Wild Mull

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Littlewood ◽  
Martin Jones

High above the mountaintops on the Isle of Mull, a huge bird is soaring. Its all-encompassing gaze records people in its Hebridean territory far below, but they are of no interest. The eagle is about its business: concentrating on the deer and fidgety hares out grazing in the morning sun, the urgent push of thermals beneath its wings, a threatening weather front way out at sea, and the restless chick back in its eyrie. This is Mull in its glory. This is what the excited, watching people have travelled so far to witness. They train their binoculars and admire, perhaps envy, the eagle with its vast freedom, knowing that such a self-willed being is part of another world – almost. This book guides the reader through that world. With superb illustrations and illuminating text, we are led to the wild side of Mull. Every facet of the island’s natural history is considered, its diverse species and many stories – past, present and future. Along the way we are reminded that wildness is not somehow separate from the human world but influenced, and shared, by nature and people together. Here is the tale of a precious and unique place, a seaborne landscape that displays an uncommon biodiversity and rare wildlife experiences, although today it also faces its greatest challenges. Most of all, this book is testimony to the power of wild places and the duty we have to learn from and protect them.

2021 ◽  
pp. 216770262199035
Author(s):  
John B. Saunders

Symptoms are vital representations of human disorders, are key to understanding disorders, and may be the focus of specific therapeutic efforts. Symptoms are imperfect, and there are many influences on how they are described and understood. Are they hand servants of diagnosis or important in their own right? The answer seems to be both, but diagnosis is typically the way in which communication about psychopathology occurs internationally in many clinical disciplines. Diagnosis is also the basis of knowledge of the natural history of psychopathology and its treatment and therapy. Investigations into the nature and meaning of symptoms can helpfully focus on emerging disorders, of which gaming disorder is provided as an example.


1665 ◽  
Vol 1 (18) ◽  
pp. 315-316 ◽  

The publisher of these tracts, knowing that the Honorable Robert Boyle had not left unconsidered the natural history of the sea, of which subject the late, and these present papers, have entertained the reader as to the observables of its flux and reflux; He was on this occasion instant, with that gentleman to impart to him, for publication, these heads of inquiries, he had drawn up, touching that subject: which having obtained (though the author desires, they may be lookt upon as unfinisht) he thus subjoyns.


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-76
Author(s):  
Debbye Chávez ◽  
Julio Villacres Matías

El presente estudio guarda estrecha relación con la alimentación de caprinos, las ganancias de peso y su producción; sabiendo que, para que un animal logre buenos rendimientos productivos se hace necesaria una alimentación que cubra necesidades energéticas de mantenimiento, luego de crecimiento y ganancia de peso o de producción; se determinó el recorrido en unidades de desplazamiento; luego, por medio de fórmulas de medición energética trasformar esto a energía metabolizable que es una unidad fácilmente relacionable con las necesidades energéticas de mantenimiento y de producción, siendo 60 cabras de diferentes razas las que se consideraron en este estudio, donde se registró su peso, y edad antes de que formen parte del ensayo. Con la ayuda de podómetros calibrados para usarlos en cabras, se determinó el recorrido habitual. Los podómetros fueron colocados en uno de sus miembros posteriores a la altura de la rodilla, y retirados 24h después, registrando su desplazamiento y actividades en busca del alimento. Utilizando Excel se procedió a la tabulación y organización de los datos, que fueron sometidos a estadística descriptiva y análisis de la información, como resultado se evidenció 5Km de recorridos por animal, con edades entre 2,5 años de promedios, de igual forma las razas de cabras más frecuentes fueron, en primer lugar la Criolla y en segundo la Nubia; ambas razas de animales no se diferenciaron en el recorrido y peso, lo que permitió utilizar una forma universal de estimación del gasto energético (0,49 kcal/kg /km) pudiéndose determinar que fueron 87,69Kcal involucradas en 24h de actividad. ABSTRACT This study is closely related to feeding goats, weight gain and production; knowing that, for an animal to achieve good production yields a feed that covers maintenance energy requirements is necessary , after growth and weight gain or production a route was determined in units of displacement; then by using formulas of energetic measurement transform these to metabolizable energy which is a easily relatable unit with the energetic requirements of maintenance and production, 60 goats from different races were considered in this study, in which their weight and ages were recorded before forming part of the test. With the help of pedometers calibrated for use in goats, the usual route is determined. Pedometers were placed in one of his post-kneemembers, and retired after 24h, recording their movement and activities in search of food. Using Excel proceeded to the tabulation and organization of data, which were subjected to descriptive statistics and analysis of information, as a result of tours 5Km animal showed, aged 2.5 years average, similarly races more frequent goats were first Creole and secondly the Nubia; both breeds of animals did not differ in the way and weight, enabling use a universal way to estimate energy expenditure (0.49 kcal / kg / km) being able to determine which were involved in 24h 87,69Kcal activity.


Romanticism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-152
Author(s):  
Sarah Houghton-Walker
Keyword(s):  

This essay uses Clare's interest in birds as a lens to focus its examination of the way his poetry exhibits a particular kind of attention to attention. More particularly, it explores various ways in which repetition functions in Clare's poem, ‘The Robins Nest’. The essay argues that the tension between specifics and generalities which inevitably arises in the construction of natural history, and the gap between natural history and poetry, are significantly negotiated in ‘The Robins Nest’ through the poet's use of forms of repetition. These in turn both invite the reader's attention to the world and represent something of the quality of the poet's attention as he makes his own observations.


Author(s):  
William Welstead

Wildlife art does not receive the critical attention that it deserves. In this chapter, William Welstead considers how the images made after close observation in the field incorporate the signs and visual clues that enable us to identify the species, have some idea of what the individuals are doing and how they relate to the wider environment. These are all important factors in building an informed view of the non-human world and establishing how we feel about it. Wildlife artists tread a difficult path between serving science and catering for the affective response of viewers and between the representational and the abstract in depicting their subject matter. Welstead suggests that the way we recognise wildlife by its overall look or ‘jizz’ means that drawings and paintings can capture in a few lines and shapes the essence of the creature. This economical application of lines and colour therefore allows for at least some level of abstraction. The subject would merit further attention from ecocritics.


Author(s):  
Donald Worster

Forty years ago a wise, visionary man, the Wisconsin wildlife biologist and conservationist Aldo Leopold, called for “an ecological interpretation of history,” by which he meant using the ideas and research of the emerging field of ecology to help explain why the past developed the way it did. At that time ecology was still in its scientific infancy, but its promise was bright and the need for its insights was beginning to be apparent to a growing number of leaders in science, politics, and society. It has taken a while for historians to heed Leopold’s advice, but at last the field of environmental history has begun to take shape and its practitioners are trying to build on his initiative. Leopold’s own suggestion of how an ecologically informed history might proceed had to do with the frontier lands of Kentucky, pivotal in the westward movement of the nation. In the period of the revolutionary war it was uncertain who would possess and control those lands: the native Indians, the French or English empires, or the colonial settlers? And then rather quickly the struggle was resolved in favor of the Americans, who brought along their plows and livestock to take possession. It was more than their prowess as fighters, their determination as conquerors, or their virtue in the eyes of God that allowed those agricultural settlers to win the competition; the land itself had something to contribute to their success. Leopold pointed out that growing along the Kentucky bottomlands, the places most accessible to newcomers, were formidable canebrakes, where the canes rose as high as fifteen feet and posed an insuperable barrier to the plow. But fortunately for the Americans, when the cane was burned or grazed out, the magic of bluegrass sprouted in its place. Grass replaced cane in what ecologists call the pattern of secondary ecological succession, which occurs when vegetation is disturbed but the soil is not destroyed, as when a fire sweeps across a prairie or a hurricane levels a forest; succession refers to the fact that a new assortment of species enters and replaces what was there before.


2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 158-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mădălina Giurgea ◽  
Laura Georgescu

AbstractIn this article we argue that the views that Francis Bacon and René Descartes held about the role of experiments in the process of discovery are closer than previously accepted. Looking at the way experiments and the heuristics of experimentation are embedded in Bacon's posthumous History of Dense and Rare and Descartes' Discourses 8, 9, 10 of the Meteorology, we will show that experiments help the investigator both in solving specific problems that could not have otherwise been foreseen and in generating relevant information that advances the scope of the investigation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-67
Author(s):  
Sara Fragoso

Abstract Despite the growing popularity of cats as pets, many cats end up housed for long periods of time in shelters. These shelters are increasingly under the spotlight by local communities in the way in which they deal with problematic issues, for they may be seen as an example or as target of criticism. In regards to cat (re)homing there are several relevant welfare and ethical issues. Shelters should have a proactive and well-defined strategy to improve welfare and reduce the number of sheltered cats. Those with the authority to make decisions should consider the available resources and hold in perspective the viewpoints of others, especially that of the cat. The challenge is to avoid judgments based on our own quality of life standards which may lead to decisions based on emotional factors to manage the situation. Is it moral for humans to poses the power to determine a cat’s fate? Despite not having an answer for what is the right solution, the way to proceed should be clearly defined. If there is a strategy and a plan, there is an opportunity to readjust and improve. What are the main reasons for all these problems? Most of the related questions don’t have direct answers. However, instead of reacting in order to solve the problem, we should proactively focus on prevention, mainly through population control and education, knowing that what seems good and right at that moment might be considered wrong and obsolete in a near future, in the light of the development of scientific knowledge and societal values.


1990 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Findlen

During The Sixteenth And Seventeenth centuries natural history, and to a certain extent science in general, rediscovered its capacity for playfulness in the form of the scientific joke. By scientific joke, I mean thelusus naturae, or joke of nature, and the lusus scientiae, or joke of knowledge, that populated the museums and scientific texts of the period. The relation between the natural paradox of lusus and the scientific demonstrations and experiments that were also lusus points to the way in which the dynamic between art and nature and between collector and audience unfolded in the spectacle of science.


1971 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 511-540 ◽  

William Harold Pearsall was born on 23 July 1891, at Stourbridge in Worcestershire. He came of an old Worcestershire family, some of whom ran into trouble in Cromwellian times because of their Royalist sympathies. He is said to have been the fourteenth bearer of the name William H. Pearsall. His father, William Harrison Pearsall, was a schoolmaster who moved to Dalton-in-Furness when Harold was quite a small boy to become headmaster of Broughton Road School. W. H. Pearsall senior was an excellent teacher, and Mrs T. G. Tutin writes: ‘When I was a schoolgirl in Barrow I knew people who had been pupils of the elder Pearsall in Dalton, and they still spoke of what a kind man and wonderful teacher he had been and how he had made them look at plants.’ He had very definite views on the way to bring up his own and other children. It was his belief that one should ‘never do for a child what a child can with reasonable effort do for itself’, and the playroom in the Pearsall house had a large printed notice bearing the three words THINK TRY ASK. Apart from his competence as a teacher he was also a good organist and trainer of choirs, a Methodist laypreacher and a first-class naturalist who devoted all his spare time to an intensive study of the natural history of the English Lakes. He was a member, and for a time Honorary Secretary, of the Botanical Society and Exchange Club (now the Botanical Society of the British Isles) and became a leading British expert on several genera of aquatic flowering plants and especially on the pondweeds, starworts and water buttercups, publishing many descriptions and keys. His key to British grasses was recently still in use at the Brathay Field Centre near Ambleside.


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