Swift as a Shadow: Extinct and Endangered Animals by Rosamond Wolff Purcell

by Rosamond Wolff Purcell

"In the early nineteenth century there were so many passenger pigeons that the sky darkened when they flew overhead; it took three days for flocks to pass. They were killed by hunters or disappeared when their oak and beech habitats were destroyed. The last bird, named Martha (only the last of any species seems to merit a human name), died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1905." Here, in photographs and words, are stirring reminders of wild beauty that is no more, as well as profiles of species whose survival is in peril. Rosamond Purcell's seventy spectacular color photographs--taken primarily at the Natural History Museum in Leiden, Holland, which holds the world's most extensive collection of lost species--tell a haunting and foreboding tale.

Genres: Nonfiction, Natural History, Animals, Nature, Science, Photography, Art

Paperback

First published June 17, 1999

About the author

Rosamond Wolff Purcell is an American photographer.

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a kid my main book was an animal book - Marvels and Mysteries of Our Animal World. I didn’t read it; I just looked at the pictures endlessly. When I flip through it on occasion these days I am still struck by how powerfully most of the images are imprinted in my consciousness. Looking at them now is like looking at my childhood brain. Or looking at them now is like looking through my childhood eyes from inside my still inscrutable childhood brain. Early mysteries of knowledge acquisition and imagination… I still have the book but my childhood brain might as well be an extinct creature that still lingers in imagery – evocative, heartbreaking, enlivening.

For the last few years my favorite animal book has been Rosamond Purcell’s Swift as a Shadow, and I can feel that many of its images get lodged deeper into my consciousness every time I look at them. Or rather every time I look at them they get lodged deeper into my consciousness while at the same time dredging up ever deeper depths of my consciousness into present awareness. I feel sad looking at them, but also enlivened because they help me to feel deeply connected to earth’s exuberance and variety (however vanished) and to my own ever-elusive childhood brain. This favorite animal book links directly to my first favorite animal book, and time as well as extinction vanish for a moment. But then I get angry…

About the aye-aye for example. The aye-aye still lives, but how many have been slaughtered because they have a very strange finger? This strange finger – a long skinny knuckly thing used to tap on bark to detect hollows and then to root out grubs, hooked by its nail - is thought by natives to confer death on any one it points at, so aye-ayes are killed and hung upside down from trees to dissipate their evil spirits.

Every time I look through this book another story, another image, another vanished or vanishing animal stands out. And I get sad and enlivened and angry in turn. This book puts me through the wringer, bringing out the child and the mature adult in me, and I love it for it, though it does have its flaws. It is over-produced for one. Each page has a faint design or pattern of some kind layered over the photographs and text which only interferes with the experience. Actually that’s the only flaw I can think of. Some might object that Purcell’s photographs sometimes depict only a portion of an animal’s body, thus keeping one from really knowing what they look like, but these partial depictions only enhance the sadness one feels for the animal’s sad fate, while at the same time drawing one in for a closer inspection.

Purcell is a wonderfully physical photographer, capturing textures and colors and shadows and forms that one can almost taste and smell and feel. She is also a wonderful writer, especially when she’s brief, as she is here, offering just a paragraph or two for each photograph; but each entry offers just enough history and lore and emotion to make the experience of this book immersive, and heartening and disheartening in turn.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some nice pictures that illustrate the fragility of animal populations when they contact humans for the first time.

[Andrew Esposito · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote this review on amazon.com fifteen years ago. After a recent re-read, the sad tales are still relevant today.

Each photograph of Swift as a Shadow greets the reader as a quick slap in the face. The range of 'grotesquely beautiful' images leaves the reader with a sense of helplessness when the initial awe of beauty turns to the realisation that in most cases the creatures displayed are gone forever. The multitude of animals, birds and even fish represented is an amazing array seldom found in one volume. Some animals represented are quagga, barbary lion, thyacine, javan tiger. The birds are an extensive collection (usually more than one example) representing most of the infamous and unfortunate extinctions of our time; Carolina Parakeets, Passenger Pigeons, Great Auk, Pink Headed Duck, Labrador Duck, Paradise Parrots (amazing!) Huias plus Dodo bones and Elephant Bird eggs to name a few!

Text is sparse, and given the stark, sometimes ghoulish photgraphic reality, this is not a detraction from the books theme. All photographs are high gloss quality, if a little detail restricted by 'photographing for arts' sake' eg; back neck view only of the quagga, skin pattern only of the Balinese Tiger. I'm sure that enthusiasts of endangered animals will now strongly consider a visit to the Natuurhistorisch Museum of Leiden, Netherlands, at least once in their lifetime.

[Allisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swift as a Shadow: Extinct and Endangered Animals by Rosamond Wolff Purcell is a very thought-provoking book that displays breath-takingly realistic photos. The descriptions for each animal listed in this book are short, but they provide the basics that you need to know in order to gain a better understanding and a closeness to the animal that is described. Several of the pictures paired with the animals seemed very lifelike, particularly the Carolina Parakeet. When I pondered over these animal descriptions it shocked me. It takes less than we thought for a species to become extinct, and sometimes they can disappear from this earth with shocking speed, leaving nothing but their memory. The extinct animals depicted were once living, breathing animals. They flew, they walked, they ran, and played, ate, slept, and felt companionship. It is a shame that these unique species will never be seen or experienced again by present and future generations. We will never experience the type of animals that our ancestors have met. It is also shocking that these endangered animals depicted in this book can also become extinct very shortly. Hopefully Swift as a Shadow will provide others with the same realization that we have to start doing something for the species of animals that are left, before all is lost.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic colored photographs of endangered and extinct species, but depressing, as demonstrated by excerpts from the text, such as the following:

“Hungry Russian hunters and fur traders slaughtered both the cormorant and the sea cow for their meat.’ (Referring to the extinct Spectacled Cormorant and the extinct Stellar’s Sea Cow on islands in the North Pacific in the 1700s.)

“Apparently it could not survive the deforestation and hunting that accompanied the arrival of the Europeans. (Referring to the extinct kereru—a subspecies of the New Zealand pidgeon— on Norfolk Island, which lies in the Tasman Sea northwest of New Zealand.)

“When Europeans arrived, they brought rats and cats and destroyed the forests.” (Referring to the extinct Delalande’s Coucal in Madagascar.)

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning about these extinct animals. Interesting concept, however, I wasn't a huge fan of looking at pics of animals in taxidermy. It was nice to have an idea of what the extinct ones looked like, but they definitely did look like taxidermy, which was a little creepy.

[Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

A document of tragedy, made gorgeous by Purcell's photography.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't hugely impressed with the pictures but still nice to have another record of the creatures we've lost. That said 'A Gap in Nature' by Tim Flannery is by far a superior book.