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Seton Essays
Short pieces written by the man himself
Dig This Seton and Pocket Gopher
Pocket Gopher by Ernest Thompson Seton 1892 Seton was the first to publish that in some places the Pocket Gopher provides a service practiced elsewhere by earthworms: aeration of the soil. (He devoted many pages of Life-Histories of Northern Animals to...
Seton Describes Muskrats as Champion Diggers
Sketch and plan of a Muskrat den at Cos Cob, Conn., July, 1905, from Life-Histories of Northern Animals, 1909 What’s in a name? Apparently, the great Carl Linnaeus believed the Muskrat closely related to beavers, placing the creatures together in the genus Castor...
A Nest of Mice and Some Voles
The Singing Mouse, drawing by Ernest Thompson Seton, Academy for the Love of Learning Deer mice and house mice take turns trying to invade my house. This ends badly for them (dispatching traps, never poison) but to give them their due, they keep trying. Seton...
Canadian Beaver by Ernest Thompson Seton
Family of Beavers, Ernest Thompson Seton This is an excerpt from Life-Histories of Northern Animals published in 1910. Seton noted that the beaver has “a massive skull of the general squirrel-type.” While he did not say so, this similarity led biologists to...
Migrations of the Gray Squirrel by Seton
Undated squirrel drawing by Seton (not associated with the article) The great migrations of the world: The Wildebeest of Tanzania. The Caribou of Alaska. The Squirrels of New York. (!?) Perhaps not exactly. In between the publication of Life-Histories of Northern...
The Woodchuck by Ernest Thompson Seton
Woodchuck details, Ernest Thompson Seton (This is an excerpt from Life-Histories of Northern Animals by Ernest Thompson Seton. Published in October 1909, Seton chronicled the lives of 60 species in a massive two-volume work including ecological and behavioral...
Seton and the Missouri Skylark
Photos of Sprague’s Pipit (The Cornell Lab from their website) The survival of Sprague’s Pipit (called the “Missouri Skylark” by Seton) depends upon the existence of virgin prairie. Once found from Mexico to Manitoba, it is now very rare due to habitat destruction....
Seton’s Recognition Marks of Birds
On-line Copy of Original Article Illustration Just in time for the annual Christmas Bird Count, here is Seton’s article that pushed Birding to new levels. When binoculars became available, so too new approaches to identification were needed. Seton provided a way into...
Thirteen Striped Ground Squirrel by Ernest Thompson Seton
Thirteen-Striped Ground-Squirrel, Ernest Thompson Seton (This is an excerpt from Life-Histories of Northern Animals by Ernest Thompson Seton. Published in 1910, Seton chronicled the lives of 60 species in a massive two-volume work including ecological and behavioral...
Richardson Ground Squirrel by Ernest Thompson Seton
The Richardson’s Ground-Squirrel, Ernest Thompson Seton (This is an excerpt from Life-Histories of Northern Animals by Ernest Thompson Seton. Published in 1910, Seton chronicled the lives of 60 species in a massive two-volume work including ecological and behavioral...
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