The Modern Battlefront of Natural History and the Emergence of Animal Heroes The popular nature writer and conservationist Ernest Harold Baynes (1868-1925) was instrumental in bringing the issue of the place of animals in war to the attention of nature historians in the United States. In Animal Heroes of the Great War, 1 Baynes presented a general overview of the use of animals in the Allied war effort of World War I, describing the service of horses, camels, mules, donkeys, oxen, dogs and pigeons. As a representa- tive of Harper's magazine, he travelled through England, France, Belgium, Italy, Egypt and Pales- tine from the winter of 1919 to the summer of 1920, collecting material for Animal Heroes and "Our Animal Allies in the World War," which appeared in Harper's in 1921. 2 Baynes, then, was no ordinary war correspon- dent. While his place in 'environmental history' remains to be elaborated, I will not attempt a com- prehensive treatment of his work in this paper . 3 Rather, I will use his writings on the place of animals in the army to develop a critical perspec- tive on the accounts of the 'heroic acts' which pigeons and dogs performed as members of the Allied forces in WWI and, to a lesser degree, in wwn: This paper, therefore, is as much a study in the history of ideas as a theoretical investigation of the practice of anthropomorphism. The work of Baynes may be shown to provide a poignant counterpoint to the claim that, as Leesa Fawcett puts it, "anthropo- morphism stands as an example of the realization that we are an integral and continuous part of the living world. " 5 The animal heroes theme reveals some of the extreme consequences, the dark under- side if you will, of this 'realization.' Burroughs-Roosevelt- Baynes In the early years of this century, especially those of Theodore Roosevelt's first term as presi- dent of the United States (1901-05), the naturalist John Burroughs launched several attacks in the by Gary Genosko· pages of The Atlantic Month1y 6 against a kind of nature writing which he called "Sham Natural History." Burroughs maintained that the populari- zer of nature adventure stories, Rev. William J. Long and the naturalist and illustrator Ernest Thompson Seton, had published animal stories which were to a large extent fictional rather than true observations of the animal kingdom as based on "natural facts." Burroughs believed that by using the term 'true' to describe and to defend their stories, Long and Seton were misleading their readers: "True as romance, true in their artistic efforts, true in their power to entertain the young reader, they certainly are; but true as natural history they as certainly are not. " 7 In essence, Long and Seton were 'charged' with corrupting the minds of the young and it was through this legal metaphor that the influential Burroughs, with the support of Roosevelt, gave rhetorical notice to those who did not recognize anthropomorphism as an 'offense'. When Roosevelt wrote the "Preface" to Baynes' Wild Bird Guests (1915) six years after his second term as president (1905-09), the Baynes-Roosevelt ligature was established in the name of the preservation of bird life: a patriotic, economically sound and acceptable brand of aes- thetic interest, in that order.' In the "Preface" Roosevelt acknowledged a debt to the "missionary work" of Baynes in establishing some 300 bird sanctuaries in the country. Upon Roosevelt's death in 1919, Baynes published a short eulogy in verse, "Death and Roosevelt, d therein paying homage to the so-called 'Great Conservationist'. When Baynes' book, Animal Heroes of the War, appeared posthumously in 1925, Owen Wister, the author of the introduction, did not fail to again place Baynes in the Burroughs-Roosevelt camp. Wister states that Baynes "rose to the first rank in his chosen field; the peer of Burroughs and of Muir--indeed of any among those who observe and interpret the wilderness with imagination and accuracy. " 10 He was quick to add that Baynes "was * Gary GeMsko is an alumnus of F.E.S., currently working on his doctorate in Social and Political Thought at York University. An earlier version of this paper was wrilten under the direction of John Livingston whik Gary was aJ the Facul!y and iJ is part of an ongoing investigation in the cu/Jural studies of animals in which he is engaged. Undercurrents 28 Volume 3, 1991