sauk

County) has always been recognized as one

of Wisconsin’s finest. The lake’s clear water

has made it extremely popular with swim¬

mers, boaters and scuba divers. Its fish

population has historically provided good

fishing opportunities. The unique value of

Devils Lake can be attested to by over one

million annual visitors to the park. How¬

ever, recent observations of the lake’s condi¬

tion have given rise to concern that water

quality may be deteriorating.

In 1981, a Wisconsin Department of

Natural Resource (DNR) Task Force was ap¬

pointed to investigate the problem. The Task

Force concluded, based on the historical

data available, that there probably had been

some decline in the quality of Devils Lake

and recommended that a basic data collec¬

tion program be initiated to monitor condi¬

tions in the lake (WDNR Task Force Report,

June 1981). A data collection program car¬

ried out jointly by park personnel, DNR

Southern District staff, the Bureau of Parks

and Recreation, and Research got underway

in 1981 and continued through 1985.

This report is a compilation and analysis

of the historical and recent data sets on

Devils Lake. The data presented were de¬

rived from many different sources other

than our own work, and we have tried to

give other investigators due credit. Using in¬

formation from so many sources unavoid¬

ably introduces data bias to varying degrees

due to differences in methodologies. How¬

ever, we cannot review all methods used by

different investigators here and have chosen

only to discuss methodologies where we felt

differences were of significance. Details on

methods used can be found in cited docu¬

ments.

We have attempted to interpret this data,

81

82

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

Table 1 . Morphometric data for Devils Lake,

January, 1984.

Fig. 1. Morphometric map of Devils Lake. Measure¬

ments made in January 1985, by G. Wegner and G.

Quinn. Drafted by E. Eaton.

where possible, in light of the alleged

changes in the lake’s water quality. As is

generally the case with historical water qual¬

ity data sets, gaps in data collections made

interpretations difficult and in most cases,

prevented identification of long-term trends.

We hope the information presented in this

article will serve as a guide for future studies

of the lake and in efforts to prevent its

deterioration.

The Lake and Its Watershed

Devils Lake has a unique geologic history

and origin, the story of which fills many

volumes (Martin, 1916). It lies in a basin

with steep rocky bluffs along the east, west,

and south shorelines. Because the lake has

no outlet, variations in annual precipitation

are reflected in rather dramatic water fluc¬

tuations. A range in lake levels of nearly 11

feet has been recorded over a 56 year period

with an average annual water-level fluctua¬

tion of 2.64 feet (House, 1985). Minimum

and maximum stage were recorded in 1965

and 1973, respectively (House, 1985). Thus,

morphometric data (Table 1) are dependent

upon lake stage. Devils Lake is a 369 acre

seepage lake with an average maximum

depth of 47 feet (Figure 1).

Nearly all of the Devils Lake watershed is

now in State of Wisconsin ownership,

although a few small privately owned parcels

still remain. The Devils Lake watershed is

characterized by small size, steep relief, large

areas of impervious rock surface or shallow

soils and hardwood forest cover type (Plate

1, Figure 2). Because of these characteristics,

surface runoff from the watershed to the

lake is very rapid during storm events and

snowmelt. The only permanent tributary

enters the lake in the southwestern corner,

and even this stream has very little flow

under dry conditions. Other drainage paths

are normally dry but can carry large volumes

of water during major runoff events. The

total watershed land area was 4.34 miles,2

however, only 2.65 miles2 now drains into

Devils Lake. Since the mid-1970,s, runoff

1986]

Lillie and Mason — Changes in Devils Lake

83

Plate 1 . Air photo of Devils Lake from south.

from the northeastern subbasin has been

permanently diverted to the Baraboo River.

We estimated nutrient runoff from the

two main subbasins of the watershed, the

southwest and the northeast, from 1970-74.

Nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in

runoff were found to be similar in both sub¬

basins (Table 2). Estimates of nutrient yields

from these two watersheds (Table 3) sug¬

gested runoff coefficients were typical for

forested watersheds in the U.S. (EPA, 1980).

Total watershed P loading to Devils Lake

(excluding atmospheric and groundwater

contributions) was calculated to be 0.206

g/m2/yr. during the 1970-74 period. This

was slightly above the “permissible” rate as

described in various lake loading models

(Dillon, 1975; Vollenweider, 1975; Uttor-

mark and Hutchins, 1980). However, per¬

manent diversion of the northeast subbasin

drainage from the lake has reduced the an¬

nual watershed nutrient loading to the lake

by about 40 percent. Nutrient loading rates

now appear to be well within the “permissi¬

ble” range.

Results

Historical Record — Physical and Chemical

Devils Lake is dimictic with thermal

stratification beginning in late spring or

Fig. 2. Watershed map of Devils Lake. Drafted by S.

Mace.

84

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

Table 2. Nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in drainage waters to Devils Lake, 1970-1974.

Sample nos. in parentheses.

* Drainage now diverted from the lake.

Table 3. Estimated annual nutrient loading to Devils Lake from the watershed, 1970-1974.

* Drainage now diverted from the lake.

early summer (Figure 3) and continuing

through September. The duration of the

spring overturn and the timing of the estab¬

lishment of a permanent thermocline varies

annually dependent upon climatic patterns.

The depth of the epilimnion progressively in¬

creases from 18-20 feet in early summer to 30

feet by late summer (Figure 3). Erosion of

the thermocline, resulting from the passage

of periodic cold fronts (Stauffer, 1974), is

evident in early fall as the mixing zone rapid¬

ly deepened in late September. Complete

mixing generally is established by mid-

November. Hypolimnetic temperatures vary

from 48-53 °F and do not appear to be cor¬

related with spring weather data.

If if if;

Fig. 3. Dissolved oxygen profiles for Devils Lake during a) 1983 and b) 1984 showing depth of thermocline (shaded

area).

1986]

Lillie and Mason— Changes in Devils Lake

85

One of the most important measurements

of lake water quality is water clarity or ap¬

pearance. Water appearance has not been

adequately measured in Devils Lake, prob¬

ably because it is still clear in comparison

with other southern Wisconsin lakes. How¬

ever, while the written record is lacking, the

collective view of many individuals is that

Devils Lake is generally not as clear as it

used to be. For example, scuba divers have

commented upon the apparent decline in

transparency in recent years.

Data to substantiate a water clarity deteri¬

oration is meager. While a considerable

number of measurements of water clarity

have been made over a long period of record

(Figure 4), changes within seasons make

comparisons difficult. Seasonal trends are

evident with declining water clarity from

early to late summer the rule rather than the

exception. Annual trends in water clarities

are less obvious although the data suggest a

probable decline in water clarity during

1976-81 (Figure 5). However, clarities im¬

proved slightly in 1982 and 1985. Histor¬

ically, water clarity in Devils Lake has re¬

mained very good to excellent based upon

comparisons with 1140 other Wisconsin

lakes (Lillie and Mason, 1983).

Dissolved oxygen (D.O.) concentration

profiles within Devils Lake during the period

of thermal stratification were clineograde ex¬

cept for occasional metalimnetic maxima

Fig. 4. Water clarity of Devils Lake for summer and

fall periods of 1975; 1981-85. Data sources are listed in

Figure 5.

(Figure 3). Epilimnetic concentrations were

generally at or close to 100 percent satura¬

tion. Greatly reduced saturations occurred

below the thermocline due to the decomposi¬

tion and respiration processes. Over 150

D.O. profiles were collected since Birge and

Fig. 5. Historical trends in summer water clarity of

Devils Lake, Sauk County for 25 summers (July-Sep-

tember) from 1916 to 1985. Data sources are: Birge and

Juday (1917, 19 and 26); Cline (1945); Jacob (1955); Lee

(1966); WRR-DNR (1967-80); Dunst (1975); Stauffer

(1971-72); Vignon and Armstrong (1974); Schlesser

(1977-81); Martin (1980); and Devils Lake State Park

Staff (1982-85). Water quality index based on Lillie and

Mason, 1983.

Fig. 6. Comparison of dissolved oxygen concentra¬

tions at the 30 to 40 foot contour levels of Devils Lake.

86

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

Table 4. Dissolved oxygen depletion rate comparisons for Devils Lake.

Data Source Codes: DNR-BLP = Benchmark Lake Program

DNR-DLSP = Devils Lake State Park

DNR-WRR = Water Resources Research Section

1986]

Lillie and Mason— Changes in Devils Lake

87

Fig. 7. Total phosphorus concentrations (ug/L) in the

hypolimnion (40 foot depth) of Devils Lake, 1981-85.

trations appear to have fluctuated annually

with no trend discernible.

Nutrient concentrations in Devils Lake are

quite low (Table 5) and are among the lowest

on record for lakes in the region (based on

Lillie and Mason, 1983). Epilimnetic phos¬

phorus concentrations generally increased

from summer to fall (Table 6) as did hypo-

limnetic values (Figure 7). Increased

hypolimnetic phosphorus concentrations

were observed in 1981 and 1984. Volume

weighted estimates of total in-lake phos¬

phorus mass indicated an overall increase of

100-400 kg in the water column from early

summer to fall turnover (Table 7). This cor-

• DNR DATA SOURCES

1967 68 69 70 71 ' 72 ' 73 ' 74 ' 75 ' 76 ' 77 78 ' 79 ' 80 ' 81 ' 82 ' S3 ' 84 ' 85

Fig. 8. Epilimnetic total phosphorus concentrations

(X± 1SE) in Devils Lake during 1967-85. (N)

= number of sampling dates. * Laboratory precision

during 1969 was low. Data reported to nearest 0. 1 mg/L

phosphate; those values were within ±16 ug/L

phosphorus.

responds with an observed average increase

of 180 kg from spring to fall. However,

spring phosphorus levels were consistently

low (mean 15 ug/L) and no clear trend was

evident in the 19 year record of epilimnetic

phosphorus concentrations (Figure 8).

Lowest total nitrogen concentrations oc¬

curred during spring turnover (mean 0.35

mg/L) and highest levels occurred during the

fall turnover (mean 0.47 mg/L). Occasional

extreme values have been recorded in surface

waters during late summer algae blooms

(2.12 mg/L maximum), whereas higher

Table 7. Comparison of computed (estimated) mass of inlake total phosphorus for Devils Lake.

Values in kilograms of phosphorus.

Data Source Codes: DNR-BLP = Benchmark Lake Program

DNR-DLSP = Devils Lake State Park

DNR-WRR = Water Resources Research Section

88

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

levels were typically found in the hypolim-

nion. Epilimnetic nitrogen concentrations

appeared to have increased steadily from

1967 to 1971 after which they appeared to

have oscillated back and forth about the

mean (Figure 9). No indications of further

increases were evident. The lake appeared to

be phosphorus limited as total nitrogen to

phosphorus ratios generally exceeded 10:1.

Other commonly reported water quality

parameters were relatively stable, both

seasonally and by depth throughout the

period of historical record. Values generally

were lower than normal for the region (Table

8). No clear trends are apparent in any of

these parameters during the period of record

I <*•

1967 ' 68 ' 69 ' 70 ' 71 ' 72 ' 73 ' 74 ' 75 ' 76 ' 77 ' 78 ' 79 ' 80 ' 81 ' 82 ' 83 ' 84 ' 85 '

Fig. 9. Epilimnetic total nitrogen concentrations

(X ± 1SE) in Devils Lake during 1967-85. (N) = Num¬

ber of sampling dates. *One extremely high value

recorded during summer bloom in 1984.

Table 8. Average annual water chemistry values for

* Arithmetic mean.

** umhos/cm

“ pH units

(Figure 10). Magnesium concentrations ap¬

peared to have more than doubled from 3 to

8 mg/L during 1967 to 1980 but the most re¬

cent data (1983-85) were similar to the

earliest data. Conductivities have been quite

variable but appeared to have been higher

than normal during 1979.

Historical Record — Fish

The fish population of Devils Lake

represents the pinnacle of the food chain and

as such has exerted a great ecological impact

on the lake. What the “ original’ ’ population

was like before any human manipulations

took place is unknown, but a population of

forage, panfish and game fish species similar

to that of other southern Wisconsin lakes

(Becker, 1983) probably existed in pre¬

settlement times. Because of the lake’s

geologic history, its fish population most

likely originated from the Wisconsin River

drainage system. Early settlers may have

found lower standing crops of fish than in

other lakes in southern Wisconsin due to the

unique morphometric characteristics and

relatively low fertility of the lake.

Historical records show 32 different fish

species caught, observed, or stocked in

Devils Lake between 1866-1985 (Table 9);

while past errors in identification cannot be

ruled out, data given in Table 15 are believed

to be reasonably accurate.

Earliest records on the fish species in¬

habiting Devils Lake and early accounts of

fish stocking were gleaned from local news¬

papers by Ken Lange, Devils Lake State

Park Naturalist. The Baraboo Republic

reported that the lake in 1866 had great

numbers of “perch, bass and pickerel, some

of the latter weighing twenty- five pounds.’’

The species of “bass” referred to here is

uncertain, but the “pickerel” weighing 25

pounds were surely northern pike. An un¬

dated brochure on the Cliff House, a resort

on Devils Lake from 1873-1904 lists “pike,

pickerel, black bass, yellow perch, sunfish

and minnows” as present in the lake. Again,

whether the “black bass” were largemouth

1986]

Lillie and Mason— Changes in Devils Lake

89

30

20

TOTAL ALKALINITY

mg/L

10-

i967 68 ' 69 ' 70 ' 7 1 ' 72 ' 73 ' 74 75 ' 76 ' 77 78 ' 79 80 ' 81 ' 82 ' 83 ' 84 ' 85'

6.6-

6.4-

1967 68 ' 69 ' 70 ' 7 1 ' 72 ' 73 ' 74 ' 75 ' 76 ' 77 ' 78 ' 79 ' 80 ' 81 ' 82 ' 83' 84' 85'

28-

26-

24-

22-

20-

18-

CALCIUM

(Co)

140-

120-

100-

80-

60-

CONDUCTIVITY

fjmhos/cm

u

16-

14- 1

1967 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

40-

20-

1967 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

CHLORIDES

.M I111'*

1967 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

TIT

i . r 1

1967 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

10-

9-

SODIUM

(No)

u

1 ! 1" 1 _

1967 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 1

82 83 84 85

. !V» «iT 1 s, Pj 1 t n

1967 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

30-

SULFATE

(S04)

I ’ I

1967 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

Fig. 10. Historical trends in selected water chemistry parameters for Devils Lake during 1967-85. Ranges for surface

and hypolimnetic sample values are given for: a) total alkalinity, b) calcium (Ca), c) magnesium (Mg), d) sodium (Na),

e) potassium (K), f) pH, g) conductivity, h) chlorides (Cl), i) sulfate (S04), and j) iron (Fe).

Table 9. Historical record of fish species inhabiting or introduced into Devils Lake. Numbers indicate information source,

S denotes stocked fish; stocking records after 1944 not included.

90

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters [Vol. 74

58-*786l

8261

*7261

2261

02-8961

2961

S5-*7S6l

8%l

2*761

5*761

*7*7-6861

886 L

2861

5861

*7861

186 L

82-S26L

ZZ6L

ZL6L

9061

5061

*7061

2681

9681

5681

*7681

588 L

*7881

628 L

8281

5281

828 L

9981

Spotfin shiner

Notropi s spi iopterus

Spottail shiner

Notropi s hudsoni us

1986]

Lillie and Mason — Changes in Devils Lake

91

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92

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

or smallmouth, or what species of “sunfish”

or “minnows” were there is unknown. The

“pike” were no doubt walleyes. Since the

Cliff House brochure is not dated, some of

the fish species mentioned could have been

introduced into the lake through stocking,

including walleyes. Based on old newspaper

accounts, habitat requirements, and possible

origins of fish species in Devils Lake, we

believe white suckers, rock bass, burbot,

pumpkinseed, darters, and shiners were

probably original lake residents.

One thing is certain, stocking of the lake

began at least as early as 1873 and some

species not originally found there have been

introduced to the lake. “Conservationists”

of the late 1800's apparently recognized the

clear waters of Devils Lake as potential trout

habitat, since the first species reported

stocked were salmonids, e.g. brook trout,

lake trout, Atlantic salmon, and probably

rainbow trout. Brook trout may have

already been present in the lake before they

were stocked; a native population might

have inhabited the southwest inlet. The lake

trout and Atlantic salmon stocked most like¬

ly quickly disappeared from the lake. Rain¬

bow trout were first reported as present in

the lake in 1895 but were probably stocked

much earlier.

Conservation agency workers and co¬

operating sportsmen of the early era believed

stocking and redistributing of fish in the

state's waters were good management prac¬

tices, and as Table 9 clearly shows, Devils

Lake did not escape their “management.”

Species intentionally stocked in the lake in¬

cludes some besides the salmonids which

may not have been there originally. White

bass in all likelihood were not native, yet

they were stocked on at least two different

occasions. Other species stocked, some of

them many times, were largemouth and

smallmouth bass, walleyes, northern pike,

black crappies, bluegills, yellow perch, and

bullheads. Of these stocked species, it ap¬

pears relatively certain northern pike, yellow

perch, and one of the basses (probably

largemouth) were present in Devils Lake

prior to stocking; stockings of some or all of

the other species could have been intentional

introductions. In addition to all these

deliberate plantings, there certainly have

been unintentional introductions of new

species, in particular minnows used as bait

by anglers.

The first comprehensive fish surveys in

Devils Lake were made in the early 1900’s by

University of Wisconsin scientists. Greene

(1935) reported on surveys made between

1925-1928, and examined collections made

earlier by other investigators. He found 14

species, some of which had never been men¬

tioned as present before that time. Since

1937, several studies of the fish population

have been made by the Wisconsin Conserva¬

tion Department/Department of Natural

Resources and good records are available on

fish stocking.

From 1944 to 1984, mostly walleye and

trout were stocked. Trout stocking was

generally viewed as very successful and pro¬

vided a popular and productive fishery

(Jacob, 1954 and 1955; Meier and Ensign,

1967; Brynildson, Ives, and Druckenmiller,

1970). Both rainbow and brown trout have

been found to survive and grow well in

Devils Lake but neither species has ever suc¬

cessfully reproduced there. Evaluation of the

success or failure of walleye stocking pro¬

gram has been considerably more compli¬

cated, because naturally-reproduced wall¬

eyes also presumably exist in the lake.

Walleye fishing reportedly has been good in

some past years, but in recent years the

walleye fishery apparently has declined, even

though large numbers of walleyes were

stocked.

Rough fish have apparently never been

abundant in Devils Lake. White suckers are

believed to have been native to the lake and

were taken in early years by seining and

spearing when they congregated during the

spawning season. Suckers have also been

captured when fish population surveys were

made but never in large number except in

1986]

Lillie and Mason — Changes in Devils Lake

93

May, 1955, when Jacob removed 4,456

pounds from the lake. The presence of carp

in Devils Lake has been noted by personal

observations, but carp have never been cob

lected during any of the fish surveys. The

current status of this species is uncertain but

if carp are now present it is in low numbers.

There is very little historical record of the

minnow population in Devils Lake aside

from a few notations of species present.

Greene (1935) reported mimic shiner, blunt-

nose minnow, and Iowa darter as found in

the lake. In 1945, minnow seining by the

Wisconsin Conservation Department caught

“predominately spot- tail shiner and Johnny

darter.” Meier and Ensign (1967) listed

bluntnose minnow, fathead minnow, spot-

tail shiner, and Johnny darter as present.

Smith (1972) reported seeing “many” fat¬

head minnows. The October, 1984, fish

population survey captured great numbers

of minnows, with mimic shiner, spotfin

shiner, and bluntnose minnow most abun¬

dant. Other species present in lesser numbers

were Iowa darter, Johnny darter, fathead

minnow, and blacknose dace. Based on this

information, there appears to have been

some changes in minnow population com¬

position and abundance since the early

1900’s which could have an important eco¬

logical impact.

Population surveys made over the past 30

years by Jacob (1954, 1955), Meier and En¬

sign (1967), and Mason (1984) suggest that

the fish composition of Devils Lake has

changed (Table 10). These surveys indicate

increases in the bluegill, pumpkinseed, and

largemouth bass populations and possible

decreases in perch, walleye, and smallmouth

bass numbers between 1955-1984. Northern

pike and black crappie numbers also may

have increased during this period. The

greatest increase in the largemouth bass

population appears to have occurred be¬

tween 1955-1967, while the greatest pro¬

liferation of the bluegill-pumpkinseed

population apparently took place between

1967-1984.

The bluegill-pumpkinseed population ex¬

pansion is the most dramatic and potentially

ecologically significant fish population

change. Newspaper records from the late

1800’s do not mention bluegills and only one

account mentioned pumpkinseeds {Bamboo

Republic , July, 1879). Greene (1935) and

other associated scientists captured bluegillls

during their surveys of Devils Lake in the

early 1900’s, providing the first record of

Table 10. Comparison of catch of some warm-water fish species by netting surveys of Devils Lake.

Table 1 1 . Mean length of different age groups of fish species in Devils Lake compared to averages

for other Southern Wisconsin lakes. Sample nos. in parentheses.

94

Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters

[Vol. 74

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Age group 0 average length determined from length frequency.

1986]

Lillie and Mason-Changes in Devils Lake

95

bluegill presence in the lake. In the period

from 1934-44, the Wisconsin Conservation

Department repeatedly stocked bluegills,

therefore, fish managers in the Department

must have felt the population at that time

was not providing an adequate fishery.

Jacob’s surveys in 1954 and 1955 indicate

that the bluegill and pumpkinseed popula¬

tions remained relatively low through that