There is not long to wait until the tercentenary of the first voyage of Mark Catesby (1683–1749) to North America, which began in 1722. This richly illustrated book's particular viewpoint is to highlight the environmental changes that have occurred since Catesby's first and second visits to North America, using his observations as a starting point.
Alan Brush, Emeritus Professor of Physiology and Neurobiology at the University of Connecticut, and his wife, professional artist M. J. Brush, travelled through the Carolinas, Florida and the Bahamas, describing and painting many of the plants and animals described in Catesby's The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1729–1747).
Each full-page colour plate drawn by M. J. Brush is accompanied by a short text written by the artist, on a stand-alone page. These accompany the longer text observations by Alan H. Brush. Two introductory chapters examine “Catesby's world, past and present” and “Collecting and classifying: organizing the natural world”. The main text and illustrations fall under four main headings: “On the land”; “Where the land meets the sea”; “Oceans formerly full of fish”; and “Bahamas and beyond”. The plates, mainly of birds and plants, are very detailed and don't attempt to mimic the style of Catesby's work. Some of the drawings, taken from study skins of birds, contrive to make the specimen “come alive”. The focus on extinct birds is understandable, given the conservation-oriented theme of the book, though the species chosen for the cover illustration (the ivory-billed woodpecker, Campephilus principalis), may not yet be quite extinct.
Sections such as “chasing a diminishing resource” deal competently with the complex issues of fishing rights; former President Truman's claim over the continental shelf (primarily to secure oil resources) had the accidental benefit of enabling legislation to control these fishing grounds as national property. Though most of the book's plates were prepared from actual specimens, the illustration of the yellow-fin tuna (Thunnus albacares) was made from video and still photographs; as with other paintings of fish, it is unfortunately shown in a somewhat unnatural vertical orientation. Two of the plates are of marine habitats; the first, captioned “Sargasso Sea”, contains 11 animal species, while the second (from a 2001 deep-sea expedition by the submersible vessel Alvin) shows both the submarine and a range of corals.
From personal experience, it was good to read of chitosan, derived from the exoskeletons of shrimps and horseshoe crabs, used in medicine to coat sutures. The over-exploitation of this resource has led to restrictions on harvesting the crabs, whose diminishing numbers also limit the populations of red knot (Calidris canutus) and ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres) that feed on their eggs. As well as an occasional digression into topics such as crops (rice, and the reliance once on slaves for its cultivation), the book has a welcome emphasis on marine biology, reminding us that travellers like Mark Catesby had ample time to make observations during their lengthy oceanic voyages.
Those of a creationist persuasion will find some of its phraseology challenging, for example, “an anthropogenic conceit” based on a human socioeconomic structure. This is in a section on Franklinia, an extinct-in-the-wild member of the tea family discovered by John (1699–1777) and William Bartram (1739–1823) in 1765 and now known only from specimens in cultivation. The loss of Pinus palustris forest is also bemoaned, and there is an interesting discussion of the effect of the arrival of European settlers and alien weeds on unspoiled habitats, though the impacts (or lack of them) of native Americans are hardly mentioned.
On balance, I can recommend this book both for its thought-provoking text and for its usually stunning illustrations, though there is little in it to interest Catesby's “coterie of devotees” (a phrase used on a Catesby Commemorative Trust Facebook page) beyond the occasional reference to an observation in his Natural History.