Page 24 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 2 Winter 2013

22
Parrots, Parakeets, Macaws: Psittacidae
Members of this family feed chiefly
on fruit, and some of the commoner
species cause considerable damage
to plantations of banana, guava,
etc. . . . Parrots squawk (waak-waak),
parakeets screech (creek-creek),
parrotlets chatter softly.
ond visited SouthAmerica only oncemore, in 1961,
decades earlier having decided that his primary
interest lay in the avifauna of the Caribbean, and par-
ticularly the West Indies. “I’ve always loved islands,” he
once explained, “the result perhaps of many summers as
a child along the Maine coast.” An active, contributing
naturalist until his death at age 89, “during his lifetime
he visited more than 100 Caribbean islands and collected
294 of the 300 bird species living there,” his Alumni Horae
obituary reported in 1989.
For Bond, “collecting”
evolved from actual
capture or killing of spec-
imens to a primarily obser-
vational and cataloging
activity. As early as 1930,
he was a vocal critic of
“‘so-called scientists and
collectors,’ through which
many species of birds
are rapidly becoming
extinct,” as reported in a
New York Times article
titled “Bird Collectors
Called a Menace.”
“Jim was one of the
earliest among the newly
awakened field scientists who preferred to study the
living bird, even if it were the last of its kind,” a friend
wrote, “to give posterity a verbal portrait of its doings
rather than a three-dimensional mass of feathers
stuffed with cotton.”
Bond undertook most of his explorations before the
time of regular air service between the islands or the
other conveniences and luxuries afforded to Caribbean
travelers in the decades since. “Setting out for one of
the larger islands by steamer from New York,” Contosta
wrote, “he relied on mail boats and cargo ships to reach
the more remote spots. More than once he had to hire
natives to row him out to a tiny off-shore island.”
In her book To James Bond with Love, Mary Wickham
Bond, whom the naturalist married in his 53rd year,
recounts some of her husband’s exploits, both while a
bachelor and in travels with her.
Failing to find any parrots on the Bahamian island of
Abaco, she writes, Bond consulted a longtime resident
naturalist of Nassau, who counseled him that he never
would encounter the colorful birds so far north, on an
island higher in latitude than Miami. Undeterred, he
arranged passage on an aging motorboat, the Priscilla ,
which was pushed by a gale beyond its intended Cherokee
Sound landing site on Abaco to eventual safety behind
an opening in a reef. A forced hike over coral, through
mangrove swamps, and across long stretches of loose
sand brought Bond only to his next difficult crossing,
in a small fishing skiff over more rough water, which
tossed all the food over the side. On the 12-mile hike
to reach their final destination, Bond and his two fisher-
man guides had to negotiate wild pigs digging for crabs
in the sand and to puncture coconuts for water to ease
a tearing thirst. Finally, just before dusk, the guides led
Bond to a deep hole in the earth, away from the beach.
They entered and climbed down, escaping the swarms
of ravenous mosquitoes.
“It was the most extraordinary place I’ve ever seen,”
he told Mary years later. They wandered among caverns
of stalagmites and stalactites, startling thousands of bats
when they lit a fire with wood from the beach.
In the morning, Bond emerged. Before him was a huge
flock of the elusive parrots.
Inevitably as he maneuvered among the many West
Indian islands, Bond encountered frequent privation and,
reports Contosta, exhaustion, dysentery, and various other
illnesses, including terrible seasickness on the first days
of voyages. Once with the help of several island natives,
he entered a village with only 126 pounds on his 6’ 2 ”
frame, “looking like a walking skeleton.” A friend fortified
him with broth and then “draped him over a horse for
the trip alone down to Port-au-Prince.”
B
The “real” James Bond
Bond’s wife, Mary, wrote about her husband’s
connection with the more famous James Bond.