Birds and Brontes

Naturalists and Novelists: Birds, Bewick, and the Brontës. A Northfield Bird Club program presented by David Spector.

How does knowledge about birds move from scientific discovery to use in the wider culture? In

this talk David will describe some of the birds in the novels Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and

Wuthering Heights by her sister Emily Brontë, introduce the wood engravings of bird illustrator

Thomas Bewick, and discuss his influence, and that of the science he cites, on the Brontës. David

will make the case that attention to the birds can give new insight into the reading of classics,

and even reveal a two-century old conversation between sisters.

David Spector is an ornithologist who has done research on warbler song and has an interest in

birds in literature. He is a retired professor of biology at Central Connecticut State University,

former board president of the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, and co-editor of the

Bird

Finding Guide to Western Massachusetts.