Preconfederation Ornithology

(1716-1779)

Introduction

Pehr Kalm was a Swedish botanist and one of Carl Linnaeus’s disciples, commissioned to collect plants in North America between 1748 and 1751. While based in the United States, he toured parts of New France, mostly in the St. Lawrence valley, from late-July to mid-October 1749. In August 1750 he also visited Niagara Falls.

Pehr Kalm

Kalm’s North American travels were published in Swedish in three volumes between 1753 and 1761. The manuscript of his fourth volume containing his trip to Niagara lay unpublished and was eventually destroyed in a fire. The English version of his North American travels, entitled Peter Kalm's Travels in North America, was published in London in 1770-71.

A new English edition, Travels in North America by Peter Kalm translated by John R. Foster and edited by Adolph Benson, was published in 1937, with a revised edition published by Dover in 1964. A French translation by Morriset, Rousseau and Bethune, entitled Pehr Kalm au Canada en 1749, was published in 1977. This version offers by far the most complete account of Kalm’s travels in Canada and deserves a prominent place in the literature of the early natural history of Canada. Details of Kalm’s observations are taken from these most recent editions.

Kalm was born in 1716 in the Province of Ångermanland, Sweden. In 1735 he graduated from the Abo Academy, a multi-disciplinary university in Finland. He displayed an early interest in theology, but Bishop Johan Browallious, who recognized his interest in flora and fauna, and his scientific talent, encouraged him to undertake collecting trips to Finland and Sweden.

In 1739 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was founded to direct a flourishing interest in scientific research. One of the Academy’s main interests was to increase the number of useful plants and trees in Sweden by the importing and planting of foreign seeds. Russia and North America were considered prime areas for research.

In 1741 Kalm moved to Uppsala to study natural history. There he became a pupil and disciple of Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus. In his field work Kalm gained a reputation as a botanist with a strong utilitarian focus. He was elected to the Academy in 1745.

Two years later he was appointed Professor of Agriculture at the Abo Academy. In the same year the Royal Swedish Academy decided to send a scientist to North America. Kalm with his background, interests and connections, was selected.

Kalm embarked from London in August 1748, arriving in Philadelphia on September 15th, where he met with leading American naturalists. The Academy had instructed him to explore Canada [New France] with its more northerly climate, thought to be similar to that of Sweden and Finland.¹

In the fall winter and spring Kalm botanized in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. As the plant flowering season advanced, he left Philadelphia in mid-May and entered the Hudson River valley in mid-June. On July 2, 1749, Kalm reached Fort Saint-Frédéric at the south end of Lake Champlain. At that time the fort was situated on the southern boundary of New France.

Kalm in Canada

On July 20, 1749, Kalm travelled up Lake Champlain, and spent his first night on Canadian soil at Fort Saint-Jean, at the entrance to the Richelieu River. From there he proceeded to Montreal arriving on July 24, 1749. At Montreal he described Passenger Pigeons (Pehr Kalm au Canada, 172):

The French call them Doves (tourtes); they say that in summer they frequent the great forests and orchards here in infinite numbers and that the birds nest in the trees; they often blot out the sky; when it gets cold they leave the region and head south and one does not see them until the next spring. People try to preserve them but here it is not possible. It is very easy when one is at home to catch them by hand for food and they become as docile as domestic pigeons. They pass several days before flying into the forest where they do not reappear.

One of the well-known ways of capturing pigeons was by netting as illustrated below:

"Passenger Pigeon Net, St. Anne's, Lower Canada". Watercolour and pen and black and brown ink on wove paper (1829). James Patterson Cockbur. Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1989-262-18. Copyright: Expired.

Kalm botanized in the Montreal area for about one week. He noted the unusual construction of fans made with the tail feathers of wild turkeys (Pehr Kalm au Canada, 194):

One makes them [fans] here with the tail of wild turkeys. People take them from the dead animal and form a fan, leave them to dry in this position, they stick together in this form. I have seen women, and sometimes men of stature, with them while walking in the town, when it was really hot.

Turkey feathers may have been collected by French traders from Indigenous people who lived along the north shore of Lake Erie. In the 18th century, this area was the eastern range limit known for Wild Turkeys in New France.

On August 2, Kalm travelled down the St Lawrence arriving the next day at Trois-Rivières. On August 4 he noted a Ruby-throated Hummingbird:

[...] among the bushes where we landed that today. The French call it Oiseau mouche and say it is pretty common in Canada, and I have seen it since several times at Quebec.

Kalm arrived at Quebec on August 5. There he met with the Governor, de la Galissionière, and the Médecin du Roi, Jean-Francois Gaultier. Kalm and Gaultier collected many seeds and plants at Lorette and Île d’Orléans and other sites around the city.

Kalm was conscious of the immense task of setting down in his journal all the plants and wildlife he found. On August 8, 1749, he wrote (Benson’s Travels in North America II, 447):

If I should crowd my journal with my daily botanical observations, and descriptions of animals, birds, insects, ores and like curiosities, it would be swelled to six or ten times its present size. I therefor spare all these things ... for a Flora Canadensis or a similar work ... Concerning the Canadian plants, I can here add that the further you go northward, the more you find the plants are the same as the Swedish ones: thus, on the north side of Quebec, a fourth part of the plants, if not more, are the same as the wild plants in Sweden. 

Regrettably, while he alludes to having made many additional notes on Canadian flora and fauna, his Journal remains his main contribution to Canadian natural history and ornithology.

Kalm and Gaultier travelled downriver on August 29, visiting Baie Saint-Paul, Les Éboulements and Cap-aux-Oies.

He wrote again on Passenger Pigeons (Pehr Kalm au Canada, 284) remarking that they do not nest in the vicinity of Quebec but northeast along the St Lawrence River. He noted that in some places their droppings covered the forest floor to a depth of one to two feet. Kalm writes that, unlike the settlers, the Indigenous people did not take the pigeons during the nesting season. De la Galissionière told him that he had acquired some pigeons that year which he intended to take to France.

While at Bay Saint-Paul he made a few comments on the birds (Pehr Kalm au Canada, 354):

Here are but few birds, and those that pass the summer here migrate in autumn, so that there are no other birds than white and brown partridges [“rapphons” Swedish for partridge, hence in this location Ruffed Grouse] and ravens in winter. Crows migrate in autumn. 

They returned to Quebec on September 7, left on September 11 and arrived in Montreal on September 15.

On September 11, 1749, on the way to Trois-Rivières he noted in his Journal many plovers. He shot one and provided a description of a Semipalmated Plover which he named the “Gravelotte [little plover]” (Pehr Kalm au Canada, 411-412). Kalm’s complete description in Latin is detailed and conclusive.This record represents the first scientific description of this bird collected in Canada. Kalm’s record pre-dates the American Ornithological Society accepted scientific description of the Semipalmated Plover by Charles Lucien Bonaparte from 1825.

When Kalm returned to Montreal he continued to collect botanical material. His initial plan was to travel from Montreal to Niagara Falls via the St Lawrence and Lake Ontario and return to Philadelphia through the Hudson valley. The new governor, the Marquis de la Jonquière, refused his request. As a result, he left Montreal on October 11th and retraced his route back to the Fort Saint-Jean area. On the morning of October 15th he entered American waters in Lake Champlain His elapsed time in Canada totalled 88 days.

In the summer of 1750 Kalm travelled north from Albany reaching Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario on August 13. He travelled by boat along the southern shore of the Lake to Fort Niagara. On August 24, accompanied by some French officers, he visited Niagara Falls. He was one the first people to sketch and describe the Falls. In his brief notes describing his visit to Niagara Kalm mentions a large number of migrating waterfowl. He noted that some were occasionally swept over the waterfall to their death. He also mentions a single Swan in the basin below the Falls. This bird survived the descent but was unable to fly. Given the location, the unknown length of its presence, and a lack of description it is not possible to determine the species.

Kalm spent likely three or four days in Canada on his Niagara trip. In total his time in the St Lawrence valley and Niagara amounted to about 92 days. In October he returned to Philadelphia and embarked for Europe on February 13, 1751.

Kalm's Manuscripts of his travels are full of accounts, sometimes in considerable detail, of everything that caught his attention. While his interest was primarily botanical he make many comments on the lifestyle, attitudes and dress of the settlers, traders, townspeople, religious leaders, politicians and the Native people he met, the geological features of the landscape he saw, items of trade, and the economic system, and wildlife he encountered.

Kalm’s 1749 Journal entries represent the first scientific field notes in natural history in Canada. Of key importance for Canadian ornithology are his accounts of Passenger Pigeons and his scientific description of the Semipalmated Plover. Kalm’s accounts of his meeting and interactions with de la Galissionière and Gaultier are unfortunately too brief. At this time both were in the middle of collecting ornithological specimens for the French scientist Réaumur whose collection provided the Canadian material for Mathurin-Jacques Brisson’s pioneering work, Ornithologie. Its publication in 1760 with its detailed descriptions of Canadian birds is by far the most significant event in the history of the ornithology of New France.

In the introduction to the 1937 Dover edition, Adolph Benson comments on why he thinks that the Kalm Journal has maintained a wide readership over the centuries:

Large indeed is the scope of subjects that attract Kalm's attention, and striking the simplicity, straightforwardness, poise, conscientiousness, and the almost humorous naivete with which he makes the heterogeneous entries of his observations in his diary.

Kalm’s diary is unique. It contains the first detailed natural history observations of a trained naturalist in Quebec and in Canada. Morriset, and his co-authors’ meticulous work, deserves a prominent place in the literature of the early natural history of Canada.

Bibliography

• Broberg, Gunnar in Sterling, Keir B., Richard P. Hammond, George A Cevasco and Lorne F. Hammond edit. 1997. “Kalm, Pehr” Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press
• Jarrell, Richard A. 1979-2025. “Kalm, Pehr” Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Toronto and Laval: University of Toronto/Universite Laval
• Kalm, Peter 1964. Travels in North America By Peter Kalm, 2 Vols. Translated by John R. Forster. Revised by Adolph Benson. New York: Dover reprint
• Rousseau, Jacques, Guy Bethune and Pierre Morriset 1977. Voyage de Pehr Kalm en Canada en 1749. Montreal: P. Tisseyre
• Kalm, Pehr 1759. Vetenskaps Akademiens Handlingar Vol XX Stockholm: Larssalvius