Research Request Leads to Vacuuming

Century eggs are a Chinese tradition where eggs are placed in an exotic recipe of alkaline clay and brine solution over several months. This preserves them for later consumption, and the chemical changes in the egg proteins makes for an interesting flavour. Of course, these “century” eggs are not, in truth, one hundred years old. The Museum, however, does have actual century eggs that have been carefully prepared and preserved for later use, and can provide science with a very tasty treat.

I’m afraid I couldn’t help myself, and once I had found 100-year-old eggs in the collection for my last blog post, I thought I would see if we had others. The Museum has 8 sets of eggs that are 100 years old this year. And we do have even older-than-century eggs, with over 120 clutches collected before 1911. The oldest is a set of five Clapper Rail eggs collected in Louisiana in April 1880.

I’m afraid I couldn’t help myself, and once I had found 100-year-old eggs in the collection for my last blog post, I thought I would see if we had others. The Museum has 8 sets of eggs that are 100 years old this year. And we do have even older-than-century eggs, with over 120 clutches collected before 1911. The oldest is a set of five Clapper Rail eggs collected in Louisian in April 1880.

Of the actual century eggs in the Museum collection, two were collected by Arthur Cleveland Bent of Bent’s Life Histories fame, and examined in the last posting. Of the remaining sets, there is a Sandhill Crane from Alaska,  a Grey Heron from Scotland, a Double-crested Cormorant from Quebec, a Caspian Tern from California, a Clapper Rail from Virginia, and an Osprey from New Jersey.

With an active and thoughtfully built museum research collection, the history and pattern of chemical signals in our environment as well as general ecosystem health and composition over the last 130 or more years can be studied and compared. This can help us better understand ecological processes and inform us on how to better manage our environment. It is worth keeping in mind, though, that the original collections were made not for some planned future application, but for the plain joy and fascination in the world around us. Taking an active interest in nature and exploring its riches just out of pure curiosity, just to know, will take us places and provide opportunities we would never have had otherwise.

I wouldn’t recommend making a meal of the Museum century eggs, but they certainly can give science and society a great deal to chew on.

I’m sure you are familiar with this scenario: getting on the internet for a specific nugget of information and then finding yourself some significant time later on some odd, but interesting tangent, and wondering, “How did I end up here?!” Browsing the Museum collections can be a bit like a 3-dimensional internet search, where examining one specimen can bring you on a voyage across space and time to a fascinating and unexpected place.

I recently had that experience when checking our collection to see what material we had of Black-legged Kittiwake. In an earlier blog, I related my recent sighting of this gull species in southern Manitoba where it is very rarely seen. I was curious to see if we had any kittiwake specimens. As it turns out, we have no adult specimens, but I found that the Museum houses some kittiwake eggs!

Now, unless you are a student of ornithology or an avid birder, you are unlikely to recognize this name. Bent was a successful businessman with an interest in birds, and was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. to write a series entitled, Life Histories of North American Birds. This series became his own life history, as he eventually produced 21 volumes published from 1919-1968, with the last few completed posthumously from his notes. Although encyclopedic in nature and remaining a standard reference, these books are surprisingly entertaining to read and contain some wonderful natural history writing that gives an authentic account of what fieldwork and life (not just bird-life) was like in the early 1900’s, and shares the joy of discovery.

Getting to the islands was an adventure in itself: “Our introduction to the famous fur-seal islands was characteristic of that dismal climate. We had been sailing by compass all night from Bogoslof Island, and morning found us still groping in the prevailing thick fog, which serves to keep the seals’ coats cool and moist, but is a menace to mariners. At last, when we had about concluded that we had missed our reckoning and had passed the islands, we began to see a few of these large white-breasted auklets flying past us to the eastward. Turning, we followed them, and before long we could hear the barking, roaring, and bellowing of the fur seals in their rookeries on St. Paul Island. Feeling our way carefully toward them until we could dimly see the outline of the cliffs, we crept along the shore into Village Cove [the main town].”

How about navigating by auklet instead of GPS!! That would sure cramp our style nowadays when we even have to punch in coordinates to find the local Tim Horton’s, never mind a tiny island in a northern sea!

Despite the initial doubtful outcome of the trip, Bent had no reservations about his work once there: “On July 7, 1911, I spent one of the most eventful afternoons of my life studying the nesting habits of this and the hosts of other sea birds that make their summer home on the wonderful, little, rocky islet of the Pribilof group, Walrus Island.”

I am fond of Bent’s description of the kittiwakes and their nests from which our Museum eggs came: “In Bering Sea we found this to be one of the commonest gulls and found it breeding on all of the islands where it could find high rocky cliffs. On Walrus Island, where there are no high cliffs, we had an unusually good opportunity to examine the nests. Among the hosts of sea birds which made their summer home on this wonderful island a few little parties, of from four to six pairs each, of Pacific kittiwakes found a scanty foothold on the vertical faces of the low, rocky cliffs. Here their nests were skillfully placed on the narrow ledges or on little protuberances which seemed hardly wide enough to hold them, and often they were within a few feet of nesting California murres [another puffin relative] or red-faced cormorants, with which the island was overcrowded. The nests were well-made of soft green grass and bits of sod securely plastered onto the rocks and probably were repaired and used again year after year. They were well-rounded, deeply cupped on top, and lined with fine dry grass. Most of the nests, on July 7 [1911], contained two eggs, some only one, but none of them held young. The incubating birds and their mates standing near the nests were very gentle and tame. We had no difficulty in getting near enough to photograph them.” Or, apparently, to collect a few of their eggs!

Taking short trips like this in the Museum time machine, via collections and the natural history and human stories they tell, makes me wonder at times if I was somehow born a century (or more!) too late. Not as a knock on the modern approach, but wouldn’t it be fun to open up a modern nature guidebook and find such enjoyable, yet informative prose? Bent’s descriptions convey a joy in observation and discovery, as well as a respect for the organism that is inspiring. Museum collections and the stories they tell can help us make a better connection and foster a deeper appreciation for our fellow Earthlings and their habitats, something that can only be for the good as our world view is increasingly dominated by concrete, steel, asphalt, and electronic/entertainment media.