Summer quarter 1937 I signed up for Bird Lore & Classical Mythology, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11. Two units. The professor was E. Whitney Martin, a tall, heavy, shaggy man in a double-breasted suit coat, gray flannels and white buck shoes.
It was the professor’s last quarter before he became emeritus. Bird Lore & Classical Mythology, he told us the first day of class, was a little indulgence on his part, a final gesture in teaching that combined the two loves of his life: collecting stuffed birds and the study of myths. Tuesdays, he would talk about birds. Thursdays, myths.
Occasionally, however, the mention of a bird would pop up in one of his Thursday lectures.
“An eagle fed on the liver of Prometheus . . .”
“Zeus, disguised as a swan, visited Leda . . .”
“Swan? Did I say ‘swan’?” Professor Martin asked rhetorically. “There, you see? Birds, birds, birds. They run all through these grand old tales. Yes, yes . . . bird lore and classical mythology.”
Tuesdays, Professor Martin simply brought to class stuffed birds (he called them “skins”) from his personal collection. The skins were mounted on sticks, making the birds look like feathered lollipops. Professor Martin stood before us, fondly stroking the little creatures, ruffling their feathers, itemizing their identifying marks and coloring, telling us where and how they lived.
“Not a very good skin, this one,” Professor Martin said one morning. “Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with it?”
“It’s dead!” called Jack Lipman from the back of the room.
“I don’t like that, Mr. Lipman. Mr. Lipman, you come up here and sit in front of the class.”
Near the end of the quarter, we were assigned projects. (I don’t recall a final.) My project was pasting together an album of bird pictures from children’s books bought at the 10-cent store. Then Professor Martin gave us all (even Jack Lipman, ’38) A’s and B’s and quietly retired.
—Al Zelver, ’41
