Daffodils & Dinosaurs

Does a Uganda giraffe ever bear triplets? What fish is venerated in parts of South America at Easter? Why does the glass-winged butterfly have transparent wings? Where is the sole nesting ground of the Kirtland's warbler? This week, amateur and professional nature-lovers, from John Kieran to Herbert Hoover, could find the answers* to such questions in the 50th Anniversary issue of Natural History (circ. 40,000), the official magazine of the biggest natural history museum in the U.S.

Published by Manhattan's nonprofit American Museum of Natural History, which boasts that its 2,205,394 visitors last year just about equaled the baseball attendance at Yankee Stadium, Natural History pays its own $200,000-a-year way. This week, to celebrate its golden anniversary, Museum President F. Trubee Davison invited 100 top publishers and scientists to lunch amid the albatrosses and petrels in the hall of Oceanic Bird Life, and presented a medal for "faithfulness to natural law" to Amateur Naturalist Hoover.

Fossil Crinoids. Even sharp-eyed naturalists would find it hard to trace the descent of the slick magazine with a four-color cover from the plain, dull scientists' guide to the museum collections, which featured such heady articles as "A Remarkable Slab of Fossil Crinoids." Though Natural History still proudly numbers many eminent scientists among its readers, 95% of the copies now go to laymen. Stories and pictures are chosen with an eye to popular appeal as well as professional soundness. Sample eye-catching layout: Anthropologist Harry L. Shapiro's comparison of the dimensions of "Norma" (the average young U.S. woman) with those of Powers Model Rosemary Sankey.

The change is largely due to Editor Edward Moffat Weyer Jr., 45, Eskimo expert, Arctic explorer and onetime professional acrobat, who persuades scientists and amateurs to write at his low (now 3-c- a word) rates instead of sending articles to the wealthier National Geographic (TIME, May 23). Among the bylines Weyer has snared: Lowell Thomas, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Donald Culross Peattie, Oliver La Farge, the late Roy Chapman Andrews and Hendrik Willem van Loon.

Outdoor Smells. Only rarely does Editor Weyer get trapped by a nature faker. Once he printed a letter about a whale swallowing a man, written by "Egerton Y. Davis Jr.," an "eyewitness." A reader hastened to point out that the "eyewitness" was using a pseudonym of the late great physician and practical joker Sir William Osler. What Weyer should also have known: there is no authenticated instance in natural history of a whale swallowing a man. Last December, Weyer had his printing ink mixed with tangy pine chemicals to give the magazine an "outdoor" smell. When allergic readers wrote watery-eyed letters of protest, he abandoned the idea.

After 15 years as editor, Weyer is still as enthusiastic about a daffodil as about a dinosaur. For that reason, Constant Reader Kieran could write in the anniversary issue: "A regular reader ... is bound to obtain a liberal education in the natural sciences with no feeling of pain."

* 1) No. 2) The crucifix fish, a variety of sea catfish, whose skull bones form a crucifix. 3) As camouflage against enemies. 4) In a small area of northern Michigan.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.