評論
打印
Butterflies in America
美國的蝴蝶
To marvel at all things
所有事都值得驚奇
A splendid twinning of natural science and America
自然科學與美利堅民族的完美結(jié)合
Butterfly People: An American Encounter with the Beauty of the World.By William Leach.
蝴蝶客：美國與世界之美的相遇
“BUTTERFLIES and butterflies”, wrote Walt Whitman, “continue to flit to and fro, all sorts, white, yellow, brown, purple”. Whitman may have had an eye for colour, but as a mere journalist and poet with perhaps a touch of lepidopterophilia, he does not quite qualify as one of William Leach's “Butterfly People”.
“蝴蝶、還是蝴蝶”，沃爾特惠特曼寫道，“它們不停地來回飛過，各種各樣的，有白的、黃的、棕色的還有紫色的”。惠特曼對顏色是有判斷力，但是僅僅作為一位知道點鱗翅類昆蟲的記者和詩人，并不是威廉所稱的“蝴蝶客”
True butterfly people were far more serious. They were enthusiasts and obsessives who took advantage of the unfettered access to undeveloped land afforded by a young country pressing its frontier westward. They were artisans and aesthetes: scientists of a sort that gradually ceased to exist as the natural sciences grew more formal and mature.
真正的蝴蝶客遠遠嚴謹?shù)亩唷Ｋ麄兛駸岫惹校贻p的國家正在向西部擴充領(lǐng)土，所以他們可以利用這種優(yōu)勢，自由使用未開發(fā)的土地。他們是手藝人兼審美家：這類所謂的科學家，隨著自然科學發(fā)展得更加正式和成熟，這類科學家漸漸不存在了。
Mr Leach's compelling thesis is that 19th-century America provided a uniquely hospitable time and place for lovers, and especially collectors, of butterflies. Agricultural toil and westward expansion brought droves of ordinary people into intimate contact with vast expanses of pristine lands. Most 19th-century Americans, Mr Leach writes—uncharitably but probably accurately—saw nature “as something to dig up or harvest from the earth or to be torn down and transformed into real estate or money”, and yet because there was so much untouched land, even the most rapacious miner or builder would in the course of his life come into contact with the natural world on a scale and in a way unknown to Americans today.
里奇先生的有趣命題是：19世紀的美國為蝴蝶愛好者，特別是收藏家提供了一個獨一無二的熱情好客的時代。農(nóng)業(yè)耕作和西部擴張將大批的普通人與廣袤無際的未開墾土地緊密聯(lián)系在一起。大多數(shù)19世紀的美國人，里奇先生寫道，視自然為“可以從地下挖掘或從地上收割的，可以推倒蓋房子或者賣錢的東西”，他的評語盡管尖刻，卻也許十分精準。可是因為有如此之多未開墾的土地，即使是最貪婪的財主和建設(shè)者也會在他一生中與大自然發(fā)生聯(lián)系,這種聯(lián)系無論從規(guī)模上、在形式上， 都是如今的美國人無法想象的。
Perhaps more important, “natural science” had not yet become “biology”. It was practised out of doors rather than in a laboratory, and aside from the classification madness of Linnaeus, it was light on systems and formality. Its early titans, such as Charles Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian aristocrat whose masterwork, “The Cosmos”, began being published in 1845, “seemed indifferent to drawing lines between art and science,” Mr Leach writes. “Their prose was often excellent and readable, so much so as to later seem unscientific. They often wrote on behalf of the artistic attractions of nature.” They led with a sense of curiosity driven by rapture and wonder. Natural science belonged not to the trained and pedigreed biologist, but to the passionate amateur: they were “naturalists”, not biologists.
或許更重要的是，“自然科學”沒有發(fā)展為“生物學”。它的研究在戶外進行而不是在實驗室，不像林奈繁雜的分類法，體系和形式是次要的。有關(guān)研究它的早期的泰斗，像查爾斯達爾文，以及亞歷山大洪堡特，一位在1845年出版名著《大宇宙》的普魯士貴族，“似乎對劃分科學與藝術(shù)的界線漠不關(guān)心”，里奇先生寫道。“他們寫的散文總是出色易懂，以至于對后人來說顯得不科學，他們常常為了自然的藝術(shù)吸引力而寫文章。”他們引領(lǐng)了一種由狂喜和驚奇驅(qū)使的好奇感。自然科學不屬于受過訓練的正統(tǒng)生物學家，但卻屬于熱情激昂的業(yè)余愛好者：他們是“博物學家”，而不是生物學家。
Butterfly people learned by observing, thinking and arguing. They included Samuel Scudder, who named the monarch butterfly and wrote a magisterial, three-volume work about North American butterflies that won raves from lepidoptery's literary champion, Vladimir Nabokov, 70 years after its publication. Another was William Henry Edwards. His great grandfather was America's most renowned Puritan theologian, and he eventually wrote his own three-volume doorstop.
蝴蝶客們從觀察、思考和爭論中學習。他們中包括薩繆爾斯卡德，他命名了黑脈金蝴蝶，寫了一本關(guān)于北美蝴蝶的三卷的權(quán)威著作，這部書出版70年后令鱗翅類昆蟲的文學巨匠弗拉基米爾納博科夫驚嘆不已。另一位是威廉亨利愛德華。他了不起的祖父是美國最有名望的普魯士神學家，他最終寫出了自己三卷鴻篇巨著。
Mr Leach is at his best when profiling men such as Edwards, Scudder and others, including solitary, taciturn Herman Strecker and resentful, bilious Augustus Grote. These are the amateur giants on whose broad shoulders much contemporary biology and entomology rests.
里奇先生最擅長介紹愛德華、斯卡德等等，包括沉默寡言的隱士斯特雷克和壞脾氣的奧古斯塔斯格羅特。當代生物學和昆蟲學正是站在這些業(yè)余研究巨匠寬闊的肩膀上。
