To Walk in Beauty: The Way of the Naturalist

Allen H. Benton
YBK Publishers (2005)
ISBN 0976435934
Reviewed by Linda Benninghoff for Reader Views (1/06)

In "To Walk in Beauty" by Allen Benton, many plants or animals are not too insignificant to be purposeless, and beauty can be found in the least expected of places. This meditative book begins with the cycle of the seasons in a western New York State suburban area. Winter is the first season to be described. Quoting Robert Frost’s poem "Reluctance," Benton observes the behavior of the oak tree during this cold season. "The leaves are still dead on the ground/Save those that the oak is keeping."

The oak, unlike other trees, does not give up all its leaves. Some remain "stubbornly attached to their stems, brown and withered during the dulling days of early winter." Then a storm may blow them down. During winter, many mammals are invisible except for their prints. One phenomenon that is interesting to study during this season is the ball gall on goldenrod, a round ball caused by the activity of a small picture- wing fly. Spindle galls, also found in a field of goldenrod, are elongated and oval in shape, and are caused by a small moth. These snatches of the extraordinary inside the ordinary fill the book.

Natural life may often have a purpose. This is apparent in many creatures, even the earthworm. "In fact our own lives depend upon not only the plants that transform solar energy into chemical energy, but upon a thin layer of soil whose fertility and structure are largely due the humble earthworm." Earthworms eat dirt, and when dirt passes through the worm’s body, the dirt’s fertility and structure are enhanced.

In "To Walk in Beauty," Benton makes some very interesting comments on the functions of living things that otherwise might go unnoticed, and he describes the biology behind the sights of each season. This way of looking at nature enhances the reader’s perception of the beauty lurking in his or her own backyard.

The book initially tells of the four seasons, describes spiders, fleas, smells and birds’ nests, but it is the author’s reverence for life that permeates these pages and seems to organize the book. This reverence for life leads him to describe the passenger pigeon, which once may have numbered in the billions, but was easy to kill. Adult birds were considered good eating. Squabs provided little food value, but were massacred also, and served in some restaurants. The last surviving passenger pigeon, "a female named by her attendants "Martha" was found dead in a huge block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where she can, I suppose, still be seen-- a pathetic monument to human greed, ignorance and disregard of the creatures with whom we share this planet."

In the epilogue to this book, Benton warns of the dangers of overpopulation and pollution. "This beautiful world is deteriorating at an increasing rate. Extinction of species is at an all-time high, and many wonderful and possibly useful organisms will be gone before we even know they exist. I’d like to help people understand this and make them care."

This book may help him achieve his purpose, with its interweaving of the casual beauty found in a backyard and the rare beauty found in birds that he traveled as far as the Caribbean to sight. "To Walk in Beauty” is full of imagery and meaning, and its stories are told with the language of a poet.

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