How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts

Description
The Nature Fakers controversy, also called the “War of the Naturalists,” was an early 20th-century American debate over sentimentality versus accuracy in nature writing. The controversy was kicked off in 1903 when naturalist and writer John Burroughs published his article “Real and Sham Natural History” in The Atlantic Monthly, lambasting popular nature writers for their overly-anthropomorphic depictions of wildlife and denouncing the genre of realistic animal fiction as the “yellow journalism of the woods.”
Robert Williams Wood, inspired by the nature fakers controversy, published How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers: A Manual of Flornithology for Beginners in 1907, followed by Animal Analogues in 1908. The books collect illustrated poems comparing plants and animals with similar names, satirizing the uninformed, anthropomorphized style of nature writing. The Nature Fakers controversy is referenced most explicitly in his poem “The Yellow‑hammer; The Saw‑fish.”
In 1917, the books were combined into How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts: A Revised Manual of Flornithology for Beginners. The revised edition included two new poems, removed four poems from Animal Analogues, and revised the text and illustrations of a number of others. This Standard Ebooks edition restores the missing poems from Animal Analogues.
Read free
This ebook is thought to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. It may still be under copyright in other countries. If you’re not located in the United States, you must check your local laws to verify that this ebook is free of copyright restrictions in the country you’re located in before accessing, downloading, or using it.

Download for ereaders
-
Compatible epub — All devices and apps except Kindles and Kobos.
-
azw3 — Kindle devices and apps. Also download the Kindle cover thumbnail to see the cover in your Kindle’s library. Despite what you’ve been told, Kindle does not natively support epub. You may also be interested in our Kindle FAQ.
-
kepub — Kobo devices and apps. You may also be interested in our Kobo FAQ.
-
Advanced epub — An advanced format that uses the latest technology not yet fully supported by most ereaders.
Read online
A brief history of this ebook
More details
Sources
Transcriptions
Page scans
Improve this ebook
Anyone can contribute to make a Standard Ebook better for everyone!
To report typos, typography errors, or other corrections, see how to report errors.
If you’re comfortable with technology and want to contribute directly, check out this ebook’s GitHub repository and our contributors section.
You can also donate to Standard Ebooks to help fund continuing improvement of this and other ebooks.